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Global Chip Hub Taiwan Hammered By Triple Blow Of Drought, Blackouts And COVID Surge

Global Chip Hub Taiwan Hammered By Triple Blow Of Drought, Blackouts And COVID Surge

The calm of a sunny May afternoon in Taiwan was broken by what the Nikkei describes as a crescendo of smartphones buzzing due to a national emergency alert:.

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Global Chip Hub Taiwan Hammered By Triple Blow Of Drought, Blackouts And COVID Surge

The calm of a sunny May afternoon in Taiwan was broken by what the Nikkei describes as a crescendo of smartphones buzzing due to a national emergency alert: electricity blackouts were coming due to a malfunction at a power plant in the south of the island. People had no time to prepare. There were more than 30 reports of people being trapped in elevators half an hour after the warning in the capital city.

"I was talking to my clients... but our building suddenly blacked out. The air conditioning as well as WiFi crashed completely, so I went home early," a manager with the surname of Lin working in the Neihu Science Park in Taipei, where many top tech companies have offices, told Nikkei Asia. "Many traffic lights on my way home were out and my home was dark too."

"We could only use candles and have instant noodles for dinner, and there was no hot water for showers," a resident in the southern city of Tainan told Nikkei. "It's been like living in ancient times." Or Texas during a cold blast.

More than four million households on the island, which has a population of 24 million, were affected by six rounds of rolling one-hour power suspensions on May 13 before power was fully restored around 8 pm. Taipower, the state-owned electricity operator, said human error at Hsinta Power Plant in the southern city of Kaohsiung caused a malfunction in the power grid, tripping four generators and cutting about 13 megawatts of electricity supply. This dragged Taiwan's total power supply below a critical security level and triggered the outages.

The nation's phones buzzed again just four days later with another blackout warning. That evening, up to 659,000 households had their power cut. Taipower said that, with temperatures warmer than usual, there was a shortage of electricity supply because they had not anticipated demand for electricity to be so high.

"Power demand at 2:09 p.m. broke another historic record in May and the demand around 7:30 p.m. was far higher than usual in the evening," Taipower said in a statement.

The two blackouts did not affect Taiwan's crown jewel semiconductor industry. But they still put production continuity at risk because chipmakers like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and United Microelectronics Corp said they experienced a sudden voltage dip, which could have a small impact on semiconductor production, industry sources said.

After the two massive power outages, Taiwan endured another small-scale power suspension in Taipei City on Friday and experienced temporary power generator malfunctions at two separate coal-fired power plants on Sunday and Monday respectively.

Maintaining production is crucial at a time of global chip shortage, with political tensions and pandemic-induced lockdowns affecting supply chains and remote working increasing demand for electronic devices.

People in Taipei eat using the light from their phone while experiencing a blackout due to an outage at a power plant on May 13.  

The outages have triggered serious concerns over whether the island's electricity infrastructure is sufficient to sustain its booming economy.

Taiwan's economy grew more than 8% in the January-March quarter from a year earlier. National Development Council Minister Kung Ming-hsin said the island could see economic growth of more than 5% in 2021, the highest in more than a decade, if "all industrial production can stay intact."

The power problems come as Taiwan sees a surge in local COVID cases, after being a model of COVID control in 2020.

The government has raised the alert level for the whole island, demanding that all schools close for two weeks and urging businesses to adopt contingency plans such as asking employees to divide into groups and work from home. The administration of President Tsai Ing-wen said on Monday it is considering extending the two-week level 3 alert -- one stage below a de facto lockdown -- after reporting more than 3,000 local cases in just nine days.

* * *

Another headache is Taiwan's worsening water shortage. The island is suffering its most serious drought in more than five decades -- another factor that may stymie economic growth.

As of Thursday afternoon, the water reserve rate at the Nanhua Reservoir only stood at 10.6%, suggesting the water supply from this reservoir could last only 23 days if without any more rainfalls. 

Ministry of Economic Affairs officials on Wednesday described the drought as the "worst ever," saying they planned to implement a new round of water-reduction plans from June should rainfall be insufficient. The affected cities include Hsinchu, where top chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and United Microelectronics have headquarters. Taoyuan, a major hub of print circuit board production sites and home to Taiwan's biggest memory chip maker Nanya Technology, is also included in water rationing plans.

