Former premier Yu Kuo-hwa (俞國華) died at roughly 4pm yesterday at the Veterans' General Hospital (榮民總醫院) in Taipei after experiencing complications related to leukemia. He was 87 years old.
Yu had been hospitalized earlier due to his worsening condition. After developing critical pneumonedema last week, doctors transferred him to intensive care.
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) visited Yu at his hospital bedside on Monday.
The former premier was born on Jan. 10, 1914, in Fenghua (奉化), Zhejiang Province (浙江省). He earned a graduate degree from Harvard University and also studied at the London School of Economics. In addition, Yu received a honorary doctorate from St John's University.
Yu was appointed as the Minister of Finance in 1967, and two years later he was named as central bank governor. Because of his outstanding performance, Yu was promoted to premier and served between 1984 and 1989.
During his five years of service, the former premier created the Council of Labor Affairs and the Environmental Protection Administration.
Yu also lifted the ban on Taiwanese visiting their relatives in China, abolished limitations against the press and ended martial law.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
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