HOT NEWS !

By Ishaan Tharoor - Times

One of the more famous paintings of the medieval Ming Dynasty, which ruled China for three centuries, is that of a court attendant holding a rope around a giraffe.

An inscription on the side says the animal dwelt near "the corners of the western sea, in the stagnant waters of a great morass."

According to legend, the giraffe was found in Africa, along with zebras and ostriches, and brought back with the grand 15th century expeditions of Zheng He, China's greatest mariner.

More than half a millennium later, Zheng has become a potent symbol for modern China.

In 2005, the country marked the 600th anniversary of the seven voyages undertaken between 1405 and 1433 by Zheng's vast "treasure fleets" with nationwide celebrations; the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing dramatized his explorations from Southeast Asia to the Middle East and the shores of Africa.

On Feb. 26, China's Ministry of Commerce announced it was funding a three-year project with the assistance of the Kenyan government to search for Ming-era vessels that had supposedly foundered off the East African coast.

"Historical records indicate Chinese merchant ships sank in the seas around Kenya," Zhang Wei, a curator for a state museum, told China's official Xinhua news agency. "We hope to find wrecks of the fleet of the legendary Zheng He."

There is more than historical curiosity behind these new efforts. For centuries after his expeditions, Zheng — a Muslim eunuch — slipped out of public awareness, obscured by the rise and fall of new dynasties. Talk of his exploits was revived briefly at the beginning of the 20th century as the fledgling Chinese republic sought to build a navy in the shadow of imperial Japan.

But experts say his place as a patriotic national hero has only been truly cemented in the past two decades, in parallel with China's geopolitical rise — and the growth of its significant economic presence in many African nations and other countries around the Indian Ocean.

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By Paul Delplanque - Gazette Live

She is a treasure on our doorstep and one of which we should be justly proud.

Today HMS Trincomalee is the centrepiece of the Historic Quay at Hartlepool but her journey there has without doubt been an eventful one.

She caught fire three times, she very nearly sank at her moorings and then after all the hard work to complete her, she was snubbed by historical ship experts in London for not being British enough !

HMS Trincomalee is the oldest British warship afloat, Nelson's flagship HMS Victory is 52 years older but that grand old ship is in dry dock in Portsmouth.

The oldest commissioned warship afloat is the USS Constitution, but that veteran of the war of 1812 is only 20 years older than HMS Trincomalee. So its clear that HMS Trincomalee is something special, so how come she ended up here in our area ? Remember When decided to take a look at what went on.

The news that the ship would be coming to Hartlepool was first announced in the Evening Gazette in April 1987. The reason given was due to the fantastic work that had been achieved in Hartlepool with HMS Warrior the Victorian battleship, which was just completing its restoration at the time.

A highly skilled local team had been working on HMS Warrior and the same team was to be retained for work on the new project.

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By Mark Alan Lovewell

The remnants of a shipwreck turned up on South Beach near Wasque last weekend, following a series of winter storms that have pounded and eaten away the south-facing shoreline of the Vineyard in recent weeks.

The large piece of what appears to be the hull of a ship was spotted about 100 yards east of the Norton Point Beach opening by Skip Bettencourt, who saw and photographed it. The ship remnant is about 35 feet long and four feet wide.

Paul Schultz, assistant supervisor for The Trustees of Reservations, first saw the wreck on Monday and has watched it almost daily. Mr. Schultz speculated that it might be a piece of the Mertie B. Crowley, a six-masted schooner that ran aground and was wrecked on Wasque 100 years ago last January.

The wreckage on the beach is clean and free of seaweed, which suggests it has been buried in sand for a long time and did not wash ashore. Mr. Schultz said he believes it was uncovered through beach erosion during ocean storms and extreme astronomical tides over the last several weeks.

The 296-foot Mertie B. Crowley ran aground on Sunday, Jan. 23, 1910. There was a dramatic rescue by local Edgartown fishermen and all on board were saved. Pieces of the ship have been sighted over the years, but this is the first time in many years that something so large has appeared, Mr. Schultz said.

This week he carried a copy of a newspaper article on the Mertie B. Crowley on the dashboard of his truck.

Yesterday, Will Geresy of Chappaquiddick rode in Mr. Schultz’s pickup truck to go out and see the wreckage.

