Iraqi artefacts find easy route via Switzerland swissinfo
March 3, 2003 6:41 PM
Switzerland is one of the main transit countries for stolen artefacts from Iraq, whose archaeological sites contain some of the most important treasures of Antiquity. Experts say the trade in Iraqi artefacts took off during the Gulf War, when ancient treasures were plundered and sold illegally in international markets. “There’s been a lot of looting going on in Iraq [since 1991],” Neil Brodie, coordinator of the Illicit Antiquities Research Centre in Cambridge, Britain, told swissinfo. “That’s when people first realised they could make a lot of money from selling archaeological objects and began [plundering] sites and museums.” Brodie says Switzerland’s location and important antiquities market means it’s a natural centre for illicit art. “We know a lot of Italian material passes through Switzerland, and it’s a pretty safe bet that material from Iraq is also passing through Switzerland,” he says. “The expertise and the financial resources are there.” But Brodie says the illicit nature of the trade makes it impossible to put a figure on its value. There are an estimated 10,000 archaeological sites in Iraq, where some of the earliest cities in Mesopotamia were located. The Federal Culture Office says Switzerland - the world’s fourth largest art market - has gained a reputation as a “turntable for the illegal transfer of cultural goods”. It has put forward a new law to tighten the trade, which is currently being debated in parliament, but the proposal is meeting stiff opposition from art dealers. Unesco Switzerland is one of the few countries not to have joined the United Nation’s Unesco Convention of 1970, which regulates the transfer of cultural objects in 94 nations and encourages international cooperation.
According to Unesco and Interpol, stolen art is the third largest illegal market behind drugs and arms trading. The problem is particularly acute in Switzerland due to the lack of legislation. “The fact that it hasn’t signed up to the Unesco convention is certainly linked to the fact that it’s a thriving centre for antiquities,” Brodie says. Andrea Raschèr, who is in charge of law and international affairs at the Federal Culture Office, says the current Swiss laws are clearly insufficient. “In effect, Swiss law treats cultural goods like ordinary merchandise,” he told swissinfo. “That’s why the theft of a bicycle is treated in the same way as a the theft of a Poussin and it’s easier to import an ancient vase than a tomato.” Long delays Although the Unesco convention dates from 1970, it took until 1992 for the Swiss government to consider a new cultural objects law.
It has taken a further ten years for a proposal to reach parliament. Raschèr said the delay was due to the fact that the extent of the problem had only come to light in recent years. “The scale of the problem only became apparent with the discovery of looted art from the Second World War,” he said. Outcry The proposed legislation has provoked outrage in the Swiss art world, which while agreeing the need for it, feels that the new law is too prescriptive and confusing.
Several dealers, museums and art associations have teamed up to make a counter proposal. Art dealer and archaeologist, David Cahn, is president of the International Association of Dealers in Ancient Art. He is worried that traders could unwittingly fall foul of the new law. “It’s not good enough to have a heavily administrative penalty system without telling people precisely what they have to do,” Cahn says. “This leads to confusion and because it leads to confusion, it also leads to scandals.” Small target But Cornelia Isler-Kerényj, an archaeologist and a representative for Unesco Switzerland, told swissinfo that the art world is worrying unnecessarily because the law would only affect a very specialised area of the market.
“It will only affect the traders in archaeological and ethnological art and absolutely not traditional art or modern art,” she said. Raschèr says the draft law would increase the period after which cultural goods of unknown origin can legally come onto the Swiss market from five to 30 years. This will not only bring Switzerland into line with most other countries, but it will also help in the fight against the laundering of stolen goods, he says. But if passed by parliament, the earliest that the new law is likely to come into force is 2004.
swissinfo, Isobel Johnson and Vanessa Mock
URL of this story http://www.swissinfo.org/
Related Sites Federal Office for Culture: http://www.kultur-schweiz.admin.ch/index.html Unesco Switzerland: http://www.unesco.ch
Fire Mars Egypt's New Alexandria Library
Sun Mar 2,11:16 AM ET
ALEXANDRIA, Egypt - A fire broke out Sunday in the sleek, new Alexandria library, sending thick smoke swirling through the building that opened to international fanfare in October. The fire, which lasted about 45 minutes, appears to have been caused by a short circuit in the fourth-floor administrative area of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina — the waterfront site of what was the most renowned library of the ancient world. Authorities evacuated the 11-story building and 29 people were taken to hospitals for treatment for smoke inhalation. "Everybody is safe, thank God," said Leila Dewidar, head of the library's grants division. The fire was confined to the administrative area and no books were destroyed, said Khaled Azab, a library spokesman. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina reopened later Sunday. Egypt built the $230 million library, on Alexandria's renovated seaside promenade, with financial and other assistance from around the world. The ancient library, founded in about 295 B.C. by Ptolemy I Soter, burned in the fourth century.
