With assistance from the Marbles Reunited campaign, a group of children from a school in Kefalonia have visited the UK & staged a protest outside the British Museum.

From:
PR Newswire

Students, Supported by Marbles Reunited, Stage a Peaceful Protest at the British Museum
LONDON, May 6 /PRNewswire/

Forty five secondary school students and five teachers from the 2nd General Lyceum in Argostoli (Kefalonia), visited London in order to stage a peaceful protest for the return of the Parthenon Sculptures to Athens at the British Museum on Sunday 03 May 2009. This protest was supported by Marbles Reunited.

Marbles Reunited is a British campaigning organisation and Friends of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles.
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Greece’s President is visiting Finland & met his counterpart over there. When questioned, he stated that he supports the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece.

From:
Athens News Agency

05/06/2009
Papoulias meets Finnish President

Helsinki (ANA-MPA / N. Megadoukas) — Greek President Karolos Papoulias on Tuesday had a cordial meeting with his Finnish counterpart Tarja Halonen here, within the framework of his four-day state visit to Finland.

Presidents Papoulias and Halonen, old acquaintances and friends since their terms as foreign ministers, discussed the global economic crisis, bilateral, international and European issues and according to Papoulias they “shared the same positions”.
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For years the ancient Acropolis has been one of the main reasons attracting visitors to Athens. This year though, a new attraction in the form of the New Acropolis Museum will act as an added reason to visit the city, providing the perfect complement to the Parthenon & Acropolis site.

From:
Chicago Tribune

Sprawling Athens still centered on the Acropolis
Rick Steves Tribune Media Services
May 3, 2009

A century and a half ago, Athens was a humble, forgotten city of about 8,000 people. Today one out of every three Greeks packs into this city of about 4 million.

Athens has been famous for its sprawl, noise and pollution. My advice has long been to see the big sights, then get out. But visiting it recently to research a new guidebook, I’ve seen a dramatic change. The city has made a concerted effort to curb pollution, clean up the streets and make them pedestrian-friendly, spiff up the museums, build a new airport and invest in one of Europe’s better public-transit systems.
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Various artefacts that are alleged to have been looted were returned to Egypt by a small museum in the UK. It is unclear from the article quite how they got there, how they were acquired without sufficient due diligence & why they are now being returned – it sets a good example to other museums though that actions should be taken to restore looted artefacts to their rightful owners.

From:
ArtInfo

British Museum Returns 454 Artifacts to Egypt
Published: May 1, 2009

CAIRO—Britain’s Myers Museum has returned 454 ancient artifacts to Egypt, according to Bloomberg.

The artifacts, which include beaded necklaces and bronze coins, had been removed from Egypt between 1972 and 1988, after antiquities trafficking was banned in 1970, said Hussein Al-Afuni, a head of Egypt’s Red Sea antiquities department, in a statement.
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