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President Chen Shui-bian, left, greets Tibetan representative Tashi Wangdi at the inaugural ceremony of the new Taiwan-Tibet Exchange Foundation yesterday. The new Taiwan-Tibet Exchange Foundation will serve as the Tibetan government-in-exile representative office in Taiwan. (Henry Tan)

The Taiwan Tibet Exchange Foundation was inaugurated yesterday, with Day Sheng-tong at its head as chairman, Joseph Jau-shieh Wu as secretary-general, and Wong Shih-jie as vice secretary-general.

When Dawa Norbu is not teaching graduates at the School of International Studies in Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, he is found squatting cross-legged under banyan trees on campus, sporting Bermuda shorts and worn-out flip-flops

Two Tibetan and two Mongolian monks have spent more than a week in Chassahowitzka at Spirit Springs. From left, Venerable Mendbayar, Venerable Adiyaragchaa and Venerable Tashi work on a sand mandala Friday afternoon. The mandala is a palace representing the deity of compassion. Twelve different white marble sand colors are used to make the design. (MATTHEW BECK/Chronicle)

The Venerable Tashi sat quietly in Homosassa. He was thousands of miles from home in India, and 42 years removed from gaining political asylum there from his Chinese-governed Tibet. He was searching for the right English phrase to explain his impressions of America.

The news that the government is to create a Taiwan-Tibet cultural exchange foundation, in a bid to replace the existing Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, marks a step more serious than many people might realize.

A new study shows that lower back pain is a serious problem in rural communities in Tibet. Public health strategies in developing countries often focus on infectious diseases, such as those borne by dirty water.

Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian, left, receives a blessed scarf from Tashi Wangdi, the Dalai Lama's envoy, during the inauguration of the Taiwan Tibet Exchange Foundation, Monday, Jan. 20, 2003 in Taipei, Taiwan. The foundation will take over relations with the Tibetan government-in-exile from the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, which will be slowly abolished. The government's move makes a break with the commission, a legacy from the Nationalist Party, which claimed sovereignty over China, Tibet and Mongolia. (AP Photo/Jerome Favre)

The government is to abolish the Cabinet-level Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, many of the functions of which will be taken over by a new Taiwan-Tibet Exchange Foundation which is to be formally established today.

Despite a threat from some Indian monks to immolate themselves, the biggest religious gathering in Tibetan Buddhism concluded peacefully Monday with the departure of the Dalai Lama.