INDIA: Hundreds of students and fishermen were working Friday to clean up an oil spill on India’s southern coast that campaigners say threatens the turtles that nest there every year.
The Indian Coast Guard said around 35 kilometers (21 miles) of coastline off the southern city of Chennai had been affected by the spill which occurred when two ships carrying fuel collided last week.
Campaigners and fishermen have accused the government of being slow to contain the damage from the spill, the scale of which has only emerged in recent days.
“What ought to have been a localized incident has now become a regional one because of the culture of denial,” said Nityanand Jayaraman, a Chennai-based environmental activist.
Jayaraman told AFP it was the peak nesting season for Olive Ridley turtles, which swim to the beaches of South India to lay eggs after mating at sea.
“The key thing is not technology but honesty. You need to reveal the true extent of the damage otherwise it leads to a false sense of complacency. With oil spills long-term effects are certain,” he said.
Olive Ridleys are most abundant of all sea turtles around the world, according to WWF India, but their numbers have been declining and the species is recognized as vulnerable by the IUCN Red list.
Their unique mass nesting, where thousands of females come together on the same beach to lay eggs, is a major tourist attraction.
It is not known how many turtles have been affected, but AFP pictures showed workers in safety suits removing a dead turtle from the shore this week.
Local fishermen also criticized the speed of the official response to the spill.
“They (authorities) didn’t remove it immediately, and so now it has spread across all beaches, including Marina (beach),” K. Bharati of the Fishermen’s Welfare Association in South India said, referring to a popular local beach.
Volunteers wearing gloves could be seen scooping up the thick tar with shovels off Kamarajar Port in Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu state.
“We have tried all kind of technology and found that only manual cleaning is possible. So we have deployed more than 500 people, they are working really hard,” M.A. Bhaskaran, chairman of Kamrajar Port, told reporters.
Oil spills are not uncommon in peninsular India, which saw one of the worst leakages in 2013 when a gas pipeline off the western Mumbai coast spewed at least 1,000 liters of crude oil into the sea.
In 2010, two merchant ships collided off the Mumbai coast again, spilling over 800 tons of oil and damaging mangroves along the coastline.
Oil spill threatens India’s nesting turtles
Oil spill threatens India’s nesting turtles
Sale of Saudi artist Safeya Binzagr’s work sets record at Sotheby’s auction in Riyadh
RIYADH: A painting by Saudi artist Safeya Binzagr sold for $2.1 million at Sotheby’s “Origins II” auction in Riyadh on Saturday, emerging as the top lot of the evening and setting a new auction record for a Saudi artist.
The work, “Coffee Shop in Madina Road” (1968), sold for $1.65 million before the buyer’s premium, the additional fee paid by the purchaser to the auction house on top of the hammer price.
The result nearly doubled the previous auction record for a Saudi artist and became the most valuable artwork ever sold at auction in the Kingdom. It also ranks as the third-highest price achieved for an Arab artist at auction.
It was presented as part of “Origins II,” Sotheby’s second auction staged in Saudi Arabia, comprising 62 modern and contemporary lots and bringing together Saudi artists alongside regional and international names.
Collectors from more than 40 countries participated in the auction, with around one-third of the lots sold to buyers within Saudi Arabia.
The sale totaled $19.6 million, exceeding its pre-sale estimate and bringing the combined value of works offered across “Origins” and “Origins II” to over $32 million.
Saudi artists were central to the evening’s results. All nine Saudi works offered found buyers, achieving a combined total of $4.3 million, well above pre‑sale expectations.
Ashkan Baghestani, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art for the Middle East, told Arab News at the auction that “Safeya made more than any other artist tonight, which is incredible.”
He said the results demonstrated Sotheby’s broader objective in the Kingdom.
“The results tonight show exactly what we’re trying to do here. Bring international collectors to Saudi Arabia and give them exposure to Saudi artists, especially the pioneers.”
All nine works by Saudi artists offered in the sale found buyers, generating a combined $4.3 million. Additional auction records were set for Egyptian artist Ahmed Morsi and Sudanese artist Abdel Badie Abdel Hay.
An untitled work from 1989 by Mohammed Al-Saleem sold for a triple estimate of $756,000, while a second work by the artist, “Flow” from 1987, achieved $630,000.
The sale opened with the auction debut of Mohamed Siam, whose “Untitled (Camel Race)” sold for $94,500. Also making his first auction appearance, Dia Aziz Dia’s prize-winning “La Palma (The Palma)” achieved $226,800.
The sale coincided with the opening week of the Contemporary Art Biennale in Riyadh, reinforcing the city’s growing role as a focal point for both cultural institutions and the art market.
Baghestani added that Saudi modern artists are now receiving long‑overdue recognition in the market.
“There’s so much interest and so much demand, and the price is where it should be,” he said.
International highlights included works by Pablo Picasso, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and Anish Kapoor, underscoring Saudi Arabia’s growing role as a destination for major global art events and collectors.
Picasso’s “Paysage,” painted during the final decade of the artist’s life, sold for $1,600,000, becoming the second most valuable artwork sold at auction in Saudi Arabia.
Seven works by Lichtenstein from the personal collection of the artist and his wife, including collages, prints, works on paper and sculptures, all found buyers. Warhol was represented in the sale with two works: “Disquieting Muses (After de Chirico),” which sold for $1,033,200, and a complete set of four screenprints of “Muhammad Ali,” which achieved $352,000.
Baghestani said the strength of the results was closely tied to the material’s freshness. “These were not works from the trade. Some of them had not been seen since the 1970s,” he said.
