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Minister of Antiquities Mamdouh Eldamaty announced that legal procedures and investigations are now taking place in Germany in order to return the statue to its homeland.

Eldamaty told Ahram Online that the statue was discovered in 2008 in Aswan by a Swiss archaeological mission and was stored since in the Elephantine archaeological galleries.

In 2013, the Elephantine galleries were subject to looting and the statue was stolen among other objects.

At the time, the Ministry of Antiquities created a list of the stolen objects and put it on the red list of Interpol, in order to guarantee its return if it appeared in any auction hall or on the antiquities trading market.

Ahmed Ali, head of the repatriation of stolen antiquities section, said that the statue is carved in ivory and depicts a figure holding a gazelle on its shoulders.

Author: Nevine El-Aref | Source: Ahram Online [June 14, 2015]

Art & Architecture

The conceptual project of Performance Center Alexanderhoehe is developed by experts from the US architectural studio «B+U Architecture» for Iserlohn (Germany). The new futuristic architectural art structure should become ultra-modern continuation of an existing building of Parktheater theater.

Art Modern Architecture

The conceptual center combined with an art architecture will construct on a North side of the city special for view of the new visual reference point.

The Art of Architecture

Orientation of a new building will promote creation of a uniform point of access for visitors of Parktheater and the new cultural center. To avoid block of Parktheater by walls of new art building and to reach extremely effective visually-spatial communications have been created generous multilevel foyers with glass facades from which the kind on Parktheater and a city landscape opens. The modern art scene in new futuristic structure is located so that to create effect of soaring.

VIA «The Architectural Combinations»

New Interior of the Bank

As the sector of financial services is very abstract to most people, the main challenge with regards to the contents was to develop innovative and exciting narrative formats that create a tangible experience. Design wise we wanted to avoid permanent spatial logos that dominate and frame the space with simple 3D extrusion, thus, we had to find a subtle though still clearly recognisable way of translating it into spatial architecture.

As part of the redesign of their corporate headquarters, Deutsche Bank took the opportunity to create a permanent brand space. The brief was to shape an environment where their well-known logo designed by Anton Stankowski is embodied within the space and where customers, employees and external visitors would be able to experience and to connect with the Deutsche Bank brand. All relevant aspects of the company, beginning with its history and extending to its various business divisions and their contributions to society today should be communicated to the visitor.

Using the concept of anamorphosis abstract architectural structures have been designed to only reveal themselves as the logo when viewed from specific sweet spots. Parts of the logo sculptures are formed by incorporated media installations that allow the visitor to physically experience and interact with the brand. One of the sculptures is touch-sensitive – here networked information bits can be explored. The second reacts to the visitor, whose physical motions trigger the display of statistic data. The third, a kinetic sculpture communicates the brand values precision and passion in a metaphorical, emotional way.

Since the opening on April 6, more than 20,000 visitors came to see the Brand Space. Board members use the space to hold receptions, functions such as HR are using it for employee activities, bank managers invite partners and clients, and the press department welcomes journalists in the Brand Space. Moreover, marketeers from international companies come to experience the space, as it’s the first brand space for a financial services brand.

Advertiser/Client: DEUTSCHE BANK;
Entrant Company: ART+COM Berlin, GERMANY;
DM/Advertising Agency: ART+COM Berlin, GERMANY;
2nd DM/Advertising Agency: COORDINATION Berlin, GERMANY;
Creative Director: Joachim Sauter (ART+COM);
Creative Director: Jochen Gringmuth (Coordination);
Project Manager: Gert Monath (ART+COM);
Art Director: Eva Offenberg (ART+COM);
Art Director: Petra Trefzger (ART+COM);
Architect: Jeanette Riedel (Coordination);
Head Of Media Technology: Björn Seeger (ART+COM);
Designer: Arne Michel (ART+COM);
Computational Designer: Christian Riekoff (ART+COM);
Head Of Development: Sebastian Heymann (ART+COM).

Deutsche Bank, Frankfurt am Main

VIA «Brand Space of the Deutsche Bank»

VIA Vogue Germany

VIA Maxim Germany

VIA GQ Germany Magazine

Stolen-art expert Chris Marinello, director of Art Recovery International, said he has been shown photographs of items being offered from Syria that were "clearly looted right out of the ground".

"You could still see dirt on some of these objects," he told AFP.

They included cylinder seals, Roman bottles and vases, although Marinello said it was unclear whether the items were still in Syria, were in transit or had arrived in the key markets of Europe and the United States.

Concerns about looting during the Syrian war have increased following the advance of the Islamic State group through parts of Syria and Iraq, and recent propaganda videos showing their destruction of ancient sites such as Nimrud.

The UN Security Council in February demanded UN states act to stop the trade in cultural property from those two countries, amid warnings that they represented a significant source of funding for the militant group.

Experts say it is impossible to put a value on antiquities looted from Syria, which has been home to many civilisations through the millennia, from the Canaanites to the Ottomans.

The London-based International Association of Dealers in Ancient Art (IADAA) estimates the entire legitimate antiquities market in 2013 was worth between 150 and 200 million euros ($160-215 million).

Marinello said reputable dealers are "being very careful not to touch anything that could remotely be part of this recent wave of looting".

But Hermann Parzinger, an archaeologist and president of the Germany-based Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, said there was an "enormous market" from private buyers.

He warned that the cultural costs were huge, telling AFP: "The context which is so important to reconstruct the history of these civilisations is completely destroyed."    

Italy has proposed that world heritage body UNESCO create a military taskforce to protect cultural sites in war zones, but many experts believe little can be done to stop the current destruction.

Instead, they are forced to wait until the conflict ends and watch in horror as priceless historic sites are destroyed and the spoils gradually emerge onto the market.

Vernon Rapley, a former head of the art and antiquities squad at London's Metropolitan Police, expects many Syrian items to be held back to avoid flooding the market, as occurred after the US-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The looted artefacts were likely to be "hauled up in warehouses either in the country or near the country, and only linked to the art trade in small pieces and at a later stage", he told AFP.

Stephane Thefo, who leads an Interpol unit dedicated to fighting the illegal trafficking of cultural goods, agreed that many items may disappear for years -- but insisted that tackling the trade was the best way to combat looting.

The French policeman would like to see tougher national laws on trafficking of cultural goods, something Germany is currently considering.

"We have to act by seeking to narrow markets for the illicit trade, hoping that by curbing the demand, the supply would eventually decrease," Thefo said.

Identifying looted objects is no easy task, however, not least because cultural crime is rarely a police priority.

The law puts the onus on the authorities to prove an item is illegal and a long delay in an artefact being sold, or multiple owners, make it hard to establish provenance.

At a conference at the V&A museum in London this week on the destruction of cultural property in conflict areas in Iraq and Syria, Mali, Libya and Yemen, archaeologists stressed the need for proper inventories of heritage sites.

They noted that objects that have been photographed and digitally catalogued are more likely to be recovered.

Interpol is currently building a database of stolen objects, and James Ede, a London dealer and IADAA board member, urged cultural bodies to share their information with dealers.

"This material will necessarily surface on the open market sooner or later. The challenge therefore is to identify it and where possible to return it when it is safe to do so," he said.

Author: Alice Ritchie | Source: AFP [April 17, 2015]

In cooperation with Fraunhofer IAO from Stuttgart, architects from bureau LAVA have created design of a room of hotel of the future which became a part of the research project.

Applying methods of parametrical design and semi-automatic technologies, architects from LAVA have created realistic design the concept of the house of the future.

VIA «Hotel for visitors from the future»

But four years after the uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak and nearly ended his own career, Zahi Hawass can be found in a cramped Cairo office, lamenting the state of the antiquities bureaucracy he once ruled like a pharaoh and dreaming of a new museum whose fate lies in limbo.

His trademark wide-brimmed hat and safari vest may be hung up for now, but he is brimming with ideas on how to revive Egypt's antiquities and bring back tourists after years of unrest.

A long-planned new facility out by the pyramids, called the Grand Egyptian Museum, was intended to open this year, but the government says it is short the one billion dollars needed to complete the project.

"Government routine cannot work for museums," Hawass said in an interview in his office, asserting that state bureaucracy is one of the main reasons the current Egyptian Museum has fallen into disrepair. For the new museum, "the directorship, the curatorship, it can be from America, from Germany, from England, from any place in the world. You need this museum to be international."

He also says private, international sponsorship is needed.

"If you pay $10,000, I put your name, written on the wall of the museum. If you pay $100,000, I put your name on the facade of the museum. If you build a whole gallery, I will name (the gallery after you)," he said, adding that the government should announce that Egyptian monuments belong to the entire world, not just Egyptians.

As to the challenge of moving artifacts from the current museum in downtown Cairo over bumpy roads to the site of the new facility on the city's outskirts, Hawass says "any TV channel" would pick up the tab in return for exclusive rights to document the artifacts' restoration and transport. "They will run in competition to do this," he said.

