Mumbai's original inhabitants fear world's tallest statue

In this photograph taken on January 4, 2017, an Indian fisherman from the Koli community sleeps on a homemade polystyrene floatation device in Mumbai. A fitting tribute to a local legend or a grotesque misuse of money? The decision to build the world's tallest statue on Mumbai's shores has left the city divided. But the traditional Koli community, who depend on fishing for their livelihoods, fear the construction threatens their centuries-old existence. Indranil MUKHERJEE / AFP.
by Peter Hutchison

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British Museum training Iraqi experts to save Mosul heritage

This file photo taken on November 15, 2016 shows destruction caused by the Islamic State (IS) group at the archaeological site of Nimrud, some 30 kilometres south of Mosul in the Nineveh province, a few days after Iraqi forces retook the ancient city from IS jihadists. As Iraqi special forces continue their offensive against the Islamic State group in Mosul, archaeologists trained by the British Museum prepare for another battle -- protecting Iraqi heritage. "We felt that we wanted to do something positive and constructive in the face of the most appalling destruction that had been going on," Jonathan Tudd, director of the British Museum's Iraq Emergency Heritage Management Training Scheme told AFP. The Mosul area, home to several archaeological sites including the ancient cities of Nineveh and Nimrud, is of particular importance. SAFIN HAMED / AFP. by Alice Tidey

LONDON (AFP).- As Iraqi forces fight to take back Mosul from the Islamic State group, archaeologists trained by the British Museum are preparing for another battle -- trying to save what they can of the city's heritage. One of the world's leading institutions for the study of ancient Iraq, the London museum has been training Iraqi experts for the past year in high-tech methods to preserve and document their history. "Once the city is liberated, there will be an enormous plan of reconstruction of the Museum of Mosul," Sebastien Rey, a lead archaeologist from the Iraq Emergency Heritage Management Training Scheme, told AFP. "One of the participants of our scheme will be the first archaeologist to enter the museum and do an assessment of the destruction inside." The programme is designed to "get people ready for the day" archaeological sites are taken back from IS control, said its director, Jonathan Tubb. "We wanted to do something positive and constructive in the face of the most appalling destruction that had been going on."

Islamist militants in Iraq, Syria and Mali have targeted priceless cultural heritage sites after denouncing them as un-Islamic. The Mosul area, home to several archaeological sites including the ancient cities of Nineveh and Nimrud, is of particular importance. In April 2015, the IS group released a video of its fighters destroying monuments in Nimrud before planting explosives around a site and blowing it up. Statues in Mosul's museum were also attacked, as was Hatra, a Roman-era site in Nineveh province. The Iraqi army launched a massive operation in October to retake Mosul, Iraq's second city and the IS group's last major stronghold in the country. After recapturing the city's eastern flank, special forces are now fighting their way through the west in an offensive that began on Sunday.

New discoveries Launched in January 2016, the British Museum's six-month training scheme sees Iraqi archaeologists spend three months in London and three months in Iraq. It includes training in the use of satellite imagery and digital mapping, as well as tools for documenting buildings and monuments. The archaeologists then practise their new skills in secure sites across their home country, which has led to new discoveries. In Darband-i Rania, located in Kurdistan, in northern Iraq, the new excavations unveiled a previously unknown fortified city. "We found a city from the Parthian period, that’s roughly the time of Christ," John MacGinnis, a senior archaeologist from the British Museum explained. In the ancient Sumerian city of Girsu, or Tello, in southern Iraq, massive mud-brick walls belonging to a temple constructed in the third millennium BC, were discovered. Tello has also proved useful for training because it is huge at around 250 hectares and has a very similar topographical layout to sites closer to Mosul.

'Change direction of history' The museum has long called for Britain to ratify an international convention to protect cultural artefacts in warzones, a measure that is currently making its way through parliament in London. In 2003, it raised the alarm on looting of major Iraqi museums and led a taskforce to the country in response to damage inflicted on cultural sites by the conflicts in the region. A graduate of the British Museum scheme, which aims to train 50 archaeologists over a five-year period, is now leading the assessment in Nimrud. And Halkawt Qadir Omer, a current trainee from Arbil told AFP: "The training is very useful and beneficial for us and we can use the tools that we get here." Known as the cradle of civilisation, Iraq is still full of undiscovered treasures. For Omer, the scheme offers much more than simple tools: "Now, we have contact with the British Museum to complete our projects, to discover and to change the direction of history and archaeology."

