The National Immigration Agency yesterday said it was trying to locate a Japanese man who claims he has been stranded at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport since Sept. 7.
The man, who identified himself as ZhongZheng, has used his laptop computer to blog about his life in the airport. He wrote that he did not have a return ticket to Japan, did not intend to go back and that after staying in the airport for more than two weeks, he only had NT$28 left.
Airport authorities said they have not received any requests for assistance from the man, but would patrol the area more frequently.
The Border Affairs Corps said the man went to its counter on Sept. 7 and told border agents that he had been scheduled to return to Japan a day earlier, but had no ticket. Immigration officials asked him to go to the Interchange Association, Japan office in Taipei, which is in charge of bilateral relations with Tokyo in the absence of formal diplomatic ties.
He has been missing since then.
“I am a Japanese in Taiwan. I’ve become an illegal homeless resident, but I don’t know how to go back at all. And I don’t really wanna go back. No one has arrested me or taken me away, so I’ll stay here until I die,” the man wrote on his blog.
At first he could afford to get some meals from the convenience store at the airport and even drank beer every day, he wrote. Then he started collecting the coins people dropped on the ground to buy food, he said.
On Sept. 21, he wrote that the only things he had eaten that day were packs of soy sauce and wasabi from a sushi store for breakfast and dinner.
The border agency said it has left a message on the man’s blog in hopes that he would contact the Interchange Association.
A Japanese woman who appeared to be mentally ill was sent home in the middle of July after the border agents reported her case to Japanese authorities in Taiwan.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
A pro-Russia hacker group has launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Taiwanese government in retaliation for President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments suggesting that China should have a territorial dispute with Russia, an information security company said today. The hacker group, NoName057, recently launched an HTTPs flood attack called “DDoSia” targeting Taiwanese government and financial units, Radware told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). Local tax bureaus in New Taipei City, Keelung, Hsinchu and Taoyuan were mentioned by the hackers. Only the Hsinchu Local Tax Bureau site appeared to be down earlier in the day, but was back
PROXIMITY: Prague is closer to Dresden than Berlin is, so Taiwanese firms are expected to take advantage of the Czech capital’s location, the Executive Yuan official said Taiwan plans to boost cooperation with the Czech Republic in semiconductor development due to Prague’s pivotal role in the European IC industry, Executive Yuan Secretary-General Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said. With Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) building a wafer fab in the German city of Dresden, a Germany-Czech Republic-Poland “silicon triangle” is forming, Kung said in a media interview on the weekend after returning from a visit to Prague. “Prague is closer to Dresden than Berlin is, so Taiwanese firms are expected to take advantage of the Czech capital’s location,” he said. “Taiwan and Prague have already launched direct flights and it is
RSS