Skeleton of tyrannosaurus bataar. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

Florida dealer seeks return of seized dinosaur skeleton

 Skeleton of tyrannosaurus bataar. Heritage Auctions image.

Skeleton of tyrannosaurus bataar. Heritage Auctions image.

NEW YORK (AP) – A Florida fossils dealer whose dinosaur was seized by the U.S. government so it could be given to the government of Mongolia wants it back.

Lawyers for Eric Prokopi, of Gainesville, Fla., said in court papers filed Monday that he was victim of a media campaign stirred up by academic paleontologists.

The government seized the Tyrannosaurus bataar skeleton, known as Ty, in June. It had sued to obtain the bones, which had been sold at an auction for $1.05 million.

According to the court papers, Prokopi and Dallas-based auction house Heritage Auctions were in negotiations with Mongolia’s president to settle the dispute when the U.S. filed a seizure lawsuit to obtain the dinosaur.

The government had no immediate comment on Monday. The auction house has said it wants a “fair and just resolution.”

A judge had ordered the U.S. government to seize the dinosaur from a storage facility in New York after the U.S. claimed it had been brought into the country with bogus documents. The U.S. said the documents disguised the dinosaur skeleton, which originated in Mongolia, as reptile bones from Great Britain.

Prokopi has said in a statement that he brought the bones into the country in March 2010 when they were just chunks of rocks and broken bones. He said he turned them into “an impressive skeleton.”

According to the court papers, about 25 percent of the dinosaur is made of inorganic, plastic material molded from other fossil specimens while 50 percent is from one bataar specimen and the rest is from other specimens.

The court papers called the effort to return the 70 million-year-old skeleton to Mongolia unprecedented, saying fossils from China, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Russia have been openly sold on the international market and collected in the United States by people and museums for generations.

Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-WF-08-21-12 0026GMT


ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE


 Skeleton of tyrannosaurus bataar. Heritage Auctions image.

Skeleton of tyrannosaurus bataar. Heritage Auctions image.

The Old Post Office Building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington.This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Trumps discuss plans for Old Post Office development

The Old Post Office Building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington.This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

The Old Post Office Building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington.This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

WASHINGTON (AP) – In a city of stately buildings, the Old Post Office is an especially fine piece of real estate. It’s 315 feet tall, just behind the Washington Monument (impressive, but not available). It’s historic, celebrated and on prestigious Pennsylvania Avenue.

The perfect building for Donald Trump.

Trump and his daughter Ivanka are close to adding the national landmark to the growing portfolio of shiny Trump things. The Old Post Office Pavilion is so revered that the threat of its demolition launched the capital’s historic preservation movement. Built in the 1890s, it has been ogled by local developers for years, and competition for the property began to boil almost immediately when the federal government sought private partners in March 2011.

When the government announced in February that it had selected the Trump plan to turn the building into a luxury hotel, it stunned Washington real estate insiders and politicos alike.

Critics have not held back. They say the Trumps are famous for making unrealistic promises and suing to get their way. They say the $200 million the Trumps have proposed to spend renovating the Old Post Office is not economically sensible, setting the project up for failure. The Trumps have built fewer hotels than their competitors and have never navigated Washington’s political and regulatory landscape. This, the critics say, should matter.

Trump, sitting in the 26th floor office of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, smiles from behind his desk at the criticism. It’s a grin familiar to millions of Americans who watch The Apprentice, which he tapes downstairs.

“In a way, we are paying too much for the Old Post Office,” he says casually. “I mean, we are paying too much for the Old Post Office. But we will make that so amazing that at some point in the future it’ll be very nice.”

Fifty years into his real estate career, confidence is a luxury that Trump says he can afford, although that was not always the case.

Trump was 37 and already famous when he completed 58-story Trump Tower, the Fifth Avenue building with pink marble interiors where he lives and works.

But his early triumphs prompted an ambitious entrance into Atlantic City in the 1980s that nearly cost him his fortune. Four times Trump-branded casino companies filed for bankruptcy to ward off creditors in the 1990s and early 2000s, although he has no role managing the companies today.

He staged his return, renegotiating loans and returning to bold skyscraper projects, such as the 72-story Trump World Tower in Manhattan, which a New York Times architecture critic dubbed a “handsome hunk of a glass tower,” and the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, an $850 million hotel and condominium project completed in 2009 that is the second-tallest building in the city. His expansion into golf courses includes the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, where he plays a half dozen times a year and stays when he is in town.

With the help of The Apprentice, which debuted in 2004, and Celebrity Apprentice, Trump also took his name from one associated with resorts, casinos and a playboy lifestyle to a luxury brand, one that adds value to his properties the way LeBron James’s does sneakers and Paula Deen’s does skillets.

Terry J. Lundgren, chairman and chief executive of Macy’s, says Trump’s brand works. Macy’s sells Trump-branded neckties, shirts and cuff links, helped by the millions of viewers who see Trump wearing the solid color silk ties and French cuff shirts on prime time.

“I see his image being attached not just to real estate but just general business success,” Lundgren said.

That brand carries value in the hotel industry, according to David Loeb, managing director and senior real estate research analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co.

“Trump has cultivated an image that a lot of people do respond to,” he said. “And the Trump name is recognized, maybe not globally, but in international and domestic markets. And frankly the Trump hotels have achieved a reputation of being high-end luxury hotels in places like New York and Chicago.”

But having a highly rated television show and a line of successful neckties were not among the criteria the General Services Administration sought in a private developer for the Old Post Office, and the task of convincing the agency that the Trump Organization was the best choice to develop the building fell to Ivanka.

A celebrity herself, who learned details of her parents’ divorce from New York tabloids and whose ballet recital as a child was attended by her neighbor Michael Jackson, Ivanka has graced the cover of fashion and lifestyle magazines from Seventeen to Harper’s Bazaar.

A Wharton graduate who strikes a serious tone discussing real estate, she played a role in developing Chicago’s Trump International Hotel and Tower and took the lead on a $150 million purchase of the Doral Golf Resort and Spa on 800 acres outside Miami.

As vice president of her father’s company, Ivanka considered Washington one of the most attractive markets in the world to build the family’s ninth luxury hotel worldwide.

“For us I would say if there was a top priority market,” she said, “I would put Washington at the top of the list globally.”

But the Trumps prefer to build the biggest building that zoning rules, physics and airplane flight patterns allow. In Washington, a federal law prevents most buildings from exceeding 130 feet, less than one-tenth the height of the family’s Chicago property.

When the competition began last April, Ivanka, with her brother Eric, joined dozens of developers, architects and investors in a walk-through of the building, past kitschy Americana shops full of postcards and T-shirts; through a vacant, unheated and crumbling rear annex; up into the clock tower with soaring views of the National Mall.

As she mingled with other bidders – operators of some of the world’s most luxurious hotels – Ivanka realized the Old Post Office, on Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the Capitol, was the building she wanted.

“I wouldn’t be interested in entering that market unless we could do so with a product that had the potential to be the best, and this is an opportunity we saw where we could accomplish that,” Ivanka said. “It’s not replicable – the beauty of this building, the location, the potential.”

Ivanka began assembling a bid last spring, traveling almost weekly on the Acela train to buttoned-down Washington to tour the building and competing luxury hotels with investors, engineers and architects.

Ivanka, who has her own brand of shoes, jewelry, handbags and coats (with perfume and sunglasses on the way), chose an architect, Arthur Cotton Moore, who was born and raised in Washington. He also began studying and working renovation plans for the building in the early 1970s. Rebecca Miller, executive director of the nonprofit D.C. Preservation League, says Cotton is “intimately familiar with the building.”

The Moore selection bolstered the organization’s experience restoring or managing historic buildings in New York. In developing the Grand Hyatt hotel, one of his earliest projects, Trump renovated the exterior of Grand Central Terminal. More recently he bought and renovated the Hotel Delmonico (built: 1929) and the Mayfair Hotel (1925) and converted both to luxury condominiums.

To put up the money for the Old Post Office project, the Trumps partnered with Colony Capital, a private-equity firm in California. Together they offered $200 million to renovate the building into a luxury hotel, spa and three restaurants and $3 million in annual base rent. (The Trumps declined to provide their full proposal, and the GSA declined to provide either the proposal or documents related to it in response to an open records request.)

Trump also would not say how much of the cash he will provide (“We’ll be putting in a lot of money”) but said he has avoided the debt problems that plagued him in past years. Indeed, he has been buying others’ properties out of bankruptcy and distress. The Trumps bought the Doral golf resort out of bankruptcy in June and the 776-acre Kluge Estate Winery and Vineyard, outside Charlottesville, for $6 million at a bank auction last year after it was foreclosed on with more than $20 million remaining on mortgages.

With commercial lending thin, the Trumps say they have put more than $120 million into their Chicago tower and $50 million into acquiring and beginning work on a 1,400-acre golf course and resort in Scotland.

Trump has rarely steered free from controversy, however. While his daughter was doing her best to win over GSA officials – whose leadership was appointed by President Obama – her father was suggesting the president was not born in the United States, that he wasn’t qualified to attend Ivy League schools and that he was, in fact, “the worst president ever.”

At the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, when Obama struck back in an extended and personal way, joking that Trump’s decision to fire actor Gary Busey from an episode of Celebrity Apprentice represented “the kinds of decisions that would keep me up at night,” Trump glowered back. Might he be ruining his company’s chances in Washington?

“I often wondered about that to be honest with you,” Trump said in his office, surrounded by magazine covers bearing his face. “Was I hurting, was I helping? Now, I couldn’t change. I can’t say, ‘Oh gee, I want to get the Old Post Office so I’ll go undercover for six months.’”

Ivanka said she was apprehensive about backlash over her father’s pronouncements.

“Look, I think there are a lot of people who assumed we wouldn’t be selected because of the politics,” she said. “I certainly had my fair share of concern that that would affect us adversely.”

After receiving 10 bids for the project – from Hilton, Park Hyatt, Montage Hotels & Resorts and the National Museum of the Jewish People – GSA officials asked their teams to present their proposals during a three-day period in December.

Trump and Ivanka flew by private jet from a family event in Florida to Dulles International Airport for a 1 o’clock presentation Dec. 19 at the GSA’s blocky regional headquarters near L’Enfant Plaza. Their plan: a 261-room deluxe hotel with three restaurants, a Trump-branded spa, plus a lounge, 35,000-square-foot banquet facilities and a curated museum dedicated to the building’s history and the Congress Bells.

In selecting the Trump plan two months later GSA officials – under heavy pressure from Congress and the president to produce savings from under-utilized real estate – pointed to the $200 million in announcing the selection, saying the project would “save millions in taxpayer dollars” and “provide a positive economic return for the Federal Government.”

But the selection set off a revolt among some competing bidders. District developer Monument Realty complained to news media and congressional staff that it had offered more in rent for the property. Hilton Worldwide and its hometown president and chief executive, Arlington native Christopher J. Nassetta, had proposed a Waldorf Astoria for the building in tandem with Reston-based developer Metropolitan Partnership. Metropolitan filed a protest in April, criticizing the selection process and taking aim at Trump’s history of bankruptcies, lack of experience in Washington and plan for the property.

“The record of Trump bankruptcies indicates that Trump will be an unreliable business partner,” wrote Cary Euwer of Metropolitan. “Trump has a distinctly different posture at bid and award press conferences than it has in bankruptcy and court proceedings that emerge as a project fails. The public record reveals that Trump projects often fail, and fail with a great deal of negative publicity.”

Metropolitan offered to spend only $140 million to renovate the building, compared to Trump’s $200 million, but argued that Trump’s proposal, “would require Trump to obtain hotel room revenues which are simply not obtainable in the Old Post Office’s location based on the concepts for redevelopment.”

GSA contracting officer Kevin Terry responded with a seven-page letter rejecting the protest for procedural reasons and defending the Trump choice, saying Trump’s estimates for revenue per hotel room, when compared with other hotel bidders, were “by no means unreasonable.”

Trump gloats about the victory, saying, “We will build the greatest hotel that Washington has ever seen.”

“There will never have been a comparable hotel to what we’re going to do with the Old Post Office.”

Ivanka, now busily at work meeting with historic preservation officials, balks at suggestions that she and the company would damage the building’s historic aspects. “Anyone who is concerned about how we may alter or affect the historic character of the building can be assuaged by looking at our plans,” Ivanka said, adding. “This isn’t, I think, a very polarizing concept.”

Trump said he wasn’t so focused on making money and has no timeline for when the project ought to show a return on the investment. Is there a market of Washington travelers willing to pay up to $700 to stay in a hotel with his name on it?

“Maybe, and maybe not,” he said. “And you know if there isn’t, it’s OK, because we have a lot of money. And we’ll have a beautiful painting.”

___

Information from: The Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com

Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-WF-08-18-12 1720GMT


ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE


The Old Post Office Building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington.This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

The Old Post Office Building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington.This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

The end of the railroad line at Sobibor, the notorious Nazi German 'extermination' camp located on the outskirts of Sobibor, occupied Poland. Photo by Jacques Lahitte, 2007, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

Israeli archaeologist digs into Nazi death camp

The end of the railroad line at Sobibor, the notorious Nazi German 'extermination' camp located on the outskirts of Sobibor, occupied Poland. Photo by Jacques Lahitte, 2007, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

The end of the railroad line at Sobibor, the notorious Nazi German ‘extermination’ camp located on the outskirts of Sobibor, occupied Poland. Photo by Jacques Lahitte, 2007, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

KIRYAT MALACHI, Israel (AP) — When Israeli archaeologist Yoram Haimi decided to investigate his family’s unknown Holocaust history, he turned to the skill he knew best: He began to dig.

After learning that two of his uncles were murdered in the infamous Sobibor death camp, he embarked on a landmark excavation project that is shining new light on the workings of one of the most notorious Nazi killing machines, including pinpointing the location of the gas chambers where hundreds of thousands were killed.

Sobibor, in eastern Poland, marks perhaps the most vivid example of the “Final Solution,” the Nazi plot to wipe out European Jewry. Unlike other camps that had at least a facade of being prison or labor camps, Sobibor and the neighboring camps Belzec and Treblinka were designed specifically for exterminating Jews. Victims were transported there in cattle cars and gassed to death almost immediately.

But researching Sobibor has been difficult. After an October 1943 uprising at the camp, the Nazis shut it down and leveled it to the ground, replanting over it to cover their tracks.

Today, tall trees cover most of the former camp grounds. Because there were so few survivors — only 64 were known — there has never been an authentic layout of the camp, where the Nazis are believed to have murdered some 250,000 Jews over an 18-month period. From those few survivors’ memories and partial German documentation, researchers had only limited understanding of how the camp operated.

“I feel like I am an investigator in a criminal forensic laboratory,” Haimi, 51, said near his home in southern Israel this week, a day before departing for another dig in Poland. “After all, it is a murder scene.”

Over five years of excavations, Haimi has been able to remap the camp and has unearthed thousands of items. He hasn’t found anything about his family, but amid the teeth, bone shards and ashes through which he has sifted, he has recovered jewelry, keys and coins that have helped identify some of Sobibor’s formerly nameless victims.

The heavy concentration of ashes led him to estimate that far more than 250,000 Jews were actually killed at Sobibor.

“Because of the lack of information about Sobibor, every little piece of information is significant,” said Haimi. “No one knew where the gas chambers were. The Germans didn’t want anyone to find out what was there. But thanks to what we have done, they didn’t succeed.”

The most touching find thus far, he said, has been an engraved metal identification tag bearing the name of Lea Judith de la Penha, a 6-year-old Jewish girl from Holland who Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial confirmed was murdered at the camp.

Haimi calls her the “symbol of Sobibor.”

“The Germans didn’t discriminate. They killed little girls too,” he said. “This thing (the tag) has been waiting for 70 years for someone to find it.”

Haimi’s digs, backed by Yad Vashem, could serve as a template for future scholarship into the Holocaust, in which the Nazis and their collaborators killed about 6 million Jews.

“I think the use of archaeology offers the possibility of giving us information that we didn’t have before,” Deborah Lipstadt, a prominent American Holocaust historian from Emory University, said. “It gives us another perspective when we are at the stage when we have very few people who can speak in the first person singular.”

She said that if the archaeological evidence points to a higher death toll at Sobibor than previously thought, “it is not out of sync with other research that has been done.”

Haimi’s basic method is similar to what he does at home, where he does digs for Israel’s antiquites authority in the south of the country — cutting out squares of land and sifting the earth through a filter. Because of the difficult conditions at Sobibor and the sensitive nature of the effort, he is also relying on more non-invasive, high-tech aids such as ground-penetrating radar and global positioning satellite imaging.

Based on debris collected and patterns in the soil, he has been able to figure out where the Nazis placed poles to hold up the camp’s barbed wire fences.

That led him to his major breakthrough — the mapping of what the Germans called the Himmelfahrsstrasse, or the “Road to Heaven,” a path upon which the inmates were marched naked into the gas chambers. He determined its route by the poles that marked the path. From that, he determined where the gas chambers would have been located.

He also discovered that another encampment was not located where originally thought and uncovered an internal train route within Sobibor. He dug up mounds of bullets at killing sites, utensils from where he believes the camp kitchen was located and a swastika insignia of a Nazi officer.

Along the way, he and his Polish partner Wojciech Mazurek, along with some 20 laborers, have stumbled on thousands of personal items belonging to the victims: eye glasses, perfume bottles, dentures, rings, watches, a child’s Mickey Mouse pin, a diamond-studded gold chain, a pair of gold earrings inscribed ER — apparently the owner’s initials — a silver medallion engraved with the name “Hanna.”

He also uncovered a unique version of the yellow star Jews were forced to wear by the Nazis, made out of metal instead of cloth, which researchers determined to have originated in Slovakia.

Marek Bem, a former director of the museum at Sobibor, said the first excavations began at the site in 2001, with several stages before he invited Haimi to join in 2007. He said the mapping of the 200-meter (yard) long Himmelfahrsstrasse opens the door for looking for the actual gas chambers.

“We are nearer the truth,” he said. “It tells us where to look for the gas chambers.”

Haimi is not allowed to take any of the items out of Poland, but he consults regularly with Yad Vashem’s International Institute for Holocaust Research, which helps him interpret his findings and gives them historical perspective.

Dan Michman, head of the institute, said Haimi’s research helps shed light on the “technical aspects” of the Holocaust. It also grants insight, for example, on what people chose to take with them in their final moments.

“His details are exact and that is an important tool against Holocaust denial. It’s not memories, it’s based on facts. It’s hard evidence,” he said.

But the accurate layout is Haimi’s greatest contribution, allowing researchers to learn more about how it functioned, said Deborah Dwork, director of the Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University in Worcester, Mass.

She said some critics have suggested that the sites of former death camps are “sacred” and “should remain untouched.” But she said she believes the excavation is justified. “I feel that our need for knowledge outweighs those concerns.”

Once his work in Sobibor is done, Haimi hopes to move on to research at Treblinka and other destroyed death camps.

Though archaeology is usually identified with the study of ancient history, Haimi thinks that with survivors rapidly dying it could soon become a key element in understanding the Holocaust.

“This is the future research tool of the Holocaust,” he said.

#   #   #

Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE


The end of the railroad line at Sobibor, the notorious Nazi German 'extermination' camp located on the outskirts of Sobibor, occupied Poland. Photo by Jacques Lahitte, 2007, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

The end of the railroad line at Sobibor, the notorious Nazi German ‘extermination’ camp located on the outskirts of Sobibor, occupied Poland. Photo by Jacques Lahitte, 2007, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

Chiang Kai-shek. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Authenticity of Chiang Kai-shek medal in question

Chiang Kai-shek. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Chiang Kai-shek. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

HONG KONG (AP) – A medal awarded to late Taiwanese leader Chiang Kai-shek is going up for auction in Hong Kong, even though Taiwan’s defense ministry says it’s not the original.

The Order of Blue Sky and White Sun medal is going on the block Friday. It’s expected to fetch 3-5 million Hong Kong dollars ($387,000-$645,000).

Auction house Spink says Chiang was awarded the medal in 1930 by his Nationalist government, which ruled much of China while fighting a civil war with the Communists. In 1949, the defeated Nationalists fled to Taiwan and set up a rival regime.

Taiwan’s defense ministry said last week, after Spink announced plans for the auction, that Chiang was laid to rest in a mausoleum with the medal when he died in 1975.

But at a press preview on Tuesday for the sale, collector and scholar Chuk Hong-ming said Chiang was buried with a duplicate medal.

“Before 1995, it was the usual practice to give a new set of the medals to a general who passed away for burial,” he said.

The auction house says it’s the first time the medal has ever gone up for auction.

Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-WF-08-21-12 1120GMT


ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE


Chiang Kai-shek. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Chiang Kai-shek. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Model of Gazprom's proposed Lakhta Centre in St. Petersburg, Russia. Upon its planned completion in 2018, it will become the tallest building in Europe. Photo by Evgeny Gerashchenko, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.

Hopes revived for Gazprom’s giant tower in St. Petersburg

Model of Gazprom's proposed Lakhta Centre in St. Petersburg, Russia. Upon its planned completion in 2018, it will become the tallest building in Europe. Photo by Evgeny Gerashchenko, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.

Model of Gazprom’s proposed Lakhta Centre in St. Petersburg, Russia. Upon its planned completion in 2018, it will become the tallest building in Europe. Photo by Evgeny Gerashchenko, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.

MOSCOW (AFP) – Natural gas giant Gazprom’s long-delayed and controversial ambitions of building Europe’s tallest skyscraper in Russia’s heritage-proud cultural capital of Saint Petersburg have been revived.

The project operator revealed quietly on its website on Monday that President Vladimir Putin’s native city had been given it the go-ahead to build the Lakhta Centre on the canal-laced city’s outskirts near the Gulf of Finland.

The statement quickly added that the spire-like glass building of nearly 500 meters (1,640 feet) would also provide “a number of public services, including stores, restaurants and cafe.”

But local media immediately grumbled about the manner in which the decision was fast-tracked without debate and made in possible violation of rules from the anxiously-watching cultural authorities at the UN cultural body UNESCO.

The proposed structure is even taller than the 403-meter (1,322-foot) one the city barred Gazprom from building in 2010 after a massive campaign by local preservation groups and UN intervention.

The city of what is now 4.7 million — sprawling because most of its buildings are distinctly squat — was built over marshland by Tsar Peter the Great in the early 18th century using slave labor at great cost of life.

That tragic start did not stop the imperial capital from developing a reputation as Russia’s “window to Europe” that embraced both Western culture and ideas.

But Saint Petersburg has since developed a reputation as the breeding ground of a new generation of Kremlin insiders that descended on Moscow with Putin in the past decade and now runs Russia with a decidedly authoritarian twist.

The authorities’ apparent intention to put up what is effectively a monument to the state’s most important enterprise prompted UNESCO to threaten to exclude the city’s entire historic centre from its list of World Heritage sites.

Putin then grudingly and urged the locals to reconsider. The governor’s office gave up on the original prominent location but not the Gazprom tower idea itself.

The new site sits on the northwestern edge of the city near the Gulf of Finland in an area that had remained largely undeveloped until recent years.

But activists said this would hardly help address the basic problem — that the shining object of unusual shape would still loom over the venerable city’s horizon and be visible from almost any spot.

“Even nine kilometers (5.6 miles) from the center, the building will be the most prominent object that an eye can see,” said local legislature member Boris Vishnevsky of the opposition Yabloko party.

Gazprom has a close association with Saint Petersburg and currently spends tens of millions of dollars per year to sponsor its championship-winning football team Zenit.

But scandal hit Gazprom almost immediately when local media noted that the decision to build at the new location had been reached nearly two weeks before a planned public debate on the project.

“Of course it would have been more logical to hold the hearings first and make the decision later,” Saint Petersburg’s zaks.ru news website quoted construction adviser Alexander Karpov as saying. “But it seems that considering how poorly the last hearings went, (Gazprom’s) project manager decided not to make the same mistake again.”

#   #   #


ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE


Model of Gazprom's proposed Lakhta Centre in St. Petersburg, Russia. Upon its planned completion in 2018, it will become the tallest building in Europe. Photo by Evgeny Gerashchenko, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.

Model of Gazprom’s proposed Lakhta Centre in St. Petersburg, Russia. Upon its planned completion in 2018, it will become the tallest building in Europe. Photo by Evgeny Gerashchenko, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.

View of the scultpure garden at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC. Photo by Gryffindor.

Washington museum is shut after guard shoots himself

View of the scultpure garden at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC. Photo by Gryffindor.

View of the scultpure garden at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC. Photo by Gryffindor.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A modern art museum on the National Mall in Washington was forced to close its doors on Monday after a security guard committed suicide on the premises, museum officials said.

A 41-year-old guard, who worked at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden for 10 years, shot himself in the guards’ locker room, located in the basement of the facility, a museum official told AFP.

