BAGHDAD, Iraq — Parliament voted today to extend a state of emergency for a month, and Britain's foreign secretary emphasized the importance of transferring control of security from the U.S.-led coalition to the Iraqi government.

The state of emergency has been in place for almost two years and covers every region except the autonomous Kurdish region in the north. It grants security forces greater powers such as implementing curfews and making arrests without warrants.

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, on her first trip to Iraq since taking her post in May, met with Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh and discussed the transfer of security control from the U.S.-led coalition to Iraqi authorities.

"There has been responsibility that has been transferred already and we hope and believe that that is a process that will continue," Beckett said. It is "absolutely key that we see that responsibility being able to be exercised by the representatives of the elected government of Iraq."

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Police in Denmark today arrested nine people suspected of plotting a terror attack with materials they acquired to build explosives, intelligence officials said.Justice Minister Lene Espersen called the case "very serious," and said the group had been under surveillance for some time. "It is among the worst that has happened in Denmark," she told the TV2 channel, without providing any details.Lars Findsen, head of the Danish Security Intelligence Service, said the suspects had acquired materials to build explosives "in connection with the preparation of a terror act," without elaborating. He did not reveal the planned target of the attack and said it was hard to evaluate how far the plot had come along."With the general terror situation, the Danish Security Intelligence Service didn't want to run any unnecessary risk," Findsen said.He said the suspects — one ethnic Dane and eight people with immigrant backgrounds, all between the ages of 18 and 33 — would face a custody hearing later today in Odense. Espersen said all nine were Danish citizens.

TEHRAN, Iran— Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called today for a purge of liberal and secular teachers from the country's universities, urging students to return to 1980s-style radicalism."Today, students should shout at the president and ask why liberal and secular university lecturers are present in the universities," the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying during a meeting with a group of students.Ahmadinejad complained that reforms in the country's universities were difficult to accomplish and that the educational system had been affected by secularism for the last 150 years. But, he added: "Such a change has begun."The president, in his role as head of the country's Council of Cultural Revolution, does have the authority to make such changes. But his comments today seemed designed more to encourage hard-line students to begin a pressure campaign on their own, thus forcing universities to oust the teachers.