Former-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) is to begin on a six-day tour of Japan today taking him to Tokyo, Sendai and Japan’s northern Fukushima Prefecture, which was devastated by the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami, his office said yesterday.
Lee, 92, is scheduled to spend the first three days in Tokyo, where he is to speak at the Diet Building on Wednesday and attend a banquet hosted by the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association in Japan.
Lee is also to give a speech at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan on Thursday before attending a banquet hosted by Diet members.
Lee is to visit a hospital in Koriyama City, Fukushima Prefecture, on Friday, staying in Sendai that night.
On Saturday, he is to visit Zuiganji, a Zen temple in Matsushima before attending a banquet in Miyagi Prefecture.
On Sunday he is to go to Millennium Hope Hills, a seaside park in Iwanuma City, Miyagi, where people can pay their respects to those who lost their lives in the 2011 disaster.
Lee, who served as president from January 1988 to May 2000, is scheduled to return home on Sunday.
It will be his seventh visit to Japan since he left office. Lee last visited Japan in September last year.
Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners. The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties. In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties. Lai, writing to the pope in response to the pontiff’s message on Jan. 1’s
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
TAKE BREAKS: A woman developed cystitis by refusing to get up to use the bathroom while playing mahjong for fear of disturbing her winning streak, a doctor said People should stand up and move around often while traveling or playing mahjong during the Lunar New Year holiday, as prolonged sitting can lead to cystitis or hemorrhoids, doctors said. Yuan’s General Hospital urologist Lee Tsung-hsi (李宗熹) said that he treated a 63-year-old woman surnamed Chao (趙) who had been sitting motionless and holding off going to the bathroom, increasing her risk of bladder infection. Chao would drink beverages and not urinate for several hours while playing mahjong with friends and family, especially when she was on a winning streak, afraid that using the bathroom would ruin her luck, he said. She had
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry
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