A curious case of Americans versus Iran has the Tehran government asking for Washington to intervene and the University of Chicago defending the Islamic regime in court.
At issue is an extremely valuable collection of ancient Persian cuneiform tablets that victims of a terror bombing want to seize and auction as compensation.
The clay tablets have been kept in the Chicago university's museum since the 1930s.
But lawyers for Americans wounded in a 1997 bombing in Jerusalem won a court ruling last month that takes them a step closer to seizing the collection for want of other accessible Iranian assets in the US.
The university said it planned to appeal the ruling.
"The Oriental Institute will do everything in its power to protect cultural patrimony and the character of the tablets as an irreplaceable scholarly data set," the university's Oriental Institute director Gil Stein said in a letter to Iranian cultural authorities.
"The protection of cultural patrimony and of scholarly research are fundamental matters of principle for us, as they should be for every civilized person and nation," Stein wrote.
The plaintiffs argue that Iran has to compensate them as an Iranian-supported group, Hamas -- now the government in the Palestinian territories -- claimed responsibility for the bombing in the popular Ben Yehuda mall, which killed five people and wounded 192 others.
A US judge has already ordered that Iran should pay the victims US$423.5 million and last month another judge ruled against the University of Chicago, which is fighting to retain the tablets inscribed in cuneiform.
"We expect the US government to show a swift and serious reaction to prevent implementation of the verdict," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said on Sunday.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia