Mon Sep 30, 9:58 AM ET
ATHENS, Greece - Police on the island of Evia arrested a municipal worker after he tried to sell two ancient statues and dozens of coins dating to antiquity, authorities announced Monday. Police said Athanassios Frangos was arrested with an ancient statue dating to the Hellenistic period — from the 4th century B.C. to 146 B.C. — and a golden idol in the shape of a goat dating to the 5th century B.C. Classical period. They also confiscated 45 ancient Greek coins. Under Greece's strict protection laws, it is illegal to own, buy, sell or excavate antiquities without a special permit. Searching for ancient objects is also illegal and items must be handed over to authorities if discovered accidentally. http://story.news.yahoo.com/
Paper reports high-level Israeli meeting about dangers of bulging wall at holy site
Mon Sep 30,11:14 AM ET
By YOAV APPEL, Associated Press Writer
JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met with his police minister, Jerusalem's mayor and police chief to discuss the threat of the collapse of a retaining wall at Jerusalem's most holy disputed site, an Israeli newspaper reported Monday. The Israeli Prime Minister's Office, the Jerusalem municipality, Israel police and the Antiquities Authority all refused to comment on the report in the Maariv daily, and the Antiquities Authority spokesman said that a quote attributed to the body was falsified. The paper said the officials met Sunday morning, just before Sharon left for an official visit to Russia. Israeli officials and archeologists have warned for over a year that the southern wall of the Al Aqsa Mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, is in danger of collapse. The bulge is in the southern wall of the compound, around the corner from the Western Wall where Jews pray, at a point where the retaining wall of the hilltop compound is also the exterior wall of the Old City. Any change to the site, holy to both Jews and Muslims, could produce explosive results. A September 2000 visit to the site by Sharon, then opposition leader, enraged Palestinians, and violence that followed is still going on. The 35-foot- (10-meter-) wide bulge in the wall has now pushed outward one meter (yard) from the existing wall. Sharon called the meeting because of fears the wall could collapse during the Muslim holiday of Ramadan in November, when hundreds of thousands of worshippers are expected to pray at the compound, the newspaper report said. At the Sunday meeting, which included Internal Security Minister Uzi Landau, Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert, Jerusalem Police Chief Mickey Levy and Antiquities Authority director Shuka Dorfman, it emerged that Israel was in a lose-lose situation, the paper said. Quoting an unnamed official, the report said if Israel was to repair the wall without the trust's consent, it would lead to Palestinian riots. Alternatively, if the wall were to collapse, with the possibility of massive stone blocks tumbling on worshippers below, the situation would be many times worse, the official was quoted as saying.
Now Van Eyck missing panel is mystery wrapped in a riddle
Mon Sep 30, 3:39 AM ET By RAF CASERT, Associated Press Writer
GHENT, Belgium - For the better part of a century, it has proved to be a perfect theft, disfiguring one of Western art's greatest paintings. Now, an anonymous sleuth claims he knows where the missing panel of Jan Van Eyck's "Adoration of the Mystic Lamb" is hidden. He plans to reveal the secret to the world on his Web site Tuesday. "The outcome is imminent," headlines the author D.U.A. on his home page and — if he backs up his words — his fame will be assured in a nation where the mystery has captivated the population since the panel's disappearance in 1934. "This is really exiting to follow and you see the issue is very much alive," said Doreen Gaublomme, who works for Ghent's municipal conservation department. She was involved in a search for the panel seven years ago and said the information sharing on the Web site's forum showed how the theft still spellbinds people. The 1432 "Adoration" is perhaps Belgium's greatest work of art — the absolute highlight of Flemish Primitive painting, with its translucent use of color and intricate detail scene-setting of the Renaissance. So the theft of two panels, including the "10 Just Judges on Their Way to Venerate the Mystic Lamb" from the St. Bavo cathedral on April 10, 1934, left the country aghast. Soon extortion letters arrived at the local bishop's office and to prove he had "Just Judges," the writer led authorities to the second, inferior panel. Twelve more letters followed yet the bishop refused to pay. Investigators were stumped until one Arsene Goedertier, a local stockbroker, collapsed from a stroke seven months later. His famous last words? "Only I know where the 'Adoration' is ..." Investigators found copies of the extortion letters at his home, all signed D.U.A. — the same initials the sleuth is using on his website. The man behind the website talks as if he was Goedertier reincarnated in the way he slowly builds up to Tuesday's finale. Even though he claims to know the whereabouts of the