ROME -- Spain’s Equality minister, Ana Redondo, has criticised Giorgia Meloni’s government after the Italian parliament passed a measure allowing anti-abortion activists to enter abortion consultation clinics. 

  Redondo took to ‘X’ to express her dissent: “Allowing organised pressure against women who want to terminate a pregnancy is undermining a right recognised by law. It is the strategy of the extreme right: to threaten to take away rights, to curb equality between women and men.”

 ROME -- The Israeli artist and curator, Ruth Patir, has said the Israel pavilion at the 60^th Venice Biennale will remain closed until “a ceasefire and hostage release agreement is reached.” The exhibition, which should have opened on Tuesday morning, instead displayed a sign stating the team’s decision, and was guarded by Italian soldiers.

 Patir explained, “As an artist and educator, I firmly object to cultural boycott, but I have a significant difficulty in presenting a project that speaks about the vulnerability of life in a time of unfathomed disregard for it.”