The government also plans to impose stricter water supplies for major industrial users in the southern Taiwanese cities of Tainan and Kaohsiung, where TSMC operates its most cutting-edge plant. It has ordered several central cities, including Taichung, to suspend residential water use for two days a week since early April.

"It never rains but it pours," a chip industry executive told Nikkei Asia.

"We suddenly face a chain of crises: we are short on water, and then we are short of electricity, and we are also short of vaccines amid surging local COVID cases," the executive said. "The only thing we are not short of is business orders that are full and bright at least until the year end and beyond thanks to surging demand across sectors. But those orders cannot be fulfilled without sufficient water and electricity."

Powertech Technology, the world's biggest memory chip packaging and testing house, is based in Hsinchu, and some of its plants will be subject to a planned two-day suspension of water use for industry and residential use starting in June.

CFO Evan Tseng said the company stored water in its basement and could transfer some water between plants. "We now only offer bento boxes in our cafeterias and we don't serve soup or noodles with soup as that could consume more water," Tseng told Nikkei Asia. "So far we think production could still run normally."

Powertech's CEO told Nikkei in an interview that he expected the robust orders to last at least until the end of this year.

TSMC spokesperson Nina Kao told Nikkei Asia that the latest water-reduction plan would not affect the company's production, but the company would "mobilize more water trucks" to support manufacturing to overcome the stricter water rationing. TSMC said in April that the global chip shortage could last until 2022 based on robust demand.

A woman walks past a closed open-air gym in Taipei on Friday following the recent rise in COVID-19 in Taiwan

The water and power issues highlight some key vulnerabilities in basic infrastructure for Taiwan, one of the world's most important sources of the advanced chips that power everything from cars to smartphones, computers and servers to games consoles.

Lin Faa-Jeng, dean of the college of electrical engineering and computer science at National Central University and adviser to the Executive Yuan, Taiwan's administrative organ, told Nikkei Asia that Taipower had not anticipated the impact of climate change in making the weather so hot at this time of year.

"The power company has to adjust all the planning for annual maintenance and take into account some new factors that they had not considered... But I think the power supply will be alleviated when some annual maintenance on power generators is completed from next week."

Chen Chao-shun, chair professor at I-Shou University and a specialist on power infrastructure, told Nikkei Asia the two massive blackouts were both due to a sudden loss of power supply that triggered the system's automatic under-frequency load shed to protect the power grid.

"The two power outages were all related to the supply and the incidents highlight that Taipower needs to improve its capability to schedule backup generators to quickly support the system," Chen said. "Taipower also has to readjust the system to keep vital equipment such as traffic lights and elevators operating. You can't unexpectedly cut off the power and trap people in elevators."

"Before Taipower can improve its agility to schedule power generation and respond to any sudden supply loss, we are likely to face a power suspension triggered by the automatic under-frequency load shed again this summer," Chen said.

By way of contingency plans, the government has been drilling wells and building new water pipes to draw water from the north of the island to the south. But, while suppliers in the science parks are minimizing their use of water, the change is far from sufficient.

The water level is extremely low in the Nanhua Reservoir in the mountainous area of southern Taiwan -- one of the key water reserves for Kaohsiung and Tainan Science Park. Areas of sand that used to be under water have been exposed under the tropical sun and are now sand dunes.

"It's really too hot...the temperature can reach more than 40 Celsius around noon now and we haven't seen a drop of rain in months," a local resident told Nikkei Asia. "We are all worried that the water reserves here can only last for about a month."

Multiple cities across Taiwan welcomed heavy rain on Monday afternoon, however, as of evening, the water reserve rate at the Nanhua Reservoir stood at just 8.8%, suggesting the water supply from this reservoir could last only 19 days without any rainfall, according to open data provider Taiwanstats, citing data from the Water Resources Agency.

Soldiers in protective suits disinfect a metro station in Taipei on May 20.  

Tsengwen Reservoir, another key water resource for Tainan Science Park and the largest in Taiwan, had a water reserve rate of just 6% as of Thursday, the data showed. The rate at Shihmen Reservoir, one of the key reservoirs that supplies northern Taiwan, dipped to 11.1% as of Thursday.

Wu Ray-shyan, executive vice president of the National Central University and a hydrology and water resources expert, said if the monsoon season did not bring sufficient rain this month, then Taiwan would have to wait until the typhoon season, which generally starts in July, to ease the drought.

