thedailyecho--2019-03-12--Banking firm to create 150 new jobs in Southampton

A BANKING firm is to open a new office in Southampton creating 150 jobs in the city.  On line bank Starling has chosen the city for its first office outside of London, citing the area's wealth of tech talent as one reason for the move.  The bank could not give the exact location of the offices but confirmed it would be in the city centre and would be open by the summer..  The new offices will house up to 50 software engineers and 100 customer service staff. Most of these jobs will be new hires.  Starling, which was founded five years ago, has 500,000 current account customers and 30,000 business customers.  It is one of a host of digital-only challenger banks that have sprung up in recent years aiming to take market share from traditional lenders. Much of its business is done via mobile phone apps.  The bank was attracted to Southampton because of its "growing and skilled jobs market, reputation as a burgeoning tech hub, transport links and easy access to London".  Southampton was recently identified a "super cluster" technology hotspot by CBRE, a property advisory group, for its high employment of technology professionals.  Chief executive Anne Boden said: "We are growing so fast that we are rapidly running out of space in our London offices.  "What really attracts us to Southampton is its entrepreneurial spirit and its level of tech talent.  "We're looking for new people - engineers as well as customer service team members - to join us in Southampton now and will be expanding the office quickly."  Starling was awarded £100 million last month from the Royal Bank of Scotland competition remedies fund that aims to break the high street giants' grip on the banking sector.  Ms Boden said Starling was looking to increase its number of business customers, aiming at sole traders, start-ups and SMEs (small to medium enterprises).  "We want to build a business bank and much of the work needed to do that will happen in Southampton," she said.  Starling arrival was welcomed by the city's business leaders.  Mark Baulch, head of policy & representation at Hampshire Chamber of Commerce, said; "This is a very positive piece of news following most of the decisions and changes being made by the banking industry recently. This number of high quality jobs being created in the city will also be very warmly received by the retail and hospitality sectors as it brings additional people with disposable income into the catchment area.  "It is also very pleasing to see the banks’ reasons for choosing Southampton, which justify the investment that we have seen recently and hope to see in the future."  Sandeep Sesodia, chair of the chamber's Commerce Southampton Business Strategy Group added: "Given the continuing changes in the banking sector and the way that customers bank, this is a very welcome and modern banking alternative. It will drive the economy, boost employment and give businesses a new option. For Southampton this is a massive confidence booster."  Southampton Itchen MP Royston Smith said: "This is testament to the national reputation we have as a key hub on the south coast for business and our internationally renowned universities. The creation of up to 150 new jobs is welcome news and I wish them well with their launch.”


thedailyecho--2019-09-03--Deliveroo comes to Eastleigh and creates 50 new jobs

EASTLEIGH residents can enjoy even more takeaway options with the arrival of a new delivery service to the town.  Delivery company Deliveroo has launched this week in Eastleigh.  The app and website lets residents order food from a range of restaurants and takeaways near to then.  It will work with independent restaurants like The Hog Shack and as well as high street chains including KFC, Prezzo and Frankie & Bennys.  To celebrate the launch, Deliveroo is giving away hundreds of free doughnuts around the town centre this Saturday.  The company is also giving customers 30% off orders for the next four weeks.  MP for Eastleigh, Mims Davies said: "The launch of Deliveroo in Eastleigh is a positive boost for the town and a great opportunity for our local restaurants looking to expand their offer and it will create more flexible local jobs.  "Customers will be able to enjoy a convenient treat or quick meal from their favourite high street restaurants from the comfort of their own home which will make life easier for many busy local families. I am sure many people will be looking forward to making their first order."  More than 50 jobs will be created in Eastleigh over the first year, with the majority of these being Deliveroo riders, who aim to deliver food, which will be cooked, fresh to order and delivered from the restaurant kitchen to the customers in under 30 mins.  Harrison Foster, Regional Director in the UK, "Launching in Eastleigh is a key milestone for Deliveroo. Eastleigh has a thriving foodie community and a wide range of restaurants, so we’re excited to connect them. We look forward to working with our new restaurant partners to reach a new customer base and expand their businesses. Deliveroo will also create work for 50 local riders and are thrilled to offer a flexible role to the community.”  Customers have the option to schedule orders via the Deliveroo app up to one day in advance or receive food as soon as possible between 5pm and 11pm on weekdays and 11.30am and 11pm on weekends.


thedailymirror--2019-05-31--Get paid 1055 an hour to play Football Manager in incredible new job

Get paid £10.55 an hour to play Football Manager in incredible new job

Fancy getting paid £10.55 an hour to play football this summer? Well, if the answer is yes, we have just the thing for you.  That's because Sports Interactive, the team behind Football Manager, is on the hunt for someone to play and review the game for the next four months.  The role, titled 'Football Manager QA tester', will have you trialling out new features of the game, giving feedback and supporting developers with bug fixes.  "As a QA Tester at Sports Interactive you’ll do more than just play the game," the job ad reads.  "You will be assessing new and existing features, evaluating data, providing valuable feedback on gameplay and balance, offering support to our users; and much more."  Daily tasks will also include carrying out test runs, identifying glitches and providing written and verbal feedback on gameplay, balance and realism to improve the end product.  “Successful candidates will have to identify defects, provide verbal and written feedback, test new features, follow test plans through to completion and provide support to gamers via forums and social media,” it adds.  The position is a four-month fixed term contract based in Stratford, London – and you can expect to work around 37.5 hours a week with paid overtime available if you want it.  Applications close on June 2 though, so you’ll have to be quick if you’re interested. Find You can apply online here


thedailyrecord--2019-01-13--Scottish great-gran cant think about retiring as workaholic OAP starts new job at 82

Scottish great-gran 'can't think about retiring' as workaholic OAP starts new job at 82

A workaholic great-grandmother who says working keeps her young starts her new job today - aged 82.  Moira Hepburn reached pensionable age when John Major was still Prime Minister, in 1997, but the energetic gran has not even contemplated retiring.  The talented pianist was a regular sight in Edinburgh in the 1980s when she entertained audiences at the bandstand in Prince's Street Gardens during children's hour.  Since 1987, Moira worked as a warden at a sheltered housing complex and, until last month, at a block of retirement flats in Blackford.  And today she will start a new job, travelling around the city offering companionship to elderly people - after leaving her last post due to the technological demands which she found overwhelming.  Inspiring Moira said: "I can't think about retiring or even thinking about what I can watch on TV.  "I just want to be out and about feeling like I am still needed.  "I don't get tired I just seem to be able to cope with whatever comes my way.  "I think music has a lot to do with keeping one young, maybe it stimulates your brain.  "I don't use a walking stick when I walk, I'm quite a smart walker."  In 1997, Moira could have retired at the age of 61 - but decided to keep working.  The great-grandmother-of-six added: "It's just funny because some of the people I was looking after were ten years younger than me and some were even in their sixties walking about with sticks and stuff.  "It made me realise how lucky I am."  On her final day on December 28, tearful residents rallied round to bestow upon her bouquets of flowers and farewell gifts.  Moira said: "I first became a warden because I was friendly with a lady who lived in sheltered housing.  "I was always visiting her and she started telling me about a warden's duties and said that it would suit me because I am a people person.  "A vacancy came up, I applied for it and got it.  "I loved working for Viewpoint Housing because you were living beside all the residents.  "And there was a piano in the complex, I would put up social events for them because it was right up my street."  She added: "It's all about keeping your mind active with things that you love doing.  "I'm sure I'll wind down eventually, but I'm definitely not ready to stop just yet."


theguardianuk--2019-01-09--Backlash after ex-Pixar head scores new job despite MeToo allegations

Backlash after ex-Pixar head scores new job despite #MeToo allegations

Ex-Pixar head John Lasseter has scored a top new position in Hollywood, leading to a backlash from within the industry.  Lasseter took a leave of absence from Pixar and Disney after admitting “missteps” related to his treatment of female colleagues. The cofounder of Pixar Animation Studios and the animation chief of Walt Disney Company apologised for anyone upset by an “unwanted hug” or “any other gesture” that was perceived as crossing the line.  The Hollywood Reporter has cited Lasseter’s misbehaviour as “grabbing, kissing, making comments about physical attributes” and his original leave of absence was later extended to a resignation.  His new position sees him heading up Skydance Animation, a strand within Skydance Media, a production company run by David Ellison, who founded the company with inheritance money from his billionaire father Larry Ellison. The company, affiliated with Paramount Pictures, has released a string of hit films from World War Z to Star Trek Beyond.  “Let me be clear: we have not entered into this decision lightly,” Ellison wrote in a company memo. “While we would never minimize anyone’s subjective views on behavior, we are confident after many substantive conversations with John, and as the investigation has affirmed, that his mistakes have been recognised. We are certain that John has learned valuable lessons and is ready to prove his capabilities as a leader and a colleague.”  According to Variety, a town hall meeting is planned at Skydance for concerns while Lasseter is set to meet with staff this week.  The news has led to anger from some within the industry, including Time’s Up, the organisation founded to stand up against sexual harassment after the rise of the #MeToo movement.  In a statement, Time’s Up claims the decision “endorses and perpetuates a broken system that allows powerful men to act without consequence” while sharing concerns over what impact it will have.  “At a moment when we should be uplifting the many talented voices who are consistently underrepresented, Skydance Media is providing another position of power, prominence and privilege to a man who has repeatedly been accused of sexual harassment in the workplace,” it reads.  Melissa Silverstein, who founded Women in Hollywood, also shared her frustration. “This is a horrible message to the women at Pixar who stood up and told their truths about their experiences,” she said. “This is also a message to all that the bro culture is alive and well and thriving in Hollywood.”


theguardianuk--2019-02-11--Jose Mourinho to start new job as host on Russian TV show

