Campaigning came to a stop around Iraq yesterday to give the country's 15 million voters an opportunity to reflect before deciding who will govern their country for the next four years.
Streets in Baghdad were eerily quiet one day before today's election, with police strictly enforcing a traffic ban. Only the noise from an occasional police siren, sporadic gunshots or US helicopters could be heard. Borders and airports have also been closed and the nighttime curfew has been extended.
Two police officers were killed and four others were injured by a roadside bomb that exploded next to an Interior Ministry patrol in northern Mosul, the city's al-Jumhouri hospital said.
Iraq's election commission said that it had registered 6,655 candidates running on 996 lists and had certified 307 political groups -- either in the form of single candidates or parties -- and 19 coalitions.
Baghdad is Iraq's biggest electoral district with 2,161 candidates running for 59 of the 275 seats in Iraq's parliament, according to the commission's executive director, Adel Ali al-Lami. There are 33,000 polling stations around Iraq.
The Interior Ministry denied reports that a tanker truck filled with thousands of blank ballots had been confiscated in a town near the Iranian border
On the last day of campaigning, a roadside bomb killed four US soldiers and gunmen assassinated a candidate for parliament in this week's election. A Shiite politician escaped injury in a bombing south of Baghdad. The US deaths in northwest Baghdad brought to at least 2,149 the number of US service members to have died since the start of the war in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
The US ambassador, meanwhile, said on Tuesday that the total number of abused prisoners found so far in jails run by the Shiite-led Interior Ministry came to about 120. The statement by Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad reinforced Sunni Arab claims of mistreatment by security forces -- a major issue among Sunnis in the election campaign.
Despite the violence, more than 1,000 Sunni clerics issued a religious decree instructing their followers to vote today, boosting US hopes the election will encourage more members of the disaffected minority to abandon the insurgency.
Three of Iraq's leading politicians agreed on Tuesday that a speedy withdrawal by foreign troops before Iraqi forces are ready would cause chaos.
But the three -- former prime minister Ayad Allawi, Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani and Sunni Arab politician Tariq al-Hashimi -- disagreed on the description of US and other foreign troops. Barzani described them as "forces of liberation," while al-Hashimi said they were occupiers.
The three leaders appeared in a debate on the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television.
Such debates are rare in the Arab world, where candidates mainly rely on rallies attended by hand-picked followers.
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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