Renowned Buddhist heritage specialists from around the world are scheduled to meet in Taipei later this week to discuss how to protect the birthplace of Buddha and rebuild the historical site into a cultural heritage for the whole world.
This year’s Oriental Cultural Heritage Sites Protection Alliance international academic symposium is set to take place on Friday and Saturday at the Taipei National University of the Arts in Guandu (關渡), Taipei, with the theme: “From South Asia to Taiwan — Cultural Heritage, History’s Memories, Buddhist Art.”
German Tibetologist Christophe Cueppers, director of the Lumbini Research Institute in Nepal, will be one of the speakers and talk about the “sacred site, Lumbini.”
Yukio Nishimura, a Tokyo University professor and an adviser to the Paris-based alliance, will also speak on the UNESCO program for the preservation and development of world cultural heritage sites, focusing on the birthplace of Siddhartha Gautama, who later became known as Buddha, in Lumbini, Nepal. Basanta Kumar Bidari, a chief archeologist with the Lumbini Development Trust in Nepal, will speak on the “role of religious communities in the world heritage property of Lumbini.”
Roland Lin (林志宏), a specialist for the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and a researcher with the Far East Research Center of the Paris-Sorbonne University in France, will speak about the Bamyan Buddhas of Afghanistan, which were destroyed 10 years ago.
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
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