"I don't mean to be alarmist, but if typhoons are delayed, as they were last year, we will have to rely on groundwater resources," Wu told Nikkei Asia. "Water supply not only needs management and conservation measures, but also an increasing capacity of storage facilities to meet demand, which is rising in tandem with economic growth.

"Taiwan is not like Israel, where the rainfall is really scarce. We [in Taiwan] sometimes on the one hand deal with floods in typhoon season and on the other hand deal with droughts...Taiwan's problem is that we don't have enough storage capacity to really store this rainfall," Wu said.

Taiwan’s First Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City used to be one of the pillars for Taiwan’s power generation. The plant was retired in 2019.

On power infrastructure, the administration of President Tsai Ing-wen plans to phase out nuclear power by 2025 and to use natural gas and coal-fired power to fill the gap before the planned installation of solar and offshore wind power comes online.

The government is building a third and large natural gas terminal off the coast of Taoyuan to increase the use of liquefied natural gas as a key source of electricity. Local environmental groups, however, oppose the plan, meaning it could be delayed by years or forced to locate elsewhere on the island.

In 2020, Taiwan's power usage reached 271.1 billion kilowatt-hours, up 2.1% from the previous year, while total power generation was 279.8 billion kilowatt-hours, according to Economics Ministry data released this month. Coal-fired electricity contributed 45% of the total power generated last year, while natural gas accounted for 35.7% and nuclear power 11%. Renewable energy, however, contributed a mere 5.4%.

The government forecasts that electricity demand will grow by 2.5% each year from 2021 to 2027, after factoring in inbound investments amid the U.S.-China trade war and the massive investment plans by semiconductor companies.

National Central University's Wu said Taiwan needed better infrastructure planning for the long run.

"The last time Taiwan built large infrastructure for either power plants or reservoirs was a very long time ago," Wu said. The last time a large reservoir was created was in 1994 when the Nanhua Reservoir, which supplies the Tainan Science Park, was dug, he added.

"Large infrastructure takes 10 or even 20 years from planning to completion," he said. "What Taiwan needs is long-term development planning -- undisrupted by the rotation of political parties -- for utilities over the next 30 to 50 years."

Tyler Durden Wed, 05/26/2021 - 19:20

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‘Excess Mortality Skyrocketed’: Tucker Carlson and Dr. Pierre Kory Unpack ‘Criminal’ COVID Response

‘Excess Mortality Skyrocketed’: Tucker Carlson and Dr. Pierre Kory Unpack ‘Criminal’ COVID Response

As the global pandemic unfolded, government-funded…

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March 14, 2024

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'Excess Mortality Skyrocketed': Tucker Carlson and Dr. Pierre Kory Unpack 'Criminal' COVID Response

As the global pandemic unfolded, government-funded experimental vaccines were hastily developed for a virus which primarily killed the old and fat (and those with other obvious comorbidities), and an aggressive, global campaign to coerce billions into injecting them ensued.

Then there were the lockdowns - with some countries (New Zealand, for example) building internment camps for those who tested positive for Covid-19, and others such as China welding entire apartment buildings shut to trap people inside.

It was an egregious and unnecessary response to a virus that, while highly virulent, was survivable by the vast majority of the general population.

Oh, and the vaccines, which governments are still pushing, didn't work as advertised to the point where health officials changed the definition of "vaccine" multiple times.

Tucker Carlson recently sat down with Dr. Pierre Kory, a critical care specialist and vocal critic of vaccines. The two had a wide-ranging discussion, which included vaccine safety and efficacy, excess mortality, demographic impacts of the virus, big pharma, and the professional price Kory has paid for speaking out.

Keep reading below, or if you have roughly 50 minutes, watch it in its entirety for free on X:

"Do we have any real sense of what the cost, the physical cost to the country and world has been of those vaccines?" Carlson asked, kicking off the interview.

"I do think we have some understanding of the cost. I mean, I think, you know, you're aware of the work of of Ed Dowd, who's put together a team and looked, analytically at a lot of the epidemiologic data," Kory replied. "I mean, time with that vaccination rollout is when all of the numbers started going sideways, the excess mortality started to skyrocket."

When asked "what kind of death toll are we looking at?", Kory responded "...in 2023 alone, in the first nine months, we had what's called an excess mortality of 158,000 Americans," adding "But this is in 2023. I mean, we've  had Omicron now for two years, which is a mild variant. Not that many go to the hospital."

