ART
Sculptor makes big Buddha
A Taiwanese sculptor has made a 2m tall crystal glass statue of the “Buddha of a Thousand Hands,” saying that she was inspired by an 800-year-old Yuan Dynasty paintings in China. Loretta Yang said the statue is twice as tall as one she made in 2006 that was recognized then as the world’s tallest crystal glass Buddha statue. She says her new statue has a few tiny cracks and is “less than perfect,” but fulfills her wish to preserve in crystal the famous fading Buddha images painted on the Dunhuang Cave’s walls in China’s Gansu Province. Yang is the artistic director and co-founder of glassmaker Liuli Gongfang. She is a Buddhist and has created Buddha statues and other glass works in traditional and modern styles that are on display in Taipei.
Music
Top orchestra to play Taipei
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, one of the world’s top orchestras, will hold two concerts in Taiwan early next year, the event organizer said on Monday. It will be the first time the renowned orchestra, which was founded in 1891, has performed in Taiwan, said the organizer and promoter of the orchestra’s concerts in Taiwan, Management of New Arts (MNA). Led by Italian conductor Riccardo Muti, the orchestra will present a classical music program on Jan. 25 and a different program the following day at the National Concert Hall in Taipei, MNA said at a news conference. Taipei will be the first leg of the orchestra’s Asian tour early next year, it added. The orchestra is one of the five US orchestras commonly referred to as the “Big Five,” along with the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra.
Staff writer, with agencies
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS