An ancient Tibetan silk tapestry has set a world record for Chinese art after it was sold to a Shanghai tycoon for $45 million (HK$348 million) at auction in Hong Kong, according to Christie's.

The 600-year-old artwork, called a thangka and embroidered in vivid hues of red and gold, was bought by Liu Yiqian on Wednesday and will be displayed at his new museum in Shanghai, the auction house said.

Japanese police said Wednesday they have arrested five South Korean men in connection with the theft of an ancient Buddha statue on an island that serves as a stepping stone between the two neighbors.

The men, aged between 42 and 70, are suspected of taking the miniature statue on Monday from a temple on Tsushima, an island that lies between western Japan and the Korean peninsula, a local police official said.

The 1962 Nobel Prize James Watson won for his role in the discovery of the structure of DNA is going on the auction block.

The auctioneer says the gold medal could bring $2.5 million to $3.5 million on Dec. 4.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has received a major gift of works by contemporary African-American artists from the South.

The museum says the donation includes 20 works by female quilters from a remote community in Alabama.

An influential ex-minister surrendered to Bangladesh police Tuesday after Islamists staged protests nationwide calling for his arrest and prosecution over remarks criticizing the annual Muslim Hajj pilgrimage.

Abdul Latif Siddique's surrender came a day after Islamists gave an ultimatum to detain him after he returned home Sunday following a long stay in India and the United States where he called the Muslim ritual Hajj a "waste" of manpower.

A World War II heroine who parachuted behind German lines on "perilous" spy missions, but was so modest she only told her children about it 15 years ago, was Tuesday presented with France's highest honor.

British-born Pippa Doyle, now 93 and living in New Zealand, was awarded the Chevalier de l'ordre national de la Legion d'Honneur, or Knight of the national Order of the Legion of Honour. 

Four South Korean men have been arrested in southern Japan on suspicion of stealing an ancient Buddha statue, police said Tuesday.

The suspects were found Monday evening in possession of a copper Buddha statue that went missing from the Bairinji temple in Tsushima city in Nagasaki prefecture, said Keiichi Matsushita, deputy chief of the South Tsushima division of the Nagasaki police. The statue, measuring about 10 centimeters (4 inches), was found in a paper bag carried by the suspects.

The painted upright piano that adorned Rick's Cafe in the classic movie "Casablanca" fetched $3.4 million at auction Monday after a frenzied sale in New York.

The orange piano -- on which Sam (Dooley Wilson) famously plays "As Time Goes By" at the request of his one-time love Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) -- was among 200 items from Hollywood's golden age that went under the hammer at Bonham's in New York. 

A Turkish regional governor was accused Monday of inciting hatred towards the country's Jewish community after suggesting a synagogue be turned into a museum as a reprisal for Israel's policies over the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.

Dursun Ali Sahin, governor of the northwestern province of Edirne, sparked an outcry when he said Friday that the ancient Buyuk Sinagog (the Great Synagogue) built in 1907 under Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid should only be used as a museum.

A watercolour of the graphic novel hero Corto Maltese has sold at auction for a record 391,800 euros ($485,500), just months after a Tintin strip set a new world high for a comic of 2.65 million euros.

The artwork for a 1979 French edition of Corto Maltese in Africa -- "Corto Maltese – Les Ethiopiques" -- went for more than twice the original estimate, the French auction house Artcurial said Sunday.