The museum was evacuated in the early afternoon and closed for the rest of the day, while police conducted an investigation.

The Hirshhorn reopened to the public on Tuesday.

#   #   #

 


ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE


View of the scultpure garden at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC. Photo by Gryffindor.

View of the scultpure garden at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC. Photo by Gryffindor.

Antique Dewey upright slot machine, est. $52,500-$105,000. Government Auctions image.

Gold coins, Rolex watches join coin ops, jewels at Govt. Auction, Aug. 26

Antique Dewey upright slot machine, est. $52,500-$105,000. Government Auctions image.

Antique Dewey upright slot machine, est. $52,500-$105,000. Government Auctions image.

TEHACHAPI, Calif. – Today’s collectors want luxury brands, but few will share details of the one consistently reliable source for their favorite finds: Government Auction. This southern California company is the largest of its kind and the only one in the United States that works closely with certain government agencies to acquire high-end assets and confiscated goods such as fine gemstones and jewelry; Rolex watches, gold coins and antiques.

On Sunday, Aug. 26, Government Auction will present a bounty of investment-grade coins, antique slot machines and premium-quality jewelry in a 1,500-lot sale with Internet live bidding through LiveAuctioneers.com. Bidding will start as low as $1 on most items.

Jewels have fascinated collectors for centuries. In describing them, the Victorian novelist George Eliot said, “These gems have life in them: their colors speak, say what words fail of.” Eliot’s observations spoke of how those who love and wear jewels forge a personal connection with earth’s glittering rarities, what they symbolize and why they are so highly valued. Her comments of over a century ago seem just as valid today, since jewelry remains the premier gift choice for loved ones and those held in high esteem.

Government Auction’s Aug. 26 sale might very well have captured George Eliot’s attention, with its generous selection of jewelry and loose diamonds. A truly grand design is the 18K gold ring set with a 13-carat emerald and 2.76 carats of diamonds. This impressive ring makes a hefty statement, weighing in at 16.70 grams. Government Auction’s Chris Budge noted that the central emerald does have inclusions. “This is not uncommon with a stone of this size and color,” Budge said.

In Sunday’s sale, collectors of luxury watches can take their pick from dozens of previously owned timepieces, including seven Rolexes. A watch that is attracting considerable presale interest is a Rolex men’s Oyster watch. A desirable Perpetual Datejust made of stainless steel and gold, it features a handsome black and gold face. Another fine entry is a Rolex women’s Oyster watch. Also a Perpetual Datejust, this watch is crafted of stainless steel with a steel face.

A strong selection of rare gold coins will be featured in the auction. The grouping is led by a true investment piece – 1911 $10 US Indian Head gold coin. Designed by sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the $10 Indian Head gold coin was struck in Philadelphia and features Lady Liberty wearing a full Indian headdress. The reverse bears the image of a proud American Eagle with the motto “In God We Trust.” Government Auction’s Chief Auctioneer Paul Sabesky commented, “Collectors consider this coin a ‘must-have’ because of its unique artistic design and gold content.”

The auction also features a collection of antique and vintage slot machines. A beautiful example of old-time craftsmanship is the early 1900s Dewey upright slot machine. Coin-operated machines of this type are the mechanical predecessors to the electronic and pull-type slot machines seen in today’s casinos. The “Dewey” was named after naval leader Admiral George Dewey, who is best known for his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War. The highly ornate machine is cased in oak with brass legs and trim. Its facade features an image of Admiral Dewey surmounted on a red, white and blue US shield. The machine is fully restored and working.

Additional auction highlights include an authentic, top of the line Coach brand python-skin purse; an 1880 US $10 Liberty gold coin, a 3-carat tanzanite and diamond ring; and much more.

The Sunday, Aug. 26 auction will start at 6:30 a.m. Pacific Time/9:30 a.m. Eastern Time. Absentee, phone and Internet live bidding through LiveAuctioneers.com will be available. For additional information on any lot in the sale, call Debbie on 661-823-1543 or e-mail info@governmentauction.com.

View the fully illustrated catalog and sign up to bid absentee or live via the Internet at www.LiveAuctioneers.com.

# # #

About Government Auction:

With more than 20 years of specialized experience, Government Auction is a trusted resource for the purchase of quality assets such as jewelry, gemstones, memorabilia, collectibles, art, prints, antiques and vehicles. Many of the valuables offered in Government Auction’s sales are confiscated assets that require immediate liquidation. Examples of ways in which Government Auction’s goods are obtained include bankruptcies, the IRS, estate sales, trusts, etc.

View the fully illustrated catalog and register to bid absentee or live via the Internet as the sale is taking place by logging on to www.LiveAuctioneers.com.


ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE


Rolex men’s Oyster Perpetual Datejust stainless steel and gold watch, est. $5,250-$10,500. Government Auctions image.

Rolex men’s Oyster Perpetual Datejust stainless steel and gold watch, est. $5,250-$10,500. Government Auctions image.

Authentic top of the line Coach brand python-skin handbag, est. $900-$1,800. Government Auctions image.

