New US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates flew into Baghdad yesterday on an unannounced fact-finding trip. He arrived just two days after being sworn in with a mission to find a new way forward for the US military mission in Iraq.
Shortly before his flight touched down, Baghdad was rocked by two powerful car bombs that killed at least 15 people and injured dozens more.
Despite the bloodshed, US forces yesterday handed responsibility for security in the Shiite province of Najaf to local provincial forces.
Gates is expected to meet Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. He will also meet General John Abizaid, the commander of US forces in the Middle East; General George Casey, the commander of US forces in Iraq; and General Raymond Odierno, the top US field commander.
"The whole purpose is to go out, listen to the commanders, talk to the Iraqis, see what I can learn," Gates told reporters traveling with him.
In Baghdad, a suicide car bomber slammed into a police checkpoint in Jadriyah district, killing 11 people and injuring 24, police said. The casualties included four slain policemen and six injured officers.
Several prominent politicians, including President Jalal Talabbani, reside in Jadriyah.
The second suicide car bomb detonated near Kasra in northeastern Baghdad.
At least half a dozen other explosions were heard early yesterday, some in the area of the Green Zone, where Iraq's parliament and the US and British embassies are based. The US military said it had no information on the blasts.
Hundreds of Iraqi police and soldiers attended a ceremony in Najaf's soccer stadium at which authority for planning and ordering security operations passed to the provincial government.
Soldiers showed off their armored personnel carriers and Humvees and in a demonstration of their capabilities, Iraqi commandos showed off karate moves, ripped up a live rabbit with their teeth and bit the heads off frogs.
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)