It had been an international intellectual center where scholars are thought to have produced the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament and edited Homer's works. The new library contains about 240,000 books, a planetarium, conference hall, five research institutes, six galleries and three museums.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/
Fire damages historic church
Estimated repair cost $100,000 By David Chernicky Daily Press
March 4 2003
NEWPORT NEWS -- The multi-colored stained glass hid the charred remains inside the brick church Monday morning. Bright sun shown into the sanctuary, spilling over chunks of the ceiling and walls that littered the red carpet and wooden pews at Bibleway Evangelistic Tabernacle. An early morning electrical fire did about $100,000 worth of damage to the historic church at the corner of 24th Street and Marshall Avenue. When firefighters arrived around 5 a.m., flames were shooting out an upper floor window in the back of the church, said Dana Perry, spokeswoman for the Newport News fire department. The fire appeared to have started in the wall of a second-floor storage room and then spread through another wall into the ceiling over the sanctuary. Many mourned the damage to the building - built in 1921 - which for years housed Carver Memorial Presbyterian church.
As a young girl, Lillian Lovett sang with the summer choir at Carver. "Carver was known for its beautiful music," she said. "It was a historic site. It was a part of so many people's lives." Some of the prominent members of Carver included J. Thomas Newsome who was a Newport News attorney and civic leader, Jessie Rattley, former Newport News mayor and councilwoman, and former police chief George Austin, said Pauline Page, who served as an elder at Carver. "We're tremendously proud of Carver's storied history and service to the community," Page said. "Doctors, lawyers, teachers and so many school and business leaders attended this church." The Carver congregation vacated the church in 1991 and moved three doors down to a larger building. Some time after that, the congregation of Bibleway moved in. The pastor of Bibleway could not be reached Monday. The current pastor's son, Anthony Mann, his wife, Onita, and their three children ages 1 to 7, were asleep Monday morning in their basement living quarters of the church when they awoke after smelling smoke, Perry said. Mann "went to investigate and saw flames coming out of the wall in the second floor storage room," she said. Mann then grabbed an extinguisher to douse the flames, but was unsuccessful. "He then called 911," Perry said, "and got his wife and children safely out of the building." The fire displaced the pastor, who was returning home at the time of the fire, his family and his son's family, said Pat Kloss, disaster coordinator with the Red Cross.
Heaviest damage to the church was to the second floor and ceiling, said Lt. Mark Rioux of the Newport News fire department. Fire officials also reported water and smoke damage to the sanctuary.
David Chernicky can be reached at 247-4743 or by e-mail at dchernicky@dailypress.com
http://www.dailypress.com/
Curator charges Field with bias
By David Mendell
A former female curator of archeology and anthropology at the Field Museum on Friday sued the institution alleging she was fired in December because she was too outspoken and too successful and, mostly, too female. Anna C. Roosevelt, a great-granddaughter of former President Theodore Roosevelt whose research has challenged fundamental assumptions about the evolution of human society, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court. The lawsuit alleges that, as the only fully tenured female curator among dozens of men during the first 10 of her 12 years at the Field Museum, she was not afforded the same treatment as male colleagues. "People don't fight these things--they just let them happen to them. But I am fighting," said Roosevelt, 56. full story
Loot still missing in $100 million Belgian diamond heist
Ringleader ran a business in Antwerp building at center of diamond trade
By Raf Casert, Associated Press
ANTWERP, Belgium -- The thieves stood ankle-deep in a mess of diamonds, gold, jewelry, stocks, bonds, cash and lockboxes strewn on the vault room floor. After outwitting security in the world's diamond-cutting capital and prying open 123 vaults, they had one unexpected problem: There was just too much loot to carry. Two weeks later, authorities are still trying to figure out how much the thieves actually did get away with. Their rough estimate is $100 million. That would easily make the Antwerp heist the largest safe- deposit box robbery ever -- twice the 1976 hit in Beirut, Lebanon, when a guerrilla group blasted its way into the vaults of the British Bank of the Middle East and into the Guinness Book of Records.
It would also beat the largest jewel theft on record, when machine gun-toting thieves took $45 million in gems from the Carlton Hotel in Cannes on the French Riviera in 1994.
http://www.sanmateocountytimes.com/