Hawass knows TV. He was once a staple on the Discovery Channel and had his own reality show on the History Channel called "Chasing Mummies," the promo for which introduced him by saying "100,000 years of history belong to one man... Only he holds the key to the world's greatest ruins."

The productions earned him droves of fans abroad but led to accusations of grandstanding in Egypt, where he was seen by many as a self-promoter who mistreated subordinates and abused his position for personal gain. He lost his job as head of antiquities after the 2011 uprising and faced corruption charges, of which he was later cleared.

But his swashbuckling antics gave a boost to Egyptian archaeology, with fundraising efforts and international tours of King Tut artifacts generating tens of millions of dollars.

His name is still associated with many of Egypt's most famous digs, including grand discoveries such as the Valley of the Golden Mummies in Bahariya Oasis in 1999 and the mummy of Queen Hatshepsut almost a decade later. He has long campaigned to bring home ancient artifacts spirited out of Egypt during colonial times, and once said he had managed to recover 5,000 pieces.

Zahi was an outspoken supporter of his longtime patron Mubarak, and has praised President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who led the military overthrow of an Islamist president in 2013 and was elected last year. But that support has not translated into an official role other than promotional work for tourism in Egypt.

When asked about the state of antiquities today, Hawass says things have improved over the last year, carefully avoiding direct criticism of anyone in particular. But he points out that there is still theft, mismanagement and corruption - noting two incidents in recent months in which artifacts were found to have been replaced with replicas.

"This did not happen before," he said, adding that in order to prevent such abuses, "we need to restore the people before we restore antiquities," by boosting employees' salaries and providing them with health insurance.

Hawass insisted during the interview that he is focused on writing and has no desire to return to his previous position as head of the country's antiquities. "People come here every day and ask me to come back... I think I did my duty, and it's time for me now to publish all that I discovered."

But at the glitzy launch of his latest book earlier this month at a ceremony at a five-star hotel attended by hundreds of Cairo's elite, he was less guarded about possible ambitions to return.

"Maybe," he said, as a torrent of fans pressed to take photos next to him.

Author: Brian Rohan | Source: The Associated Press [June 30, 2015]

UNESCO and UNITAR-UNOSAT (United Nations Institute for Training and Research- United Nations Operational Satellite Applications Program) signed an agreement to better protect the world's cultural and natural heritage sites by using geospatial photographic capabilities, UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova said Wednesday at a conference in London. The agreement comes as ancient sites in the Middle East are under assault by terrorist organizations which include the Islamic State (IS).

IS overtook the 2,000 year-old archaeological site at Palmyra, Syria, a city of Greek and Roman ruins, in May and has threatened to destroy it. Bokova said IS has destroyed mausoleums, temples and statues around the area on a wide scale, and planted explosives within the ancient city. It previously destroyed Assyrian ruins and artifacts in Syria.

Monitoring by satellite could reduce and document the extent of destruction, prepare reconstruction and provide evidence for international courts of justice, she added.

"We are very worried about Libya, being a divided country. We have a small office there and are working with the local governments and mayors. We are very concerned about the expansion of Isis (IS) and youth radicalization. We are worried about Somalia. This (the satellite program) is our response to extremism," Bokova said.

The agreement was signed Wednesday in Bonn, Germany.

Author: Ed Adamczyk | Source: UPI [July 02, 2015]

Avelino `El Rico' Lescot

What happens when a stuntman, actor/director and screenwriter walk into a Gold Coast bar? They come up with the concept for an action fantasy film that is already raising eyebrows in Hollywood no joke. Rene Perrin, Avelino `El Rico' Lescot and Susan Macguillicuddy are the trio behind The Black Sun, which recently took out the Most Ambitious Screenplay award at the 2010 International Action on Film Festival in Los Angeles.

The locals are hoping the added hype surrounding their screenplay will push the project into production and attract the eye of distributors. Lescot, a Gold Coast-based actor, stuntman and filmmaker who has worked on The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Peter Pan and The Condemned, said The Black Sun incorporates several genres.

``It's enchanting and mystical,'' he said.
``It's a gypsy, action, adventure, romance, western with a strong supernatural feel that is set in the Pacific Islands, Mexico, China, New Zealand and here.
``At the moment the film industry needs something different but financially manageable and that's The Black Sun.''