'Safe and Effective'

Tucker also asked Kory why the people who claimed the vaccine were "safe and effective" aren't being held criminally liable for abetting the "killing of all these Americans," to which Kory replied: "It’s my kind of belief, looking back, that [safe and effective] was a predetermined conclusion. There was no data to support that, but it was agreed upon that it would be presented as safe and effective."

Carlson and Kory then discussed the different segments of the population that experienced vaccine side effects, with Kory noting an "explosion in dying in the youngest and healthiest sectors of society," adding "And why did the employed fare far worse than those that weren't? And this particularly white collar, white collar, more than gray collar, more than blue collar."

Kory also said that Big Pharma is 'terrified' of Vitamin D because it "threatens the disease model." As journalist The Vigilant Fox notes on X, "Vitamin D showed about a 60% effectiveness against the incidence of COVID-19 in randomized control trials," and "showed about 40-50% effectiveness in reducing the incidence of COVID-19 in observational studies."

Professional costs

Kory - while risking professional suicide by speaking out, has undoubtedly helped save countless lives by advocating for alternate treatments such as Ivermectin.

Kory shared his own experiences of job loss and censorship, highlighting the challenges of advocating for a more nuanced understanding of vaccine safety in an environment often resistant to dissenting voices.

"I wrote a book called The War on Ivermectin and the the genesis of that book," he said, adding "Not only is my expertise on Ivermectin and my vast clinical experience, but and I tell the story before, but I got an email, during this journey from a guy named William B Grant, who's a professor out in California, and he wrote to me this email just one day, my life was going totally sideways because our protocols focused on Ivermectin. I was using a lot in my practice, as were tens of thousands of doctors around the world, to really good benefits. And I was getting attacked, hit jobs in the media, and he wrote me this email on and he said, Dear Dr. Kory, what they're doing to Ivermectin, they've been doing to vitamin D for decades..."

"And it's got five tactics. And these are the five tactics that all industries employ when science emerges, that's inconvenient to their interests. And so I'm just going to give you an example. Ivermectin science was extremely inconvenient to the interests of the pharmaceutical industrial complex. I mean, it threatened the vaccine campaign. It threatened vaccine hesitancy, which was public enemy number one. We know that, that everything, all the propaganda censorship was literally going after something called vaccine hesitancy."

Money makes the world go 'round

Carlson then hit on perhaps the most devious aspect of the relationship between drug companies and the medical establishment, and how special interests completely taint science to the point where public distrust of institutions has spiked in recent years.

"I think all of it starts at the level the medical journals," said Kory. "Because once you have something established in the medical journals as a, let's say, a proven fact or a generally accepted consensus, consensus comes out of the journals."

"I have dozens of rejection letters from investigators around the world who did good trials on ivermectin, tried to publish it. No thank you, no thank you, no thank you. And then the ones that do get in all purportedly prove that ivermectin didn't work," Kory continued.

"So and then when you look at the ones that actually got in and this is where like probably my biggest estrangement and why I don't recognize science and don't trust it anymore, is the trials that flew to publication in the top journals in the world were so brazenly manipulated and corrupted in the design and conduct in, many of us wrote about it. But they flew to publication, and then every time they were published, you saw these huge PR campaigns in the media. New York Times, Boston Globe, L.A. times, ivermectin doesn't work. Latest high quality, rigorous study says. I'm sitting here in my office watching these lies just ripple throughout the media sphere based on fraudulent studies published in the top journals. And that's that's that has changed. Now that's why I say I'm estranged and I don't know what to trust anymore."

Vaccine Injuries

Carlson asked Kory about his clinical experience with vaccine injuries.

"So how this is how I divide, this is just kind of my perception of vaccine injury is that when I use the term vaccine injury, I'm usually referring to what I call a single organ problem, like pericarditis, myocarditis, stroke, something like that. An autoimmune disease," he replied.

"What I specialize in my practice, is I treat patients with what we call a long Covid long vaxx. It's the same disease, just different triggers, right? One is triggered by Covid, the other one is triggered by the spike protein from the vaccine. Much more common is long vax. The only real differences between the two conditions is that the vaccinated are, on average, sicker and more disabled than the long Covids, with some pretty prominent exceptions to that."

Watch the entire interview above, and you can support Tucker Carlson's endeavors by joining the Tucker Carlson Network here...

