Vice President Annette Lu (
World leaders and some 100 foreign delegations are scheduled to attend Friday's inauguration ceremony of Paraguay's President-elect Nicanor Duarte.
On the eve of the inauguration ceremony, the vice president received a warm welcome at the banquet.
PHOTO: TZOU JIING-WEN, TAIPEI TIMES
Besides Castro presidents Nestor Kirchner of Argentina, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada of Bolivia, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Ricardo Lagos of Chile, Lucio Gutierrez of Ecuador, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, and Spanish King Juan Carlos were also in attendence.
Lu told the media that Castro was surprised to hear that she had been imprisoned for six years. She said that the Cuban leader repeatedly emphasized his anti-war stance during their conversation, and hoped that the conflicts between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait can be resolved peacefully.
Lu said she invited Castro to visit Taiwan during the banquet, hoping that he can "make a contribution to cross-strait peace."
Castro, now in power for almost 45 years, turned 77 earlier this week. As the longest-ruling head of government, the aging leader has built a communist state in the US' backyard.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell wished Castro a happy birthday on Wednesday, saying that he should have marked the occasion by retiring.
"It's time for him to go," Powell said in an interview with the Univision Spanish-language television network.
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
Taiwan plans to cull as many as 120,000 invasive green iguanas this year to curb the species’ impact on local farmers, the Ministry of Agriculture said. Chiu Kuo-hao (邱國皓), a section chief in the ministry’s Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, on Sunday said that green iguanas have been recorded across southern Taiwan and as far north as Taichung. Although there is no reliable data on the species’ total population in the country, it has been estimated to be about 200,000, he said. Chiu said about 70,000 iguanas were culled last year, including about 45,000 in Pingtung County, 12,000 in Tainan, 9,900 in
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw