A Canadian First Nations group has requested that the British Museum returns some masks that were taken from their ancestors, but the British Museum has declined to consider the case for returning them.

From:
New York Times

ALERT BAY JOURNAL
September 18, 2003
Reclaiming the Stolen Faces of Their Forefathers
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS

ALERT BAY, British Columbia — A local newspaper column last year suggested that the Namgis, a small band of Native Canadians in British Columbia, ought to go to London and steal the Crown Jewels to get some bargaining leverage over the British Museum.

The half facetious idea came after the group had tried diplomacy for several years to get back a beloved wooden mask stolen from them 82 years ago that is now boxed up in a storage room of the museum.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Greek government has appointed the construction firm ALTE, for the works on the New Acropolis Museum, which are expected to proceed more rapidly now that this decision has been made.

From:
Kathimerini (English Edition)

Saturday September 6, 2003
New museum lurches forward

In a first tangible indication that plans to build a new Acropolis Museum under the ancient citadel are still alive, the government has awarded the 50-million-euro contract to Greek construction firm ALTE, a report said yesterday.

The Athens News Agency said ALTE had been declared “provisional” winner of the tender after bids were opened on Tuesday. The contract calls for completion of the project within two years, which confirms that the museum will not be ready in time for next summer’s Olympics, as Athens had initially maintained. However, the deal involves completion of the “external shell” of the building nine months after construction starts, according to ANA. This would seem to bear out government pledges that at least part of the museum will be standing in August 2004.

Availability of the museum during the Games is a basic tenet of Greece’s campaign for the return of the British Museum’s Elgin Collection of sculptures from the Parthenon, even as a loan. Originally, the building’s foundations were supposed to have been laid in the summer of 2002.