José Mourinho to start new job ... as host on Russian TV show

[José Mourinho](https://www.theguardian.com/football/jose-mourinho) is to host a football show on RT providing coverage of the Champions League.  The role marks a return to Russian television for the former Manchester United manager, who worked with the Moscow-based network during last summer’s World Cup in the country.  Called On the Touchline with José Mourinho, the fortnightly show will start on 7 March.  Mourinho filmed a promotional advert for the new show when he paid a recent visit to Russia, where he attended an ice hockey game and [slipped while delivering the puck](https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2019/feb/06 /jose-mourinho-dancing-ice-russia-spain-manchester-united).  “The show will offer unique analysis from the Portuguese managerial great on all the week’s Champions League action, as well as special insight into the biggest talking points in the world of football,” said [RT](https://www.theguardian.com/media/russia-today). who were formerly known as Russia Today.  The opening show will be broadcast after the first set of Champions League last 16 second-leg matches have been concluded, and Mourinho will continue his role with Russia Today until the 1 June final.  ![](https://media.guim.co.uk/4c8d8898129f62b5a9a650a25ea935655bb9a0e0/0_304_5184_3110/140.jpg)  Photograph: Chesnot/Getty Images Europe  Mourinho guided United through the competition’s group stages before being sacked in December amid reports of player unrest. The 56-year-old was replaced by Ole Gunnar Solskjær, who has since won 10 and drawn one of his 11 games in charge.  Mourinho worked as a pundit on the Qatari-based TV station beIN Sports last month when he rejected criticism of his two-and-a-half-year record as United manager, saying people did not know what went on “behind the scenes”.


thehill--2019-11-01--Trump tweets 303K job claim after report of 128K new jobs

President Trump Donald John TrumpTrump says he would be willing to do 'fireside chat' reading the Zelensky transcript Krystal Ball: 'The weird obsession and freakout over Tulsi Gabbard has massively helped her' Trump says poor treatment and high taxes prompted permanent residence change MORE spurred confusion Friday after he tweeted about a "blowout" 303,000 jobs figure — minutes after an official government report said the economy added 128,000 jobs in October.  The estimate by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) was good news for the administration, as its report on last month's job gains was far greater than the gain of roughly 85,000 jobs projected by economists.  t’s unclear how Trump calculated the vastly larger jobs gain, or where he obtained that analysis.  In the Friday tweet hailing the report, Trump claimed the “blowout JOBS number” was actually a gain of 303,000 jobs if accounting for revisions and the temporary loss of jobs tied to the General Motors strike.  “Wow, a blowout JOBS number just out, adjusted for revisions and the General Motors strike, 303,000. This is far greater than expectations. USA ROCKS!” Trump tweeted  BLS revised the August and September job gains up by 95,000 workers, and most of the 42,000 auto manufacturing jobs frozen during the GM strike are likely resume in time for the November jobs report to be calculated.  White House spokesman Judd Deere told The Hill in an email that Trump’s figure also included an additional 18,000 GM workers not reflected in the BLS report, and 20,000 temporary Census workers who completed their work in October.  Economists say Trump’s calculations do not paint an accurate picture of an already-strong labor market.  “Those were wildly inaccurate,” said Joseph Brusuelas, chief U.S. economist at audit and accounting firm RSM. “This is what we’d call ‘fake data.’”  Economists would not typically consider revisions to past jobs reports or the future return of striking workers to be part of a different month’s job gain. Accounting for the loss of 20,000 Census workers would double-count the initial addition of those workers to past jobs reports, as well.  Trump’s tweet about the jobs report also raised eyebrows because it violated the one-hour ban on White House commentary on sensitive economic data. Trump tweeted his praise for the report at 8:52 a.m., just more than 20 minutes after the jobs report was released.


thehuffingtonpost--2019-10-12--Tulsi Gabbard Wants A New Job. A Primary Challenger Wants Her Current One.

He believed her absence from the district she is representing and her sometimes polarizing stances — Gabbard only belatedly and seemingly reluctantly supported an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, for example, and drew criticism earlier this year after she refused to condemn Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — would give him an opening.  “What I really think is important is that we have leaders that are decisive, have some resolve, and are not motivated one way or another to go where the political trade winds blow,” Kahele told HuffPost, alluding to Gabbard.  In the first two quarters of 2019, Kahele raised $399,000 in campaign contributions, more than quadruple Gabbard’s $83,000. Three former Hawaii governors have endorsed him. And there are signs of trouble for Gabbard: A recent Public Policy Polling survey found that a majority of District 2 constituents support her dropping out of the congressional race altogether. In the same poll, she led Kahele 48 to 26 in a head-to-head matchup, but the fact that 27% of voters in the district were undecided shows that he has a clear path to victory in next year’s primary.  “Constituents do not feel that local or national offices are responsive to their concerns, or available when they need them,” Kahele claimed. “My first and foremost concern is to make sure that the people of [our district] are well represented.”  Kahele, who goes by a Kai, a nickname based on his first name, joined the state Senate in 2016 at age 42. A Hilo-based commercial pilot and Air National Guard lieutenant colonel, he hadn’t envisioned getting into politics so young. But “unfortunate circumstances presented an incredible opportunity,” he said.  Kahele believes he’d do a better job than Gabbard has serving Hawaii’s diverse 2nd Congressional District, which is made up of several islands — some big and booming, others small and rural. The district encompasses all of the Hawaiian islands except for the southern half of Oahu, where Honolulu has its own representative.  Some of the most pressing issues in the district are education access and health care for veterans and rural communities on those neighboring islands. Despite its annual rankings as one of the country’s healthiest states, rural Hawaiians struggle to access health care, with only 14 rural hospitals across the entire state.  Kahele witnessed the lack of access after his father’s heart attack in 2016, when Gil Kahele had to be taken in a medevac helicopter from the Big Island to the island of Oahu because the local medical centers couldn’t accommodate the procedure he needed. Like many candidates in a post-2016 political landscape, Kahele said he’s running on a platform of unity: “bringing teamwork and collaboration to the Hawaii delegation,” he said. “We have four out of 535 members in Congress, 5,000 miles away ... We need a delegation that’s working together, that’s putting the priorities of Hawaii’s residents first.”  After the whistleblower complaint prompted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to launch an impeachment inquiry, Democratic support for impeachment shot up to 81%. A few days later, Gabbard backtracked and released a statement in which she begrudgingly supported the inquiry. Kahele said he was glad Gabbard reversed her position.  Gabbard and Kahele have yet to face off publicly ― Hawaii law forbids Gabbard from running for two public positions simultaneously, so she hasn’t yet announced a reelection campaign. She’s given no indication she plans to give up her seat if she doesn’t win the presidential nomination, but Kahele remains optimistic about his campaign efforts. Hawaii has consistently produced one of Trump’s lowest approval ratings — dipping as low as 29% — and 65% of registered voters in the state think he should be impeached. The longer Gabbard took to condemn his actions, the more Hawaiians seemed to disapprove of her, too. This isn’t a new problem for Gabbard, either: Her polling numbers among Aloha State voters dropped after she met with Trump prior to his inauguration in 2017.


themanchestereveningnews--2019-02-08--The University of Manchester searches for development partner for 15bn Innovation District - and i

The University of Manchester searches for development partner for £1.5bn Innovation District - and it could create 6,000 new jobs

The University of Manchester has started its search for an investment and development partner to deliver a new £1.5bn Innovation District.  The institution has submitted a prior information notice to begin pre-market engagement on the Manchester City Centre project to be called ID Manchester.  With the potential to create more than 6,000 jobs the university's vision for the 26 acre site is to create a dynamic, world-class community with innovation, collaboration and enterprise at its heart.  Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, president and vice-chancellor of The University of Manchester, said: “We are looking for the very best joint-venture partner to work with us to develop this prime site in the heart of the city which will generate thousands of new jobs and will enhance the reputation of the University and the city as the place where the world’s most valuable ideas are transformed into reality.”  Current development parameters, which align with the University’s current vision, could comprise a circa 3.5 million sq ft of mixed use space including three acres of high quality public realm.  Any revision to the existing SRF should be brought forward in close collaboration with Manchester City Council.  The site benefits from existing green space and the unique feature of the 650,000 sq ft Grade II Listed Sackville Street Building, which offers a fantastic opportunity for re-purposing.  The University occupies the recently opened £60m Masdar Building, home to the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre, and the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology at the south end of the site and is looking for a partner to develop the remaining c.16.4 acres (6.64 hectares) of the site.  Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester City Council, said: “The potential of ID Manchester is huge. There are tremendous opportunities to regenerate this distinctive part of the city and we welcome the University’s growth, investment and job-creation ambitions for the development.”  ID Manchester is adjacent to Piccadilly Railway Station and future HS2 station, and will be a 20 minute train journey to the airport.  Diana Hampson, director of estates and facilities of The University of Manchester said: “We are at the beginning of an exciting journey as we look forward to finding a partner to help us deliver our vision for an outstanding new community, on the last site of its size and scale yet to be developed in the city centre.  “ID Manchester will build upon the proud history of bold ideas, discovery and invention established by the University here.  "It will attract the most forward-thinking, like-minded individuals and businesses with the chance to establish their UK HQ, start up or scale up their company, take on and benefit from disruptive technologies and ideas or simply come and enjoy this inspirational space.”  CBRE is the property advisor on ID Manchester for The University of Manchester.  Colin Thomasson, executive director, CBRE said: "ID Manchester is an exceptional opportunity for the right partner to work with one the world’s leading education and research institutions, in one of the fastest-growing, most dynamic cities in Europe.”


themanchestereveningnews--2019-07-02--Tameside to get new 10m science park which will bring 200 new jobs

Tameside to get new £10m science park which will bring 200 new jobs

Town hall bosses have agreed to sell land to create a new science park which could bring an economic boost of £10 million investment into Tameside .  The executive cabinet approved the sale of two parcels of land covering more than three hectares at Hattersley Industrial Estate in Hyde to the RSK Group for £400,000.  The company, which provides engineering and environmental consultancy and testing services, received planning permission earlier this year for a new facility at the site which could create 200 extra jobs in the borough.  The new 4,700 sqm site will house geosciences laboratory firm Envirolab, part of the RSK Group, which tests soil and ground water for clients, including local authorities.  It currently operates from premises at Sandpits Business Park in Hyde, and the intention is to bring another RSK company to the new location.  The new director of growth at Tameside council, Jayne Traverse, told councillors the relocation would support the 'continued expansion' of the business.  "We visited the business last week and they're really packed out on their current premises, which is great news because it means that they are expanding and doing well and need more space," she said.  "We're talking about roughly £10m of inward investment coming into Tameside through this business.  "They have around 80 employees at the moment so there is a potential to create 200 jobs over the next five years as it continues to expand, so really good news from an economic growth perspective."  The new development will be known as Hattersley Science and Technology Park.  The 80 jobs that currently exist in the borough would be safeguarded by the expansion, the committee report states.  Currently the site is open grassland with scattered trees and bushes, and has been a target for flytipping.  The proposal, which has been approved by the planning committee, includes the creation of a two-storey laboratory for testing and analysis of soil and water samples, as well as general storage and a light industrial workshop.  There will be 127 car spaces created, with eight disabled spaces, as well as spaces for lorries and bicycle storage.


therightscoop--2019-08-22--Sarah Sanders has a new jobat Fox News

Sarah Sanders has a new job….at Fox News!

Former Trump Press Secretary Sarah Sanders has just been hired as a new contributor with Fox News:  THE HILL – Former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is joining Fox News as a contributor, the network announced Thursday. Sanders, who left the Trump administration roughly two months ago, will appear on various Fox platforms to provide political commentary. She will make her first appearance on “Fox & Friends” during its Sept. 6 broadcast.  According to DC Examiner, Sanders said in a statement:  “FOX News has been the number one news organization in the country for 17 years running and I am beyond proud to join their incredible stable of on-air contributors in providing political insights and analysis,” Sanders said, according to a Fox News press release.  I’m kinda glad it’s Fox News and not CNN or MSNBC. That would have been very strange.  If you are wondering about Sanders’ potential gubernatorial bid in Arkansas, that election won’t happen until 2022. So she can work as a paid contributor for Fox News until she announces her candidacy, when and if that happens.


westernjournal--2019-02-08--Former Fox News Reporter Takes New Job at State Department

Former Naval combat aviator and journalist Lea Gabrielle is leaving journalism for the time being to take a position at the State Department. She will be leading its counterpropaganda efforts, according to The Hill.  Gabrielle worked at Fox News until last year and was employed with NBC News prior to that.  The journalist’s official position will be the head of the Global Engagement Center, working to stop the spread of terrorist messaging and debunk disinformation from foreign sources.  TRENDING: Major Claims from Stacey Abrams’ SOTU Rebuttal Don’t Fair Well in Fact Check  Gabrielle told Foreign Policy online that the top propaganda threats to the United States currently are China, Russia, Iran and various terrorist entities that wish to harm the U.S.  “We have to realize that we are under attack by adversary countries and international terrorist organizations that are using propaganda and disinformation as a weapon,” she told the magazine.  “They’re doing it because it’s cheap, and it’s easy, and because they can.”  The GEC, which was originally designed to combat false messaging from terrorists, has expanded to deal with all sorts of propaganda and disinformation, according to Foreign policy.  State Department deputy spokesperson Robert Palladino announced during a press briefing that Gabrielle will work as the special envoy and coordinator of the Global Engagement Center, CNN reported.  “Lea will provide the permanent leadership we have needed to bolster the Global Engagement Center’s operations. And she will begin her duties on Monday,” Palladino said.  “Lea is a former CIA-trained human intelligence operations officer, defense foreign liaison officer, United States Navy program director, Navy FA-18/C fighter pilot, and national television news correspondent and anchor at two different networks,” Palladino added.  The department has previously suffered from a lack of funding, however, within the last year, politicians have insisted that the GEC once again receive the funding that it needs to function at peak performance.  Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, who has been a champion of the GEC, said in a statement that he is “looking forward” to working with Gabrielle.  “As we fight to ensure that the GEC is fully funded and staffed, I hope she’ll be able to elevate the profile and importance of the work that the GEC does to combat propaganda and disinformation,” he said.  Gabrielle has requested $55 million in funding for the 2019 fiscal year, but that budget amount could increase to $115 million, according to Foreign Policy, who cited a State Department spokeswoman.  “Since Secretary Pompeo came into office the GEC has been a priority and has received its full funding,” the spokeswoman told Foreign Policy in an email.  We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.


vox--2019-05-03--April jobs report tons of new jobs and teeny-tiny pay raises

April jobs report: tons of new jobs and teeny-tiny pay raises

Employers added a solid 263,000 new jobs to the US economy in April — once again surpassing economic forecasts, according to the latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  All the new hiring in April, plus an increase in people leaving the labor force, pushed the already super-low unemployment rate down even further, to 3.6 percent. That’s the lowest rate of unemployed Americans recorded since December 1969.  Yet the smaller pool of available workers didn’t translate to much higher pay: Workers only got an average hourly pay raise of 6 cents in April. A month earlier, wages rose a meager 4 cents.  The new jobs report shows that the US economy is continuing to expand, but without middle- and working-class families seeing much of the benefit. Job security is the one advantage employees can count on these days.  Low unemployment and high job creation means that nearly every American who wants to work and is able to has snagged a job by now. And those who lose their jobs, or decide to leave, probably won’t have a hard time finding another position.  Most of the new jobs created in April were positions in business services, construction, health care, and social assistance.  While all the new hiring is good, the numbers are not as great as last year. The average monthly job growth in the past three months was about 169,000, which is lower than the 223,000 monthly average during the same period in 2018. The drop isn’t alarming; it just suggests that the current labor shortage is making it hard for employers to fill all the open positions.  But with such a tight labor market and rising productivity, workers should expect much bigger pay raises than they’re getting.  Even though Americans are finding jobs pretty easily, they still aren’t seeing the so-called “economic boom” reflected in their pocketbooks.  April was another month with disappointing wage growth.  Private sector workers (excluding farmworkers) got an average 6-cent hourly raise, adding up to an average hourly pay of $27.77. In the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have only increased by 3.2 percent, and that doesn’t even take inflation into account.  The latest pay data suggests that workers and labor unions will continue to strike to force businesses to boost wages.  Slow income growth has been the weakest part of the US economy in its recovery from the Great Recession. Wages have barely kept up with the cost of living, even as the unemployment rate dropped and the economy expanded.  April’s 6-cent average hourly wage hike suggests more of the same, despite a surprising 10-cent jump in February.  Over the past year, the cost of food and housing has gone up, so paychecks have had to stretch further. But because of recent falling gas prices, the annual inflation rate has fallen to 1.9 percent, compared to a high of 2.4 percent in 2018 (based on the Consumer Price Index).  So when you take inflation into account, workers’ real wages only grew about 1.3 percent within the past year. That’s faster than they’ve been growing since the recession started in 2007, but it’s still pitiful when you compare it to the sky-high payouts corporate CEOs are getting.  Frustration over stagnant wages is also the major underlying factor behind widespread worker strikes across the country in places like California, Illinois, and Missouri. Last month, 31,000 supermarket employees went on strike in the Northeast to reverse proposed pay cuts and rising insurance premiums. The Stop & Shop strike in mid-April was the largest private sector work stoppage in years. After eight days with empty supermarkets, the company agreed to scrap its plan.  Some economists are confident that wages will start to pick up if this trend continues. “[T]he sharp increase in the number of working days lost to strikes over pay and benefits over the past year suggests that employees increasingly recognize that the balance of power has shifted in their favor,” Ian Shepherdson, chief economist for the research firm Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote Friday in an analysis.  The widespread labor unrest underscores how the Republican tax cuts did little to help working-class families, despite all the promises from congressional Republicans.  In response, voters in some states have forced businesses to give low-paid employees a raise.  In November’s midterm elections, voters in Missouri and Arkansas overwhelmingly approved ballot measures that will raise the minimum wage for nearly 1 million workers across both states. And as a result of the new laws, low-wage workers in 19 states got pay raises on January 1.  Those laws have helped boost wages so far in 2019, but not enough.


usnews--2019-11-15--Antenna Systems Company Promises 100 New Jobs for Maryland

SALISBURY, Md. (AP) — A startup company has announced expansion plans in Maryland that could bring 100 new jobs to Salisbury.  APEX RF Conditioning supplies distributed radio access networks, antenna systems and assemblies. The Salisbury Times reported Thursday on the expansion announced by its CEO David Chambers. His statement says the current push toward 5G deployment means now is a great time to expand.  The new jobs include engineers, technicians and assemblers. The combined payroll for the new jobs is estimated to exceed $8.5 million annually once the expansion is complete. The timeline is unclear. The Salisbury-Wicomico Economic Development Business Expansion Fund provided some financing to the company, which plans to move to Northwood Industrial Park.  Information from: The Daily Times of Salisbury, Md., http://www.delmarvanow.com/  Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


upi--2019-11-30--UAW, Fiat Chrysler reach four-year deal expected to add 8,000 new jobs

Nov. 30 (UPI) -- The United Auto Workers and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles announced Saturday that they have reached a tentative agreement that adds nearly 8,000 jobs over the four-year life of the contract.  FCA confirmed in a press statement that it reached a deal with the union but did not release further details.  A statement on the UAW's website says the union will not be releasing details of the agreement until UAW-FCA Council members have had a chance to meet and review them.  "Our UAW Bargaining Committee worked diligently, over many months, during the General Motors strike and Ford negotiations to maintain productive negotiations with FCA," said UAW Vice President Cindy Estrada, who directs the union's UAW-FCA department.  "The pattern bargaining strategy has been a very effective approach for the UAW and its members to negotiate economic gains around salary, benefits and job security. In addition to the $4.5 billion in major investments previously announced, negotiators secured an additional $4.5 billion for a total of $9 billion of investments adding 7,900 jobs during the contract period."  FCA hourly and salaried workers are expected to begin their vote on whether to ratify the contract Dec. 6 in a process that usually takes about two weeks, the Detroit Free Press reported Saturday.  Workers are expected to ratify the contract, though the vote could be complicated by allegations of corruption that have roiled the union in recent weeks. This month two UAW officials -- a former UAW president and a regional director -- resigned after being implicated in a massive corruption scheme in which they were accused of submitting misleading expense reports.  About 400,000 people belong to the UAW, 150,000 of whom work in the auto industry.


thesun--2019-12-26--Celebrate the New Year by landing yourself a new job in 2020 with these top tips

OUT with the old, in with the new job.  Two-thirds of us will be seeking a job, or a better job, as our New Year resolution for 2020 according to a study by online jobs board CV Library. The next most popular resolutions were to manage money better and to lose weight.  To help with the job hunt, employment minister Mims Davies has a message for Sun readers.  She says: “I know lots of people will have made it a New Year’s resolution to change careers, bag a promotion or nab a new role. Now is the perfect time to help people get ready for that next step.”  So with five days still to go until the new decade, we asked Jobcentre Plus managers Julia Nix and  Joanne Crentsil for their tops tips to get you ahead . . .  Keep your CV updated: Use your time over Christmas to bring your CV up to date and ensure you tailor it to the job you want. Employers will decide whether to ask you for an interview based solely on your CV, so it’s important that it does you justice.  Log your good work: We all have skills employers are looking for. They don’t have to be from a previous job either. If you’ve just left education, you will have organised your time to meet deadlines. If you have a hobby, you may have displayed communication skills or the ability to learn new things. Volunteering is also a great thing to put on a CV or talk about with an employer.  Turn negatives to positives: Demonstrate you have learned where a task or project hasn’t gone to plan. Sometimes being open about this benefits you in the long run. Don’t dwell on it, though — quickly move on to your strengths.  Do your research:A favourite question from employers is: “What do you know about us?” Make sure you do your research. It can give you a little insight into the job role, the company ethos, even just the size of the team you would be joining. It proves you are interested in them and the work.  Get support: Don’t feel like finding a job is something you have to do on your own. If you use your local jobcentre, there are many different routes available to you, like gaining experience through short work placements or going through a sector-based work academy.  PREMIER League clubs were the employers most people hoped to score with in 2019.  Careers platform LinkedIn found footie jobs dominated the top 25 most-viewed vacancies in the past 12 months.  Roles including relationship manager at Manchester United, duty operations manager for Tottenham Hotspur and business strategy analyst at Arsenal topped the list.  Another popular ad was Mark Carney’s replacement as the Governor of the Bank of England. And hundreds of thousands viewed Love Island’s Head of Client Partnerships role.  LinkedIn’s Darain Faraz says: “There aren’t many situations where you find the Governor of the Bank of England listed alongside roles at Love Island.” • PLAY a blinder by landing a new job at GAME. There are 16 on offer, including store managers and assistant managers. For details, see jobs.game.co.uk/search • PIZZA chain FRANCO MANCA has UK-wide vacancies for kitchen porters, pizza chefs and waiters. Find your job at jobs.francomanca.co.uk.


thesun--2019-07-05--Former Man Utd boss Mourinho hints at return to Italy as he prepares to start new job in next few w

Former Man Utd boss Mourinho hints at return to Italy as he prepares to start new job ‘in next few weeks’

JOSE MOURINHO has hinted at a return to Italy as he prepares to start his new job in the coming weeks.  The former [Manchester United](https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/team/1196656/manchester- united/) boss, 56, has claimed a move to Serie A is a "possibility" having been sacked by his old club in December.  ![ Jose Mourinho could be on his way back to Serie A this summer]()  1  Jose Mourinho could be on his way back to Serie A this summerCredit: Alamy Live News  Since then, the self-professed Special One has been working as a pundit for beIN Sports - but is already behind schedule in his plan to get back into management.  [Mourinho](https://www.thesun.co.uk/who/jose-mourinho/) had given himself a deadline of July to get started at any new team in a bid to have them playing his way by the start of the 2019-20 season.  But for now, Mourinho is eyeing up a return to Italy - having previously managed Inter Milan between 2008 and 2010.  He told Sky Sports Italia: “In the future? Always soccer, and always a high level. Italy? Could be a possibility."  ## JULY DEADLINE  The Portuguese chief had already made it clear he planned to be employed once more by July - and we're nearly a week in already.  In May, Mourinho claimed: “I have a lot of qualities and one of them is to respect other clubs and their management.  “I have never spoken like ‘this club wanted me, they contacted me'.  “When I left Manchester United in December, I immediately took the decision I want to work from summer.  "I hope to be back to work in July in a project I really like.”  Mourinho has only spent two years in Italy - but won two Serie A crowns, the Coppa Italia, Supercoppa Italia and, of course, the 2009-10 Champions League crown.  Jose - who was [seen at Wimbledon on Thursday](https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/tennis/9436881/wimbledon-2019-jose- mourinho-rafa-nadal/) \- has also spent time at Benfica, Uniao de Leriria, Porto, Chelsea (twice), Real Madrid and most recently United.  But one place he won't be going should he return to Serie A is Juventus, after Maurizio Sarri replaced the departing Massimiliano Allegri after quitting his post at Chelsea.  Wimbledon 2019: Jose Mourinho reveals Rafael Nadal could have been an elite footballer if not for tennis


theguardianuk--2019-04-17--Sculpted by time Eduardo Chillida museum reopens in San Sebastian

Sculpted by time: Eduardo Chillida museum reopens in San Sebastián

An eight-metre monolithic sculpture of reddish steel stands before me in the middle of a hilly field. Solid and grounded, the structure’s 22 tons contrast with the upward-reaching movement of its lines. As it soars towards the sky, the whole thing speaks of time and space in epic proportions.  I am in Hernani, a small town on the outskirts of San Sebastián, admiring an artwork by the late Basque sculptor Eduardo Chillida, an artist revered in this part of Spain much like Gaudí is in Barcelona. The piece, Buscando La Luz (Looking for the Light, 1997), sits among 42 others like it, in a leafy open-air sculpture park.  When the artist bought this land with his wife, Pilar Belzunce, in the early 1980s, he fulfilled his long-held dream of finding a permanent, natural environment for his works. It eventually opened as Chillida Leku, a museum that would allow the public to wander among his sculptures as they would trees in a forest. But Chillida died in 2002, and by 2011 his family found they could no longer afford to keep the museum open.  “It was the hardest moment of my life,” his son Luis tells me, as we look across the undulating 11-hectare (27-acre) site. After that point, visits could only be made via private appointment with the family; an unsustainable model that did no justice to what the artist had envisaged for the place. “I refused to accept that all the effort and dedication of my parents would be for nothing. There had to be a solution,” says Luis.  A further eight years on – and with the backing of the international contemporary art gallery Hauser & Wirth – a reincarnated Chillida Leku opens to the public on 17 April.  Although only a 15-minute drive from the city centre, Chillida Leku (place in Basque) is silent and secluded. At the top of the hill is the caserío, a 16th-century Basque farmhouse (known as Zabalaga country house) built from stone and timber. Inside it, a retrospective on the artist entitled Ecos (Echoes) has been curated by another of his sons, Ignacio, after which a rotating programme of exhibitions will follow.  I meet the museum’s director, Mireia Massagué, at its restaurant-cafe (serving a range of pintxos, from pork brochettes to cheese eclairs), which along with many other elements on the site has been designed by Paris-based architect Luis Laplace. Massagué says one of her most important strategies has been to improve ways to access and experience the space. She has introduced smartphone-scannable QR codes to enable visitors to learn more about the sculptures as they encounter them, and buses from the city centre (departing every half hour) now stop at the entrance of the museum. Massagué is also in talks with local authorities to improve pedestrian and bicycle access.  Chillida’s love affair with Hernani began in 1951, when he moved here to learn to work with iron, a material entrenched in the Basque craft tradition. Here he developed his profound respect for raw materials, always recognising their inalterable natural will. His sculptures suggest that it is by patiently accepting the gradual impacts of time – the rusting effect of air, the erosion of stone, the flow of water – that one might find something timeless. And it is this kind of patience that the artist’s eight children and 27 grandchildren have had to show while waiting for the reopening.  In acquiring this land, Chillida found a home not just for his sculptures but for himself. It remains his home in more ways than one: both he and Pilar are buried on the grounds. As the title of the exhibition suggests, his message of timelessness echoes across the terrain.  “My father thought of himself as a tree,” says Luis. “Roots firmly in one place, with branches spread out to the world.” And the artist’s sculptures can indeed be found across the globe, from Berlin and Helsinki to Dallas and Doha. But in the end, all roads lead back here, to Chillida Leku.  • Adult €12, 9-18s €6, under 9s free, closed Tuesday except on public holidays, museochillidaleku.com  This museum is the place to learn about Basque history, culture and identity. Its permanent collection spans prehistoric civilisation to the modern day, presenting artefacts that tell the story of the land and its people. Part of the building is a former 16th-century convent, while the other part was built in 2011 by Spanish architect Nieto Sobejano.  • €6 general entry, free on Tuesdays, santelmomuseoa.eus  This former tobacco factory opened as a contemporary arts centre in 2015, housing a gallery space, cinema, restaurants, shops and workspaces. An exhibition by San Sebastián-born performance artist Esther Ferrer runs until 26 May. Also on site is one of two spaces in town owned by the Kutxa art foundation, which is currently exhibiting three Dutch contemporary photographers.  • Free, tabakalera.eu  Those with an eye for the art market might visit Cibrián, a new arrival on San Sebastián’s small-but-flourishing commercial gallery scene. Gallerist Gregorio Cibrián has previously promoted a general range of arts and antiques but decided to relaunch last November exclusively as a contemporary art dealer. Other commercial galleries in town include Arteko and Ekain.  • Free, cibriangallery.com  With this free public monument at the western tip of La Concha beach, Chillida truly made his imprint on San Sebastián. Three 11-ton steel sculptures are built into rocks jutting out of the coastline, with waves crashing against them on windy days. The work epitomises Chillida’s belief in nature’s ability to connect everyone and everything and, fittingly, a stream of water is said to flow from this part of the coast all the way inland to Chillida Leku.  A half-hour drive along the coast, and also served by bus, this museum is a must for fashion lovers. Founded in 2011 in Balenciaga’s hometown, it houses one of the world’s biggest collections of items related to the designer, including clothing, accessories and work documents.  • Adult €10, 10-18s €7, under 10s free, cristobalbalenciagamuseoa.com  Looking for a holiday with a difference? Browse Guardian Holidays to see a range of fantastic trips


theguardianuk--2019-05-21--The lost Louvre of Uzbekistan the museum that hid art banned by Stalin

The lost Louvre of Uzbekistan: the museum that hid art banned by Stalin

I am sitting at a huge table at the Ministry of Culture in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, as officials explain what sounds like a wonderful opportunity. There’s currently an international call-out to find someone to run a gallery in the country, one housing the world’s second-largest collection of Russian avant garde art. What an amazing job, I think – raising the profile of a museum that could turn out to be the Louvre of central Asia.  But the dream job may not be quite so dreamy. The next day, at a godawful hour, I get up to fly to Nukus in northern Uzbekistan, where this “museum of forbidden art” is located. En route, I blearily note that even the guidebooks can find little to say about this “unappealing city”. It seems the only other reason people venture there is for a spot of “disaster tourism”. The Aral Sea, once the fourth largest inland sea, has shrunk because of Soviet irrigation systems and chemicals pumped into the water. All the fish are dead. There’s a horribly photogenic landscape of rusting boats on a dried-up seabed that looks like a lunar surface. Toxic dust blows through the area – there are high rates of infant mortality and cancer.  Still, I am here for the art, invited by the Ministry of Culture. Uzbekistan is opening up and has lifted visa restrictions in a bid to bring tourists flocking to the Silk Road cities that we’ve seen Joanna Lumley ooh and aah over. The Nukus Museum of Art might be as close to the middle of nowhere as I have ever been, but it’s still one of the country’s top draws thanks to its Savitsky Collection, which exists precisely because it’s so far from anywhere else.  Igor Savitsky, a former electrician born into a rich Russian family, came to this area on an archaeological dig around 1950 and started collecting local artefacts, textiles and jewellery. Because he was so far from Moscow (and the other centre of power, Tashkent) he was able to amass a huge collection of dissident avant garde art. Eventually he established a museum in 1966. The remoteness of the region allowed him to show and buy paintings that had been banned – the authorities simply had no idea what he was up to. But while the collection may be impressive – Volkov, Kurzin and Lysenko all feature – it’s hard to imagine this place being able to compete with the world’s big collections. As you step over puddles along mud tracks towards a bleak square where the museum stands, everything feels deserted and half dead.  Inside, I approach an elaborate staircase and am welcomed by a charming guide. The art is everywhere – stacked up in some places against the wall as rain comes in through a leaking roof. Then you start to understand what you are seeing, and it’s mind-blowing.  Savitsky risked everything for this collection. Some of these painters were tortured or murdered or spent long years in the gulags. The work collected is of both Russian and Uzbek artists who painted after the 30s, when all work that wasn’t socialist realism was banned by Stalin. Any other styles of the time – the emerging cubism, futurism, even impressionism – were deemed criminal. Formalism, as it was called, was punishable. And the punishments were severe. Savitsky realised he could rescue these works. He would take a train to Moscow which took three days and charm the families of the painters; they would bring down works stuffed in attics. He was known as “the widow’s friend”. Part chancer, part hoarder, he brought together this collection of which only a small percentage is on show.  It’s peculiar to walk into a treasure trove worth millions to international art dealers, yet see the place in such a dire state. There is nothing to do in this town apart from the museum: no restaurants, just a couple of grotty hotels. The infrastructure surrounding most successful art galleries is totally lacking. Is this me applying my western eye to what a museum should be? Possibly, but the art itself speaks to Savitsky’s colonial gaze on this culture. There are beautiful, Gauguin-like paintings by Nikolaev of the local boys with flowers, who dance for the men. This painter was arrested because of his sexuality and then converted to Islam. The tension between socialist realism and orientalism is played out on the walls here.  Some of this “degenerate” art is both overtly political and stylistically breathtaking. There are paintings openly critical of Stalin with Lenin as a shadow lurking in the corner. Volkov and Karahan endeavour to represent the new. Kandinsky had already escaped. Stalin’s 1932 decree on the Reconstruction of the Literary and Artistic Organisations – which brought artists under Communist party control in an effort to unify political and aesthetic objectives – meant an artist like Mikhail Kurzin who depicted Soviet man as ugly was sentenced to five years in prison. His is a harsh, brilliant work. Otto Dix comes to mind.  There are many works by women and Jewish artists in this huge collection. It is only relatively recently that such work could even be spoken about. When the museum showed the drawings of Nadezhda Boravaya – scraps of paper showing emaciated prisoners, dead children and women with identity numbers – the catalogue told visitors that these were imaginary drawings of a German concentration camp. In 1982 it was still not acceptable to tell the truth, that these were smuggled out of Soviet gulags.  The famous Bull painted by Vladimir Lysenko, who was also imprisoned, had to be taken down the day the KGB arrived. Savitsky renamed it Fascism Advances and put it back up the next day. It was only during perestroika that any of this could be spoken about.  In truth, this vast emporium of dissidence and local culture needs so much more than a new director. It needs a restorer. On its wish list are basics such as moth strips and fax machines. The current director, Gulbahar Izentaeva, gave us tea and was bemused that her own job was being advertised. Relations between Tashkent and the museum, which is in the autonomous Republic of Karakalpakstan, seem strained to say the least.  A former director left having being accused of stealing but will be on the board of appointing the next director. Questions about how this will work were met with Soviet defensiveness. Making it work will be incredibly difficult.  I wondered about collaboration, and indeed some of the paintings have been shown at the Pushkin Moscow. “Move the museum to Tashkent, just move it!” someone said and I could see why.  Yet as we drove through the desert from Nukus to the jewel that is Khiva, with its walled city, stopping at pre-Islamic desert castles, one could see what had drawn Savitsky to this place. I became interested not just with the great painters but the textiles and ceramics of Uzbekistan. The women make tapestries called suzanis as part of their dowries and sew into them symbols of fertility: lush pomegranates, birds, horns, their secret desires woven into clothes. Savitsky collected those too.  While other places in Uzbekistan were as gushworthy as everyone said, Nukus stayed with me. And the museum, in its oddness, is far removed from the usual “exit through the gift shop” experience of most art galleries. This is art that artists died for, collected by someone whose passion was to save their work. He believed one day that these artists would be recognised and rehabilitated.  Can this unique museum survive, when places like Abu Dhabi or even Vegas bolt on art galleries to show their cultural capital by simply paying for it? This is the very opposite of that. And it will soon be someone’s job to get people to go there.


theguardianuk--2019-06-21--British Museum has head in sand over return of artefacts