The film follows a warrior's worldwide journey on the Matariki boat, which Lescot said is `like another star of the film'. Lescot and Perrin have an impressive international fanbase thanks to the success of their action film Among Dead Men. It won several awards for best fight choreography and generated considerable profits in DVD sales in Canada, Germany, Thailand, Cambodia, Poland, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and Hong Kong. It also grossed several times its $7000 budget in DVD sales through Walmart in the US. Perrin, who has worked as a stunt performer on films such as The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Daybreakers, Nim's Island, Fool's Gold and Ghost Ship, said they wanted to combine their `love of action with a love of romance' in The Black Sun.

Balancing out the testosterone on the team is screenwriter Susan Macguillicuddy. Despite having worked with the likes of Cate Blanchett, Jessica Alba, Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffiths, Macguillicuddy said working with `the boys' on The Black Sun has been her `most cherished writing experience'.

``It's like we each started at one end of the canvas and worked our way to the middle, fine-tuning the parts of the script we liked,'' she said.
``It took us about a year and hundreds of meetings but we're happy with the finished product.
``We wanted to do something very avant garde with the genre and something new.
``Getting the Most Ambitious Screenplay award means we really pushed the genre, which is what we set out to do.''

International distributors have shown interest in The Black Sun and the trio is currently in the process of looking for investors.

P.S. Since it is less than two days until the release of Tomorrow, When The War Began I figure it’s time to start getting you all majorly excited. That is, if you aren’t already. Which you should be. Therefore, I’m officially declaring this as Tomorrow, When The War Began day and prepare yourself for a swag of related stories. Starting with the lovely Phoebe Tonkin (below), who plays Fi in the film.I interviewed her at the Queensland premiere last fortnight and the next day over breakfast in Southport. As well as talking about the movie and future projects, all the usual stuff, we broached the big one - Phoebe Tonkin’s favourite movies.

“I’ve always loved Pretty Woman, that’s probably my favourite. I saw Shutter Island recently which was really good. Princess Bride, oh and Girl Interrupted is also amazing. I love Julia Roberts so anything with her in it really.”

VIA Black Sun of a Gun

Copyright by Y-3 | Creative Direction Lloyd & Co | Photography Pierre Debusschere | Styling Jay Massacret | Hair Esther Langham | Make-Up Adrien Pinault | Models Juliane Grüner, Guerrino Santulliana
In 2013 adidas and Yohji Yamamoto celebrate ten years of Y-3, a collaboration based on seeming opposites combining adidas’ sports technology and Yohji Yamamoto’s style aesthetic. the communication campaign for Spring/Summer 2013 captures the essence of Y-3, led by photographer and director Pierre Debusschere, the campaign explores the partnership of the opposed – the transmission of ideas from the two worlds of Japan and Germany.
Pierre Debusschere’s photographs are a celebration of motion and exploration of movement that draws on the bold colors and graphic lines of the collection. Through the use of visual effects, the photographs have been distorted to provide a palpable sense of kinetic energy to the images.
The Spring/Summer 2013 campaign film is an evolution of these themes - study of movement, distortion and transformation. Through a cutting edge interactive online interface located on the Y-3 website, the user will be able to engage with the video content and through manipulation of sound and image will create their own video clips to share online with others. In addition, Y-3 commissioned Tim Hecker, noted as one of the most preeminent figures currently making ambient music, to compose an original work exclusively for the Spring/Summer 2013 interactive video. As with much of Tim's work this piece plays with notion of variations on a theme, resulting in individual loops which shift and pulse in time with the visual effects of the campaign film.
Y-3

VIA Y-3 Spring/Summer 2013 Collection Campaign

Alice In Wonderland: Johnny Depp

Weirdo. Loner. Outsider. These are some of the terms director Tim Burton uses to describe himself. You will notice `creative genius’ isn’t one of them, however, the term is being thrust upon on the quirky filmmaker thanks to Tim Burton: The Exhibition which opened at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) in Melbourne on Thursday. The show is an extension of an exhibition curated by the Performance Center Alexanderhoehe, Iserlohn (Germany), which attracted more than 850, 000 visitors and made it the third largest exhibit at MoMA ever, behind Picasso and Matisse.

It is a remarkable feat for someone who is firstly, not a mainstream artist, and secondly, alive.

