Germany plans to hand back ancient pillaged artworks known as the Benin bronzes to Nigeria next year, Culture Minister Monika Gruetters said on Thursday.
Most European former colonial powers in recent years have begun a process of considering the return of looted artefacts to the former colonies, especially in Africa.
"We want to contribute to understanding and reconciliation with the descendants of those whose cultural treasures were stolen during colonisation," Ms Gruetters said.
"We expect the first returns to take place in the year 2022."
The 16th-18th century metal plaques and sculptures that decorated the royal palace of Benin are among the most highly regarded works of African art.
They are scattered around European museums after being looted by the British at the end of the 19th century.
The Ethnological Museum in Berlin has 530 historical objects from the ancient kingdom, including 440 bronzes. It is considered to be the most important collection outside London's British Museum.
About 180 of the bronzes are due to be exhibited this year in Berlin's Humboldt Forum, a new museum complex that opened in December.
Nigeria's ambassador to Germany, Yusuf Tuggar, had called for the bronzes to be returned.
On Wednesday, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Berlin was "working with those involved in Nigeria and in Germany" on the future of the objects, which he called "a question of justice".
"An honest approach to colonial history also includes the question of restitution of cultural assets," Mr Maas said.
Last month the University of Aberdeen in Scotland agreed to return a Benin bronze sculpture to Nigeria, saying it was acquired by British soldiers in 1897 in "reprehensible circumstances".
That decision raised pressure on other establishments, including the British Museum, to follow suit.
The British Museum is reportedly considering lending its bronzes to Nigeria.
Nigeria plans to build a museum in Benin city to house looted artefacts after they are returned, in a €3.4 million ($4.1m) scheme in which the British museum will take part.
Late last year France approved the restitution of 26 items from the kingdom of Benin, which were pillaged in 1892.
THE CLOWN OF GAZA
Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah
Starring: Alaa Meqdad
Rating: 4/5
Tips to stay safe during hot weather
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RESULT
Manchester United 2 Tottenham Hotspur 1
Man United: Sanchez (24' ), Herrera (62')
Spurs: Alli (11')
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
BUNDESLIGA FIXTURES
Friday (UAE kick-off times)
Cologne v Hoffenheim (11.30pm)
Saturday
Hertha Berlin v RB Leipzig (6.30pm)
Schalke v Fortuna Dusseldof (6.30pm)
Mainz v Union Berlin (6.30pm)
Paderborn v Augsburg (6.30pm)
Bayern Munich v Borussia Dortmund (9.30pm)
Sunday
Borussia Monchengladbach v Werder Bremen (4.30pm)
Wolfsburg v Bayer Leverkusen (6.30pm)
SC Freiburg v Eintracht Frankfurt (9on)
More from Rashmee Roshan Lall
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
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- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
Our legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Super 30
Produced: Sajid Nadiadwala and Phantom Productions
Directed: Vikas Bahl
Cast: Hrithik Roshan, Pankaj Tripathi, Aditya Srivastav, Mrinal Thakur
Rating: 3.5 /5
In numbers
1,000 tonnes of waste collected daily:
- 800 tonnes converted into alternative fuel
- 150 tonnes to landfill
- 50 tonnes sold as scrap metal
800 tonnes of RDF replaces 500 tonnes of coal
Two conveyor lines treat more than 350,000 tonnes of waste per year
25 staff on site
Bookshops: A Reader's History by Jorge Carrión (translated from the Spanish by Peter Bush),
Biblioasis
if you go
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
