New York, Nov 16 (AP/UNB) — The Statue of Liberty's original torch, which has been housed in the base of the statue since a replica replaced it in the 1980s, was moved across Liberty Island on Thursday to its new home in a museum that will open next year.

Visitors watched as the base and the detached flame of the 3,600-pound (1,633-kilogram) torch were trucked slowly and carefully to the museum construction site about 100 yards (91 meters) from the statue.

Officials with the National Park Service and the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation said the torch was removed in 1984 because it was too badly damaged to restore.

"Taking it down was very frightening," said Stephen Briganti, president and CEO of the foundation. "We had the largest freestanding scaffolding that at that point had ever been built."

Thursday's brief trip to the museum site was the latest chapter for an icon that "has crossed many miles in its lifetime," Briganti said.

The torch left France in 1876 for the United States, where it was exhibited at the Centennial celebration in Philadelphia and then in New York City's Madison Square Park. The trip was intended to raise funds to pay for the statue's pedestal, Briganti said.

It went back to Paris in 1882, then returned to the New York Harbor along with other crated pieces of the statue in 1885.

The torch was held high by Lady Liberty from 1886 to 1984, but modifications to the flame changed its original design over the years.

The flame resembled a stained-glass sculpture lying on its specially designed flatbed truck. That's because the sculptor Gutzon Borglum, who also designed Mount Rushmore, "put all the holes in it with amber glass" during a 1916 redesign, park Superintendent John Piltzecker said. "It led to the flame's deterioration."

The torch was further weakened in July of that year by the Black Tom explosion, an act of German sabotage at a munitions plant nearby in Jersey City.

The 1980s gilt flame that the statue is holding now restores sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi's original design, officials said.

The old torch, meanwhile, made another fundraising trip at the end of 1984, traveling to Pasadena, where it starred in the Rose Parade.

A trench was dug under the statue so that the 16-foot (4.9-meter) original torch could be moved into the pedestal when it returned to New York.

It couldn't depart the pedestal that way Thursday, Piltzecker said. "It had to come out in two pieces."

Joining the torch's two pieces was a full-scale copper replica of the statue's face. The torch and the face will be highlights of the new $100 million museum, which is scheduled to open in May 2019.

Dhaka, Nov 15 (UNB) – Dhaka International Folk Festival commences Thursday evening with Bhabna, a dance troupe, from Bangladesh presenting the inaugural show from 6pm.

Dikanda from Poland, Wadali Brothers from India, Abdul Hai Dewan from Bangladesh, and Satyaki Banerjee will also perform on the first day of the three day long folk fest.

Sun Communications in association with Sun Foundation is organizing the festival in the country for the fourth year.

Anjan Chowdhury, Chairman of Sun Communications LTD and Sun Foundation, said that their mission is to conserve and patronize the folk genre, make it popular among people, secure the legal rights of Bangladeshi folk artistes and ensure royalties due to them through this festival.

The performances will run from November 15 -17 at Bangladesh Army Stadium every day from 6pm to 12am.

Some 174 artistes from 7 countries including Bangladesh are gathering in one stage to celebrate the music of the heart.

Prominent artists Momotaz Begom, Baul Kabir Shah, Arnob, Nakshikatha, Swarobanjo and Bhabna Nritya Dol will be performing from Bangladesh in the rest of day.

The Raghu Dixit Project, Shafqat Amanat Ali from Pakistan, Majaz from Bahrain, Grammy award winner Los Texmaniacs from the USA, and Las Migas from Spain will come to this bustling city to celebrate the spirit of folk music.

The audience needs to print their Entry Pass for each day to enter the festival with the photocopy of NID, Passport.

The audience will also be able to enjoy the programme through Grameenphone online video streaming service ‘Bioscope Live’.

Dhaka, Nov 15 (UNB) – The two-day long “Jatiya Nabanna Utsab” kicked off on Thursday at Bakultala of the Fine Arts Faculty of Dhaka University (DU) as part of the countrywide celebrations with this year's theme "Esho Mili Shobe Nabanyer Utshobe".

Jatiya Nabanna Utsab Udjapan Parishad, the celebration committee of the festival, chalked out different day-long cultural activities including Folk songs, Lalon giti, Tagore song and dance to welcome the first day of Bengali month Agrahayan. 

Eminent Cultural personality Ramendra Majumder officially inaugurated the cultural programme around 7:00 am.

Poets, painters, musicians, bauls and people from all walks of life joined together at the DU campus to celebrate the festival. 

First part of the celebration was ended following a ‘Nabanya Shobhajatra' that started from Charukala around 9:30 am and paraded the entire campus.

President of Sommilito Sangskritik Jote, Golam Kuddus, organiser Laila Hasan and convener of the organising body Shahriar Salam, among others, attended the inauguration session. 

A total of 1200 artistes of 68 cultural organisations are participating in the two-day long celebration. 
 

Geneva, Nov 14 (AP/UNB) — Christie's sold the "Pink Legacy" diamond at auction Tuesday for more than $50 million including fees, saying it's a new world record price per carat for a pink diamond.

Christie's said renowned jeweler Harry Winston was the buyer. The auction house had expected to fetch $30 million to $50 million for the nearly 19-carat, rectangular-cut stone, the largest fancy vivid pink diamond that it has ever put under the hammer.

It was the standout offering at Christie's fall jewelry auction in Geneva. The standing-room only ballroom broke into applause after the auctioneer struck down a hammer price of $44.5 million. That excludes the standard "buyer's premium" and other fees.

All told, the diamond went for $50.375 million, including the fees.

The stone once belonged to the Oppenheimer diamond family, and Christie's says it's among the most chemically pure gems — with little if any nitrogen.

Rahul Kadakia, Christie's head of international jewelry, said the auction house has sold only four diamonds weighing more than 10 carats of the same color in its 251 years in business.

Christie's chairman for Europe, Francois Curiel, called the stone the "Leonardo da Vinci" of diamonds.

"The 'Pink Legacy' ... brought this extremely high price of $50 million — so $2.6 million per carat, which is a world record price for a pink diamond. The previous record was $2.1 million, but for a much larger stone: Over 50 carats," Curiel said.

Christie's sale kicks off two days of jewelry auctions in Geneva. On Wednesday, Sotheby's will auction jewelry once owned by French Queen Marie Antoinette that hadn't been seen in public for 200 years.

Dhaka, Nov 13 (UNB) – A five-day Iranian film show ended in Chittagong, Rajshahi and Khulna cities on Tuesday.

Iran Cultural Centre in Dhaka and Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy (BSA) jointly orgnaised the film show at BSA premises of the district units.

The festival got appreciable response with satisfactory presence of audiences, said a press release of Iranian cultural centre.

Earlier on November 8, as part of series film festival, the five-day Iranian film festival started in the districts where audiences were able to enjoy films without any entry fee.