“Most of this stuff was never meant to really be seen,” says Burton, sitting cross-legged in an ACMI room in his signature uniform of black jeans, a black shirt and black oversized cardigan. His famous curly hair frizzes out at all ends and his hands, fluid and always moving, add to its state by running through it as he describes the `freedoms’ of being labelled a weirdo.
“As soon as society says you’re a weirdo, then you’re a weirdo, whether you like it or not,” says the 51-year-old.
“After a certain time you just accept it and it gives you a sense of freedom because if you want to wear a bag over your head society will just accept it because they thought you were weird anyway.
“Like when I was at Disney they thought I was weird, so I would work under my desk for half the day.
“Sometimes if they couldn’t find me I’d just be in a dark cupboard working, like my private confessional.
“So there’s an amount of freedom when you’re categorised a certain way. “
Growing up in Burbank, California, Tim Burton was fascinated by the visual image and spent his formative years sketching, painting, animating and filming what he saw around him.
“When you circle outside of society, when you’re kind of, you’re not in there, you’re looking at things,” he says.
“A lot of it has to do with feeling out of society so you have a lot more observation.”
These observations make up the first part of the exhibit, Surviving Burbank, and include, among dozens of sketches and early short films, a handmade book he submitted to Disney in the 1970s and the accompanying rejection letter. Several years later Burton achieved his goal and began working at Disney’s Burbank studios as an animator. Some of his early work for the company was as on family hits The Black Cauldron and The Fox and the Hound, which Burton physically shudders remembering.
“I was never good at drawing foxes, especially the cute ones,” he says.
“That’s why I can’t look at the exhibit because it freaks me out too much.
“I know they’ve done a good job, but it’s like seeing your dirty laundry hanging up. “`Oh there’s my underwear from 1973 and there’s some dirty socks.’

Personal embarrassment aside, the exhibition is an in-depth look at the creative processes and twisted imagination of Burton, featuring more than 700 works including drawings, early films, sculptures, concept art, installations, puppets, costumes and cinematic ephemera. The second part of the exhibition, Beautifying Burbank, follows Burton’s step away from the Disney studio and his first early film and animation works, including his rarely seen Japanese kung-fu version of Hansel and Gretel and better known works Frankenweenie and Vincent, the latter based around one of Burton’s great inspirations — horror movie icon Vincent Price.

The final section, Beyond Burbank, looks at his feature film career, which has spanned over two decades. From his early works, such as Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands, to more recent films like Charlie and The Chocolate Factory and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street, Burton has made the leap from cult to commercially successful filmmaker. His latest film, Alice In Wonderland, has grossed more than $1 billion at the international box office and gone on to become the fifth highest grossing film of all time. But Burton is quick to write-off his recent success and says if spending half his lifetime in the movie-making business has taught him anything, it is that filmmaking is a `humbling process’.

“I remember after making Batman I thought `oh, that was a success, I can go and do anything now’,” he says.
“And so I went and pitched them Edward Scissorhands and they gave me a completely blank look.
“Nobody wanted to do that and nobody wanted to do Ed Wood, so I had to go about it in other ways.
“Then I remember pitching a musical version of The House Of Wax with Michael Jackson that he was into but they, the studio, were definitely not into.
“It’s always a struggle to make a film.”

Despite the many `challenges’ faced when trying to get a project off the ground, Burton says he has faith that everything works out for a reason. He cites the studio not letting him have Sammy Davis Jr play Beetlejuice as an example, because `it opened the door for Michael Keaton’ who also went on to play Batman in Burton’s two adaptations of the comic book superhero. Another near-miss occurred when, after three hours of auditioning, Burton talked a young Tom Cruise out of wanting the role of Edward Scissorhands, which was later filled by Johnny Depp, who has become a frequent collaborator and one of Burton’s closest friends. Failed projects and major successes go hand in hand for Burton, who says he has learned `not to regret anything’.

“I don’t really regret, it’s always important not to,” he says.
“Every movie I’ve done, whether it’s turned out or not, I’ve still enjoyed aspects of it, you know?
“I mean I think the one I got the most slack with is Planet Of The Apes because that was messing with a classic.
“But I still enjoyed seeing talking apes."

One of the highlights of the exhibition is the 2.7kg costume Depp wore in Edward Scissorhands (above), which is stationed at the entrance to the exhibit along with one of the scissor hands on display in a glass cabinet. Other featured works which will have the legions of Burtonites, the name given to passionate Tim Burton fans, gushing is the famous outfit Michelle Phfieffer wore as Catwoman in Batman Returns, original puppets from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas borrowed from the Disney archives, costumes and sketches from Alice In Wonderland and the Burtonarium, a carnival tent buried deep within the exhibit which houses a light emitting sculptural work by Burton called Carousel (pictured at the very bottom).

ACMI Head of Exhibitions Conrad Bodman says the `diversity’ of the exhibits represents Burton as a filmmaker and goes a long way to explaining his loyal fan base.