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/14/2024 - 16:20

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Shakira’s net worth

After 12 albums, a tax evasion case, and now a towering bronze idol sculpted in her image, how much is Shakira worth more than 4 decades into her care…

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March 14, 2024

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Shakira’s considerable net worth is no surprise, given her massive popularity in Latin America, the U.S., and elsewhere. 

In fact, the belly-dancing contralto queen is the second-wealthiest Latin-America-born pop singer of all time after Gloria Estefan. (Interestingly, Estefan actually helped a young Shakira translate her breakout album “Laundry Service” into English, hugely propelling her stateside success.)

Since releasing her first record at age 13, Shakira has spent decades recording albums in both Spanish and English and performing all over the world. Over the course of her 40+ year career, she helped thrust Latin pop music into the American mainstream, paving the way for the subsequent success of massively popular modern acts like Karol G and Bad Bunny.

In late 2023, a 21-foot-tall bronze sculpture of Shakira, the barefoot belly dancer of Barranquilla, was unveiled at the city's waterfront. The statue was commissioned by the city's former mayor and other leadership.

Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images

In December 2023, a 21-foot-tall beachside bronze statue of the “Hips Don’t Lie” singer was unveiled in her Colombian hometown of Barranquilla, making her a permanent fixture in the city’s skyline and cementing her legacy as one of Latin America’s most influential entertainers.

After 12 albums, a plethora of film and television appearances, a highly publicized tax evasion case, and now a towering bronze idol sculpted in her image, how much is Shakira worth? What does her income look like? And how does she spend her money?

Related: Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson's net worth: How the new TKO Board Member built his wealth from $7

How much is Shakira worth?

In late 2023, Spanish sports and lifestyle publication Marca reported Shakira’s net worth at $400 million, citing Forbes as the figure’s source (although Forbes’ profile page for Shakira does not list a net worth — and didn’t when that article was published).

Most other sources list the singer’s wealth at an estimated $300 million, and almost all of these point to Celebrity Net Worth — a popular but dubious celebrity wealth estimation site — as the source for the figure.

A $300 million net worth would make Shakira the third-richest Latina pop star after Gloria Estefan ($500 million) and Jennifer Lopez ($400 million), and the second-richest Latin-America-born pop singer after Estefan (JLo is Puerto Rican but was born in New York).

Shakira’s income: How much does she make annually?

Entertainers like Shakira don’t have predictable paychecks like ordinary salaried professionals. Instead, annual take-home earnings vary quite a bit depending on each year’s album sales, royalties, film and television appearances, streaming revenue, and other sources of income. As one might expect, Shakira’s earnings have fluctuated quite a bit over the years.

From June 2018 to June 2019, for instance, Shakira was the 10th highest-earning female musician, grossing $35 million, according to Forbes. This wasn’t her first time gracing the top 10, though — back in 2012, she also landed the #10 spot, bringing in $20 million, according to Billboard.

In 2023, Billboard listed Shakira as the 16th-highest-grossing Latin artist of all time.

Shakira performed alongside producer Bizarrap during the 2023 Latin Grammy Awards Gala in Seville.

Photo By Maria Jose Lopez/Europa Press via Getty Images

How much does Shakira make from her concerts and tours?

A large part of Shakira’s wealth comes from her world tours, during which she sometimes sells out massive stadiums and arenas full of passionate fans eager to see her dance and sing live.

According to a 2020 report by Pollstar, she sold over 2.7 million tickets across 190 shows that grossed over $189 million between 2000 and 2020. This landed her the 19th spot on a list of female musicians ranked by touring revenue during that period. In 2023, Billboard reported a more modest touring revenue figure of $108.1 million across 120 shows.

In 2003, Shakira reportedly generated over $4 million from a single show on Valentine’s Day at Foro Sol in Mexico City. 15 years later, in 2018, Shakira grossed around $76.5 million from her El Dorado World Tour, according to Touring Data.

Related: RuPaul's net worth: Everything to know about the cultural icon and force behind 'Drag Race'

How much has Shakira made from her album sales?

According to a 2023 profile in Variety, Shakira has sold over 100 million records throughout her career. “Laundry Service,” the pop icon’s fifth studio album, was her most successful, selling over 13 million copies worldwide, according to TheRichest.

Exactly how much money Shakira has taken home from her album sales is unclear, but in 2008, it was widely reported that she signed a 10-year contract with LiveNation to the tune of between $70 and $100 million to release her subsequent albums and manage her tours.

