Louvre Art For Abu Dhabi

After months of rumors and a week of protests, the French government has finally confirmed that in exchange for a sum said to be eight-hundred million to one billion dollars, it will rent the name, art treasures, and expertise of the Louvre to a new museum to be built in Abu Dhabi, reports the New York Times' Alan Riding. A formal agreement is expected to be signed later this month, with the new "Louvre"—one of five museums planned for a multibillion-dollar tourist development on Saadiyat Island, off Abu Dhabi—to open in 2012. Critics of the plan—some 2,400 signers of a petition accusing France of "selling its soul" in hopes of scuttling the deal—have been dismissed as "grumpy spirits" by the French culture minister, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres. Irish Art