Malta may demand return of fossil given
to Prince George by David Attenborough
Caroline Davies
Mon, 28 September 2020.
From the world-famous Koh-i-noor diamond to the Rosetta Stone, British royals
have long been gifted rare objects that campaigners want repatriated to their
rightful lands.
Prince George, it seems, is the latest in the line of fire, after being given a giant
prehistoric shark tooth by the environmentalist and national treasure Sir David
Attenborough, found on a family holiday to Malta more than 50 years ago.
Images of the delighted seven-year-old examining his treasure were released by
Kensington Palace at the weekend, after Attenborough visited the Duke and
Duchess of Cambridge for a private viewing of his new environmental
documentary A Life on Our Planet.
But the kindly gesture has caused consternation in Malta, a British colony until
1964 of which the Queen was head of state until 1974, and a country very close
to her heart since she spent her first years of marriage to Prince Philip based
there as a naval officer’s wife.
The Maltese culture minister, José Herrera, has pledged to investigate if the
tooth should, in fact, be returned for display on the island where it was originally
excavated, according to reports.
The fossilised tooth, found embedded in soft yellow limestone, is believed to be
about 23m years old and to have once belonged to a Carcharocles megalodon,
an extinct species of giant shark that could grow up to 16 metres (52 feet) long.
Megalodon teeth are said to be relatively common fossils in many locations,
according to FossilEra.com. The reason for this is that Megalodon and other
sharks shed their teeth during their lifetime or as they grew. According to the
website, an adult shark could shed thousands of teeth.
Asked by the Times of Malta whether there were plans to add the tooth to the
nation’s heritage collection, Herrera said he would “get the ball rolling”.
“There are some artefacts that are important to Maltese natural heritage, which
ended up abroad and deserve to be retrieved,” he said.
“We rightly give a lot of attention to historical and artistic artefacts. However, it is
not always the case with our natural history. I am determined to direct a change,”
the paper quoted him saying.
Fossils fall under the definition of cultural heritage as a “movable or immovable
object of geological importance” and, in line with the provisions of the Cultural
Heritage Act 2002, their removal or excavation is now expressly forbidden, the
Times of Malta reported.
Kensington Palace has been approached for comment.
The British royal family has long faced calls for the repatriation of a number of
famous items, many the product of looting and plunder by explorers or soldiers
over centuries or acquired through colonisation.
These include the world’s largest diamond, the Koh-i-noor (Mountain of Light),
reportedly worth more than £100m, and the star piece in the crown worn by
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother on the coronation of George VI, and again at
the Queen’s 1953 coronation. It currently forms part of the crown jewels.
The 105-carat diamond, possibly mined in Kollur Mine, India, was part of the
Mughal Peacock Throne and changed hands several times between various
factions in south and west Asia until being ceded to Queen Victoria after the
British annexation of the Punjab in 1849.
The governments of India, Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan have all claimed
rightful ownership. There have been demands for its return since India gained
independence from the UK in 1947, rejected by the British government, which
has insisted it was obtained legally under the terms of the Treaty of Lahore. In
recent years a group of Bollywood stars and business owners instructed lawyers
to bring proceedings for its return.
A statue of the head of a king, presented to the present Queen by the former
president of Nigeria, Gen Yakubu Gowon, was later revealed as a genuine Benin
bronze dating back to 1600 after it went on display in 2002 as part of the Royal
Collection Trust.
There have been sustained calls for the return of the Benin Bronzes, a group of
sculptures and plaques, many now in the British Museum, that once decorated
the royal palace in the kingdom of Benin, now part of Nigeria.
The Rosetta Stone – the rock stele that allowed researchers to read hieroglyphs
– is believed to have been found by solders in the Nile delta, with the British
taking possession if it on Napoleon’s defeat in 1801.
George III offered it to the British Museum a few months after it arrived in
Portsmouth in 1802. Egyptian officials have demanded its return for decades. A
similar argument has played out over the Parthenon marbles, a series of Greek
sculptures bought to the UK at around the same time, and also housed in the
British Museum.
The New York Times
Stranded Overseas, Thousands Beg
Australia to Let Them Come Home
Limits on the number of Australians who can return have spurred a growing uproar over
the country’s hard-line approach on the coronavirus.
By Livia Albeck-Ripka
Sept. 25, 2020.
DARWIN, Australia — Alison Richards, a 38-year-old graphic designer, had been living
in Britain for five years when she decided to move home to Australia. Then she got sick
with Covid-19 and lost her job.
“It was an awful experience,” said Ms. Richards, who spent six weeks without leaving
her apartment, except for the night she became so ill she called an ambulance. “I
thought, I’ll just pull myself through this and get home.”
She’s still waiting.
Ms. Richards is among tens of thousands of Australians stranded abroad because of
government coronavirus restrictions that cap the number of people allowed on flights
into the country. In mid-June, Ms. Richards booked a ticket to Sydney, but she has been
bumped twice from her flight as a result of the caps.