British Museum 'has head in sand' over return of artefacts

The authors of an influential report on colonial-era artefacts, which recommended a restitution programme to transfer hundreds of items from European institutions to Africa, have criticised the British Museum for acting like “an ostrich with its head in the sand”.  The Senegalese economist Felwine Sarr and the French art historian Bénédicte Savoy, who were asked to write the report by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, after he said the return of artefacts would be a priority during his tenure, said the British Museum was not addressing the issue.  “There’s an expression in French, la politique de l’autruche, which means something is in front of you and you say you can’t see it, like an ostrich with its head in the sand,” said Sarr. “They will have to respond and they can’t hide themselves any longer on the issue.”  The 252-page report published in November 2018 made a series of recommendations, chief among them being that France should respond favourably and grant restitutions to African countries that request the return of objects taken during the colonial era.  For Sarr and Savoy, the loan of items to African museums – proposed by the British Museum and other major European institutions in the case of the Benin bronzes, which were stolen during a punitive expedition in 1897 – is not sufficient. “It’s not enough because in a loan the right of the property belongs to you,” said Sarr. “You loan something that you own, it’s your property. If you restitute there is a transfer of the property rights and the new holder of those rights can loan you the item.”  “There’s a symbolic dimension around property rights,” added Savoy. “If you can loan your objects you are respected in the museum world because you can impose your will and conditions. In the capitalist sphere being able to loan gives you power and it means you can impose your own rights.”  In response, a spokesperson for the British Museum said it welcomed a “transparent focus on the provenance of objects”, adding that the museum agreed with the report’s call for the establishment of “new and more equitable relationships between Europe and Africa”.  “We believe the strength of the collection is its breadth and depth which allows millions of visitors an understanding of the cultures of the world and how they interconnect – whether through trade, migration, conquest, or peaceful exchange,” the spokesperson added.  Since the release of the report African countries, including Ivory Coast, Senegal and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, have made formal requests for the return of artefacts, and European countries including France and Germany have committed to handing back objects. The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has opened talks with Sri Lanka and Indonesia and described the Netherlands’ failure to return stolen artefacts as a “disgrace”.  The report, known colloquially as the Macron report, was described as radical by some in the art world upon its release, but the authors disagree. “It’s not us who are radical; it’s historical facts which are radical,” said Savoy. “There was a taboo around this fact for many centuries in Europe, the fact that many major museums have collections based on plundering. There are always ruptures when you break a taboo.”  Savoy and Sarr travelled to Mali, Senegal, Cameroon and Benin and examined the works at the Musée du quai Branly, which holds nearly 80% of the African artworks contained in French public collections, and found more than half may have to be returned. The head of the museum, Stéphane Martin, criticised the report, saying it sidelined museums in favour of specialists in historical reparations, and stained everything collected and bought during the colonial period with “the impurity of colonial crime”.  Savoy and Sarr reject the idea that clear evidence of the circumstances in which colonial-era items were acquired is difficult to find or ambiguous. “It’s not an argument that works,” said Sarr. “These items were stolen or given or taken during scientific missions.”  Savoy added: “Most of these items arrived in Europe between the 19th and 20th centuries – from 1885 to 1930 – and these are times of great documentation. All of these expeditions are well documented. The issue is accessing them as museums have sat on this material – they have all the documents.”  Savoy and Sarr say in the report that “to speak openly about restitution is to speak of justice, rebalancing, recognition, restoration and reparation. But above all, it is to pave the way for the establishment of new cultural relationships.” For the academics that means stopping “the arrogance of Europeans” and European institutions when dealing with Africa.  “The new ethical relationship is probably the end of the arrogance of Europeans,” said Savoy. “A lot of arguments from Europe are based on the idea that Africans can’t host their own heritage, they don’t have museums, we have saved them etc. Changing this way of relating and this narrative is stepping away from a cultural arrogance.”


theguardianuk--2019-06-24--Blackpool to get first museum after winning 4m lottery grant

Blackpool to get first museum after winning £4m lottery grant

Blackpool is to get its first museum – telling the story of Britain’s first mass seaside resort and its place in the history of popular culture – after winning a £4m lottery grant.  Scheduled to open in March 2021, Show Town: The Museum of Fun and Entertainment will be situated on the promenade, near Blackpool Tower.  It is the culmination of years of lobbying and fundraising, particularly from council leader Simon Blackburn, who in 2012 complained that the town had become a “refuge for the dispossessed”.  He made it his mission to change the resort, saying then: “I can’t stand by and let Blackpool be seen as ... a hapless victim of society’s ills.”  But Blackburn bristles at the suggestion he is trying to attract a wealthier demographic, or turn Blackpool middle class.  “Blackpool has always been somewhere you can have a holiday on a small budget but everything we have been doing over the past eight years since I became leader is about broadening that offer, building new hotels and improving our cultural offer,” he said.  “I think there is a very dangerous and class-bound assumption that we are building hotel rooms and cultural attractions for a different kind of person. I’m working class in my bones and I don’t like the idea that it’s only middle class people who want to go to a museum or stay in a nice hotel.”  He said the museum was primarily aimed at local people, who will get free entry. Residents have long tired of the town featuring bottom of all the tables, whether for its early death rate (twice that of the most affluent areas) or for having the worst statistics for smoking or divorce.  “We wanted to give local people a real sense of their history and their place in the town,” said Blackburn. “One of my starting points for this conversation was that two of my children were born in Blackpool and have been brought up here all their lives and I didn’t get a sense that they had a strong sense of what it meant to be a Blackpudlian. And if you look at the membership of the Blackpool Civic Trust, they are all of a certain age, and I wondered where the next generation of people with civic pride and a real sense of the history and heritage of the town was coming from.”  Sited in the redeveloped Sands building, Show Town is expected to attract 296,000 visits annually, deliver 39 full-time jobs and provide £13.16m of regional economic benefit.  It will cost a total of £12.6m, a million of which will come from Blackpool council – which according to Blackburn, earns more than that each year in dividends from its own profit-making local transport service. As well as £4m from the Lottery Heritage Fund, the museum has also received £4m from the Northern Cultural Regeneration Fund and £1.5m from a government growth fund.  The new museum will house over 100,000 items of the town’s collections, featuring Britain’s first permanent displays of circus, music, variety and ballroom dance. Items include those belonging to some of the biggest names in British entertainment, such as Stan Laurel’s hat and suits belonging to Morecambe and Wise, who considered Blackpool their spiritual home.  The museum will work in partnership with the V&A, which back in 2008 first started talking about lending some of its vast store of unexhibited items in a Blackpool outpost. Also on show will be some of the 40,000-strong Tower and Winter Gardens archive and key pieces from the Illuminations Collection, which tells the story of the annual extravaganza of lights. A likely highlight will be a collection of “saucy” postcards stamped “approved” or “disapproved” by the Blackpool Postcard Censorship Board, and an exhibit explaining how the Rolling Stones came to be banned from the Empress Ballroom.  It is part of a huge regeneration project, which will soon see the opening of the first five-star hotel in the resort since the 1960s and a state-of-the-art conference centre next to the historic Winter Gardens. In December last year plans were revealed for a £300m redevelopment of a 17-acre site which will include the UK’s first “flying theatre”, as well as restaurants and hotels.  Other projects given Lottery Heritage funding in the latest round include:


theguardianuk--2019-06-29--Should museums return their colonial artefacts

Should museums return their colonial artefacts?

