Daily archives: May 5, 2011


Daily Blog 05/05/2011

  • Here you have it; the artists’ renderings of what the secret helicopter that crased during the raid to kill Osama bin Laden might look like have begun to surface. Since the only photos of the beast to emerge so far show only the tail section, the drawings are pretty much based on imagination and educated guesswork, but they’re still entertaining.

    tags: helicopter

  • Havocscope is the authoritative information platform tracking the global black market. Utilizing publicly available sources, Havocscope displays credible and relevant data regarding illicit activities to users worldwide.

    All data listed within Havocscope has been collected from publicly available sources such as newspapers, government reports and academic journals. Every single data point listed within Havocscope is listed with the source. When aggregate totals are displayed, each figure that is calculated is included with the original source.

    tags: blackmarkets statistics

  • This site contains two fully searchable databases.

    The Information Database contains information and documentation from forty nine countries, including laws and policies, reports and publications, archival records and resources, current cases and relevant websites.

    The Object Database contains details of over 25,000 objects of all kinds – paintings, drawings, antiquities, Judaica, etc – looted, missing and/or identified from over fifteen countries.

    tags: lootedart art ww2

  • The abuse of the diplomatic pouch by diplomats, UN peacekeepers, other foreign soldiers and aid workers to smuggle of art and antiquities is a public secret, 1 officially denied by most authorities but unofficially admitted by others. 2 Because of their diplomatic status, smuggling is extremely difficult to prove. To what extent can this claim be substantiated?

    Patrick O’Keefe and Lyndell Prott of the Australian National University argue that the involvement of diplomats in the illicit art trade is ‘of considerable concern’. 3 Enamul Haque, director of the International Centre for the Study of Bengal Art and retired director of the Bangladesh National Museum, agrees. ‘Yes, diplomats cause a lot of damage and abuse the diplomatic pouch’. 4 As an example, Haque describes a case in the 1970s, when an American doctor abused his position as a foreigner to smuggle many ancient objects out of Bangladesh, which he then sold to museums and private collectors in the United States. A Japanese and an Italian diplomat had also purchased and exported a number of stone statues.

    tags: art smuggling

  • An art smuggler has told a jury how he smuggled a $1m (£700,000) sculpture out of Egypt, and allegedly sold it on to a New York art dealer.

    Jonathan Tokeley-Parry said he smuggled the sculpture of the head of Amenhotep III – who died in 1375 BC – out of Egypt by dipping it in plastic and painting it black to make it look like a cheap tourist souvenir.

    tags: art smuggling

  • tags: terrorism intelligence waterboarding

    • The torture program established by the CIA appears to have played a minor role, at most, in the intelligence effort that eventually lead to Osama bin Laden’s death. From the evidence released so far, electronic surveillance and old-fashioned intel methods were far more important.
  • Smashwords books are coming to an app store near you.

    Today we announced an agreement with ScrollMotion that will transform over 33,000 Smashwords Premium Catalog ebooks into individual mobile apps for distribution to the largest app marketplaces for smart phones, tablets and other mobile devices.

    The relationship will gain Smashwords authors and publishers free entry into the app marketplaces for Apple, Android, Windows Phone 7 and WebOS.

    tags: smashwords

  • The world’s largest model airport opened yesterday at the Miniatur Wunderland model rail attraction in Hamburg, Germany. Miniatur Wunderland is the world’s largest H0 scale model rail landscape, and its airport has finally opened to operations, after six years of design and construction.

    tags: model

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.