LONDON: Thieves have stolen drawings worth £1 million by Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso and Paul Gauguin from a British gallery in a well-organised heist, police said yesterday.
Van Gogh's The Fortification of Paris, Picasso's Poverty and Gauguin's Tahitian Landscape were snatched overnight from the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester.
The Whitworth is one of Manchester's foremost art galleries, and its collection includes a number of works by Picasso and one other Van Gogh drawing, Hayricks. - (Reuters)
Pope beatifies six Italians
VATICAN CITY: Pope John Paul II yesterday beatified two priests and four nuns, all of them Italian, including a cleric who rallied Christian resistance to the Ottoman Turks siege of Vienna in 1683.
European "unity will be more solid if it is based on Christian common values," the Pope said, citing the example of beatified Marco d'Aviano.
The victory over Turkish forces in Vienna was hailed as a miracle achieved by Marco d'Aviano.
Another priest beatified during the ceremony was Giacomo Alberione. Alberione, who died in 1971, founded Famiglia Cristiana, to this day Italy's largest-circulation weekly.
Four 19th-century nuns were also beatified for founding religious congregations and institutes for the young or the sick.
In his 25 years as Pope, John Paul II has created a total of 1,316 blesseds of the Catholic Church and 465 new saints, more than any of his predecessors. - (AFP)