panel, the reason why he hasn't grabbed the painting himself up to now is simple. In one extortion letter, the true Goedertier said the panel was hidden in a place no one can get to "without drawing public attention." "It also applies to me," the modern sleuth told the newsmagazine Humo in a rare, incognito, interview. "It is a mere issue of loosening four screws and the panel is there for the taking," he said. It is something many have dreamed about for decades. Former police inspector Karel Mortier has chased the mystery since 1956, to no avail. He does not want to comment on his fellow sleuth. Bridges have been dismantled looking for the panel, divining rods used, implausible plots involving Nazis and Hindus professed. Gaublomme was involved in a search in the St. Bavo cathedral itself in the case Goedertier had hidden it there. With fiber-optics and miniature cameras even a mausoleum was searched. "It is tough to say what can be found," Gaublomme said, more than a little skeptical that the panel would see the light of day. Expectations are laced with regret. "If they find it, that would be the end of all the fun." http://dua.host4all.be/
Treasures of Babylon are moved as bombers strike
By Kim Sengupta in Mosul 30 September 2002
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Questions from the anti-war march for Mr Blair They are packing away the fabulous treasures of Assyria, Sumeria and Babylon at the archaeological sites and the museum at Mosul in preparation for the war to come, a lesson learnt from the damage inflicted in raids by American and British bombers in the Gulf War, and the looting which followed in its immediate anarchic aftermath. As Manhal Jabar, the director of antiquities, talks of his worries that still far too much will be left exposed, a droning air-raid siren begins to sound – American and British planes are once again in the sky enforcing the northern "no-fly zone". The city and its hinterland has been repeatedly targeted by the allies. Last month they destroyed the radar at the airport. Now, the fate of the priceless antiquities at Mosul is causing deep international worry. Mr Jabar was in London last March discussing the problem with British specialists, including Professor David Oates of Cambridge and John Curtis of the British Museum. Two ancient sites were damaged by American bombs in 1991 while a leaning minaret built in 640 narrowly escaped destruction in 1994. "It is obviously something that is causing unease. If there is war, and they are saying this war is going to be even worse than 1991, then we must accept there will be losses to this heritage," said Mr Jabar. " But this is not a loss just to Iraq, but to the whole world. The first written word came from here, so many ideas about art and music originated here. It will be a terrible tragedy." The plan is to move the antiquities to underground vaults, the locations of which are being kept secret, not least to prevent the kind of systematic theft which took place in 1991, when the regime lost control of parts of the country. Stolen items from museums and sites ended up on the black market in Europe and North America. Among the wealth of archaeology surrounding Mosul is Nimrud, which became the second capital of Assyria in 1283 BC. There are British links with the discoveries. Austen Henry Layard's unearthing of the Assyrian Palaces at Nimrud was revealed in The Illustrated London News of 1840. Agatha Christie spent time in Mosul in the early 1950s while her husband, the renowned archaeologist Max Mallowan, took part in the excavation at Nimrud. Her stay provided the inspiration for two of her books, Murder in Mesopotamia, and They Came to Baghdad. Also near by are the sites at Nineveh, the cultural centre of the Sumerian and Babylonian empires and the capital of Sennacherib. There, Iraqi and European teams have uncovered a series of ancient treasures including palaces. There is also Hatra, an outpost of the Parthian empire, which has yielded valuable artefacts. Work in these, and other sites, has now been suspended because it is considered too risky. Some of the treasures from the various sites were taken away to the West, especially the United Kingdom. Most of them, including a remarkable number of heads of statues, ended up at the British Museum. Saba al-Omari, an Iraqi curator, said: "We have asked for a lot of things back, but they have refused, saying it is too dangerous. They threaten to bomb us, and then they say they cannot return our heritage because it is simply too dangerous. An interesting proposition, don't you think? This is a place of different religions and cultures. The people should not have to live under such a threat of war to themselves and their history." Among those living in the region are the Yezidis – Kurds who draw their religious beliefs from a mixture of Zoroastrianism, Islam, Christianity and paganism.Their esoteric taboos include wearing blue and eating lettuce. The Yezidi shrine at Ain Sifni, north east of Mosul is one of the places of heritage considered to be at risk. Mosul is also a centre of Christianity in Iraq, although the numbers of Syrian Catholics have dwindled with emigration and