Saboteurs set ablaze oil pipelines in both northern and southern Iraq yesterday, threatening to further cripple the country's ailing economy and send world prices back upwards.
The attack on a pipeline near the southern port city of Basra came less than two days after the country's key revenue earner was dealt a serious blow by another act of sabotage in the north which halted all exports of Kirkuk crude.
Saboteurs also blew up a secondary pipeline serving the northern oil center of Kirkuk yesterday afternoon, a security official said.
In Basra, oil officials scrambled to contain the blaze and salvage the flow of exports.
"The sabotage damaged two parallel pipelines. The first pumps oil to the Harithah electrical plant and the second from the town of Nahr Omar to the Zubeir oil fields," South Oil Company chief executive officer Jabar Ali al-Luaibi said
A suicide attacker detonated a car bomb yesterday outside the Iraqi police academy in the northern city of Kirkuk as hun-dreds of trainees and civilians were leaving for the day, killing at least 17 people and wounding at least 32, authorities said.
Ambulances raced to the scene, where seven cars were on fire. Rescue personnel ferried the wounded away on stretchers.
The blast was caused by a suicide attacker, said Iraqi National Guard General Anwar Mohammed Amin.
Meanwhile, the militant Islamic Army in Iraq has claimed responsibility for an assassination attempt against Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi, in a video shown yesterday by the Arabic-language satellite television network al-Jazeera.
The group, which is believed to have kidnapped two French journalists, also said it captured a bodyguard of Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress, during the attack.
The Islamic Army in Iraq said in the video that "the hostage, who was wounded during the attempted assassination of Chalabi, died as a result of his wounds," al-Jazeera reported.
Meanwhile, Nepal yesterday urged its citizens in Iraq to leave the country after 12 Nepalese hostages were executed by insurgents.
The government briefly lifted a shoot-on-sight curfew imposed in the capital four days ago after news of the killings sparked riots.
Foreign Minister Prakash Sharan Mahat said it was unclear how many Nepalese were in Iraq, but the number was in the thousands, adding that the government was working to get its citizens out.
"We have even sought help from groups like the International Organization of Migration," Mahat said. "We have appealed to all the Nepalese in Iraq to come out of there without endangering themselves, and contact the embassies in neighboring countries."
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
One of two tropical depressions that formed off Taiwan yesterday morning could turn into a moderate typhoon by the weekend, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Tropical Depression No. 21 formed at 8am about 1,850km off the southeast coast, CWA forecaster Lee Meng-hsuan (李孟軒) said. The weather system is expected to move northwest as it builds momentum, possibly intensifying this weekend into a typhoon, which would be called Mitag, Lee said. The radius of the storm is expected to reach almost 200km, she said. It is forecast to approach the southeast of Taiwan on Monday next week and pass through the Bashi Channel
NO CHANGE: The TRA makes clear that the US does not consider the status of Taiwan to have been determined by WWII-era documents, a former AIT deputy director said The American Institute in Taiwan’s (AIT) comments that World War-II era documents do not determine Taiwan’s political status accurately conveyed the US’ stance, the US Department of State said. An AIT spokesperson on Saturday said that a Chinese official mischaracterized World War II-era documents as stating that Taiwan was ceded to the China. The remarks from the US’ de facto embassy in Taiwan drew criticism from the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation, whose director said the comments put Taiwan in danger. The Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday reported that a US State Department spokesperson confirmed the AIT’s position. They added that the US would continue to
The number of Chinese spouses applying for dependent residency as well as long-term residency in Taiwan has decreased, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday, adding that the reduction of Chinese spouses staying or living in Taiwan is only one facet reflecting the general decrease in the number of people willing to get married in Taiwan. The number of Chinese spouses applying for dependent residency last year was 7,123, down by 2,931, or 29.15 percent, from the previous year. The same census showed that the number of Chinese spouses applying for long-term residency and receiving approval last year stood at 2,973, down 1,520,
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