“One of the things that Tim has always done is work across a range of film genres - action films, animated films, family films, horror films - and I think all of those types of films have different audiences and when you pull all those inspirations together in the one place, people want to come,” he says.
“What we’re showing in the exhibition is a lot of original concept artwork for his major feature films and we’re kind of looking at the process of his feature filmmaking over the years.
“People can see that often the hand drawn is the starting point for some ideas and then that turns into a visual reality for a whole process of development.
“Tim still does a lot of that kind of drawing, painting and making puppets for himself and people will be fascinated to see that process in action.”

Unlike many other filmmakers, Burton says he has been able to maintain his artistic integrity and stay connected to his creative roots by separating himself from the industry.

“I don’t live in Hollywood,” he says.
“I moved away many years ago and once you start doing things they try to treat you as a commodity, a thing.
“You know, you spend your whole life to be recognised as a human being and then they try to tag you as a thing.
“Like `oh, you’ve done this and that’s what we expect’ so I don’t go back and look at my films too much because I try not to become a `thing’.
“I try to keep human... no person or people should be described as one thing.
“I think everybody has lots of different aspects to their personality.
“Some are dark, funny, sad, there are so many words for each person.”

Considering Melbourne was originally to be called Batmania, after one of it’s founders John Batman, it seems appropriate that it is to be the home of Tim Burton: The Exhibition, which runs until October 11. Already ACMI has experienced a fevour amongst Burton’s Australian fans, with all of his public appearances selling out within 24 hours of going on sale and hundreds of fans queuing through Federation Square to be the first to enter the exhibit when it opened on Thursday and have copies of the exhibition guide signed by Burton himself. It is ironic that his work and films are so accepted by the society he once considered himself `outside’ of. It is a phenomenon best summed up by Burton’s partner and regular collaborator Helena Bonham Carter, with whom he has two children. In a book on the art of Tim Burton she says: “When I see him surrounded by flushed and hyperventilating young fans I feel it’s a triumph of the lonely misunderstood outsider child he once felt he was. Now he’s the most understood misunderstood person I’ve come across in the world.”

In the meantime Burton says he is enjoying a lull between live action projects, while busying himself with a feature-length adaptation of Frankenweenie (concept art), due for release next year. He emphasises the stop-motion animated film is the only project he is working on and committed to, despite online reports which have linked him to adaptations of The Addams Family and super-natural TV series Dark Shadows, both which he blatantly denies were ever `considered’.

“That’s why I never go on the internet because it always seems like I have some sort of evil clone out there that is doing all these projects,” he says.
“I’m still recovering from the last one.
“Whenever I read this stuff I get tired, I think `God, I must be busy’.
“The studios often have a release date before they have a script, which is such a mistake.
“I’m trying to get out of that and, you know, into this strange concept of having a script before you announce a release date.”

P.S. I did the good Samaritan thing on Sunday and took some boys I babysit to see The Karate Kid. Considering what I endured sitting through that movie, karma better have a pet unicorn heading my way! And while you're in the laughing mood, you must must must watch the video clip for The Karate Kid theme song: Never Say Never by Justin Bieber, featuring rapping from Jaden Smith. Hopefully this is not an indication that Smith will make a rap song to accompany every movie he makes, just like his dad. But seriously, when you look young standing next to Justin Bieber then it's time to stop rapping and get back in the womb.

VIA Picasso, Matisse and... Tim Burton!..

The move came just a day after Diyarbakir’s wall and its nearby Hevsel Gardens were added to the list as well.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Permanent Representative of Turkey to UNESCO Hüseyin Avni Botsalı – who headed the Turkish delegation at the session – described the unanimous approval of Ephesus as a great success.

“In fact, we have a great responsibility on our shoulders in terms of cooperation of the international community in this field. We will make significant efforts for the protection of civilizational values and cultural properties,” he added.

Turkish Culture and Tourism Minister Ömer Çelik celebrated the development in a series of Twitter posts.

“We have just received the second good news from Germany. Ephesus is now officially on the world heritage [list],” he said.

The minister said Ephesus had always been a key port city, as well as a cultural and commercial center, throughout history.

“A principal city of science, culture and art of its era, Ephesus had been a residential area starting from the pre-historic era and through the Hellenistic, Roman, Eastern Roman periods and also under the Ottoman Empire for about nine millennia without interruption,” he said.

Çelik also said Ephesus, which draws 2 million visitors a year, was a place that the whole world agreed was a site of global cultural heritage.

In a later interview with Anadolu Agency, Çelik noted the threat that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) posed to world heritage in neighboring countries like Syria.