Australia is one of the few places in the world that is barring citizens from leaving their
own country and limiting the number of those who can return. The tough regulations
have raised legal concerns about the right to freedom of movement, and have been
especially painful for the large numbers of Australians who turn to travel as a balm
against the tyranny of distance from the rest of the world.
“We wanted to take our kids out of the Australian bubble,” Daniel Tusia, 40, said of his
family’s decision to travel internationally for a year. Mr. Tusia ended up spending
$14,000 on business-class tickets to get his wife and their two children, one of whom
has special needs, back to Australia after weeks of trying to get home.
“It never entered our mind before this point that Australia would actually physically and
legally obstruct you from entering,” he said.
Scott Morrison, Australia’s prime minister, has framed the country’s hard-line approach
as crucial to avoiding the kind of rampant spread of the virus experienced in countries
that have travel restrictions that are looser or nonexistent, as in the United States.
“As an island continent, control of our borders has been a means by which we have kept
Australians safe,” he wrote in a letter in August sent to those requesting consular
assistance to return. He acknowledged that the measures were “frustrating,” but said
they were necessary.
But as many of those stranded abroad have become more publicly vocal about their
plight, some opposition politicians have expressed more empathy. “These are people
who have the right to come back to their country, because they are Australians,” Kristina
Keneally, the Labor Party’s top official for home affairs, told Parliament in September.
Last week, under growing pressure, Mr. Morrison said the caps on passengers entering
the country would be raised to 6,000 per week from 4,000. Those numbers, though,
depend on cooperation from the states and their capacity to quarantine arrivals, and
travel industry experts said they still fell far short of demand.
They encouraged Mr. Morrison to pursue alternatives like allowing people traveling
from countries with low infection rates to self-isolate, instead of mandating quarantine
in government-designated facilities. Similar programs have been successful in Hong
Kong, Singapore and Qatar.
While the authorities estimate that there are more than 35,000 citizens who want to
return home, the airline industry says that based on booking statistics, as well as figures
from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the number is most likely closer to 100,000.
In the first week of September, more than 140 international flights with about 30,000
seats arrived in Australia, but only about 4,000 were filled. Often, business- and first-
class seats are prioritized, meaning that only some can afford to come home.
Mohammad Khan, who has been stuck in Pakistan with his wife since March, said he
was forced to buy business-class tickets after four of his economy tickets were canceled.
The couple could not afford the flights, but needed to return to Australia by December to
ensure that Mr. Khan’s wife did not violate her visa requirements. So they sold their car
in Australia. “We are in a miserable condition here, running out of money and time,” he
said by email.
Emily Costello, 27, who began a job teaching English in South Korea last September,
said there are just two flights to Australia before her visa expires, and they are both
booked up.
She said she could not afford to return in March, when the pandemic began to escalate
and Australia urged its citizens to come home. She has since finished her contract and
has been couch surfing with a colleague while petitioning the Australian government for
answers.
“I’m not sleeping, I’m vomiting a lot because of the stress, my hands have started
shaking,” said Ms. Costello, who suffers from depression and anxiety. “It shouldn’t be a
lottery.”
Barry Abrams, the executive director of the Board of Airline Representatives of
Australia, said that the travel caps had the punitive effect of leaving people out in the
cold for decisions made during a period of extreme uncertainty.
“Australians have a high propensity to travel,” he said, adding: “Regardless of whether
the person could have heeded the call, they are now in a very difficult situation. Is it
really right not to have arrangements in place to bring them home?”
He added that it was not just the number of incoming passengers, but also those leaving
the country, that needed to be expanded. Currently, Australians wanting to go abroad
have to apply for exemptions, and many have been denied.
“I never in a million years thought I would be helping Australians to leave the country,”
said Sonia Campanaro, a Melbourne immigration lawyer.
For those still stuck overseas, repatriation might be up to six months away. Some say
they are considering a class-action suit against the federal government. Others have
launched petitions and campaigns, including one through Amnesty International that
asserts that leaving people stranded overseas is a breach of their human rights.
While it is true that international conventions ensure the right of people to return to
their countries, the Australian government is not technically barring citizens from
returning home, even if the airline caps are having that effect, law experts said.
Anyone bringing legal action against the government for stranding them would have to
prove that the reasons for doing so were unjustified, they added.
For Ms. Richards, the graphic designer, her frustration at not being repatriated,
especially when she followed government guidelines to remain in Britain until her
illness passed, is building.
“I’m really, really angry,” she said. “All those people who say, ‘Oh, you should have come
home sooner,’ I say, ‘Oh, would you have liked me to come home and infected an entire
planeload of people?”
While contending with long-term complications of Covid-19, including heart
palpitations and brain fog, Ms. Richards has written to numerous politicians pleading
for assistance. She is currently booked on a flight out of London on Sunday, but is
doubtful that it will go ahead, given the previous cancellations.
“It’s still confirmed, but I keep checking it every hour of every day,” Ms. Richards said.
“Hopefully, I’ll be flying.”
