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French PM fuels row with trip to buy baguettes

On France’s annual Labour Day public holiday, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu stepped into a small village bakery in the central French community of Saint-Julien-Chapteuil, smiled for assembled press cameras, and completed a purchase of at least four baguettes, before stopping at a neighboring florist to pick up a bouquet of flowers. What was intended as a show of support for small independent food and flower businesses quickly escalated into a fresh public dispute with major French labor unions, which have fiercely opposed the government’s push to carve out a permanent exception to the country’s mandatory Labour Day rest rule for bakeries and florists.

Current French labor law strictly limits which businesses can operate on the 1 May public holiday, with only core essential services such as hospitals and hotels granted legal permission to open, requiring any working staff to receive double their standard daily wages. The regulatory status of small-scale bakeries and flower shops has long remained ambiguous in this framework, creating confusion for business owners that the Macron administration is seeking to resolve through new legislation.

The controversial proposal, introduced to parliament earlier this month, would formally exempt independent bakeries and florists from the mandatory rest requirement, on the condition that any employee working on the holiday provides written confirmation of voluntary participation and receives double pay for their shift. Government officials have framed the change as a common-sense adjustment, arguing that these local small businesses are “indispensable to the continuity of social life” and that the exemption would support independent operators who rely on the holiday foot traffic for revenue.

Unions have pushed back hard against the plan, warning that the policy creates a dangerous opening for employers to pressure vulnerable workers into agreeing to work on a holiday that is legally protected for rest. Marylise Léon, General Secretary of France’s largest union, dismissed Lecornu’s public bakery visit as an unnecessary political stunt. “Politicians going to a bakery, I think that’s part of a political spectacle that we don’t need today,” Léon said. “We need to show what the reality of a bakery worker is like.” Unions argue that the formalization of this exemption sets a worrying precedent, pointing to a pattern where incremental carve-outs to protected labor rights eventually erode core rules entirely. In a joint statement released in April, unions warned: “social history shows us that each time a principle is undermined, exemptions gradually increase until they become the rule”, with many leaders fearing the change could eventually lead to widespread rollbacks of mandatory rest for all public holidays across France.

The dispute deepened after it emerged that Lecornu had personally intervened to waive a heavy fine issued to a baker who opened his shop on Labour Day earlier this year. According to reports from BFMTV and Europe1, the prime minister spoke by phone with the baker, identified only as Eric, who had been cited by labor inspectors for operating on the holiday and faced a total fine of €5,250 — €750 for each of his seven employees working that day. Lecornu reportedly reassured Eric that he would not be required to pay the penalty, a move that unions have decried as a politically motivated bypassing of existing labor regulations.

The government’s bill now moves to parliamentary debate for approval, with the outcome likely to shape both future labor policy and the already tense relationship between the Macron administration and France’s powerful labor movement in the coming months.

1 5 月, 2026
Israel ‘sent advanced laser defence system to UAE’ during Iran war

Against the backdrop of open conflict between the US-Israeli bloc and Iran that has roiled the Persian Gulf since February, new details have emerged of deepening military cooperation between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, the Financial Times revealed in a report published Thursday. Two anonymous sources familiar with the deployment confirmed to the outlet that Israel has transferred a modified variant of its domestically developed Iron Beam laser defense system to Abu Dhabi, as the UAE braces for continued drone and missile attacks from Iranian forces.

Iron Beam, which entered operational service with the Israeli military only in December 2025, is engineered to intercept low-altitude, short-range threats including rockets and unmanned aerial vehicles — exactly the type of projectiles that have formed the bulk of Iran’s cross-region retaliatory attacks. Alongside the high-powered laser system, the FT report adds that Israel also supplied the UAE with Spectro, a compact advanced surveillance platform capable of detecting incoming unmanned aerial threats from distances of up to 20 kilometers.

This latest weapons transfer builds on a previous deployment reported last month by Axios, which revealed that Israel had already sent a complete Iron Dome air defense battery to the Gulf nation, accompanied by dozens of trained Israeli personnel to operate the system. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally authorized the deployment of the battery, which includes both interceptor missiles and specialized support staff. One insider told the FT that the number of Israeli troops deployed on the ground in the UAE is “not small”, confirming a substantial and ongoing Israeli military presence in the country. Beyond weapons systems, the report notes that Israel has also maintained continuous real-time intelligence sharing with Emirati authorities for the full duration of the conflict, helping the UAE anticipate and respond to incoming attacks.

Iranian officials have previously stated to Middle East Eye that they view the UAE as an active participant in the US-Israeli war campaign against Tehran, a claim that aligns with the scope of military cooperation now coming to light. The two countries first normalized diplomatic relations in 2020 under the US-brokered Abraham Accords, and have steadily expanded their strategic, economic and defense ties in the years since that agreement. That partnership has grown exponentially since the United States and Israel launched a major bombing campaign against Iranian targets in February. In response, Tehran launched a wave of retaliatory strikes targeting US, Israeli and allied assets across the Middle East, with the UAE emerging as one of the most heavily targeted nations in the region.

Emirati officials confirm Iran has fired approximately 550 ballistic and cruise missiles, plus more than 2,200 drones at targets across the UAE. While the vast majority of these incoming projectiles have been intercepted, falling debris from failed attacks has caused significant damage across major population and economic centers including Abu Dhabi, Dubai, the Burj Al Arab luxury hotel, the Palm Jumeirah development, Dubai International Airport and the Fujairah oil industrial hub.

Israeli and Emirati officials have publicly acknowledged that the two countries have coordinated closely on both military and political strategy since the outbreak of hostilities. Beyond supplying defense systems, the Israeli Air Force has also conducted pre-emptive strikes against short-range missile launch sites in southern Iran to prevent projectiles from being fired at the UAE and other neighboring Gulf states. Tensions escalated further in mid-March when Iran’s critical South Pars gas field, a cornerstone of the country’s energy infrastructure, was hit by airstrikes. Tehran responded with another wave of strikes across the Gulf, targeting hotels, airports, data centers, ports and US diplomatic missions across the region.

A temporary ceasefire between the United States and Iran went into effect last month, halting large-scale offensive hostilities and reopening diplomatic negotiations. As of the latest reports, those talks have not yet yielded any major breakthrough toward a lasting peace deal, leaving the region in a fragile state of heightened alert.

1 5 月, 2026
What alternatives do Gulf states have to the Strait of Hormuz?

Two months have passed since the outbreak of conflict between Iran and other regional actors, and the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical energy trade chokepoint, remains largely closed to commercial vessel traffic. Shipping volumes have plummeted to a tiny fraction of pre-war levels, and a chaotic sequence of temporary ceasefires, shifting blockades and repeated re-closures since February 28 have done nothing to restore confidence among commercial tanker crews and shipping operators.

For decades, global energy analysts and policymakers have recognized the strait as a linchpin of international commodity trade. On a typical day before the conflict, it accommodated around 20 million barrels of crude oil and refined petroleum products, alongside roughly 20% of the world’s total liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. It also carries one-third of global helium supplies and a comparable share of urea, the key input for global agricultural fertilizer production.

Plans to diversify trade routes away from the strait have been in development for decades, but the ongoing conflict has put these alternative bypass systems under unprecedented stress. Currently, the existing alternative infrastructure is delivering between 3.5 million and 5.5 million barrels of crude oil per day, matching the rough performance projections that planners outlined decades ago. Even so, this output falls drastically short of compensating for the lost capacity from the closed strait.

The single most critical bypass pipeline in operation today is Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline, also widely known as Petroline. Originally constructed in the 1980s during the original Tanker War, when Iran and Iraq targeted commercial shipping across the Persian Gulf amid their broader armed conflict, the pipeline was upgraded in 2019 to an emergency maximum capacity of 7 million barrels per day. However, the oil loading terminals at Yanbu, Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coastal hub, were never engineered to handle such high volumes at speed, and independent analysts tracking tanker movements report that current throughput is far below the theoretical maximum capacity.

From Yanbu, most crude bound for European markets must then pass through Egypt’s Sumed Pipeline, which has a total capacity of just 2.5 million barrels per day. While flows through Sumed have surged 150% since the conflict began, its limited size remains a hard cap on additional energy supplies reaching Europe.

Iran has been acutely aware of Petroline’s geostrategic importance to global energy markets, and has targeted the infrastructure accordingly. In April, an Iranian drone strike on one of the pipeline’s key pumping stations took 700,000 barrels per day of capacity offline. State-owned operator Saudi Aramco managed to restore full operations within three days, a timeline that has reassured markets, but the attack itself underscores the persistent vulnerability of even the most robust bypass infrastructure.

The second major component of the Gulf’s bypass network runs through the United Arab Emirates: the Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline (Adcop), which connects the Habshan oil fields to Fujairah on the UAE’s Gulf of Oman coast, making it the only major bypass route that exits the Persian Gulf directly into the Indian Ocean. Adcop has a maximum capacity of just under 2 million barrels per day, but it has faced the same security threats as Petroline. Iranian drone strikes targeting Fujairah on March 3, 14 and 16 ignited storage tank fires and forced a full suspension of loading operations. While Adcop does offer limited route diversification for UAE oil exports, it does not resolve the core vulnerability of bypass infrastructure to targeted attacks.

For other major Gulf energy producers, the situation is far more bleak. Before the conflict, Iraq exported 3.4 million barrels of crude per day, almost all of which moved through the southern port of Basra and across the Strait of Hormuz. Iraq’s only alternative route is a northern pipeline connecting the Kirkuk oil fields to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. The pipeline was only reopened in September 2025 following a two-and-a-half-year shutdown, and flows were only ramped up to 250,000 barrels per day this March – a volume that is negligible compared to the export capacity Iraq has lost since the strait closed.

Kuwait faces an even more critical crisis. Pre-war crude exports hit roughly 2 million barrels per day, and every barrel transited the Strait of Hormuz. The country has no operational pipeline alternative. State-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corporation declared force majeure in March, a legal move that allows it to suspend contractual delivery obligations, and extended that declaration on April 20. The company has confirmed it cannot meet delivery commitments even if the strait reopens immediately, noting that restoring damaged production infrastructure and ramping output back up will take months of work.

Qatar’s vulnerability follows a different pattern. The country’s pre-war crude exports were far smaller than its Gulf neighbors, at around 600,000 barrels per day, all of which transited the strait. But Qatar’s global importance lies in natural gas: its 77 million tonne per year LNG export complex at Ras Laffan is the largest in the world, accounting for roughly 19% of global LNG trade. There is no alternative route for this LNG, which must all pass through the Strait of Hormuz to reach global markets.

Even Iran itself has been unable to effectively use its own purpose-built Hormuz bypass. The country completed a 1,000-kilometer pipeline from Goreh at the top of the Persian Gulf to a new export terminal at Jask on the Gulf of Oman, designed to carry 1 million barrels per day. But years of international sanctions and unfinished terminal construction have left actual throughput at a tiny fraction of design capacity. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated that in summer 2024, less than 70,000 barrels per day were flowing through the pipeline, and all loadings stopped that September. Data from global shipping analytics firm Kpler shows only one tanker has loaded crude at Jask since the conflict began, carrying roughly 2 million barrels of oil total.

Calls for new pipeline construction to bypass Hormuz, which have grown louder since the conflict began, are understandable on their face. But building new infrastructure is not a viable near-term solution. Replacing the strait’s capacity with a new network of pipelines would cost hundreds of billions of dollars and require at least a decade of construction. Even once complete, any new pipelines and terminals built at Yanbu, Fujairah or other locations would face the exact same vulnerability to drone strikes that existing bypass infrastructure faces today.

1 5 月, 2026
Hundreds detained during May Day protests in Turkey

On Friday, Turkish law enforcement took into custody more than 500 International Workers’ Day protesters who attempted to enter restricted zones in central Istanbul, capping another year of tension between authorities and demonstrators marking the national holiday. For decades, May Day gatherings in Turkey have often erupted into violent confrontations between protesters and police, with Taksim Square — Istanbul’s iconic central public space — consistently designated a prohibited area for demonstrations on security grounds. That ban traces its origins to a bloody 1977 incident, when at least 30 people lost their lives in violent unrest that broke out during May Day protests at the site.

This year, despite the long-standing blockade, small clusters of demonstrators gathered in neighborhoods surrounding Taksim Square throughout the day. Carrying labor union banners and chanting demands for the square to be reopened to public protests, the groups made repeated attempts to push through the heavy police cordon that encircled the area. The primary hub for organized protest shifted to the nearby Mecidiyekoy district, where hundreds of demonstrators converged. Security forces responded to the gathering by deploying water cannons and pepper spray to disperse the crowd, before taking hundreds of participants into custody.

The detentions carry added political and legal context, coming just 24 hours after Turkey’s highest constitutional court issued a landmark ruling. On Thursday, the court found that the right to peaceful assembly of three people detained for 58 days following a 2021 May Day demonstration had been violated, a decision that established a new legal precedent for future cases involving May Day protest restrictions. The ruling had raised expectations among labor organizers that authorities might relax the decades-long ban on Taksim Square gatherings, only for security officials to maintain the restrictions.

In an official statement released Friday, the Istanbul governor’s office noted that all safety precautions and restriction notices had been publicly communicated to the Turkish public well in advance of the holiday. Echoing long-standing government framing of the unrest, the statement blamed “certain marginal groups” for disregarding official rules, adding that clashes with police followed a pattern repeated every year. By 6 p.m. local time on Friday, authorities confirmed that a total of 575 protesters had been detained, marking one of the largest mass detentions at a Turkish May Day demonstration in recent years.

1 5 月, 2026
Trump says he will hike tariffs on EU cars to 25%

In a sudden and provocative move that threatens to upend already fragile trade relations between the United States and the European Union, former and current U.S. President Donald Trump revealed Friday plans to raise import tariffs on European-manufactured passenger cars and commercial trucks to 25 percent, up from the 15 percent rate set by a 2025 bilateral agreement.

Sharing the announcement via his Truth Social platform, Trump accused Brussels of failing to uphold its end of the 2025 trade deal negotiated at his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland last July, but offered no specific evidence or details to back up the claim of non-compliance. “I am pleased to announce that… next week I will be increasing Tariffs charged to the European Union for Cars and Trucks,” Trump wrote in the post.

The planned tariff increase marks a dramatic escalation of simmering trade tensions between Washington and Brussels. Negotiations to solidify last summer’s framework agreement have been deadlocked for months over disagreements on U.S. tariff adjustments for steel and aluminum imports, with leading EU economies Germany and France repeatedly rejecting Washington’s proposals to widen tariff changes across dozens of product categories.

For the European bloc, the automotive sector is one of its most economically critical export industries, making Trump’s target a particularly calculated and sensitive choice. The 2025 framework agreement, which capped most European industrial goods tariffs at 15 percent, originally served as a compromise that spared the EU from the far harsher 30 percent tariffs Trump threatened to impose during his April “Liberation Day” tariff wave. In exchange for the lower rate, the bloc agreed to increase direct investment in the U.S. and implement regulatory changes designed to boost American exports to European markets.

Transatlantic relations faced additional disruption earlier this year after Trump made public threats to annex Greenland, an autonomous self-governing territory of Denmark. In response, the European Parliament suspended its formal approval of the trade deal in January, eventually adding a new clause that allows for full suspension of the agreement if the Trump administration is found to have undermined deal objectives, discriminated against EU businesses, threatened member state territorial integrity, or engaged in economic coercion. The deal ultimately won parliamentary approval in March after the initial dispute cooled.

Alongside announcing the tariff hike, Trump used the post to pressure European automakers to relocate their production facilities to the United States, noting that any vehicles built at U.S. factories would face no import tariffs. He claimed the U.S. is currently seeing record-breaking levels of new investment in domestic automotive manufacturing, saying billions of dollars are flowing into new and expanded plants across the country. “There has never been anything like what is happening in America today,” he added.

Notably, the “Liberation Day” broad tariffs Trump imposed earlier this year under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) were later ruled illegal by the U.S. Supreme Court. However, legal experts confirm that the automotive tariffs in question follow a separate statutory process, so they are not affected by the high court’s ruling, leaving the planned 25 percent increase on solid legal footing for the administration.

The announcement has already sent ripples through global automotive and financial markets, with analysts warning that higher tariffs could raise vehicle prices for U.S. consumers, disrupt cross-border supply chains, and trigger retaliatory trade measures from Brussels that would further harm transatlantic economic cooperation.