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'Spiderman' thief gets eight years for $100m Paris art heist

This file photo taken on January 30, 2017 shows Vjeran Tomic, the main suspect in the case of the 2010 theft of five masterpieces from the Paris Modern Art Museum, arriving to his trial at the Court house in Paris. The courthouse will deliberate on the trial of the 2010 thefts of five masterpieces of Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani, Braque and Leger from the Paris Modern Art Museum. BERTRAND GUAY / AFP. by Sofia Bouderbala

PARIS.- A thief nicknamed "Spiderman", who snatched five masterpieces from a top Paris museum, was sentenced to eight years in prison on Monday over one of the biggest art heists in recent years. Vjeran Tomic and two accomplices were also jointly fined a whopping 104 million euros ($110 million) over the theft of the paintings by Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Fernand Leger and Amedeo Modigliani from the Musee d'Art Moderne on the night of May 20, 2010. The fine corresponds to the estimated value of the artworks, which are still missing. A lawyer representing the City of Paris, which runs the museum, call their disappearance an "unspeakable" loss to humanity.

Tomic, a 49-year-old seasoned burglar of Croatian origin, admitted robbing the gallery, which is home to more than 8,000 works of 20th-century art. On his arrest he told police he was asked to steal Leger's "Still Life with Candlestick" from 1922, and never imagined he would be able to grab four more. Security lapses The case revealed extraordinary security lapses at the museum in the ritzy 16th district, on the banks of the Seine. The motion-detection alarms had been out of order for two months when Tomic, who staked out the building for six nights, slipped inside after using acid to dislodge a window pane. After grabbing the Leger without creating a disturbance he went on a stealing spree, taking Picasso's cubist "Dove with Green Peas" from 1912 -- alone worth an estimated 25 million euros -- Matisse's "Pastoral" from 1905, Braque's "Olive Tree near Estaque" from 1906, and Modigliani's "Woman with a Fan" from 1919. Three guards on duty failed to spot him. His silhouette popped up only briefly on a security camera. The paintings were only found to be missing from their frames when the museum reopened the next day.

Jean-Michel Corvez, a 61-year-old antique dealer who admitted to ordering the theft of the Leger on behalf of an unnamed client, and Yonathan Birn, a 40-year-old watchmaker who admitted to hiding the paintings for a time, were given sentences of seven and six years respectively. On top of their collective fine, the three men were given individual fines of between 150,000 and 200,000 euros each. Corvez also had his home seized and was banned from dealing in antiques or art for five years. 'Bored with his bourgeois life' During the trial Birn told the court he had dumped the paintings but the court expressed doubt over that claim, noting the lack of proof of their destruction. An art lover, he had admitted to becoming enraptured with Modigliani's "Woman with a Fan". His lawyer had described him as an impressionable man, who was bored with his "nice little bourgeois life". Tomic, a master burglar, said he took five paintings because he "liked" them.

Athletically built and 1.90 metres (six foot 2 inches) tall, he had gained his nickname by clambering into posh Parisian apartments and museums to steal valuable gems and works of art. He was spotted by a homeless man as he roamed around the museum in the days leading to the theft. Police arrested him after receiving an anonymous tip and tracking his mobile phone. There has been a spate of art thefts in Europe in recent years. The most recent, in 2015, involved the theft of five paintings worth 25 million euros by renowned British artist Francis Bacon in Madrid. Spanish police arrested seven people last year suspected of being involved in that theft.

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Stolen Italian masterpiece recovered in Morocco: Police

Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, known as Guercino, Madonna with Saints John Evangelist and Gregory the Miracle Worker, 1639.

ROME (AFP).- A stolen painting worth up to six million euros by a Baroque Italian known as "The Squinter" has been recovered in Morocco, Italy's art police said Friday. The 17th-century painting by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, known as Guercino, had been snatched during a night-time robbery from a church in the northern Italian city of Modena in 2014. It was recovered thanks to a wealthy Moroccan businessman and art collector, who was offered it for some 940,000 euros ($1 million) by three dealers in Casablanca, according to the local Gazzetta di Modena. The connoisseur recognised the painting immediately as a Guercino and tipped off the police.

