ANKARA (AFP) ― Turkish police have launched an investigation after the theft of stolen paintings and artifacts worth an estimated $30 million, local media reported on Monday. Police are hunting for about 40 paintings stolen from a state museum in Ankara after recovering another 30 major artworks in a raid in Istanbul last week. Press reports said many of the artworks were believed to have been sold to art collectors, including a number of prominent figures.Officials at the culture ministry and t

PARIS (AFP) ― Gerard Depardieu will return to the stage for the first time in a decade in “Love Letters,” a play favoured by busy stars with no time to learn their lines.Elizabeth Taylor, Mel Gibson, Kathleen Turner, Sigourney Weaver and Christopher Walken are among the big names who have previously taken on the roles of characters Andrew Makepeace Ladd III and Melissa Gardner.The play by American playwright A. R. Gurney explores the couple’s decades-long relationship through their letters to ea

NEW YORK (AFP) ― Still stumped for a Christmas present? Then what about an exquisite $1 million Picasso for the living room, yours for just $135 at an online charity raffle.The perfectly preserved Cubist gouache was bought by an anonymous donor from a New York gallery and given to a charity working to save the ancient city of Tyre in southern Lebanon.The UNESCO-registered charity has issued 50,000 tickets at 100 euros ($135) each for the first-of-its-kind tombola on Dec. 18 at Sotheby’s in Paris

MOSCOW (AFP) ― The music director and chief conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre, Vassily Sinaisky, has quit, the theater’s spokeswoman said Monday, the latest blow to befall the legendary theater.Sinaisky presented his letter of resignation to the Bolshoi’s director, Vladimir Urin, and it was accepted, spokeswoman Yekaterina Novikova told AFP.The decision is effective immediately, she said.Sinaisky, who has been the Bolshoi’s leading conductor since 2010, was due to conduct Verdi’s opera “Don Carlo

LONDONDERRY, Northern Ireland (AFP) ― French artist Laure Prouvost on Monday won Britain’s Turner prize for contemporary art for her video installation set among a mock-tea party setting, it was announced at a ceremony in Londonderry, Northern Ireland.“The jury thought her work was outstanding for its complex and courageous combination of images and objects in a deeply atmospheric environment,” said an official press release from Tate, the award’s partners.Young Irish actress Saoirse Ronan, who