Turkey said yesterday it had arrested several people in connection with twin truck bomb attacks on British targets in Istanbul that killed 27 people, including Britain's top diplomat in the city.
A statement purporting to come from a unit of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network said it carried out Thursday's strikes on the British consulate and the London-based banking giant HSBC, five days after two similar strikes on synagogues here.
"Some people have been arrested but it's too early to give any information about them," Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul told a news conference, declining to give further details.
The Turkish daily Hurriyet said yesterday that seven people had been arrested over the second pair of blasts, which it said were carried out by Turkish suicide bombers. A spokesman at the Istanbul governor's incident room could not confirm the report.
The twin blasts killed 27 people, including British Consul-General Roger Short, and wounded more than 400 others.
On Saturday two Istanbul synagogues were devastated by suicide truck bombs that killed 25 and wounded 300, making this the worst week of peacetime violence in Turkey's modern history.
Britain has warned more terror attacks may target Turkey, NATO's only Muslim member. Washington has promoted Turkey as a model for a moderate Muslim democracy.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who visited both bomb sites after arriving in Istanbul late on Thursday, said Britain stood side by side with its NATO ally.
"We who represent the civilized world are facing a global threat and we have to deal with it in a global way. This was as much an attack on the Turkish people as it was upon British interests, and we stand together with Turkey in this," Straw said.
A NATO statement in Brussels also voiced its support.
"NATO also expresses its full and unwavering solidarity to its two allies, Turkey and the United Kingdom, which have been targeted in this latest act of terrorism," it said.
A statement apparently from a unit of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, the Abu Hafz al-Masri Brigades, said it had carried out the latest attacks.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)