First lady Chow Mei-ching (周美青) may visit Fukushima during a trip to Japan next month to preside over the opening of the Tokyo exhibition of National Palace Museum artifacts, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs source said yesterday.
A ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed a Storm Media Group report that the trip to Fukushima is still being arranged and not yet finalized.
Under a cultural exchange program signed between Taiwan and Japan last year, the National Palace Museum is putting 231 pieces on display at an exhibition at the Tokyo National Museum, followed by a similar exhibition at the Kyushu National Museum.
The two Japanese museums are to loan 150 artworks to the Taipei-based museum for an exhibition in October 2016.
Chow’s trip to Japan to inaugurate the exhibition will be in the same vein as the visit to Germany by former first lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) when the museum loaned its treasures for an exhibition in Berlin in 2003, the official said.
When Chow is in Japan, she might visit Fukushima — where hundreds of thousands of people continue to be affected by the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant after an earthquake and tsunami devastated the region in March 2011 — to express her support for its recovery, the official said.
The reason the Presidential Office is planning the visit by Chow to Fukushima is to highlight the government’s commitment to ensuring the safety of the nation’s nuclear power plants at a time when the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮) has been plagued by widespread doubts over its safety, in addition to getting an understanding of how Taiwanese have assisted with the post-disaster recovery in Fukushima, Storm Media Group reported, without naming a source.
However, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Anna Kao (高安) denied that, saying the trip to Japan would not have anything to do with the nuclear safety issue.
The Presidential Office had not commented on the report as of press time.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do
RSS