The "Madonna with Saints John Evangelist and Gregory the Miracle Worker", painted in 1639, is valued by art historians at between five and six million euros ($5.3 and $6.3 million). "The Moroccan authorities contacted us through Interpol to say that a large canvas that could be linked to a theft in Italy had been recovered during an investigation," the police said in a statement. The police sent an urgent message back asking the Moroccans to "secure the canvas" so it could be returned "as soon as possible". Barbieri (1591-1666), who was cross-eyed and went by the name Guercino (The Squinter), is known for his naturalist, Caravaggesque style.

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Philippines' Imelda Marcos loses bid to reclaim jewels

An official from the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) shows diamond jewellery seized by the Philippine government from former first lady Imelda Marcos, at the Central Bank headquarters in Manila on November 24, 2015. AFP PHOTO / NOEL CELIS.

MANILA (AFP).- Former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos has lost a long fight to reclaim jewels confiscated when her dictator husband was ousted, with the Supreme Court ruling she acquired them illegally. The items worth $150,000 are now the property of the state, the court ruled, paving the way for the possible sale of a much larger collection of Marcos jewellery that could net the government millions. "Petitioners failed to satisfactorily show that the properties were lawfully acquired," said the January 18 court ruling, which the court made public only this week. The law provides that property acquired by a government official at a cost "manifestly out of proportion to his salary" or other lawful income was sufficient "presumption that they were unlawfully acquired", it added.

The jewellery in the case was recovered from the Malacanang presidential palace after the Marcos family fled to US exile in 1986, when a bloodless "People Power" revolution ended its 20-year rule. Successor governments have cited it as proof that the family systematically looted state coffers while millions of their countrymen endured poverty. Authorities estimated Marcos and his allies stole about $10 billion when he was in power, with less than half so far recovered through litigation and through negotiated settlements with Marcos cronies. An anti-graft court forfeited the jewellery in favour of the state in 2009, but Imelda Marcos raised the case in the Supreme Court in 2014. In all, the government said it had recovered about $21 million worth of Marcos jewellery, including items seized by US customs during the family's flight to exile. These were later turned over to Manila.

The entire collection, now stored at the Central Bank, includes diamond-studded tiaras, a golden belt with a diamond buckle, necklaces, brooches, earrings, belts and other gems including a pink diamond. Previous governments pledged to auction them off. However President Rodrigo Duterte, who took power last year, is an ally of the Marcos family and authorities would not say on Tuesday if the sale would go ahead.

Imelda Marcos, now 87, led her family back to Manila in 1991, two years after her husband died in Honolulu. She is now serving her third term in the House of Representatives. Their only son, former senator Ferdinand Marcos Junior, narrowly lost the vice presidential election last year but filed a court challenge claiming he was cheated out of victory. If Marcos wins, he would be vice president under family friend Duterte. Marcos Jnr's political fortunes are based partly on persuading young Filipinos that his parents did nothing to apologise for.

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'Violence' moves NY museum to shut down anti-Trump art show

This file photo taken on January 24, 2017 shows US actor Shia LaBeouf(C) as he speaks in front of a camera during his “He Will Not Divide Us” livestream outside the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, in the Queens borough of New York as a protest against President Donald Trump. A streaming video performance installation that aimed to provide a forum for anti-Trump expression was shut down after it became "a flashpoint for violence," New York's Museum of the Moving Image said February 10, 2017. The participatory project "He Will Not Divide US," by actor Shia LaBeouf and two other artists, kicked off the day of Donald Trump's inauguration, January 20. It had intended to continue running throughout the new president's four-year term. TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP .

NEW YORK (AFP).- A streaming video performance installation that aimed to provide a forum for anti-Trump expression was shut down after it became "a flashpoint for violence," New York's Museum of the Moving Image said Friday.

The participatory project "He Will Not Divide US," by actor Shia LaBeouf and two other artists, kicked off the day of Donald Trump's inauguration, January 20. It had intended to continue running throughout the new president's four-year term. But according to the museum, located in the city's Queens borough, the exhibit "created a serious and ongoing public safety hazard for the museum, its visitors, staff, local residents and businesses." "The installation had become a flashpoint for violence and was disrupted from its original intent," a statement added.

