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.
A total lunar eclipse coinciding with the Lantern Festival on March 3 would be Taiwan’s most notable celestial event this year, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said, urging skywatchers not to miss it. There would be four eclipses worldwide this year — two solar eclipses and two lunar eclipses — the museum’s Web site says. Taiwan would be able to observe one of the lunar eclipses in its entirety on March 3. The eclipse would be visible as the moon rises at 5:50pm, already partly shaded by the Earth’s shadow, the museum said. It would peak at about 7:30pm, when the moon would
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday held a ceremony marking the delivery of its 11th Anping-class offshore patrol vessel Lanyu (蘭嶼艦), saying it would boost Taiwan’s ability to respond to Beijing’s “gray zone” tactics. Ocean Affairs Council Deputy Minister Chang Chung-Lung (張忠龍) presided over the CGA event in the Port of Kaoshiung. Representatives of the National Security Council also attended the event. Designed for long-range and protracted patrol operations at sea, the Lanyu is a 65.4m-long and 14.8m-wide ship with a top speed of 44 knots (81.5kph) and a cruising range of 2,000 nautical miles (3704km). The vessel is equipped with a
DEFENSE: The US should cancel the US visas or green cards of relatives of KMT and TPP lawmakers who have been blocking the budget, Grant Newsham said A retired US Marine Corps officer has suggested canceling the US green cards and visas of relatives of opposition Taiwanese lawmakers who have been stalling the review of a proposed NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.7 billion) special defense budget. The Executive Yuan has proposed the budget for major weapons purchases over eight years, from this year to 2033. However, opposition lawmakers have refused to review the proposal, demanding that President William Lai (賴清德) first appear before the Legislative Yuan to answer questions about the proposed budget. On Thursday last week, 37 bipartisan US lawmakers sent a letter to Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), the heads
Two siblings in their 70s were injured yesterday when they opened a parcel and it exploded, police in Yilan said, adding the brother and sister were both in stable condition. The two siblings, surnamed Hung (洪), had received the parcel two days earlier but did not open it until yesterday, the first day of the Lunar New Year holiday in Taiwan, police said. Chen Chin-cheng (陳金城), head of the Yilan County Government Police Bureau, said the package bore no postmark or names and was labeled only with the siblings’ address. Citing the findings of a
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