He recalled seeing a 50-foot long oak timber in the surf in the Wasque area about 10 years ago one afternoon in late autumn.

Mr. Geresy said he thought it was a ship’s keel.

“It was full of wooden pegs. The next day, I went back and it was gone,” he said.

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From the United States attorney Chuck Rosenberg
 

Lester F. Weber, age 46, and Lori E. Childs, age 49, both of Newport News, Virginia, were indicted by a federal grand in an indictment returned on February 13, 2008. Weber and Childs face charges of Conspiracy to Commit Mail and Wire Fraud, Mail Fraud, Wire Fraud, Making and Subscribing False Tax Returns and Theft from an Organization Receiving Federal Funds.

Chuck Rosenberg, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia made the announcement today after Weber and Childs made their initial appearance in the United States District Court in Norfolk. Weber and Childs face a maximum penalty of twenty years imprisonment and a fine of $250,000.

According to the indictment, Lester F. Weber was employed by The Mariners’ Museum as an archivist from December 2000 through September 2006.

Weber was promoted to Director of Archives in March of 2006. In such capacity, Weber had archival and custodial duties for various types of historical nautical materials, including brochures, documents and pictures.

The indictment alleges that from approximately 2002 through September 2006, Weber and his wife, Lori E. Childs, engaged in a conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud by fraudulently obtaining items from The Mariners’ Museum and then selling these items over the internet, on the eBay auction website.

The indictment alleges that Weber and Childs sold approximately $162,959.23 in merchandise on the eBay website from January 2002 through September 2006.

These sales included maritime related items, as well as other hobby related collector’s items. Specifically, from November 2005 through September 2006, the indictment alleges that Weber and Childs sold approximately 1,400 items of a maritime or nautical nature.

The investigation determined that many of these items were of the type maintained by The Mariners’ Museum.

By Michael Timm - Bayview Compass

During the winter months, Bay View resident Jitka Hanakova works as a business analyst. But from April to October, she takes scuba divers to some of the deepest, least accessible shipwrecks on the Great Lakes.

Hanakova started diving in 2000 and quickly fell in love with the sport.

She found a good, local charter boat operator in Jerry Guyer and started exploring area shipwrecks. In 2004 she got her captain’s license and worked on Guyer’s boat as a captain.

In 2008, she bought her own boat and started her own charter business, Shipwreck Explorers, with Chicago partner Lubo Valuch.

Shipwreck Explorers specializes in technical diving-going down deeper and staying down longer than recreational diving.

“With time,” Hanakova said, “I realized I’d like to go see some other shipwrecks and I took more advanced courses. I took decompression procedures, advanced nitrox, and trimix. Trimix is when we use helium. So when we go down, let’s say 200 feet, or 300 feet, we don’t get all narced out of our minds.”

Technical diving involves breathing air mixtures different than the atmosphere, depending on how deep a dive is planned. Trimix includes oxygen, nitrogen, and helium. By reducing the proportions of both nitrogen and oxygen, the helium reduces the risk of nitrogen narcosis and oxygen toxicity.

But divers returning from the depths still can’t come up all at once or they risk decompression sickness-the bends. That’s why technical divers return to the surface slowly and in stages.

“That’s the difference between recreational and technical,” she said. “Recreational, if something goes really wrong, theoretically the person could make a controlled assent.”

One of the deep Lake Michigan shipwrecks Hanakova has explored, the Tennie and Laura, lies off Port Washington under 310 feet of water and can only be reached on a technical dive.

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C.D.Carrón / G. Pajares - La Razon

La justicia fallará en breve, pero el Gobierno español ya ha presupuestado 1,6 millones de euros desde 2007 para pagar a la asesoría jurídica, encabezada por James Goold, y cuyo coste podría superar los cinco millones

El «Caso Odyssey» parece encaminarse hacia un final, que previsiblemente podrá ser feliz, pero no han faltado los momentos de tensión durante estos años de litigio con la todopoderosa empresa «cazatesoros» que dirige Greg Stemm.

El bufete de James Goold ha sabido, una vez más, diseñar la estrategia adecuada y parece ser cuestión de meses que el suntuoso botín, cuyo valor se elevaría por encima de los cuatrocientos millones de euros, vuelva a casa.

