The photographer Nelly is famous for the photos she took of the dancer Mona Paiva nude at the Acropolis. A new book expands our knowledge of her work – & explores her fascination with the Acropolis.

From:
Kathimerini (English Edition)

Monday December 22, 2003
Contrasting coexisting images
Two photography albums show Greece through the eyes of two very different photographers
By Alexandra Koroxenidis – Kathimerini English Edition

Timeless values and a dignified respect for life and the past emanate from the work of two completely different renowned Greek photographers and their images of Greece as presented in two separate photographic albums. “Kostas Balafas: Epirus” released by Potamos Publications in cooperation with the Benaki Museum, and “Antiquities: Greece 1925-1939: Nelly’s,” published by Melissa again jointly with the Benaki, record two contrasting worlds of Greek culture — the one rural and poor, a world of nature and its people, the other classical, refined, unspoiled and devoid of human presence — yet with a somewhat similar idealized view and quest for the eternal.
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The British during the eighteenth & nineteenth centuries portrayed themselves as explorers – but in some cases the end results of their actions was little different to those caused by the Taleban in todays era.

From:
New Zealand Herald

Brian Rudman: Curly one for Santa … something nice about the mayor
17.12.2003
COMMENT

Please, I need your help. At Heart of the City’s pre-Christmas bash the other night, Mayor John Banks dashed up to me, grasped my hand and asked me to do one thing for him.

Your wish, said I, is my command. What did he have in mind?
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Angus Robertson MP has for some time supported the return of the Elgin Marbles. Awareness of the issue is now being raised by the display of an exhibition about their reunification on display within the Scottish town of Elgin.

From:
The Scotsman

Wed 17 Dec 2003
Emporium is stepping up a gear
Simon Pia

[…]

Elgin’s Marbles arch

ANGUS Robertson has not lost his marbles, but is merely extending a bit of Moray solidarity to the Aegean.

The Elgin Marbles are currently on display in Elgin, courtesy of a virtual-reality display. The Marbles were purloined from the Parthenon by Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin, in eighteen-canteen – he was a Fifer actually (surprise, surprise) – and they have resided at the British Museum ever since.
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Despite heightened awareness following the looting of Baghdad, Britain continues to be a major trading centre for illegally acquired artefacts.

From:
The Independent

MPs attack failure to halt trade in looted antiquities
By Louise Jury, Arts Correspondent
17 December 2003

Britain’s £4.2bn arts market is being damaged by the Government’s failure to clamp down on the illicit trade in arts and antiques, a parliamentary select committee said yesterday. This has made it easier for thieves to trade antiquities looted from Iraq because of the damaging lack of progress on tackling the problem.

The Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee made recommendations when it investigated stolen cultural property three years ago, and launched a new inquiry this year prompted by the situation in Iraq. But in Cultural objects: developments since 2000, published yesterday, the committee said there had been “few concrete achievements” and almost none of its recommendations had been implemented.
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Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis has discussed the issue of the Elgin Marbles during a meeting with Tony Blair in London.

From:
Macedonian Press Agency

TUESDAY, 16 DECEMBER 2003
POLITICAL SCULPTURES
London, 16 December 2003 (10:30 UTC+2)

The issue of the Parthenon Marbles is not just an issue of property and technical adjustments, it is also a political issue, and that is why we would like to approach it politically, stated Prime Minister Costas Simitis, following his meeting with his British counterpart, Tony Blair, in London. Mr. Simitis said that he will send Minister of Culture Evaggelos Venizelos to London, to further discuss the issue.

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Greek bar associations are planning on asking the European Court of Human rights to rule on the Elgin Marbles Issue. Hopefully this action will proceed, unlike other similar cases in the past that has started with high enthusiasm, but then dropped below the radar at a later date.

From:
Independent Online (Zaire)

Greece to ask court to rule on Elgin Marbles
December 15 2003 at 02:21PM
Quickwire

Athens – Greek bar associations will ask the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights to rule on their country’s long-standing demand for the return from Britain of the Elgin Marbles, an official said on Monday.

“The relevant papers should be finished by the end of year,” Yiannis Stamoulis, the lawyer preparing the case, told AFP.
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The Greek Government has drafted a special bill, that it hopes will help to extricate the New Acropolis Museum from the legal proceedings that are currently holding back its construction.

From:
Kathimerini (English Edition)

Saturday December 6, 2003
NEWS
Bill to extract museum from legal quagmire

In a bid to dig its key project for the new Acropolis museum out of a legal quagmire, the government has drafted a special bill that would legalize the controversial building, a report said yesterday.

Greece has staked much credibility on repeated pledges to build the 50-million-euro museum (in which it hopes to display the fifth-century-BC Elgin, or Parthenon, Marbles should the British Museum ever return them) before the 2004 Olympics. Read the rest of this entry »

Former British foreign Minister Robin Cook expressed support for the return of the Parthenon Marbles during a conference in Athens.

From:
Kathimerini (English Edition)

Friday December 5, 2003 – Archive
In Brief

[…]

Cook on Marbles

European Socialist Party President and former British Foreign Minister Robin Cook, visiting Athens to speak at a conference on modern socialism yesterday, expressed his support for Greece’s campaign for the return of the British Museum’s Elgin, or Parthenon, Marbles to Athens, in exchange for the loan of significant Greek antiquities to museums in Britain.

[…]

Italy has been prevaricating for a long time over the return of the Axum Obelisk. It looks now as though the move is finally underway, as engineers delicately dismantle the artefact so that it can be transferred back to its homeland.

From:
Chicago Tribune

Rome packing up Ethiopian treasure
An ancient obelisk seized by Mussolini as a trophy is going home after a 65-year wait
By Tracy Wilkinson, Tribune Newspapers
Los Angeles Times
Published December 2, 2003

ROME — Italian engineers are delicately dismantling an intricately carved obelisk, piece by ancient piece, and wrapping it for delivery to Ethiopia.

Italy finally is making good on a promise to return the Axum Obelisk, capping decades of bitter dispute over the monument’s fate and home.
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