The digital art project consisted of a microphone-equipped camera mounted on one of the museum's exterior walls, where visitors were invited to stand and repeat the words "he will not divide us." The footage was then live-streamed on the project's website. "While the installation began constructively, it deteriorated markedly," the museum said. LaBeouf was arrested in late January after an altercation at the project site. According to police, the actor "grabbed the scarf of a 25-year-old man" which caused the man to fall to the ground, though the motive for the skirmish was not established. "Over the course of the installation, there have been dozens of threats of violence and numerous arrests," the museum said, "such that police felt compelled to be stationed outside the installation 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

Video clips archived on the site do not show scenes of violence, though on several occasions people are recorded making aggressive statements toward LaBeouf and apparent leftist supporters. The project website now features a static image that reads "the museum has abandoned us."

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FBI returns seventeenth century Nazi-looted painting to Max Stern heirs

“Young Man as Bacchus”- Jan Franse Verzijl (1599-1647). Photo: Max and Iris Stern Foundation.

NEW YORK, NY.- At the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City, officials of the United States Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) returned the Dutch Old Master painting, “Young Man as Bacchus” by Jan Franse Verzijl (1599-1647) to representatives of the Max and Iris Stern Foundation and its three university beneficiaries – Concordia University and McGill University in Montreal and Hebrew University, Jerusalem. It is the sixteenth painting to be returned to the beneficiaries.

Max Stern (1904-1987) was the German-Jewish owner of an important art gallery in Dusseldorf. With the rise of Nazism and his expulsion from the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts in 1935 due to his religion, the inventory of Galerie Stern and his personal collection was sold by force, with the remnants consigned to auction in Cologne two years later. “Young Man as Bacchus” had been identified in the Stern archives as the work of Salomon de Bray (1597-1664), though it is now attributed to Verzijl, a Dutch Caravaggist from Gouda.

Almost eighty years after its forced sale, in May 2015, the Holocaust Claims Processing Office (HCPO) of the New York State Department of Financial Services, acting on behalf of the Foundation, received an anonymous tip from a member of the art trade that the Verzijl was on display at the Spring Masters Fair, consigned by the Galleria Luigi Caretto in Torino, Italy.

The HCPO contacted the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and informed them of the painting’s history and location, which prompted them to reach out to the FBI for immediate action. The FBI then swiftly acted to seize the painting at the fair and begin negotiations with the gallery. The Luigi Caretto gallery voluntarily waived their claim of ownership to the painting to allow its return to the Max and Iris Stern Foundation.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Michael McGarrity says, “Works of art hold a special place in our society. Likewise, facilitating the return of stolen and missing works of art to their rightful owners is held in high regard among art crime investigators at the FBI. Today, we are proud to return the Verzijl painting Young Man as Bacchus to representatives of the Stern Foundation after more than 80 years.”

"Over the last fifteen years, the assistance of law enforcement agencies in the United States, Canada and Germany has been invaluable to the advancement of the Max Stern Art Restitution Project”, says Clarence Epstein, senior director of Urban and Cultural Affairs at Concordia University. “Recognizing that forced sales of Nazi-era cultural property are equivalent to acts of theft remains the project’s guiding principle. “ This latest restitution was made possible thanks to the groundbreaking 2007 U.S. federal court decision in the matter concerning Franz-Xaver Winterhalter's “Girl from the Sabine Mountains” which Max Stern was forced to sell at auction in 1937.

The judgment unequivocally declared as stolen property all of those paintings that he had to liquidate. In the years following this ruling, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an agency of the Department of Homeland Security, was able to assist the Stern Foundation in the recovery of a Dutch and an Italian Old Master painting in the hands of members of the art trade.

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Stolen paintings by Van Gogh on public display again after fourteen years!

The festive unveiling in Naples of Van Gogh’s Seascape at Scheveningen and Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen by the museum directors and representatives of the Italian and Dutch authorities. ©photo: Jan-Kees Steenman.

NAPLES (AFP).- Two Van Gogh masterpieces stolen in Amsterdam in 2002 and recovered last year in Italy will be on show in Naples from Tuesday until February 26. The brief exhibition at the Capodimonte museum has been organised as a thank you to the southern city for the local police's role in tracking down the two small but hugely valuable and historically significant oil paintings.