“While a terrorist group called Daesh destroys cities, it is a significant message against this barbarism that Turkey as a Muslim country in the Muslim world managed to put its properties on the world heritage list,” he said, using the Arabic acronym for ISIL.

In May, ISIL militants seized the Roman ruins at the Palmyra World Heritage site in Syria’s Homs Governorate. Last week, members of ISIL destroyed a peerless statue of a lion at the site on the grounds that it is idolatrous, while it has also allegedly conducted executions at the ancient city’s famous theater.

Describing Ephesus, UNESCO said: “The Temple of Artemis, which was considered to be one of the Seven Wonders of the World, is situated on the edge of this small town. The city which was situated at the beginning of the Persian Royal Road has survived sufficiently enough to enable us to understand the ancient way of life in Ephesus. It is one of the cities which played an impressive role in the beginnings of Christianity and during the period of its proliferation (St. John Church and the shrine of the Virgin Mary). It contains one of the most spectacular examples of religious architecture of the Seljuk Period.”

Turkey first entered the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1985 with Göreme National Park and the Rock Sites of Cappadocia and the Great Mosque and Hospital of Divriği – both in central Turkey – and the historic areas of Istanbul.

The Hittite capital Hattuşa was added to the list in 1986, followed by Mount Nemrut in Adıyaman 1987, and Hierapolis-Pamukkale in Denizli and the ancient city of Xanthos-Letoon between Muğla and Fethiye in 1988.

In 1994, the city of Safranbolu was approved as a world heritage while the archaeological site of Troy was added to the list in 1998. In recent year, Edirne’s Selimiye Mosque and its social complex was added in 2011, as was Konya’s Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in 2012.

The latest entries in 2014 were Bursa’s Cumalikızık village which witnessed the birth of the Ottoman Empire and İzmir’s ancient city of Pergamon and its multi-layered cultural landscape.

Source: Hurriyet Daily News [July 06, 2015]

At a meeting this week in Bonn, Germany, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee voted 13-2, with five abstentions, to keep the Old City on its list of endangered World Heritage sites. It condemned the “persistence of the Israeli illegal excavations” in the Old City and a series of Israeli initiatives outside it, including the Jerusalem light rail line that runs near the Old City walls, the City of David archaeological site in Silwan and an elevator at the Western Wall, which UNESCO said severely affects the “visual integrity and the authentic character of the site.”

UNESCO is the United Nations’ education, cultural and scientific organization.

Dore Gold, the director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, condemned the committee’s decision as a one-sided resolution and noted its failure to cite any Jewish connection to Jerusalem, referring to the Temple Mount area only as a “Muslim holy site of worship.”

The UNESCO committee also expressed concern with an Israeli plan to build a cable car system in eastern Jerusalem, restrictions on freedom of access to the Temple Mount, and Jewish visits to the site, which the committee called “Israeli extremist groups’ continuous incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound.”

David Harris of the American Jewish Committee called it ironic that “at a time when Islamist terrorists are destroying world heritage sites in Syria and Iraq, this UNESCO committee hypocritically chooses to attack the record of Israel, which has carefully and diligently protected the worship sites of all religions.”

Source: JTA [July 10, 2015]

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The violence left the bomber and one gunman dead, the other wounded and arrested, and four other people wounded. The temple was not damaged.

The attackers carried guns in backpacks, and one wore a belt of explosives. They rode in a taxi through a police checkpoint to a parking lot and sat at a cafe and ordered lemonades, witnesses told The Associated Press. The taxi driver, suspicious after they refused his offer to help with the packs, alerted police.

When a policeman approached, the bomber tried to hug him, but the policeman wrestled away. Seconds later, he detonated the explosives, and the others pulled automatic weapons from their bags and opened fire wildly, sending a small group of European tourists running for cover, the witnesses said.

The attack followed one this month outside the famed Giza Pyramids in which gunmen killed two policemen. The violence points to a change in tactics by Islamic militants against the government of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. For two years, attacks have been centered in the Sinai Peninsula, mostly by a group that has sworn allegiance to the Islamic State group and largely focused on retaliation against police and soldiers.

A campaign against tourism, one of the main sources of foreign revenue, could deal a blow to el-Sissi's promises to repair Egypt's economy.

Tourism has just started to show signs of recovery after plunging in the turmoil since the 2011 uprising that ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak. The first five months of this year saw tourism revenues up 9 percent from the same period last year, Tourism Minister Khaled Ramy said.

Ramy said he expects the slow recovery to continue despite the attack, and he underscored how police had thwarted it.