Shakira and JLo co-headlined the 2020 Super Bowl Halftime Show in Florida.

Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

How much did Shakira make from her Super Bowl and World Cup performances?

Shakira co-wrote one of her biggest hits, “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa),” after FIFA selected her to create the official anthem for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. She performed the song, along with several of her existing fan-favorite tracks, during the event’s opening ceremonies. TheThings reported in 2023 that the song generated $1.4 million in revenue, citing Popnable for the figure.

A decade later, 2020’s Superbowl halftime show featured Shakira and Jennifer Lopez as co-headliners with guest performances by Bad Bunny and J Balvin. The 14-minute performance was widely praised as a high-energy celebration of Latin music and dance, but as is typical for Super Bowl shows, neither Shakira nor JLo was compensated beyond expenses and production costs.

The exposure value that comes with performing in the Super Bowl Halftime Show, though, is significant. It is typically the most-watched television event in the U.S. each year, and in 2020, a 30-second Super Bowl ad spot cost between $5 and $6 million.

How much did Shakira make as a coach on “The Voice?”

Shakira served as a team coach on the popular singing competition program “The Voice” during the show’s fourth and sixth seasons. On the show, celebrity musicians coach up-and-coming amateurs in a team-based competition that eventually results in a single winner. In 2012, The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Shakira’s salary as a coach on “The Voice” was $12 million.

Related: John Cena's net worth: The wrestler-turned-actor's investments, businesses, and more

How does Shakira spend her money?

Shakira doesn’t just make a lot of money — she spends it, too. Like many wealthy entertainers, she’s purchased her share of luxuries, but Barranquilla’s barefoot belly dancer is also a prolific philanthropist, having donated tens of millions to charitable causes throughout her career.

Private island

Back in 2006, she teamed up with Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame and Spanish singer Alejandro Sanz to purchase Bonds Cay, a 550-acre island in the Bahamas, which was listed for $16 million at the time.

Along with her two partners in the purchase, Shakira planned to develop the island to feature housing, hotels, and an artists’ retreat designed to host a revolving cast of artists-in-residence. This plan didn’t come to fruition, though, and as of this article’s last update, the island was once again for sale on Vladi Private Islands.

Real estate and vehicles

Like most wealthy celebs, Shakira’s portfolio of high-end playthings also features an array of luxury properties and vehicles, including a home in Barcelona, a villa in Cyprus, a Miami mansion, and a rotating cast of Mercedes-Benz vehicles.

Philanthropy and charity

Shakira doesn’t just spend her massive wealth on herself; the “Queen of Latin Music” is also a dedicated philanthropist and regularly donates portions of her earnings to the Fundación Pies Descalzos, or “Barefoot Foundation,” a charity she founded in 1997 to “improve the education and social development of children in Colombia, which has suffered decades of conflict.” The foundation focuses on providing meals for children and building and improving educational infrastructure in Shakira’s hometown of Barranquilla as well as four other Colombian communities.

In addition to her efforts with the Fundación Pies Descalzos, Shakira has made a number of other notable donations over the years. In 2007, she diverted a whopping $40 million of her wealth to help rebuild community infrastructure in Peru and Nicaragua in the wake of a devastating 8.0 magnitude earthquake. Later, during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Shakira donated a large supply of N95 masks for healthcare workers and ventilators for hospital patients to her hometown of Barranquilla.

Back in 2010, the UN honored Shakira with a medal to recognize her dedication to social justice, at which time the Director General of the International Labour Organization described her as a “true ambassador for children and young people.”

On November 20, 2023 (which was supposed to be her first day of trial), Shakira reached a deal with the prosecution that resulted in a three-year suspended sentence and around $8 million in fines.

Photo by Adria Puig/Anadolu via Getty Images

Shakira’s tax fraud scandal: How much did she pay?

In 2018, prosecutors in Spain initiated a tax evasion case against Shakira, alleging she lived primarily in Spain from 2012 to 2014 and therefore failed to pay around $14.4 million in taxes to the Spanish government. Spanish law requires anyone who is “domiciled” (i.e., living primarily) in Spain for more than half of the year to pay income taxes.

During the period in question, Shakira listed the Bahamas as her primary residence but did spend some time in Spain, as she was dating Gerard Piqué, a professional footballer and Spanish citizen. The couple’s first son, Milan, was also born in Barcelona during this period. 

