— Serena Williams, on her in-game supplementation during yesterday's Hopman Cup match
Home | National Gallery of Australia's stolen art
THE GIST. The National Gallery of Australia is about to return some stolen art to India. The piece in question is 2000 year-old Buddha statue, bought for $1 million from a New York dealer, and revealed to be involved in a huge international art smuggling scandal.
BAD PATTERNS. This is the second time in a year that the NGA has been found showing stolen statues. Last year Tony Abbott himself returned a $5 million dancing Shiva statue on an official visit to India, after it too was discovered to have been pinched. Both items were acquired through disgraced art dealer Subhash Kapoor, who is on trialin India for smuggling numerous artworks out of the country. Thieves would apparently loot ancient temples and give the items to Kapoor, who would ship them out to collectors around the word. Some of them evidently found their way to the NGA, in what is surely the dodgiest delivery from the subcontinent since the retirement of Muttiah Muralitharan.
EGG, MEET FACE. The NGA purchased 22 items from Kapoor from 2002-2011, for a total of $11 million. The Gallery is now investigating the ownership of 54 other items in its Asian holdings to check their authenticity. Oops.
THE GIST. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says he's planning on re-submitting a proposal for Palestinian statehood to the UN Security Council, after an identical pitch was voted down last week.
UP TO SPEED. The area called 'Palestine' includes the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. These two areas aren't connected geographically, but have the same 'unity' government under President Abbas. The specific legal status of Palestine is up for debate, but the bottom line is that right now it is technically not a 'state'.
WHEN IN ROME. Diplomatic conflict between Palestine and Israel was re-heated last week when Palestine signed up to something called the 'Rome Statute', meaning the International Criminal Court can investigate war crimes committed inside its territory. Problem: this is a luxury (or burden) reserved for - you guessed it - states only. Israel is seething over the move, and retaliated by refusing to hand over $127 million in tax revenue meant for the Palestinian territories. Why are they so mad? Because the ICC could potentially investigate Israeli soldiers for crimes committed during last year's war in Gaza, in which over 2000 people were killed.
BROKEN RESOLUTIONS. Last week's vote for statehood had eight votes for, two against and five abstentions. Feeling optimistic, Abbas said, "We'll go again to the Security Council, why not?". Well, probably because the US voted no last time, and has veto power on the Council. Meaning: better luck next time.
Oh, the injustice. Residents near Sydney's Luna Park are complaining about the "screams from patrons" on the "visually intrusive" Hair-raiser ride, erected last year. One neighbour was particularly perturbed, warning that the "hoony" ride causes "violence on the street and drunken behaviour", otherwise known as as 'children having fun'.
Righteous connection. Senior Taliban leader Ehsanullah Ehsan has a LinkedIn profile. The tech-savvy terrorist, wanted for the attempted assassination of Malala Yousufzai, lists his skills as 'jihad and journalism'. Unfortunately for the networking potential of the 69 people connected with Ehsan, LinkedIn took the profile down.
Palin v PETA. In news of other social-networking stupidity, Sarah Palin posted a picture to Facebook of her 6 year-old son, Trig, standing on the family dog. Responding to criticism from the People for the Ethical Treatment for Animals, Palin told everyone to "chill" because "At least Trig didn't eat the dog." Touche.
