Meanwhile, the Financial Times is reporting that the electoral group headed by the unelected Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi handed out cash to journalists on Monday to ensure coverage of its press conferences during the lead up to the January 30th election. After a meeting held by Allawi’s campaign alliance in west Baghdad, reporters, most of whom were from the Arabic-language press, were invited upstairs where each was offered a “gift” of a $100 bill contained in an envelope. Many of the journalists accepted the cash–about equivalent to half the starting monthly salary for a reporter at an Iraqi newspaper–and one jokingly recalled how Saddam Hussein’s regime had also lavished perks on favored reporters. The press conference came as Allawi and his allies kicked their electoral campaign into high gear.