Christians now constitute 20,000 out of the population of 1.5 million. At the oldest church, St Thomas's, built on the site of the house occupied by the apostle during his visit to the city, Father Pius talks about the seemingly unstoppable momentum towards war. Another church, St Joseph's and a church school were destroyed during the Gulf War. "It is crazy, and all the European people I meet say it is a crazy thing to do, but the Americans seem determined," he said. "There must be a way to resolve this through talking. We have already seen death and destruction in Mosul, it is a terrible waste of human life. There is a culture here which is pre-Christian, but it belongs to humanity. I hope it stays safe." The churches in Mosul will be holding inter-denominational vigils for peace. "That is all we can do, the rest is up to God", said Father Pius, spreading his palms in supplication. http://news.independent.co.uk/ From: StevenRKeller@aol.com
Subject: Keller Associates Security Alert
We are currently actively monitoring a widespread security issue, known as the Slapper Worm, that is currently affecting hundreds of thousands of Linux servers throughout the Internet. The Slapper Worm is presentlay scanning the entire Internet looking for hosts that would be vulnerable to it. You may see virus entry logs that would lead you to believe this worm is trying to attack your server. Because many thousands of servers throughout the world have been infected and are now participating in the attack, secure servers may be impacted by the increased traffic, impairing performance or requiring a reboot. We have noticed that AOL has been accected since Friday and has taken countermeasures that have slowed it drastically making uploads of large files impossible and email difficult. Clients and friends should be aware of this and protect your servers as appropriate. Macintosh computers are not affected and it is believed that Windows machines not running Linux are also OK but we are all affected by the impact this Worm has on the internet as a whole. If your access control system is in any way connected to your institutional intranet and therefore to the internet, we urge you to heed our prior warnings to develop your own network immediately with no internet portal. You heard us say in the first and second weeks of September that a computer attack was imminent based on our observations. It appears that an attack is occurring. Why, we ask again, do you hear this from us and not the Federal authorities we rely on? It scares the hell out of me to think that we consistently predict these attacks and the FBI does not. Go with your instincts and experience and don't be afraid to express your suspicions about possible security threats to your management. Don't assume the government will protect you or even see a problem coming.
Steve Keller Steve Keller and Associates, Inc Security Consultants
£1,000 reward offered for return of 'obscene' artwork stolen from church
By Chris Gray 01 October 2002
Once you have set fire to a million pounds and had to be restrained from cutting off your own right hand on stage, there are precious few ways left to create controversy. But Bill Drummond, who mixed conceptual art and music as part of the pop duo KLF in the 1990s, has managed it with an artwork using obscene language to pose a question about God. It angered Catholics in Liverpool, where it was shown in a disused church, to the point that one resorted to theft. Drummond's work, a comments book embossed with the question "Is God a C***?" has been stolen from St Peter's Church, where it was on display as part of the Liverpool Biennial festival. Entitled To the Glory of God: New Religious Art, the display includes a 30ft white tower containing the book. The work had attracted about 60 responses, divided in their answers. It disappeared last week and the exhibition's curator, Neal Brown, believes the culprit is either an offended art-lover or a memorabilia- seeking KLF fan. It has been replaced by an identical book, but a £1,000 reward has been offered for the original's return. Drummond, 48, himself a believer, could not be contacted yesterday but in a short story accompanying the book, suggests that he would answer "no" to the question. "God is responsible for all the things I love; the speckles on a brown trout, the sound of Angus Young's guitar, the nape of my girlfriend's neck, the song of the black cap when he returns in spring. I never blame God for all the shit, for the baby Rwandan slaughtered in a casual genocide, the ever-present wars, drudgery and misery that fills most of our lives," he writes. St Peter's Church, which dates from 1788, was leased to a regeneration company by the Archdiocese of Liverpool with a clause that nothing should happen within its walls that could offend Christians. A diocese spokesman said the book seemed to violate this."We will not be asking for the whole exhibition to be shut down but we will be seeking to remove the book," he said. Whatever happens, the question will not go away. Drummond has opened phone lines for people to answer his question and plans to paint the results on an M25 flyover. http://news.independent.co.uk/