The works had gone unheard of from the time they were stolen in a daring raid on the Van Gogh Museum until they turned up last year at the house of a notorious mafia boss. The 1882 "Seascape at Scheveningen" and the 1884/5 "Congregation leaving the Reformed Church at Nuenen" were among the Dutch master's first oil paintings and, as such, are of enormous interest to art historians.

How exactly the paintings ended up in Italy remains a mystery.
They were found in September during a raid on a property belonging to fugitive mobster Raffaele Imperiale, at Castellammare di Stabia, southeast of Naples. The area is a notorious hotspot for the nefarious activities of the Neapolitan mafia, the Camorra. The paintings were stolen in December 2002 with the thieves using a rope to get in and out of the heavily fortified building after getting on to the roof by ladder.

Giorgio Toschi, a general with Italy's financial and customs police, said the theft had ranked on the FBI's top ten of art crimes. "More than ever we are seeing art works being used by criminals either as safe haven investments or as a way of making payments or guaranteeing deals between organised criminal groups," he said at the unveiling of the two paintings on Monday.

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Amateurs can hunt relics with modern 'Indiana Jones'!

A "citizen science" platform that space archaeologist Sarah Parcak wished for a year ago as part of a coveted TED prize went live at GlobalXplorer.org. by Glenn Chapman

SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- A technology-wielding archeologist billed as a real-world "Indiana Jones" on Monday launched an online platform that lets anyone help discover archeological wonders and fight looting. A "citizen science" platform that space archaeologist Sarah Parcak wished for a year ago as part of a coveted TED prize went live at GlobalXplorer.org. "The world’s hidden heritage contains clues to humankind's collective resilience and creativity," Parcak said in a release. "With GlobalXplorer we are empowering a 21st century army of global explorers to discover and protect our shared history." A video of Parcak unveiling the wish was posted online Monday at www.ted.com.

GlobalXplorer blends satellite imagery with pattern-hunting of a sort to make a game of spotting clues to the whereabouts of antiquities or looting. Visitors to the website are invited to sign in and take a quick tutorial before virtually hunting relics and thieves. Spending time scrutinizing satellite imagery lets people "level up" as in video games and earn rewards such as a chance to virtually join archeologists on actual digs. "Parcak's wish has put the tools in everyone’s hands to discover and protect humanity’s rich history, effectively opening up a traditionally closed discipline," said TED prize director Anna Verghese. "Now our stories are safeguarded by millions rather than just a handful."

Eye on Peru Only tiny sections of imagery are shown, along with broad location data such as what country is involved, to avoid being a resource for looters seeking tips of where to search. DigitalGlobe, which specializes in capturing high-resolution pictures of the Earth from space, said that it provided more than 200,000 square kilometers of satellite imagery of Peru and a customized version of an online crowdsourcing tool.

National Geographic and Sustainable Preservation Initiative were listed among collaborators on the project. Archeologists will follow up on sites pinpointed by the "crowd," paving the way for protection from governments or law enforcement agencies. "As soon as they see new or destroyed sites from space, we will be there on the ground to investigate and protect them," said SPI founder and executive director Larry Coben. Sarah Parcak envisions a 21st century army of citizen scientists discovering and defending relics. Parcak condemned destruction of antiquities by the likes of violent extremists from the Islamic State group and saw looting done by the desperately poor as "heartbreaking."

The TED Prize provides a million dollars to kickstart a big vision and opens a door to call on the nonprofit organization's innovative, influential and ingenious community of "tedsters" for help. The TED community includes scientists, celebrities, politicians, artists, and entrepreneurs. Her work has caused some to refer to Parcak as a real-world version of the Indiana Jones character made famous in films starring Harrison Ford. Parcak is a professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she founded the Laboratory for Global Observation. She has won attention for her work satellite mapping Egypt and uncovering hidden pyramids, tombs and settlements.

The annual TED Prize has grown from $100,000 to a million dollars since it was first awarded in the year 2005, to U2 band leader Bono and his vision of fighting poverty and disease. Since its inception in 1984, TED has grown into a global forum for "ideas worth spreading" and has won a worldwide following for trademark "talks" during which accomplished speakers deliver thought-sparking presentations.

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