The British Museum said it had closed a number of exhibits after a fired information technology (IT) contractor “shut down” some of its systems, in one of several unrelated incidents targeting European museums on Saturday.
The London venue, one of the UK capital’s biggest tourist draws and best known for housing the Rosetta Stone and the Parthenon Marbles, said police had arrested the suspect.
“An IT contractor who was dismissed last week trespassed into the museum and shut down several of our systems,” a museum spokesman said. “We are working hard to get the museum back to being fully operational, but with regret our temporary exhibitions have been closed today and will remain so over the weekend.”
Photo: AP
Meanwhile in the Netherlands, the Drents Museum in Assen said it was closed for the weekend after robbers used explosives to break in and steal three antique bracelets and a gold helmet.
Police were alerted to an explosion early on Saturday, with the thieves stealing the golden helmet of Cotofenesti, dating from the mid-fifth century BC, the museum said on its Web site.
The helmet — the centerpiece of a temporary exhibition — was on loan from Romania’s National History Museum in Bucharest.
In Paris, the world-famous Orsay Museum was forced to disable its own ticketing system for several hours on Friday after falling victim to a fraudulent scheme involving “mirror sites,” it said on Saturday.
The museum, home to works by Vincent van Gogh and other master painters, was on Friday alerted that visitors trying to buy tickets online were being redirected without realizing it to bogus ticket sales Web sites.
After suspending online ticketing services for some of Friday, operations were back to normal Saturday, it said.
A spokesperson for London’s Metropolitan Police said officers responded to the British Museum late on Thursday following reports that a man on-site had “caused damage” to its security and IT systems.
Police arrested the man in his 50s at the scene on suspicion of burglary and criminal damage.
He has been bailed “pending further enquiries,” the spokesperson added.
Part of the museum’s permanent collection was also closed on Friday following the incident, Britain’s Press Association news agency reported.
A message on the museum’s Web site on Saturday said that it was “open, but due to an IT infrastructure issue some galleries have had to be closed.”
The incident is the latest embarrassing security lapse for the museum after allegations emerged in 2023 that a former employee was suspected of selling items stolen from its vast collection.
About 1,800 objects were disclosed as missing or stolen in August 2023.
The museum dismissed a staff member suspected of involvement in what it called “an inside job,” and alerted police who have interviewed a person but made no arrests.
Hundreds of the items have since been recovered.
Following a furor around that scandal, Hartwig Fischer, the director of the museum at the time, resigned.
After a temporary head was appointed, Nicholas Cullinan — who was previously in charge of the National Portrait Gallery — took over the role last year.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
RSS