US troops entered Fallujah shortly after invading Iraq in March 2003, but it was the bloody assault some 19 months later that would become synonymous with the city. Operation Vigilant Resolve, in April 2004, was a response to the killing of four US private military contractors employed by Blackwater (now XE). On Nov. 8, 2004 10,000 US troops and 2,000 Iraqi soldiers embarked on Operation Phantom Fury.
The US military called the fighting “some of the heaviest urban combat Marines have been involved in since Hue City in Vietnam in 1968.”
The US claimed to have killed 2,000 people, mainly insurgents, but produced no figures for civilians. Western media were kept out but accounts emerged of indiscriminate killing.
Iraqi medical officials and NGOs put the civilian toll at up to 6,000. Fallujah’s compensation commissioner said 36,000 out of 50,000 homes were destroyed, with 60 schools and 65 mosques and shrines. At least 200,000 civilians became refugees.
April 28 to May 4 During the Japanese colonial era, a city’s “first” high school typically served Japanese students, while Taiwanese attended the “second” high school. Only in Taichung was this reversed. That’s because when Taichung First High School opened its doors on May 1, 1915 to serve Taiwanese students who were previously barred from secondary education, it was the only high school in town. Former principal Hideo Azukisawa threatened to quit when the government in 1922 attempted to transfer the “first” designation to a new local high school for Japanese students, leading to this unusual situation. Prior to the Taichung First
The Ministry of Education last month proposed a nationwide ban on mobile devices in schools, aiming to curb concerns over student phone addiction. Under the revised regulation, which will take effect in August, teachers and schools will be required to collect mobile devices — including phones, laptops and wearables devices — for safekeeping during school hours, unless they are being used for educational purposes. For Chang Fong-ching (張鳳琴), the ban will have a positive impact. “It’s a good move,” says the professor in the department of
On April 17, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) launched a bold campaign to revive and revitalize the KMT base by calling for an impromptu rally at the Taipei prosecutor’s offices to protest recent arrests of KMT recall campaigners over allegations of forgery and fraud involving signatures of dead voters. The protest had no time to apply for permits and was illegal, but that played into the sense of opposition grievance at alleged weaponization of the judiciary by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to “annihilate” the opposition parties. Blamed for faltering recall campaigns and faced with a KMT chair
Article 2 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China (中華民國憲法增修條文) stipulates that upon a vote of no confidence in the premier, the president can dissolve the legislature within 10 days. If the legislature is dissolved, a new legislative election must be held within 60 days, and the legislators’ terms will then be reckoned from that election. Two weeks ago Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) proposed that the legislature hold a vote of no confidence in the premier and dare the president to dissolve the legislature. The legislature is currently controlled
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