A suicide car bomber killed up to 12 Iraqis, including four policemen, near a US-Iraqi base in Baghdad yesterday and gunmen killed a senior Iraqi civil servant in the second such murder in as many days.
The US-led administration has said insurgents may step up attacks before and after the occupation formally ends on June 30 to disrupt the handover and discredit Iraq's new government.
While the new bloodshed seemed to bear out that prediction, two foreign hostages, a Turk and an Egyptian, were freed after what a mediator called talks with men close to their captors.
Police at the scene of the car bombing said their colleagues had tried to stop a suspicious vehicle hurtling toward an Iraqi military college in southeast Baghdad, where many US soldiers are also based.
Abdul Razzak Kadhem, a senior police officer, said two police cars had intercepted the vehicle, which then exploded, destroying one police car and badly damaging another.
The US military, condemning what it called a "random, senseless act of violence," said the blast had killed eight Iraqi civilians and four police, and wounded 13 people.
Kadhem said earlier four policemen and two civilians had died. Four policemen were wounded.
Two charred bodies could be seen in the burnt wreckage of one police car. All that remained of the bomber's car was a blackened engine in the road. Several civilian vehicles were damaged. Blood stained the driver's seat of a white pick-up.
"One car was blown across the street," said Abdel Hasan al-Jabbar, an off-duty civil-defense worker. "The man inside had blood pouring from the top of his head."
Guerrillas frequently target police and other Iraqis whom they accuse of collaborating with the US-led occupation.
The Iraqi civil servant, Kamal al-Jarrah, 63, who headed the education ministry's cultural relations department, was shot in his garden after stepping out of his house in the western Ghazaliya district of the capital to go to work.
The veteran bureaucrat died in hospital, Abdul Khaliq al-Amiri, secretary to the education minister, said. Jarrah's wife, who was with him in the garden, was unhurt.
In a similarly precise attack on Saturday, gunmen in a car killed Bassam Qubba, the foreign ministry's undersecretary for multinational affairs and international organizations.
Last month, a suicide bombing killed Izzedin Salim, the head of Iraq's now-dissolved Governing Council, and another council member survived an ambush south of the capital.
The Foreign Ministry said Qubba's killing bore "the hallmarks of leftover supporters of Saddam Hussein's evil regime." Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said the interim government "will not be scared or intimidated by Saddamists."
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
ECONOMIC BOOST: Should the more than 23 million people eligible for the NT$10,000 handouts spend them the same way as in 2023, GDP could rise 0.5 percent, an official said Universal cash handouts of NT$10,000 (US$330) are to be disbursed late next month at the earliest — including to permanent residents and foreign residents married to Taiwanese — pending legislative approval, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The Executive Yuan yesterday approved the Special Act for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience in Response to International Circumstances (因應國際情勢強化經濟社會及民生國安韌性特別條例). The NT$550 billion special budget includes NT$236 billion for the cash handouts, plus an additional NT$20 billion set aside as reserve funds, expected to be used to support industries. Handouts might begin one month after the bill is promulgated and would be completed within
The National Development Council (NDC) yesterday unveiled details of new regulations that ease restrictions on foreigners working or living in Taiwan, as part of a bid to attract skilled workers from abroad. The regulations, which could go into effect in the first quarter of next year, stem from amendments to the Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及僱用法) passed by lawmakers on Aug. 29. Students categorized as “overseas compatriots” would be allowed to stay and work in Taiwan in the two years after their graduation without obtaining additional permits, doing away with the evaluation process that is currently required,
RELEASED: Ko emerged from a courthouse before about 700 supporters, describing his year in custody as a period of ‘suffering’ and vowed to ‘not surrender’ Former Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was released on NT$70 million (US$2.29 million) bail yesterday, bringing an end to his year-long incommunicado detention as he awaits trial on corruption charges. Under the conditions set by the Taipei District Court on Friday, Ko must remain at a registered address, wear a GPS-enabled ankle monitor and is prohibited from leaving the country. He is also barred from contacting codefendants or witnesses. After Ko’s wife, Peggy Chen (陳佩琪), posted bail, Ko was transported from the Taipei Detention Center to the Taipei District Court at 12:20pm, where he was fitted with the tracking
RSS