By Hannah Richardson & Tom Oakley Published 1 hour ago Share close Share page Copy link About sharing A "£20m" painting claimed to be the most valuable in Leicester's public should not be hidden in storage, a councillor said. Lying Figure No1 by Francis Bacon used to be on display at the Leicester Museum and Art Gallery, but it is not currently on show. Nigel Porter, Liberal Democrat councillor, questioned why such a work was "sitting in a basement". The council blamed limits on space and said it would eventually reappear. "I think a lot of people would like to see it," said Mr Porter at a scrutiny meeting. "It's a very valuable, very important painting and I'm sure a lot of people would visit Leicester just to come and look at it. It must be the most valuable painting we have got in the museum. "Rather than having this £20m painting stuck in some basement, what … [Read more...] about ‘£20m’ painting owned by Leicester council being kept in storage
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Cameroonian activist pushed for restitution of deity
Restitution activist Njobati Sylvie could not hide her joy when Germany's Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation announced that a statue of Ngonnso would be returned to Cameroon. Ngonnso is a mother deity of the Nso people in northwestern Cameroon. A statue of her was taken by Kurt von Pavel, a German colonial officer in Cameroon, who subsequently donated her to Berlin's Ethnological Museum in 1903. "I feel super elated, it has been a journey that has culminated to a win for the Nso community, Cameroon and by and large the entire African continent," Njobati told DW. Ngonnso has a central role for the Nso as she is considered a mother deity The restitution journey Njobati started the Twitter campaign #BringBackNgonnso in 2020, which played a large part in raising awareness for the restitution cause. But her activism actually started before that — when she decided to reconnect with her Nso heritage and trace her roots. Njobati grew up in Cameroon's Anglophone region … [Read more...] about Cameroonian activist pushed for restitution of deity
Parents dipping into children’s savings to pay soaring bills, poll finds
Parents have resorted to dipping into their children ’s savings to afford to pay for the soaring cost of household bills , a poll has found. According to a survey for The Telegraph , Britons are lifting £8.5m a day from their children as the sprialling rate of inflation - which recently hit a 40-year high - continues to top up already sky-high domestic costs. The poll revealed that families had withdrawn almost £300 on average from their children’s savings so far this year. It found a third of the 2,000 people questioned had raided their children’s funds this year and suggested a total of £1.4bn has been withdrawn so far. Almost a quarter said they had extracted the funds to pay for increasingly expensive food shops, one in four said they had done so to help pay for exorbitant energy bills, while 6 per cent said they used their children’s savings to pay for travel. More than a quarter said they had either reduced the amount they were keeping aside for … [Read more...] about Parents dipping into children’s savings to pay soaring bills, poll finds
How bottom trawling hurts ocean life and speeds up climate change
When Bryce Stewart dived after the toothed, steel-weighted nets of a scallop dredger rumbling over the bottom of the Irish Sea 22 years ago, he witnessed destruction he could never have seen from a boat. "Half crabs. Smashed up sea urchins. Starfish missing some of their arms," said Stewart, a marine ecologist at the University of York. "There was literally a trail of dead and dying things on the seabed." Bottom trawling — a powerful practice in which heavy nets are dragged along the floor of the ocean to catch fish and seafood — is one of the most harmful ways to feed the world. It destroys ecosystems and sweeps up unwanted marine life that gets thrown overboard. From 1950 to 2014, bottom trawlers discarded $560 billion of bycatch, which was more than the value of all catches from longline fishers over the same period. Metal bars and toothed nets wreak havoc on ocean ecosystems Now scientists fear another environmental disaster bubbling under the surface: climate … [Read more...] about How bottom trawling hurts ocean life and speeds up climate change