"Security forces were there. It's a very important message to everyone," he told the AP on a flight from Cairo to Luxor.

Mohammed Sayed Badr, the governor of Luxor province, said the attack was "an attempt to break into the temple of Karnak."

"They didn't make it in," he said.

But witnesses noted it was civilian bystanders who alerted police to the threat.

Karnak, one of Egypt's biggest attractions, is a giant complex of temples, statues, obelisks and columns built by pharaonic dynasties alongside the Nile. The oldest sections date back nearly 4,000 years.

Access to the site is through a gate and a roadblock, leading to a parking lot and visitors' center hundreds of yards from the ancient structure, which is reachable only on foot.

The waiter who served the men said only one spoke to him and had an accent from northern Egypt, while the others stopped talking when he approached. When they paid their bill, he said he refused to take their tip.

"They looked scary. ... One of them had really bad eyes," said the waiter, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Ikrami, for fear of problems with police for talking to the media.

Another cafe employee, Abdel-Nasser Mohammed, said the taxi driver reported his suspicions about the men to police. As the three walked away, a policeman approached them, leading to the tussle between the officer and the bomber, Mohammed said.

The bomber triggered the blast near a public restroom, and the other two opened fire. One ran toward the visitors' center, and a policeman shot him in the head, Mohammed said.

Tourist shop owner Sheik Ahmed Abdel-Mawgoud said he been standing near the restroom only seconds before the blast.

"When the explosion happened, I ran for cover and told my friend, a tour guide, to run with the tourists with him. I screamed at him, 'Terrorism!'" he told the AP.
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The exchange of fire with police lasted several minutes, witnesses said, and two policemen were among the wounded.

Only a handful of tourists and Egyptians were in the temple at the time, security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

AP video of the scene showed what was believed to be the remains of the bomber covered with a black sheet with pools of blood nearby.

The monument "is safe and unaffected and visitors continue to arrive," temple director Mohammed Abdel-Aziz told the AP. Four groups of foreigners visited after the attack.

There was no claim of responsibility, but the attack bore the hallmarks of Islamic militants who have operating in the Sinai Peninsula.

Last year, the main Sinai-based insurgent group, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, which has destroyed archaeological landmarks in Syria and Iraq, viewing them as idolatrous.

The violence in Sinai accelerated and spread to other parts of Egypt following the 2013 military overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. The militants say the attacks are in retaliation for a massive crackdown on Islamists in Egypt.

A senior security official said investigators are looking to see whether the Luxor attackers are Egyptians and whether it marks an expansion of the violence to southern Egypt, which was a breeding ground for the militants of the 1990s and 2000.

In the 1990s, Islamic militants targeted tourism to try to undermine the economy. The deadliest attack was in Luxor in November 1997, 58 people were killed at the 3,400-year-old Hatshepsut Temple.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters, said the new breed of militants were unknown to the authorities. But he said the latest attack was a qualitative shift in the militants' target.

The attack coincided with a major regional economic summit, hosted by el-Sissi at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Luxor is home to some of Egypt's most famous ancient temples and pharaonic tombs, including that of King Tutankhamun. The city has been one the sites hit hardest by the sharp downturn in foreign visitors since the 2011 uprising.

Before the turmoil, tourism accounted for as much as 20 percent of Egypt's foreign currency revenues, with as a high of 14.7 million visitors in 2010.

After the uprising, those numbers plunged to 9.6 million, and then fell lower in 2013 after Morsi's ouster. Tourists have been coming back slowly, with revenues jumping to $4 billion so far this year, compared with $1.9 billion in the same period in 2014.

Beach resorts in southern Sinai and along the Red Sea coast have drawn most of the visitors, with cultural sites like Luxor seeing only a trickle. Most tourists in the searing heat of the summer months come to Luxor only for a one-day trip from the Red Sea resort of Hurghada.

Wednesday's attack is likely to result in cancellations in bookings for Luxor, although the blow is cushioned by the fact that it is low season and most tourists stay away until October.

Three major German operators, TUI Deutschland, the Germany branch of Thomas Cook and L'TUR, said they are temporarily canceling excursions to Luxor, but stressed that most of their customers are at Red Sea resorts or on Nile cruises.

"We have no reason to advise against traveling to Egypt at the present time, since the German Foreign Ministry hasn't changed its security guidance," said L'TUR spokesman Thomas Pluennecke. "But, as a precaution, we have stopped all excursions to Luxor. Of course we take the situation seriously."

Authors: Sarah el Deeb & Haggag Salama | Source: The Associated Press [June 10, 2015]