Malaysian Post

Did A Deputy Minister challenged a woman to a physical fight? You be the judge.

Report in NST today

NEW YORK, WED.:

A painting found in a pile of trash on a city street has sold for a million dollars, nearly 20 years after it was stolen from a warehouse in Texas. “Tres personajes” (”Three People”), a 1970 work by Rufino Tamayo, one of Mexico’s best-known artists, was bagged for US$1,049,000 by a north American buyer who fought off a telephone bidder at Sotheby’s auction house.

The painting had been saved from the garbage by Elizabeth Gibson, who spotted the work while out walking one morning in 2003.

“It was a Saturday morning. I went out for a coffee at 7am. I saw it on the sidewalk among black plastic garbage bags,” she told AFP ahead of the sale.

“I passed my way and had my coffee, but a voice inside kept telling me to go back and take the painting. So I stopped reading my book and I went back and took the painting, which had a very bad frame but was in perfect condition.”

The work, with bold strokes of red, purple and yellow, was bought in 1977 by a Texas couple who put it in storage while they moved house. They noticed the painting was missing in 1987 when picking up their belongings at the warehouse.Where the painting went for the next 16 years remains a mystery, but for several months after discovering it, Gibson kept it on the wall in her apartment.

Tipped off by a friend that the painting could be valuable, Gibson started investigating only to find on the Internet that the work had been featured on US television show “The Antiques Roadshow” in a segment on missing paintings.

Gibson approached Sotheby’s, which helped return the painting to its original owner, who remains unidentified.

Federal FBI detectives are still investigating the case.

The painting carried a pre-sale estimate of US$750,000 to US$1 million.

Gibson has already received a US$15,000 reward for helping secure its return and was to receive an undisclosed sum from the sale.

The sale came amid a week of Latin American art auctions in New York expected to fetch around US$50 million and as the city’s first contemporary Latin American art fair wrapped up after selling some 300 works.

The city’s Museum of Modern Art is also due this week to unveil an exhibition of its most recent Latin American acquisitions. - AFP

From CNN

A court in Saudi Arabia increased the punishment for a gang-rape victim after her lawyer won an appeal of the sentence for the rapists, the lawyer told CNN.

The 19-year-old victim was sentenced last year to 90 lashes for meeting with an unrelated male, a former friend from whom she was retrieving photographs. The seven rapists, who abducted the pair and raped both, received sentences ranging from 10 months to five years in prison.

The victim’s attorney, Abdulrahman al-Lahim, contested the rapists’ sentence, contending there is a fatwa, or edict under Islamic law, that considers such crimes Hiraba (sinful violent crime) and the punishment should be death.

“After a year, the preliminary court changed the punishment and made it two to nine years for the defendants,” al-Lahim said of the new decision handed down Wednesday. “However, we were shocked that they also changed the victim’s sentence to be six months in prison and 200 lashes.”

The judges more than doubled the punishment for the victim because of “her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media,” according to a source quoted by Arab News, an English-language Middle Eastern daily newspaper.

Judge Saad al-Muhanna from the Qatif General Court also barred al-Lahim from defending his client and revoked his law license, al-Lahim said. The attorney has been ordered to attend a disciplinary hearing at the Ministry of Justice next month.

Al-Lahim said he is appealing the decision to bar him from representing the victim and has a meeting with Justice Minister Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Ibrahim Al Al-Sheikh on Monday.

What is the world coming to…..

Next stop? Maybe the thieves would cart away a whole railway station next??

From The Star

PASIR MAS: Thieves have carted off an entire railway stop, following a spate of thefts of metal equipment belonging to Keretapi Tanah Melayu Bhd (KTMB).

Confirming this, KTMB east coast manager Ibrahim Sulaiman said that two weeks ago thieves, keen on extracting the steel components, removed a store and stop sign that indicated the stopping point for trains in Pekan Tok Uban.

He said the company was deeply concerned over the growing theft of its equipment. It had lodged a police report since.

“Periodically, we detect thefts of our steel tracks, bolts, nuts and equipment from our storerooms,” he added.

Ibrahim said people now had no respect for KTMB equipment, unlike years ago when the train service was a major public transportation provider.

Give us shelter: Train passengers found themselves exposed to the elements when they discovered that metal thieves had carted off the entire stop at Pekan Tok Uban, near Pasir Mas, Kelantan. — SAZUKI EMBONG / The Star

As most of the KTMB equipment is located in the open, thieves have a field day despite daily patrols.

He hoped the thefts would not result in any misalignment of the tracks, which may lead to mishaps.

He estimated the losses since the start of the year at thousands of ringgit and appealed to villagers to keep a lookout for the thieves.

Ibrahim also lamented the high number of squatters living near rail tracks.

“Despite countless reminders to move, for their own safety, some of the squatters remain stubborn.

“Some even attempted to sabotage KTMB services when they were ordered to move,” he said, adding that they would trespass, walk along tracks and even allow their cattle to roam inside restricted zones.

Ibrahim said a comprehensive plan must be in place, to tackle these problems.

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