Latest news with #Fanpage
New Straits Times
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New Straits Times
Italian museum hunts tourists who damaged Swarovski-covered art chair
ROME: An Italian museum has launched a manhunt for the most unlikely of outlaws – two clumsy middle-aged tourists who managed to almost wreck a work of art while posing for photos. Video footage released by Palazzo Maffei showed the hapless pair photographing each other pretending to sit on a crystal-covered chair made by the artist Nicola Bolla – described by the museum as an "extremely fragile" work. While the woman squats but does not seem to touch the work – known as Van Gogh's Chair and covered in Swarovski crystals – the man is not so careful, sitting and then stumbling backwards as the seat buckles under his weight. The pair can then be seen fleeing the room, in a post that went viral over the weekend. Palazzo Maffei described it as "every museum's nightmare" and told AFP on Monday it had made a complaint to the police, without specifying when it was filed. The museum posted an account on social media on Thursday saying the incident had happened fewer than four weeks ago and the chair had since been repaired. "It was an idiotic thing to do," Bolla told Italian magazine Fanpage. But the artist added that he could also see a "positive side" to the incident.
Straits Times
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Straits Times
Italy museum hunts for tourists in viral chair-smashing video
Video footage showed the chair buckling under the weight of a male tourist who appeared to stumble backwards onto the chair as he was posing for a photo. PHOTO: AFP ROME - An Italian museum has launched a manhunt for the most unlikely of outlaws – two clumsy middle-aged tourists who managed to almost wreck a work of art while posing for photos. Video footage released by Palazzo Maffei showed the hapless pair photographing each other pretending to sit on a crystal-covered chair made by the artist Nicola Bolla – described by the museum as an 'extremely fragile' work. While the woman squats but does not seem to touch the work – known as Van Gogh's Chair and covered in Swarovski crystals – the man is not so careful, sitting and then stumbling backwards as the seat buckles under his weight. The pair can then be seen fleeing the room, in a post that went viral over the weekend. Palazzo Maffei described it as 'every museum's nightmare' and told AFP on June 16 it had made a complaint to the police, without specifying when it was filed. The museum posted an account on social media on June 12 saying the incident had happened fewer than four weeks ago and the chair had since been repaired. 'It was an idiotic thing to do,' Mr Bolla told Italian magazine Fanpage. But the artist added that he could also see a 'positive side' to the incident. 'It's like a kind of performance. Ordinary people can do it too, not just artists.' AFP Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Second Italian journalist targeted with Paragon spyware, watchdog group says
By Raphael Satter LONDON (Reuters) -A second Italian journalist was recently targeted by software made by U.S.-owned surveillance company Paragon, internet watchdog group Citizen Lab said, raising new questions about a surveillance scandal that has already led Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's government and Paragon to part ways. Citizen Lab said in a report on Thursday that Italian investigative journalist Ciro Pellegrino's iPhone showed evidence of having been targeted by Paragon's sophisticated spy software. Pellegrino works at the online newspaper Fanpage, whose editor-in-chief Francesco Cancellato earlier disclosed that he was one of scores of users who received January alerts from WhatsApp that they had been targeted using Paragon's technology. Fanpage has published a stream of critical coverage of Meloni's government, notably an exposé tying her party's youth wing to neo-Nazi activity, and the allegation that Fanpage's journalists, among others, were put under surveillance has stirred controversy in Italy. On Monday, the government and Paragon announced that they were no longer working together, offering conflicting explanations about who fired whom. Paragon referred questions back to an earlier statement it provided to the Israeli publication Haaretz in which it said it had offered Italian officials a way to check whether its systems had been used against Cancellato, but that Italian authorities had rebuffed the offer. Italian officials did not return a message seeking comment on the Citizen Lab report. In a text exchange with Reuters, Pellegrino said the discovery that he had been targeted with spyware was "horrible." The Naples-based journalist said his phone was "the black box of my life, which contains everything from personal and health data to journalistic sources." Although an Italian parliamentary panel reported on Monday that the country's spy services had deployed Paragon's tools to intercept the communications of migrant sea rescue activists in the context of law enforcement work, the panel said it had found no evidence that the tools were used by Italian intelligence to go after Fanpage's Cancellato. The discovery of Paragon spyware on the phone of one of Cancellato's colleagues adds to questions about the panel's thoroughness, said Natalia Krapiva, a senior lawyer with Access Now, a human rights group that works with spyware victims. "It sheds serious doubt on the adequacy of the investigation," she said. The Italian parliamentary panel, which has reserved the right to conduct further investigations around the matter, did not respond to a message seeking comment. In its report, Citizen Lab also said that an unnamed European journalist was hacked with Paragon's spyware. The lab, which is based out of the University of Toronto, offered no other details and declined to answer questions about the journalist's identity or the circumstances of their targeting.
CNA
12-06-2025
- Politics
- CNA
Second Italian journalist targeted with Paragon spyware, watchdog group says
LONDON :A second Italian journalist was recently targeted by software made by U.S.-owned surveillance company Paragon, internet watchdog group Citizen Lab said, raising new questions about a surveillance scandal that has already led Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's government and Paragon to part ways. Citizen Lab said in a report on Thursday that Italian investigative journalist Ciro Pellegrino's iPhone showed evidence of having been targeted by Paragon's sophisticated spy software. Pellegrino works at the online newspaper Fanpage, whose editor-in-chief Francesco Cancellato earlier disclosed that he was one of scores of users who received January alerts from WhatsApp that they had been targeted using Paragon's technology. Fanpage has published a stream of critical coverage of Meloni's government, notably an exposé tying her party's youth wing to neo-Nazi activity, and the allegation that Fanpage's journalists, among others, were put under surveillance has stirred controversy in Italy. On Monday, the government and Paragon announced that they were no longer working together, offering conflicting explanations about who fired whom. Paragon referred questions back to an earlier statement it provided to the Israeli publication Haaretz in which it said it had offered Italian officials a way to check whether its systems had been used against Cancellato, but that Italian authorities had rebuffed the offer. Italian officials did not return a message seeking comment on the Citizen Lab report. In a text exchange with Reuters, Pellegrino said the discovery that he had been targeted with spyware was "horrible." The Naples-based journalist said his phone was "the black box of my life, which contains everything from personal and health data to journalistic sources." Although an Italian parliamentary panel reported on Monday that the country's spy services had deployed Paragon's tools to intercept the communications of migrant sea rescue activists in the context of law enforcement work, the panel said it had found no evidence that the tools were used by Italian intelligence to go after Fanpage's Cancellato. The discovery of Paragon spyware on the phone of one of Cancellato's colleagues adds to questions about the panel's thoroughness, said Natalia Krapiva, a senior lawyer with Access Now, a human rights group that works with spyware victims. "It sheds serious doubt on the adequacy of the investigation," she said. The Italian parliamentary panel, which has reserved the right to conduct further investigations around the matter, did not respond to a message seeking comment. In its report, Citizen Lab also said that an unnamed European journalist was hacked with Paragon's spyware. The lab, which is based out of the University of Toronto, offered no other details and declined to answer questions about the journalist's identity or the circumstances of their targeting.
Reuters
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Second Italian journalist targeted with Paragon spyware, watchdog group says
LONDON, June 12 (Reuters) - A second Italian journalist was recently targeted by software made by U.S.-owned surveillance company Paragon, internet watchdog group Citizen Lab said, raising new questions about a surveillance scandal that has already led Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's government and Paragon to part ways. Citizen Lab said in a report on Thursday that Italian investigative journalist Ciro Pellegrino's iPhone showed evidence of having been targeted by Paragon's sophisticated spy software. Pellegrino works at the online newspaper Fanpage, whose editor-in-chief Francesco Cancellato earlier disclosed that he was one of scores of users who received January alerts from WhatsApp that they had been targeted using Paragon's technology. Fanpage has published a stream of critical coverage of Meloni's government, notably an exposé tying her party's youth wing to neo-Nazi activity, and the allegation that Fanpage's journalists, among others, were put under surveillance has stirred controversy in Italy. On Monday, the government and Paragon announced that they were no longer working together, offering conflicting explanations about who fired whom. Paragon referred questions back to an earlier statement, opens new tab it provided to the Israeli publication Haaretz in which it said it had offered Italian officials a way to check whether its systems had been used against Cancellato, but that Italian authorities had rebuffed the offer. Italian officials did not return a message seeking comment on the Citizen Lab report. In a text exchange with Reuters, Pellegrino said the discovery that he had been targeted with spyware was "horrible." The Naples-based journalist said his phone was "the black box of my life, which contains everything from personal and health data to journalistic sources." Although an Italian parliamentary panel reported on Monday that the country's spy services had deployed Paragon's tools to intercept the communications of migrant sea rescue activists in the context of law enforcement work, the panel said it had found no evidence that the tools were used by Italian intelligence to go after Fanpage's Cancellato. The discovery of Paragon spyware on the phone of one of Cancellato's colleagues adds to questions about the panel's thoroughness, said Natalia Krapiva, a senior lawyer with Access Now, a human rights group that works with spyware victims. "It sheds serious doubt on the adequacy of the investigation," she said. The Italian parliamentary panel, which has reserved the right to conduct further investigations around the matter, did not respond to a message seeking comment. In its report, Citizen Lab also said that an unnamed European journalist was hacked with Paragon's spyware. The lab, which is based out of the University of Toronto, offered no other details and declined to answer questions about the journalist's identity or the circumstances of their targeting.
