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☆ Who Owns the Benin Bronzes? The Answer Just Got More Complicated.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-04 | by ( Alex Marshall | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

After years of ignored pleas and stonewalled requests, deals were finally coming together to return some of Africa’s most prized treasures to the continent. The Smithsonian Institution, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the German government announced they were returning scores of sculptures, plaques and ornaments, known as the Benin Bronzes, that British soldiers had plundered in 1897 from Benin City, in what is now Nigeria but was once the center of a kingdom. Plans were underway for a glittering new museum designed by the British Ghanaian architect David Adjaye to showcase and protect the returned treasures. At a moment when museums worldwide are trying to come to grips with contested artifacts in their collections, this development underscores how complex restitution efforts can be. It decreed that any returned artifacts “may be kept within the palace of the oba,” or in any location that he considers secure.

Persons: David Adjaye, Muhammadu Buhari, oba Organizations: Smithsonian Institution, Metropolitan Museum of Art Locations: Benin, Benin City, Nigeria, British Ghanaian

The unboxed assembly process is intended to enable Tesla to hit that ambitious price target. Several big questions loom: What sort of impact will Tesla's process have on the auto industry overall? Body panels are painted separately, then joined together toward the end of the assembly process. If everything works as planned, the unboxed process could rewrite the industry's standard playbook and practices. Oba worked previously for the Toyota Production System Support Center, a division that helps the automaker's suppliers and others implement TPS.

☆ Return of Benin Bronzes delayed after Nigerian president's decree
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Macdonald Dzirutwe | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

But an official gazette signed by President Muhammadu Buhari on March 28 said the Oba of Benin was the rightful owner of all returned Benin Bronzes and was responsible for the management of all places where the artefacts were kept. The commission has in the past signed agreements to return looted artefacts, including from Cambridge college and Germany. The University of Cambridge's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. There have been questions on whether Nigeria has capacity to safely keep artefacts returned from abroad. The palace has previously said it planned to build a museum to house returned artefacts.

☆ Asteroid discovery suggests ingredients for life on Earth came from space
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( Will Dunham | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

[1/3] The carbonaceous asteroid Ryugu is seen from a distance of about 12 miles (20 km) during the Japanese Space Agency's Hayabusa2 mission on June 30, 2018. Scientists said on Tuesday they detected uracil and niacin in rocks obtained by the Japanese Space Agency's Hayabusa2 spacecraft from two sites on Ryugu in 2019. Scientists long have pondered about the conditions necessary for life to arise after Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago. "It was directly sampled on the asteroid Ryugu and returned to Earth, and finally to laboratories without any contact with terrestrial contaminants." The U.S. space agency NASA during its OSIRIS-REx mission collected samples in 2020 from the asteroid Bennu.

LONDON, Jan 3 (Reuters) - Credit Suisse (CSGN.S) announced a series of staff changes on Tuesday following the departure of the co-head of its European investment banking operation, according to internal memos seen by Reuters and confirmed by a company spokesperson. Monarchi is now sole IBCM head for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), whereas Geller has been named sole global head of M&A. Additionally, William Mansfield, head of EMEA Consumer & Retail M&A, has taken up Deasy's responsibilities as head of EMEA M&A. Deasy's exit, which was first reported by Financial News, is the latest in a string of departures as Credit Suisse embarks on a plan to cut thousands of jobs and shift its focus from investment banking towards more stable wealth management. Alongside the promotions, the Swiss lender also said it had hired Credit Agricole (CAGR.PA) banker Gen Oba as co-head of IBCM in France, Belgium and Luxembourg.

☆ ‘Elesin Oba: The King’s Horseman’ Review: Tradition Interrupted
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( John Anderson | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

If a viewer wants to kick off his algorithms and settle into that elusive “something different” on Netflix, a welcome destination would be “ Elesin Oba : The King’s Horseman,” the last movie by the Nigerian novelist, playwright and filmmaker Biyi Bandele , who died in August. His “Half of a Yellow Sun” with Chiwetel Ejiofor and Thandiwe Newton was a successful adaptation of the Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie novel back in 2013, but “Horseman” is something else, a combination celebration of and elegy for cultural autonomy and something of a cheeky homage to African cinema. Based on the play “Death and the King’s Horseman” by Wole Soyinka (winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature), the story is based on actual events during World War II, when Nigeria was an occupied British colony. The eponymous horseman is a Yoruba chief who is about to commit ritual suicide; the people’s king has been dead a month and it is time for Elesin Oba (the lusty Odunlade Adekola ) to follow his ruler into the afterlife (lest the king be left to wander and bring ill on his people). The British, as directed by the colonial magistrate, Simon Pilkings ( Mark Elderkin ), think suicide is a profoundly bad idea and set out to save Elesin’s life, even if it means killing people in the process.

The repatriation is part of a worldwide movement by cultural institutions to return artifacts that were often stolen during colonial wars. African nations and scholars have put pressure on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, to return stolen African artifacts for years, according to Chika Okeke-Agulu, program director of African studies at Princeton University. But he said most African artifacts tend to remain in Europe. The following year, he commissioned a report focusing on restitution efforts, which commenced a repatriation movement of African artifacts throughout Europe. Abba Isa Tijani, director-general of Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments, agrees, hoping the recent transfer of the African bronze sculpture inspires more museums to return African artifacts, opening the door for better relationships.

☆ Here's how the US-North Korea nuclear crisis could unfold before year-end
▼ + stars: | 2019-12-11 | by ( Stella Soon | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un smile during a meeting at the second U.S.-North Korea summit in Hanoi on Feb. 28, 2019. North Korean state media claimed Saturday that they had conducted a "very important" test at a rocket-testing site — the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground — that Pyongyang promised to dismantle after the first Trump-Kim summit in June 2018. In response, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Twitter that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un risks losing "everything" if he acts in a hostile manner. To that, North Korean state media on Monday called Trump an "old man bereft of patience" and "heedless and erratic." Trump tweet: Kim Jong Un is too smart and has far too much to lose, everything actually, if he acts in a hostile way.

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