1 5 月, 2026
Pope names former undocumented migrant as US bishop

In a move that underscores the Vatican’s long-running stance on compassionate immigration policy, Pope Leo XIV announced Friday the nomination of Evelio Menjivar-Ayala — a former undocumented migrant who fled civil conflict in El Salvador — to lead the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston in West Virginia. The appointment comes just weeks after a high-profile public dispute between the U.S.-born pontiff and former President Donald Trump, deepening a rift over immigration and global conflict that has defined their tense relationship.

Menjivar-Ayala, 56, currently serves as an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Washington, and his life story tracks closely with the migration issues that have placed the Vatican at odds with hardline U.S. immigration policy. Born into poverty in El Salvador amid the country’s brutal 1980s civil war, he first attempted to cross into the United States in 1990, only to be detained by authorities in Mexico. In a 2023 interview, he recalled paying a bribe to secure his release before successfully crossing the border through Tijuana, entering the U.S. as an undocumented refugee fleeing violence. After decades of religious service, he was ordained as a priest in 2004 and elevated to auxiliary bishop in 2023.

The Vatican officially confirmed the nomination in a public statement earlier this week, marking a historic milestone for a U.S. diocese: Menjivar-Ayala is believed to be one of the first former undocumented migrants to be appointed a U.S. diocesan bishop. For Pope Leo, who leads the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, the appointment aligns with his repeated calls for humane treatment of migrants, a stance that has put him directly in conflict with Trump.

Last month, the pontiff drew fierce pushback from Trump after condemning the former president’s threat to “destroy Iran” as “unacceptable.” Pope Leo urged U.S. voters to pressure congressional representatives to prioritize diplomatic peace over escalation, a comment that sparked a scathing retaliation from Trump. The former president took to social media to slam the pope, labeling him “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.”

Beyond the Middle East conflict, immigration has been the primary flashpoint between the two leaders. Pope Leo has repeatedly decried the treatment of migrants in U.S. detention systems as “extremely disrespectful,” arguing that global governments have a moral obligation to pursue humane, welcoming policies for people fleeing violence and poverty. “We have to look for ways of treating people humanely,” he has said of migration, a message that the appointment of Menjivar-Ayala brings tangible, public form.

Church observers note that the nomination is far more than a routine personnel change: it is a deliberate reaffirmation of the Catholic Church’s commitment to migrant advocacy at a time when immigration remains one of the most divisive political issues in the United States ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

1 5 月, 2026
Elon Musk’s latest Tesla pay valued at $158bn – but he can’t pocket it

In a regulatory filing published Thursday, Tesla has put a $158 billion (£117 billion) valuation on the 2025 compensation package for its chief executive Elon Musk, one of the world’s wealthiest people — but the document also confirmed that Musk will not take home any of that sum this year. The eye-popping valuation stems from a historic pay deal that Tesla shareholders approved back in November, which ties Musk’s earnings to a series of extremely ambitious performance and growth milestones. Until those targets are met, the massive package remains purely nominal, industry analysts emphasize. The approved agreement would grant Musk up to $1 trillion in Tesla stock only if he guides the electric vehicle maker to a series of aggressive long-term goals, chief among them boosting the company’s total market capitalization to $8.5 trillion. For 2025, none of those required milestones were met, so no payout is triggered, says Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at UK investment platform AJ Bell. “Elon Musk isn’t actually going to pocket $158bn,” Hewson explained to the BBC. The $158 billion figure disclosed in the filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is not a guaranteed payout for 2025, she added: rather, it is an accounting estimate of what Musk would receive if he ultimately delivers on all the terms of the deal, counting his work toward the targets over the past year. The full list of milestones Musk must hit to unlock the full stock grant is sweeping, and spans multiple business lines at Tesla. He must grow the company’s annual vehicle delivery volume to 20 million units, while also rolling out 1 million humanoid robots. He needs to hit 10 million paid subscriptions for Tesla’s controversial Full Self-Driving driver assistance feature, and launch 1 million commercial autonomous Robotaxis for ride-hailing service. The plan also requires Tesla to hit cumulative core profit of up to $400 billion before the full payout can be issued. If all these targets are met, Musk would receive more than 400 million additional Tesla shares, which would be worth roughly $1 trillion at the $8.5 trillion market valuation the plan calls for. While the goals are intentionally very high, Hewson notes that the structure of the deal was designed to refocus Musk’s attention on Tesla, and the unprecedented package has generated massive global attention for both the CEO and the automaker. Musk already holds the title of the world’s richest person by a wide margin. As of this reporting, Bloomberg estimates his total net worth at $651 billion, while Forbes pegs the figure even higher at $788 billion. Both estimates place his personal wealth far above that of other major tech leaders, including Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Since Musk draws no base salary for his role as Tesla CEO, and already has vast wealth from his sprawling portfolio of other companies, he faces no immediate pressure to hit the targets quickly, Hewson added. One of Musk’s other high-growth ventures, aerospace firm SpaceX, is on track to become one of the most valuable publicly traded companies in the world after its upcoming initial public offering (IPO). The rocket manufacturer recently merged with xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence startup and parent company of social platform X, ahead of the public listing. Beyond Tesla and SpaceX, Musk is currently embroiled in a high-profile legal battle with OpenAI, the artificial intelligence research lab he co-founded with current CEO Sam Altman in 2015. The legal proceedings have included heated exchanges between Musk and OpenAI’s legal team, as well as the presiding judge. Musk claims that Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman abandoned the organization’s original non-profit mission to pursue for-profit growth, effectively “stealing” the charity he helped build.