Authentic top of the line Coach brand python-skin handbag, est. $900-$1,800. Government Auctions image.

1911 US $10 Indian Head gold coin, est. $2,550-$5,100. Government Auctions image.

1911 US $10 Indian Head gold coin, est. $2,550-$5,100. Government Auctions image.

1880 US $10 Liberty Head gold coin, est. $2,550-$5,100. Government Auctions image.

1880 US $10 Liberty Head gold coin, est. $2,550-$5,100. Government Auctions image.

18K gold ring set with 13-carat emerald and 2 carats of diamonds, est. $19,450-$38,900. Government Auctions image.

18K gold ring set with 13-carat emerald and 2 carats of diamonds, est. $19,450-$38,900. Government Auctions image.

Rolex women’s Oyster Perpetual Date stainless steel watch, est. $4,050-$8,100. Government Auctions image.

Rolex women’s Oyster Perpetual Date stainless steel watch, est. $4,050-$8,100. Government Auctions image.

Small but important Tiffany Nast eagle cane. Tradewinds Antiques image.

Tradewinds to hold cane auction during collectors meet Sept. 15

Small but important Tiffany Nast eagle cane. Tradewinds Antiques image.

Small but important Tiffany Nast eagle cane. Tradewinds Antiques image.

CHICAGO – Tradewinds Antiques, the world’s leading auction house entirely dedicated to the art of antique walking sticks, will host its annual Fall Antique Cane Auction at the venue of the eighth International Cane Collectors Conference at the Renaissance Chicago Downtown Hotel on Saturday, Sept. 15. LiveAuctioneers.com will provide Internet live bidding.

“We are very honored that the cane collecting community has invited us to hold our auction in conjunction with their event,” said Henry Taron, Tradewinds’ co-founder and owner.

The sale will feature 208 lots of carefully selected examples from all categories of the field of antique walking sticks including carved ivory, nautical, decorative, gadget, folk art and historical canes.

Among several star lots are a phenomenal polished narwhal cane (estimate: $10,000-$15,000), an exquisite carved ivory Moses cane ($5,000-$7,000), a scarce small Tiffany Nast Eagle cane ($6,000-$8,000), a rare small Remington dog head gun cane curio ($8,000-$10,000), and a gold Tiffany cane with ties to President John F. Kennedy ($4,500-$6,500).

Additionally, three fearsome 19th century French weapons curios known as “La Redoubtable,” “La Terrible” and “La Diabolique” will be sold (each $4,500-$6,500). These notorious curios feature blades or barbs that emerge from each cane’s shaft with a pull of its handle. This represents the first time that examples of all three very scarce defensive canes will be offered in the same sale.

“This is perhaps the finest sale we have ever assembled,” said Taron. “It is a well-balanced offering with important examples in each cane category.”

Tradewinds Antiques, based in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Mass., is in its 20th year of conducting all-cane auctions, with this sale being their 41st offering in this specialty area. In 1993, Tradewinds conducted the first all-cane auction ever to be held in America at the first International Cane Collectors Conference in Rockport, Maine. The company holds two auctions dedicated to this field in April and September of each year.

View the fully illustrated catalog and sign up to bid absentee or live via the Internet at www.LiveAuctioneers.com.

Information about the International Cane Collector’s Conference (Sept. 12-16) can be found at www.canemania2012chicago.com.

 

 

View the fully illustrated catalog and register to bid absentee or live via the Internet as the sale is taking place by logging on to www.LiveAuctioneers.com.


ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE


Rare French weapons cane curios, ‘La Redoubtable,’ ‘La Terrible’ and ‘La Diabolique.’ Tradewinds Antiques image.

Rare French weapons cane curios, ‘La Redoubtable,’ ‘La Terrible’ and ‘La Diabolique.’ Tradewinds Antiques image.

A pull of the handle causes blades or barbs to emerge from the shaft of each cane. Tradewinds Antiques image.

A pull of the handle causes blades or barbs to emerge from the shaft of each cane. Tradewinds Antiques image.

Superb 18k gold Tiffany cane with a John Fitzgerald Kennedy history. Tradewinds Antiques image.

Superb 18k gold Tiffany cane with a John Fitzgerald Kennedy history. Tradewinds Antiques image.

Important polished narwhal cane. Tradewinds Antiques image.

Important polished narwhal cane. Tradewinds Antiques image.

Ivory cane of Moses and his staff. Tradewinds Antiques image.

Ivory cane of Moses and his staff. Tradewinds Antiques image.

Scarce Remington small dog gun cane curio. Tradewinds Antiques image.

Scarce Remington small dog gun cane curio. Tradewinds Antiques image.

The recent discoveries in Italy were made in the same area where the Riace bronzes were found 40 years ago. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Divers find bronze lion’s head, armor off coast of Italy

The recent discoveries in Italy were made in the same area where the Riace bronzes were found 40 years ago. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The recent discoveries in Italy were made in the same area where the Riace bronzes were found 40 years ago. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

ROME (AFP) – A bronze lion’s head and a suit of armor have been found in the sea off the coast of the Calabria region in southern Italy, Italian media reported on Tuesday, citing the scuba divers who found them.

