A Picasso masterpiece and a Giacometti statue smashed world records Monday for the most expensive art sold at auction, fetching more than $179 million and $141 million respectively in New York.

Pablo Picasso oil painting, "The Women of Algiers (Version 0)," sold for $179,365,000 after 11 and a half minutes of furious bidding from four to five prospective buyers at Christie's, where two auction rooms were packed.

Ariana Miyamoto entered the Miss Universe Japan beauty contest after a mixed-race friend committed suicide. And she endured abuse after winning the crown because of her skin colour.

Far from being put off by the backlash, Miyamoto resolved to use her new-found fame to help fight racial prejudice -- in much the same way British supermodel Naomi Campbell broke down cultural barriers in the fashion industry a generation ago.

The United States is becoming a little less Christian, and a little more unaffiliated to any faith, a major study on the nation's changing religious landscape suggested Tuesday.

"The United States remains home to more Christians than any other country in the world," with 70.6 percent of its population, or 173 million adults, identifying as Christian last year, the Pew Research Center said.

Overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey's top religious authority Diyanet said it has published thousands of copies of the Koran translated into Armenian for the first time, as it seeks to reach out to minority communities.

Yuksel Salman, director of Diyanet's religious publications office, denied the publication of the Muslim holy book in Armenian has any link to the 100th anniversary last month of mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

It is Iran's most notorious jail, renowned for housing political activists, but if Tehran's mayor has his way Evin Prison will close and be transformed into a public park.

A concrete monstrosity, guarded by razor wire atop high walls on the edge of a highway in the north of the capital, Evin has been a target of reports by rights monitors such as Amnesty International, alleging maltreatment of inmates by authorities there.

A full size replica of parts of Beijing's nationally sensitive Old Summer Palace has opened 1,000 kilometers away from China's capital, state media reported Monday, despite managers of the original threatening legal action.

The vast array of gardens, palaces and lakes in the western suburbs of the Chinese capital was used by Qing dynasty emperors in the 19th Century.

Drivers and millions of commuters used to spending hours in Tehran traffic jams have at least had something nicer to look at during journeys this week: famous works of art.

Advertising hoardings that normally feature the latest smartphones, home appliances or banks and insurance plans have made way -- until May 16 -- for masterpieces by famous artists in a giant urban beautification scheme.

An American museum has returned a 10th-century sandstone statue of the Hindu monkey god Hanuman to Cambodia, decades after it was looted from a jungle temple when the kingdom was in the throes of civil war.

The metre-high statue was stolen in the 1970s from the Koh Ker temple site near the famed Angkor Wat complex. 

Janaki Karmacharya sits on a plastic chair under the tarpaulin that now serves as her office and despairs at the wreckage of her once magnificent library in the heart of Kathmandu.

Until last month's earthquake, the Kaiser Library buzzed with Nepali students, intellectuals and tourists attracted by its collection of rare books, maps and ancient manuscripts -- all housed in an opulent former palace.

A Nigerian art critic and museum director is the first African to curate the Biennale contemporary art fair that opens Saturday for its seven-month run, while female artists are representing more countries than ever in national pavilions — trends seen as an informal rebalancing in the art world.

There's Joan Jonas for the United States, Fiona Hall for Australia, Irina Nakhova for Russia, Sarah Lucas for Great Britain, Chiharu Shiota for Japan, Pamela Rosenkranz for Switzerland and Camille Norment for Norway. And those women are all from the more established Biennale participants in the Giardini, around one-third of the 89 national pavilions.