“I am from a generation of the French people for whom the crimes of European colonialism are undeniable and make up part of our history,” announced Emmanuel Macron to a crowded lecture theatre at Ouagadougou University, in Burkina Faso, in November 2017. “I cannot accept that a large part of cultural heritage from several African countries is in France … In the next five years, I want the conditions to be created for the temporary or permanent restitution of African patrimony to Africa.” In case anyone missed the significance of the French president’s remarks, the Elysée Palace was swift to spell out the new policy: “African heritage can no longer be the prisoner of European museums.”  The following year brought another notable intervention, this time from supervillain Erik Killmonger in the Marvel blockbuster Black Panther. Surveying the African collection at the “Museum of Great Britain”, Killmonger corrects the exhibition’s patronising white curator about the provenance of an axe: “It was taken by British soldiers in Benin, but it’s from Wakanda. Don’t trip – I’m gonna take it off your hands for you.” When the woman replies that the items are not for sale, Killmonger says: “How do you think your ancestors got these? Do you think they paid a fair price? Or did they take it, like they took everything else?” As the poisoned curator collapses, Killmonger deaccessions the artefact. Black Panther took just 26 days to reach $1bn (£784,000) in worldwide box office sales and, in one compelling scene, highlighted all the current controversies over museum collections and colonial injustice.  Macron’s pledge and Killmonger’s heist had context. The preceding decade had brought growing demands for the restitution of artefacts taken from Africa by European colonists during the 19th century. If the case for the restitution of human remains to indigenous communities had been, by and large, acceded, the new frontier was works of art. The UN kickstarted the conversation in 2007 with article 11 of its declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples, which urged states to restore “cultural, intellectual, religious and spiritual property” taken from indigenous people without their “free, prior and informed consent or in violation of their laws, traditions and customs”. With that aim in mind, the Benin Dialogue Group was established the same year as part of an effort to get European museum curators talking to key representatives in Nigeria.  Action soon followed. In 2009, Egypt demanded that the Louvre return five fragments of a wall painting from the tomb of Tetaki, an 18th-dynasty noble. In 2012, Nigeria requested the return of 32 objects from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston that had been looted by the British army during a raid on the Royal Palaces of Abomey in 1897. In 2017, a year after the president of Benin had made an official request to the French foreign ministry for the return of items taken during imperial occupation, Nigeria made a further request, asking the British Museum in London to return the celebrated Benin bronzes.  A core objective of the Benin Dialogue Group was the creation of a permanent display in Benin City of objects once belonging to the former kingdom and now in continental hands. Last year, Hermann Parzinger, president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, called for international guidelines akin to the Washington principles (which address the restitution of Nazi-confiscated art to descendants of dispossessed, predominantly Jewish families) to help museums handle provenance research and repatriation of illegally acquired artworks in public collections. It is no coincidence that much of this thinking coincided with growing calls for western European nations to apologise for various “crimes” of empire, from the Germans in Namibia and the Dutch in Indonesia to the British in Kenya and India and the French in north Africa.  However, it was Macron’s intervention that signalled a step change. “This is a revolution,” declared French art historian Bénédicte Savoy. “In two minutes and 33 seconds… Macron swept aside several decades of official French museum policy.” Savoy was appointed, alongside the Senegalese economist and writer Felwine Sarr, to write a report on implementing the Macron vision. The resulting study, published last November, recommended the restitution of “any objects taken by force or presumed to be acquired through inequitable conditions” by the army, scientific explorers or administrators during the French colonial period in Africa, which lasted from the late 19th century until 1960.  In the report’s aftermath, museums across Europe raced to develop new policies on restitution and repatriation – not least at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Having previously worked as an MP, I am used to politics. But since my appointment as director of the V&A in February 2017, I have been taken aback by the intensity of the repatriation debate. As a museum born of the imperial moment, the question of provenance and ownership in a post-colonial age is particularly germane. The V&A’s collections expanded in line with the growth of the British empire, in its official and unofficial guise, across southern Asia, showcasing Indian textiles, Burmese lacquerware, Chinese porcelain, and Persian carpets – as well as a remarkable range of British industrial designs and European Renaissance treasures. In Britain’s colonies and spheres of influence, the practice of collecting was intimately tied to the dominating psychology of colonialism. From the beginning of my directorship, I wanted to be open and transparent about that colonial past, and think carefully about how to manage its legacy today. So too did colleagues on the continent.  “It’s a disgrace that the Netherlands is only now turning its attention to the return of the colonial heritage,” Taco Dibbits, the Rijksmuseum’s director, told the Dutch newspaper Trouw as he opened talks on the restitution of colonial-era loot to Indonesia and Sri Lanka. “We should have done it earlier and there is no excuse.” Similarly, the Netherlands’ National Museum of World Cultures pledged proactively to return all artefacts within its collection identified as stolen during the colonial era – starting with 139 Benin bronzes, eligible for repatriation to Nigeria. Just outside Brussels, in Tervuren, the Royal Museum for Central Africa turned itself from an institution that celebrated the colonial history of Belgium in the Congo to one that consciously confronted the multiple crimes of King Leopold’s African empire. As parks in eastern Europe are dotted with the fallen statues of Stalin and Lenin, so the Brussels museum pulled down its highly racialised and offensive African statuary (placing them on show as a relic of European colonial thought). And in Berlin, Germany’s 16 state cultural ministries, the foreign office, and urban municipalities agreed to work with museums on a set of guidelines for the return of objects taken from former colonies. “All people should have the opportunity to meet their rich material cultural heritage in their countries and communities of origin, to interact with it and pass it on to future generations,” they concluded.  At the same time, an exciting wave of new museums was announced across Africa. The Museum of Black Civilisations in Dakar, Senegal, was opened in 2018, with capacity for about 18,000 objects, alongside a clear demand for some of that space to be filled by items currently housed in European museums. New projects are also scheduled for the Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria, the Museum of National History in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the JK Randle Centre for Yoruba Culture and History in Lagos. The opening of the Benin Royal Museum in Benin City is scheduled for 2021.  The Macron intervention and Savoy/Sarr report represent a philosophical disavowal of the bullish defence of western, encyclopaedic museums articulated in the 2002 “declaration on the importance and value of universal museums”, signed by 18 prominent institutions including the Louvre and New York’s Metropolitan Museum. When it came to the troubled provenance of parts of their collection, the declaration decreed that “over time, objects so acquired – whether by purchase, gift or portage – have become part of the museums that have cared for them, and by extension part of the heritage of the nations which house them”. James Cuno, president of the J Paul Getty Trust, fleshed out the argument for world collections in his book Museums Matter, writing: “Without [encyclopaedic museums], one risks a hardening of views about one’s own, particular culture as being pure, essential, and organic, something into which one is born… The collective, political risk of not having encyclopaedic museums… is that culture becomes fixed national culture.” Cuno thought it highly reductive to condemn a collection solely because of an imperial connection, adducing Edward Said’s argument that “partly because of empire, all cultures are involved in one another; none is single and pure, all are hybrid, heterogenous, extraordinarily differentiated, and unmonolithic.”  This nuanced account of the impact of empire represents an increasingly singular stance amid the increasingly vocal public and professional campaign to “decolonise the museum”. In a 2016 TedX talk on the latter theme, Cinnamon Catlin-Legutko, president and CEO of the Abbe Museum in Maine, urged fellow museum professionals to give voice and power back to formerly colonised people in an effort to make colonial histories more present in western museums. Olga Viso, the director of Minnesota’s Walker Art Center, concurred. “If museums want to continue to have a place, they must stop seeing activists as antagonists,” she wrote. “They must position themselves as learning communities, not impenetrable centres of self-validating authority. If they do not, museums run the risk of becoming culturally irrelevant artefacts.”  The debate was further energised in April 2018, when Brooklyn Museum hired a white scholar as chief curator of the African collection. An open letter from Decolonize This Place, a New York-based action group intent on an overhaul of the city’s museums, described the decision as “tone deaf”, calling on the museum to “participate in the creation of a Decolonization Commission… to account for their own role in the histories of colonialism and white supremacy”. The group called for this commission to be tasked with diversifying the museum’s staff and reviewing its inventory of colonial-era artefacts “with a view to settling the long-pursued claims of reparations and repatriation”.  Curiously, yet tellingly, Decolonize This Place also sought an end to “pro-Israeli artwashing” and “an institutional commitment to address the issues raised by the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement” against Israel. What the establishment of the state of Israel had to do with the hiring of a white female curator in Brooklyn was unclear, but it exposed both the broader ideological (and racial) agenda of the movement and how the ‘decolonisation’ agenda can encompass so many differing strands.  There have been debates around the imperial past and its legacies in Britain, one example being the Rhodes Must Fall campaign, which called for the removal of a statue of Cecil Rhodes from an Oxford college. But while the call to decolonise museums is at an earlier stage than in the US, it is gathering pace. Birkbeck, University of London historian Emma Lundin has written of how “Rhodes must go, along with objects brought to Britain by colonial-era travellers” and urges the return of “purchased objects… acquired because of power imbalances between buyers and sellers”. Alice Procter, a University of London student, runs “uncomfortable art tours” of British museums focusing on questions of disputed provenance. She dismisses “the whole concept of the Museum… [as] a colonialist, imperialist fantasy, born from the fallacy that somehow the whole world can be neatly catalogued, contained in a single building, mapped out for easy digestion”. Clearly to her, the museum as well as Rhodes must go.  In 2016, a group of museum and heritage professionals formed Museum Detox, a network for people of black, Asian, Arabic or dual heritage. Led by Sara Wajid, head of engagement at the Museum of London, they aim to build awareness about diversity in cultural organisations, help members achieve leadership positions, and “creatively use radical approaches to dismantle unjust infrastructures in our national cultural institutions”. While numerous museums have, over many decades, addressed uncomfortable colonial histories through their events, last year Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery went further. Its exhibition The Past Is Now: Birmingham and the British Empire, which was conceived as “an experiment in how the story of the British empire may be told permanently”, brought together six external co-curators of colour from outside the museum world. “For many people of colour, collections symbolise historic and ongoing trauma and theft,” explained Sumaya Kassim, one of the artists involved. “The craftsmanship, the display case, the beauty of the institution that collects and protects its imperial hoard: the way items are described, the way they are catalogued and what gets shown and what remains hidden; all work to deny, retreat and forget.”  Despite much outside praise, the exhibition also drew criticism for giving the impression that “the British empire was unfailingly dreadful and uniquely evil”. More interestingly, those involved in its curation worried whether the exhibition had merely endorsed the status quo. “I do not want to see decolonisation become part of Britain’s national narrative as a pretty curio with no substance,” wrote Kassim. The fear was that “decoloniality” was already on its way to becoming a buzzword devoid of agency, like “diversity”. The cultural critic Jason Farago similarly urged western, encyclopaedic museums to go beyond inclusion, diversity, and even “decolonisation”, to rethink completely their approach. “A 21st-century universal museum has to unsettle the very labels that the age of imperialism bequeathed to us: nations and races, east and west, art and craft. It’s not enough just to call for ‘decolonisation’… the whole fiction of cultural purity has to go, too. Any serious museum can only be a museum of our entangled past and resent.”  How should an institution like the V&A respond to this new cultural climate, and honour its responsibilities as a global museum? Last year, on the 150th anniversary of the British invasion of Abyssinia, we attempted to chart a pathway through with a small display highlighting our imperial, Ethiopian collections. At its heart sat the Maqdala crown, an exquisite work of African craftsmanship, commissioned by the Ethiopian Empress Mentewab in the 1740s, alloyed with silver and copper with filigree work and glass beads. But, as the display made clear, the crown came into the V&A’s possession in less pretty circumstances.  Its route to South Kensington originated with the mid-19th century Abyssinian ruler, Emperor Tewodros II, and his ambition to build a modern nation state in east Africa. As a great Christian emperor, Tewodros hoped to push back the power of the Egyptians and sought the assistance of Queen Victoria and the British state in his endeavours. When Lord Palmerston revealed he had no intention of supporting his ambitions (not least because it might entail alienating Egypt, a major supplier of cotton), Tewodros took hostage the British emissary and a handful of European nationals. In response, Sir Robert Napier gathered together an expeditionary force of 13,000 men, stormed the Maqdala fortress, secured the release of the hostages, and then started to pillage. Sometime during the battle, Tewodros killed himself.  Under the stewardship of accompanying curator Richard Holmes, the crown, chalice, and other regalia made their way back to the British Treasury, were auctioned for the army prize fund and then transferred to numerous national museums, including the V&A. Many British politicians heralded the Abyssinian expedition as a textbook imperial intervention. But William Gladstone, the prime minister, told the House of Commons that he “deeply lamented, for the sake of the country, and for the sake of all concerned, that these articles… were thought fit to be brought away by a British army”. He urged that they “be held only until they could be restored”.  During the 20th century, a number of items held by the British government were returned to Ethiopia. Artefacts owned by the British Museum, British Library, National Army Museum and V&A could not legally be part of that process of restitution, however. So in March 2008, Girma Wolde-Giorgis, the president of Ethiopia, sent a letter to Sir Mark Jones, the V&A’s director at the time, stating that Ethiopians had “long grieved at the loss of this part of their national heritage” and urging “the return of Ethiopia’s looted treasures” “to cement the good relations between our two countries”. Yet discussions over how to pursue such an accommodation soon petered out. In 2018 we were clear that even if the objects could not be returned tout court, we should nonetheless work on a display as well as being open and transparent about how the items entered the collection, engaging with the Ethiopian embassy and the broader diaspora community, and offering the items on a long-term loan. If not decolonising the museum, the display was cognisant of the colonial context of the collection and its meaning for African-heritage communities.  Adamant that the restitution case remained outstanding, the Ethiopian government said they could not accede to a long-term loan, as that would signal a legal acceptance of UK ownership. “Ethiopia’s demand has always been the restoration of those illegally looted treasures. Not to borrow them,” responded Ephrem Amare, the Ethiopian National Museum director. That position was reaffirmed in March 2019 when the Ethiopian culture minister, Dr Hirut Kassaw, visited the V&A display. For the Ethiopian government, the collection was not simply an array of interesting design artefacts, but essential to the country rediscovering its history and charting a new way forward. Kassaw’s trip to London included a successful visit to the National Army Museum, where she oversaw the return of two lockets of hair cut from the scalp of Tewodros in 1868 and now set to be reinterred with his remains.  Alongside the understandable official position, the Ethiopian ambassador Hailemichael Aberra Afework expressed satisfaction “with the new partnership between Ethiopia and the V&A”, expressing optimism about “future co-operation” on “the care and maintenance of cultural heritage, in which the V&A has extensive experience”. Productive conversations have since been held about a framework for co-operation – together with the British Library and British Museum - and we are working towards having the Maqdala treasures on show in Addis Ababa.  The V&A’s Maqdala experience highlighted the tensions facing national museums when it comes to restitution debates. Under the National Heritage Act 1983, the trustees of the V&A are specifically prevented from de-accessioning objects that are the property of the museum, unless they are exact replicas or damaged beyond repair. This remit was specifically enjoined to prevent the dispersal of “unfashionable” items from the collections (or, indeed, fundraising through the sale of valuable works), which later generations might have lamented.  But legislation is only part of the issue. I also feel we need to tread carefully along a path of total restitution, dictated by a political timetable. There remains something essentially valuable about the ability of museums to position objects beyond particular cultural or ethnic identities, curate them within a broader intellectual or aesthetic lineage, and situate them within a wider, richer framework of relationships while allowing free and open access, physically and digitally.  For a museum like the V&A, to decolonise is to decontextualise: the history of empire is embedded in its meaning and collections, and the question is how that is interpreted. A more nuanced understanding of empire is needed than the politically driven pathways of Good or Bad. For alongside colonial violence, empire was also a story of cosmopolitanism and hybridity: through trade, religion, war and force, peoples and cultures mixed and, in many cases, expressed that exchange and interaction through the type of material culture now found in museums. That was the case for the Roman, Ottoman, Ming, Ashanti, Habsburg and, yes, British empires. Today, power, wealth and art are being accumulated in the coming empires – informal and formal – of modern China and the Gulf states. Perhaps the real challenge is how we create more, rather than fewer, universal museums – not in Europe and the west, but across Africa, India and the global south. Our aim should be to detach the universal, encyclopaedic museum from its colonial preconditions and reimagine it as a new medium for multicultural understanding.  Calls for “decolonisation”, restitution and diversity look set to grow. Maqdala 1868 was a small step forward. So too our work on African heritage tours of the museum collections, research into the slave-owning wealth of early V&A benefactors, programming and exhibitions consciously focused on promoting diversity, sustained attempts to widen the talent pool of curatorial and conservation staff. About 47% of schoolchildren who visited the V&A in 2017-18 were from BAME backgrounds; clear progress has been made. However, the truth is that museum leaders must engage with this agenda and work on programmes of tangible change involving collections and curators, which can include the option of repatriation, in different forms, based on the history of each object. As Sabyasachi Mukherjee, director general of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya in Mumbai, says: “Museums must recognise that unresolved repatriation and restitution disputes can, in the absence of serious efforts at conciliation, paralyse the sharing of significant cultural objects… institutional narratives or legal doctrines [must] not come in the way of celebrating a world culture.” If that is ignored, the momentum will pass into the hands of politicians – and in a two-minute-33-second speech, the complex, layered meaning of an object could be lost for ever to the reductive expediency of a passing agenda.