The sculpture, which weighs around 33 pounds, was found by two divers last Thursday, said a report in local daily Il Quotidiano di Calabria.

A third diver found the armor stuck in some underwater rocks nearby.

“We think these are objects of value. The important thing is that they are looked after. This is a great discovery for the whole of Calabria,” Bruno Bruzzaniti, one of the divers, was quoted by the ANSA news agency as saying.

Local coast guards have banned all shipping, fishing and bathing in the area while a formal search gets under way, while local police are investigating how exactly the discovery occurred and why it was apparently reported so late.

The police said the objects had not yet been handed over to the authorities.

An expert cited by Il Quotidiano di Calabria said the artefacts were probably from a Greek or Phoenician ship that sank in the area.

The area where the objects were found is close to Riace, where two ancient Greek bronze statues of warriors were recovered 40 years ago in a near-perfect state of conservation. The sculptures dated back to the fifth century B.C.

 

 

One of the posters found in the attic of the American Legion post was this appeal to buy U.S. Government War Bonds. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Dirk Soulis Auctions.

WWI posters found in American Legion post’s attic

One of the posters found in the attic of the American Legion post was this appeal to buy U.S. Government War Bonds. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Dirk Soulis Auctions.

One of the posters found in the attic of the American Legion post was this appeal to buy U.S. Government War Bonds. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Dirk Soulis Auctions.

GREENCASTLE, Ind. (AP) – We’ve all heard the stories. People rummaging around in their attics or cleaning out basements and stumbling upon relics of the past or priceless artifacts or heirlooms.

TV programs would make you believe stuff like that happens every day … it just never happens to us.

But it has happened in Greencastle, and the Putnam County Museum has become the beneficiary.

Museum Executive Director Tanis Monday says Jeff Bray and William Tucker, members of Greencastle American Legion Post 58, were cleaning out the attic at the building when they came upon something quite special.

“They came in and said, ‘We’ve got some old pictures,’” Monday told the Banner Graphic (http://bit.ly/OQsKrR ). “I was thinking, ‘Pictures, OK … probably Putnam County Legion pictures blown up.’”

But she went down to the Legion post to investigate the find.

“Then I saw these posters and said, ‘Oh my goodness.’”

What the Legion cleanup crew had discovered in the attic were more than 40 World War I-era posters, urging Americans to buy U.S. Government Bonds through the Third Liberty Loan program.

Fourteen of them, in varying sizes, are now hanging on the wall of the Putnam County Museum at 1105 N. Jackson St.

“It’s like our own little ‘Treasures in the Attic’ story,” Monday offered.

The great thing about the find is that someone at the Legion saved those posters not once but probably twice. They could easily have found their way into the trash or a private collection over the past 50 or 60 years.

The posters, created in 1918 and 1919, were framed by the company Cartwright & Pease in 1940. Sometime, likely in the 1960s or 1970s when the Legion building was built on Indianapolis Road, the posters were moved and stored away in the attic.

“Fortunately they cleaned out the attic,” Monday said of Legion members, “and had the presence of mind to think, ‘We want to share this history with others.’”

Examples of the posters include a flag-draped soldier with the message “Over the Top for You,” and a little girl whose daddy bought her a bond, “Did yours?”

Monday checked the Internet for dates and information, discovering the Third Liberty Loan initiative began April 5, 1918.

Many of the posters are discolored by age and some have water damage, but then again, they are nearly 100 years old now.

One of the best examples is a colorful poster that proclaims, “Over the Top for You” and features a soldier wrapped in an American flag.

Created in 1918, it carries the signature of artist Sidney H. Riesenberg in the lower left corner, along with the “Buy U.S. Government Bonds” message of the Third Liberty Loan effort.

Another artful piece features a crouching Boy Scout prominently holding a sword captioned “Weapons for Liberty.”

Still another poster features a nurse holding the handles of a stretcher, proclaiming “Hold Up Your End” and noting the goal of War Fund Week was $100 million.

A couple of the posters even took aim at conserving food products. One, depicting a loaf of bread and a bread knife, carries the tagline: “Save a loaf a week, help win the war.”

Still another offers nothing but text and advises Americans to save wheat, meat, fats and sugar … “and serve the cause of freedom.”

Another interesting poster depicts a father and his Doughboy son with the caption, “Goodbye, Dad, I’m off to fight for Old Glory, you buy U.S. Government Bonds.”

All generations were touched upon by the campaign as one of the better posters features a little girl clutching a bond to her chest. It is headlined, “My Daddy bought me a Government Bond, did yours?”

The posters are on loan to the museum for an indefinite amount of time. But they have already made an impression on Monday.

“They’re really quite amazing, in my opinion,” she said.

___

Information from: (Greencastle) Banner Graphic, http://www.bannergraphic.com

Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-WF-08-20-12 1417GMT


ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE


One of the posters found in the attic of the American Legion post was this appeal to buy U.S. Government War Bonds. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Dirk Soulis Auctions.

One of the posters found in the attic of the American Legion post was this appeal to buy U.S. Government War Bonds. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Dirk Soulis Auctions.