BAGHDAD, Iraq — Sunni Arabs today challenged partial returns from Iraq's parliamentary elections, calling them a "falsification of the will of the people" and saying evidence of fraud was abundant.

Iraq's election commission, meanwhile, said final results won't be ready before early January, instead of late December, in order to complete the investigation into various complaints. Commission official Farid Ayar said more than 1,000 complaints had been received.

Sunni Arab officials suggested Iraq's security and stability were at stake if their complaints about the Dec. 15 vote were not addressed. Officials concentrated their protests on results from Baghdad province, the biggest electoral district.

Election officials said the United Iraqi Alliance — a Shiite party — took about 59 percent of the vote from 89 percent of ballot boxes counted in Baghdad province. The Sunni Arab Iraqi Accordance Front received about 19 percent, and the Iraqi National List headed by Ayad Allawi, a secular-minded Shiite, got about 14 percent.

The Iraqi Accordance Front, a coalition of three major Sunni groups, rejected those results, warning of "grave repercussions on security and political stability" if the mistakes were not corrected.

TEHRAN, Iran — Hip-hop blares from car radios in the streets of the Iranian capital, and Eric Clapton's "Rush" and the Eagles' "Hotel California" regularly accompany Iranian news broadcasts.But Clapton, Kenny G., George Michael and other singers incongruously popular in Iran will be off the airwaves after hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad issued a decree banning Western music from the country's radio and TV stations.The decision was an eerie reminder of the 1979 Islamic revolution when popular music was outlawed as "un-Islamic" under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.The official IRAN Persian daily reported Monday that Ahmadinejad, as head of the Supreme Cultural Revolutionary Council, ordered the enactment of an October ruling by the council to ban all Western music, including classical music, on state broadcast outlets.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland — The two women strode into City Hall with outsized pink corsages pinned to their black-and-white tailored suits, ignoring the chants of anti-homosexual protesters outside.The two — Grainne Close, a Northern Ireland social worker, and Shannon Sickels, a New York playwright — emerged from the building after a 30-minute ceremony, smiling and proudly displaying their matching diamond and platinum rings.Close and Sickels were among the United Kingdom's first three same-sex unions Monday, when a new British law granting legal status to gay and lesbian couples came into force here first.As Close and Sickels left, scores of family, friends and gay rights activists tossed flowers and rainbow-colored ribbons in their path."You need to repent, love," one of the protesters, the Rev. James Dawson, called out to Brenda Murphy, one of the guests at the first civil partnership ceremony."You would be so lucky to have this lady, love," Murphy retorted, holding hands with her partner. "I'll see you at the gates of heaven, mate."By The Associated Press