La factura, como era de esperar, también será cuantiosa. El Gobierno tuvo que buscar una fórmula legal para proceder al pago de la operación y lo hizo a través de la partida 448 de los Presupuestos Generales del Estado correspondiente al Ministerio de Cultura: «A Spain-USA Foundation para defensa de intereses españoles en los buques hundidos en aguas norteamericanas».

Se aprovechó este enunciado, que tenía dotaciones económicas muy inferiores, a pesar de que nada tiene que ver con el caso de esta embarcación, ya que naufragó frente a las costas del Algarve portugués y no en Norteamerica, como sugiere el enunciado presupuestario.

«Anticipos sucesivos»
En 2006 la dotación era apenas de 60.000 euros, lo mismo que en 2007, año en que Odyssey comunicó el hallazgo de la embarcación hundida (fue en el mes de mayo). En 2008, con el litigio en curso, ya se presupuestaron 300.000 euros (cinco veces más que en el ejercicio anterior), 500.000 al año siguiente y 800.000 para el presente ejercicio de 2010. «Los gastos derivados de los bufetes de abogados han sido muy fuertes y muy elevados.

Sin embargo, las cantidades a pagar no eran las mismas, como es lógico deducir, al comienzo del proceso, en 2007, que a medida que ha ido avanzando, de ahí que la provisión de fondos en cada partida presupuestaria haya ido aumentado», asegura a este diario una persona que ha participado directamente en las negociaciones del «Caso Odyssey». Según esta fuente, la cuantía se ha dividido en «sucesivos anticipos.

De las fases preliminares se ha pasado, a medida que el pleito se ha ido alargando en el tiempo, al pago por los servicios prestados». Como se recordará, el bufete de James Goold está especializado en este tipo de casos.

El letrado ya representó a nuestro país en el litigio que enfrentó a España con una empresa de búsqueda de tesoros por los navíos «Juno» y «La Galga», hundidos frente a las costas de Virginia, cuyo final se resolvió a favor de nuestro país.

La sonada victoria de aquel año fue acompañada, además, por la distinción al abogado de la Orden de Isabel La Católica.

Era el año 2000 y el dinero que podría haber recibido el abogado, según ha podido saber este diario, habría sido de más de 1,5 millones de euros.

By Yip Yoke Teng - The Star Online

Ceramics, whether prehistoric or modern-day, tell a lot about an ethnic group as the items are widely used in daily life for various purposes.

To highlight the significance of ceramics, the National Museum has grouped the most precious artefacts from its ceramic collection together in the Malaysia Ceramics Exhibition, which runs until March 28.

“The 171 artefacts have been hand-picked from our own collection as they best reflect the diversity of our multiracial society. We hope the exhibition can give visitors a better understanding and in-depth knowledge of the subject,” Department of Museums Malaysia director-general Datuk Ibrahim Ismail said told reporters on Saturday.

“It is one of our country’s cultural legacies that we ought to uphold and share information on,” he added.

The artefacts are categorised into six groups — Prehistoric Ceramics, Enduring Reminders, Malay Ceramics, Tranquillity of the Soul, Chinese Ceramics, Symbol and Legacy, Indian Ceramics, Devotion and Worship, Sabah and Sarawak Ceramics, Magic and Spirituality, and Shipwreck Ceramics: Treasures from the Seabed.

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By Simon Plant - Herald Sun

Buried treasure recovered from the wreck of the world's most famous ship has surfaced at Melbourne Museum. 

But a bronze cherub ripped from the Titanic almost a century ago is just the tip of the iceberg.

Titanic: The Artefact Exhibition, opening soon in the museum's Touring Hall, will present 280 authentic objects - from perfume vials and a pocket watch to chamber pots and coins - and recreate sections of the ship's opulent interior, including the Grand Staircase.

"This is biggest and best exhibition I've ever seen in my life,'' said promoter Michael Gudinski.

"When you see what's been discovered underneath the water so long after the event, its just gripping.''

Gudinski's Frontier Events, a division of Frontier Touring, is presenting Titanic: The Artefact Exhibition with Museum Victoria and the support of Victorian Major Events.

And like last years' A Day in Pompeii, museum chief Dr J Patrick Greene expects the show to give visitors a fascinating, intimate and often poignant glimpse into another era.

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