July 19 (Bloomberg) -- Bolivia's congress will have 90 days to place control of the country's petroleum production back in state hands after Bolivians yesterday voted to increase the government's participation in the industry, hydrocarbons regulator Hector de la Fuente said. Preliminary referendum results from the Web site of the National Electoral Court, citing 12 percent of the vote, show a majority Bolivians support President Carlos Mesa's bid to manage South America's second-biggest gas reserves and boost taxes on oil producers. ``Congress now has to act fast to put hydrocarbons back in the hands of the state company YPFB,'' said de la Fuente in an interview. ``It also has to re-establish YPFB to its full potential, like it was prior to the privatizations of the 1990s.''

By Paul McGeough Sidney Morning Herald July 17, 2004 Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim government, according to two people who allege they witnessed the killings. They say the prisoners - handcuffed and blindfolded - were lined up against a wall in a courtyard adjacent to the maximum-security cell block in which they were held at the Al-Amariyah security centre, in the city's south-western suburbs.