theguardianuk--2019-07-03--Look without looting the Imperial War Museum charts a history of destruction

'Look without looting': the Imperial War Museum charts a history of destruction

Pickaxes, dynamite, anti-aircraft guns – the Taliban had tried everything to destroy the Bamiyan Buddhas, which had towered for 15 centuries in a pair of niches cut into the mountains in northern Afghanistan. But, after days of assaults, the majestic statues still wouldn’t budge. “This work of destruction is not as simple as people might think,” lamented the Taliban’s information minister, Qudratullah Jamal in March 2001, midway through their frenzied campaign to erase the figures, which they had decreed to be blasphemous idols. “You can’t knock down the statues by shelling as both are carved into a cliff; they are firmly attached to the mountain.”  After two weeks of botched bombardment, the Taliban leaders ordered anti-tank mines to be placed at the foot of the cliffs, to be detonated by falling debris from artillery fire, followed by having abseilers place explosives into holes drilled into the statues, which finally reduced the precious monuments to rubble.  An imposing image of one of the empty niches greets visitors to the Imperial War Museum in London, at the entrance to What Remains, a new exhibition that explores a hundred years of cultural heritage in the firing sights – and the highly charged debates around repair, reconstruction and restitution that always follow the devastation.  Almost two decades after the Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, there is still no consensus about whether they should be rebuilt, or their ghostly shells left as a reminder of this dark chapter in the country’s history. One wealthy Chinese couple had an alternative idea. In 2015, tofu mogul turned world explorer Zhang Xinyu and his wife, Liang Hong, projected a holographic image of a buddha into one of the empty niches, and donated the $120,000 projector used to do so to the Afghan Ministry of Culture afterwards. It was a generous act, but it hasn’t proved particularly useful: Bamiyan has no mains electricity system, so the power-hungry contraption needs a diesel generator. It is rarely operated as a result. Local heritage officials, meanwhile, bemoan that the European archaeologists who had been working on the site took the keys with them when they left.  The Taliban’s attempt to obliterate anything that indicated civilisation pre-Islam is just one of the many chapters in this illuminating if depressing exhibition, which charts the extreme lengths we have gone to as a species to obliterate the physical traces of rival powers and competing ideologies.  “A nation stays alive when its culture stays alive,” proclaims a slogan on the wall, taken from a stone plaque outside the Afghan National Museum in Kabul (where the Taliban wrought further vandalism), the corollary being that a nation can just as easily be expunged by the deletion of its heritage. From the bombing of cathedrals in Coventry and Dresden, to the burning of books in Sarajevo, to the levelling of Homs, the exhibition shows how the strategic destruction and appropriation of cultural artefacts has always been at the heart of modern warfare. A second section looks at the responses, explaining how the process of documenting the destruction of the second world war laid the foundations for the work of Historic England (which co-curated the show), to more recent efforts by the likes of Google to digitise lost artefacts from crowdsourced images, including the Lion of Mosul, destroyed by Islamic State in 2015, and now 3D-printed in miniature in the exhibition.  One of the most haunting vitrines displays a photo album from the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, a Nazi task force dedicated to the systematic looting of cultural property, which catalogues the paintings confiscated from Jewish families in the 1940s. Above it hangs the puffed-up uniform of Hermann Goering, Hitler’s deputy, a white jacket with gold brocading he designed himself. It is an appropriately bloated outfit for a man whose appetite for plundered art saw him acquire three new paintings a week at the height of the Nazi looting, to decorate his own sprawling home.  Almost 75 years later, the struggle to find and return the pillaged booty is still ongoing. The exhibition shows an image that Florence’s Uffizi Gallery displayed earlier this year, depicting a painting seized by Nazi troops in 1943 surrounded by banners saying “Stolen!” The campaign has paid off: just last week, the descendants of the German soldier who stole the work finally reached an agreement to return it.  From the Nazis and the Taliban to Isis’s more recent destruction of Palmyra, there is plenty on the bad guys, but not much space devoted to the more nuanced topic of the damage wrought by the supposed good guys, like the trail of vandalism left by coalition forces in Iraq. It would have been an interesting counterpoint to highlight the fact that, in 2003, US-led troops chose the site of Babylon as the location for their military base, building a depot and helipads on the ruins of the ancient city, renowned for its beauty and splendour a thousand years before Europe built anything comparable. Decorated bricks that formed the famous dragons of the Ishtar Gate were gouged out of the walls, while 2,600-year-old pavements were crushed by military vehicles and vast amounts of earth, mixed with archaeological fragments, were dug up to fill thousands of sandbags. A damning British Museum report at the time described it as “tantamount to establishing a military camp around the Great Pyramid in Egypt or around Stonehenge in Britain”.  The army captains could have done with a handy set of Archaeology Awareness playing cards, produced in 2007 by the US Department of Defense in collaboration with Colorado University, on display in an entertaining part of the exhibition about educating soldiers on the importance of cultural heritage. “Ancient sites matter to the local community,” says a caption on the Queen of Hearts card, beneath an image of some locals enjoying a site in Uruk, Iraq. “Showing respect wins hearts and minds.”  “LOOK WITHOUT LOOTING” was the more direct message given to British soldiers in the second world war, shown on a screen-printed poster alongside the informative “Art – Its Background”, an improving wall-chart that introduced young recruits to the finer points of El Greco and Van Gogh.  As Donald Trump prepares to blunder into an accidental war with Iran, threatening to “obliterate” the country in a recent tirade of tweets, his military aides might do well to familiarise themselves with the ancient cradle of civilisation that produced the wonders of Persepolis, the exquisitely tiled mosques of Isfahan, the mud-walled mansions of Kashan, and the ornate gardens of Shiraz – before all we have is digitally crowdsourced replicas of them.