Three Syrian's tied to columns in Syria's Palmyra were blown up for execution by ISIS

Syria's UNESCO world heritage site of Palmyra is under threat from Islamic State fighters. The city was founded in the second millenium BC, and was an important stop for caravans crossing the Syrian desert. It became prosperous under the Roman empire, and reached its pinnacle of importance in the second century AD.While the Isil advance is not aimed at the ancient city itself, it has raised fears for its future

BEIRUT (AFP).- The Islamic State jihadist group executed three people in Syria's ancient city of Palmyra by binding them to three historic columns and blowing them up, a monitoring group said Monday. Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said IS on Sunday "tied three individuals it had arrested from Palmyra and its outskirts to the columns... and executed them by blowing up" three columns. Khaled al-Homsi, an activist from Palmyra, said IS had yet to inform local residents who the executed individuals were or why they had been killed. "There was no one there to see (the execution). The columns were destroyed and IS has prevented anyone from heading to the site," Homsi, who works with the local Palmyra Coordination Committee activist group, told AFP.

Mohammad al-Ayed, also an activist from Palmyra, said the columns were "archeological, and there are many like them still present in Palmyra." "IS is doing this for the media attention, so that IS can say that it is the most villainous, and so it can get people's attention," al-Ayed told AFP. The Islamic State group has captured swathes of territory across Iraq and Syria to create a self-styled "caliphate" where it enforces an extreme form of Islamic rule. IS considers pre-Islamic artefacts to be idolatrous and therefore worthy of destruction.

Since the jihadists seized Palmyra from regime forces in May, they have destroyed multiple sites and historic artefacts, including its celebrated temples of Bel and Baal Shamin as well as several funerary towers. IS has used Palmyra's grand amphitheatre for a massacre in which child members of the group killed 25 Syrian soldiers, execution-style, in front of residents. It also beheaded Palmyra's 82-year-old former antiquities director in August.

Palmyra's ruins are on the UNESCO World Heritage list, and before the war around 150,000 tourists a year visited the town. Experts say the militants have used the destruction to raise their profile to attract new recruits, and are also funding their "caliphate" by selling treasures on the black market. Syria's archaeology association, the APSA, says that more than 900 monuments and archeological sites have been looted, damaged or destroyed during the four-year civil war.

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Anish Kapoor sculpture "Dirty Corner" on exhibit in Versailles is Vandalized for the Second Time!

"Dirty Corner", a 2011 Cor-Ten steel, earth and mixed media monumental artwork by British contemporary artist of Indian origin Anish Kapoor. AFP PHOTO / PATRICK KOVARIK.

PARIS (AFP).- British-Indian artist Anish Kapoor has covered anti-Semitic graffiti on a controversial sculpture that was vandalised in France with gold leaf -- but only just. Dabs of white paint could still be seen Wednesday at the edges of the gold leaf placed on the massive, funnel-like sculpture at the Palace of Versailles, which has been dubbed the "queen's vagina" for its sexual overtones.

In an interview with the artnet website, Kapoor said the choice to leave bits of the graffiti visible was deliberate. "I have to transform it. Unravelling, finding an answer to a crime of hate and turn it into something else." The 60-metre (200-foot) long, 10-metre high structure, officially called "Dirty Corner", was first vandalised in June and then cleaned. Then two weeks ago it was covered in white paint with phrases such as "SS blood sacrifice" and "the second rape of the nation by deviant Jewish activism". Kapoor, 61, wanted the graffiti to remain to bear witness to hatred, and France's culture ministry said it was his choice. However a local government official, who saw the phrases as a "grave violation of fundamental rights", objected and a judge ruled on Saturday that the graffiti must be removed.

The scrawlings were covered with black cloth and a team from Kapoor's art studio has laid gold leaf on the rocks around the sculpture, which were also defaced. They said the operation would be completed Wednesday. Kapoor told artnews, in an interview in Moscow, that he was appealing the court's decision. "Culture is a victim of vandalism and hate," said Kapoor. "If vandalism and hate stops public experimentation, we all lose. If we stop that, we might as well live in a fascist state." Kapoor's work is not the first to be defaced recently in France. In October 2014, vandals in Paris's chic Place Vendome deflated a massive sculpture by American artist Paul McCarthy that was shaped like a sex toy.

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Spain banker Jaime Botin accused of trying to smuggle Pablo Picasso painting

Scoundrel Spain banker Jaime Botin

MADRID (AFP).- Courts are prosecuting a prominent Spanish banker accused of trying to smuggle a 26 million-euro Picasso painting out of Spain on a yacht, sources said Friday. Jaime Botin, former head of Spanish lender Bankinter and a member of the family that founded giant lender Santander, has been trying to get the painting out of the country for months. French customs seized the work "Head of a Young Girl", worth the equivalent of about $30 million, on July 31 on board the yacht in Corsica. The Spanish state has taken possession of the painting and handed it to the Reina Sofia modern art museum in Madrid.

Picasso painted it during his pre-Cubist phase in Gosol, Catalonia, in 1906. It was bought in London in 1977. A court in the affluent suburb of Pozuelo de Alarcon is investigating Botin, who has an appeal pending against the judicial procedures, sources close to the investigation said. He had been trying since 2012 to get permission to export the work but Spanish authorities refused on the grounds that it was a unique example in Spain of that period of Picasso's work. It was seized on board the "Adix", a British-flagged yacht.

Botin's lawyers have argued that the artwork counts as property under British law. But the Spanish courts in May ruled he could not export it on board the yacht which was moored in the Spanish port of Valencia. Auction house Christie's had already tried to export the painting to Britain on Botin's behalf in 2012 but the Spanish culture ministry blocked that move. Botin later claimed that the picture was not in Spain after all and that he owned it indirectly through a Panamanian company.

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