Shakira maintained that she spent far fewer than 183 days per year in Spain during each of the years in question. In an interview with Elle Magazine, the pop star opined that “Spanish tax authorities saw that I was dating a Spanish citizen and started to salivate. It's clear they wanted to go after that money no matter what."

Prosecutors in the case sought a fine of almost $26 million and a possible eight-year prison stint, but in November of 2023, Shakira took a deal to close the case, accepting a fine of around $8 million and a three-year suspended sentence to avoid going to trial. In reference to her decision to take the deal, Shakira stated, "While I was determined to defend my innocence in a trial that my lawyers were confident would have ruled in my favour [had the trial proceeded], I have made the decision to finally resolve this matter with the best interest of my kids at heart who do not want to see their mom sacrifice her personal well-being in this fight."

How much did the Shakira statue in Barranquilla cost?

In late 2023, a 21-foot-tall bronze likeness of Shakira was unveiled on a waterfront promenade in Barranquilla. The city’s then-mayor, Jaime Pumarejo, commissioned Colombian sculptor Yino Márquez to create the statue of the city’s treasured pop icon, along with a sculpture of the city’s coat of arms.

According to the New York Times, the two sculptures cost the city the equivalent of around $180,000. A plaque at the statue’s base reads, “A heart that composes, hips that don’t lie, an unmatched talent, a voice that moves the masses and bare feet that march for the good of children and humanity.” 

Related: Taylor Swift net worth: The most successful entertainer joins the billionaire's club

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Delta Air Lines adds a new route travelers have been asking for

The new Delta seasonal flight to the popular destination will run daily on a Boeing 767-300.

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13 hours ago

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March 14, 2024

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Those who have tried to book a flight from North America to Europe in the summer of 2023 know just how high travel demand to the continent has spiked.

At 2.93 billion, visitors to the countries making up the European Union had finally reached pre-pandemic levels last year while North Americans in particular were booking trips to both large metropolises such as Paris and Milan as well as smaller cities growing increasingly popular among tourists.

Related: A popular European city is introducing the highest 'tourist tax' yet

As a result, U.S.-based airlines have been re-evaluating their networks to add more direct routes to smaller European destinations that most travelers would have previously needed to reach by train or transfer flight with a local airline.

The new flight will take place on a Boeing 767-300.

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Delta Air Lines: ‘Glad to offer customers increased choice…’

By the end of March, Delta Air Lines  (DAL)  will be restarting its route between New York’s JFK and Marco Polo International Airport in Venice as well as launching two new flights to Venice from Atlanta. One will start running this month while the other will be added during peak demand in the summer.

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“As one of the most beautiful cities in the world, Venice is hugely popular with U.S. travelers, and our flights bring valuable tourism and trade opportunities to the city and the region as well as unrivalled opportunities for Venetians looking to explore destinations across the Americas,” Delta’s SVP for Europe Matteo Curcio said in a statement. “We’re glad to offer customers increased choice this summer with flights from New York and additional service from Atlanta.”

The JFK-Venice flight will run on a Boeing 767-300  (BA)  and have 216 seats including higher classes such as Delta One, Delta Premium Select and Delta Comfort Plus.

Delta offers these features on the new flight

Both the New York and Atlanta flights are seasonal routes that will be pulled out of service in October. Both will run daily while the first route will depart New York at 8:55 p.m. and arrive in Venice at 10:15 a.m. local time on the way there, while leaving Venice at 12:15 p.m. to arrive at JFK at 5:05 p.m. on the way back.

According to Delta, this will bring its service to 17 flights from different U.S. cities to Venice during the peak summer period. As with most Delta flights at this point, passengers in all fare classes will have access to free Wi-Fi during the flight.

Those flying in Delta’s highest class or with access through airline status or a credit card will also be able to use the new Delta lounge that is part of the airline’s $12 billion terminal renovation and is slated to open to travelers in the coming months. The space will take up more than 40,000 square feet and have an outdoor terrace.

“Delta One customers can stretch out in a lie-flat seat and enjoy premium amenities like plush bedding made from recycled plastic bottles, more beverage options, and a seasonal chef-curated four-course meal,” Delta said of the new route. “[…] All customers can enjoy a wide selection of in-flight entertainment options and stay connected with Wi-Fi and enjoy free mobile messaging.”

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