1 5 月, 2026
Israel to pour $730m into propaganda as Gaza genocide, Iran war turns it into pariah

Against a backdrop of mounting international fury over its military campaign in Gaza and expanding hostilities across Western Asia, Israel has greenlit a near three-quarters-of-a-billion-dollar surge in state-funded propaganda spending, a dramatic bid to reverse its rapidly collapsing global standing. The allocation, approved by Israeli lawmakers as part of the 2026 national budget in March, sets aside $730 million for hasbara – the official term for Israel’s state-directed public diplomacy and influence operations. This marks an extraordinary five-fold jump from the previous year’s $150 million allocation, which itself was already 20 times higher than pre-2023 spending levels.

The scale of the budget increase, first revealed by the *Jerusalem Post* earlier this week, lays bare the urgency of Israel’s push to contain growing global condemnation and its rapid slide toward pariah status in international affairs. The PR overhaul comes as Israel grapples with a cascading series of crises that extend far beyond the Gaza conflict: rising global recognition of its apartheid regime in the occupied West Bank, intensifying scrutiny over long-rumored links between Israeli intelligence agency Mossad and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and widespread anger over allegations that Israel pushed the United States into a confrontation with Iran that has triggered global economic instability and humanitarian ripple effects far beyond the Middle East.

Israel currently faces diplomatic and public opinion isolation at depths unmatched since the country’s founding, according to a recent analysis from Tel Aviv’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). This worsening isolation comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the subject of an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity stemming from operations in Gaza, while the state of Israel is defending itself against formal genocide accusations at the International Court of Justice.

A core target of the new propaganda push is shifting public sentiment in the United States, Israel’s most critical long-standing ally, where polling shows support for the country is eroding rapidly across demographic and political lines. A Pew Research Center survey released in April found that 60 percent of Americans now hold unfavorable views of Israel – a sharp uptick over just 12 months – while positive approval has dropped to 37 percent. This shift cuts across every major demographic: a majority of Republicans under 50 now view Israel negatively, while support has fallen among Black Protestants, Catholics, religiously unaffiliated Americans, and even among American Jewish communities, where backing has slipped below two-thirds.

To implement the expanded influence campaign, Israel’s Foreign Ministry has dramatically expanded its messaging infrastructure. Under Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, a new dedicated unit has been created specifically to shape global narratives about Israel’s actions. The government has earmarked tens of millions of dollars for targeted digital outreach, including a $50 million push for social media advertising across major global platforms, and roughly $40 million to host hundreds of foreign delegations ranging from sitting politicians and religious leaders to social media influencers and university presidents. A centralized “media war room” now monitors coverage from hundreds of international news outlets and tracks thousands of daily mentions of Israel across global media and social platforms.

The campaign also extends to political consulting and AI-driven targeted outreach: the Foreign Ministry signed a $1.5 million per month contract with a firm linked to former Donald Trump campaign strategist Brad Parscale to deploy artificial intelligence tools to shape online discourse. Additional funds have been directed to evangelical Christian networks and influencer campaigns managed through private public relations firms.

The surge in hasbara spending aligns with growing alarm within Israel’s national security and policy establishment over the country’s deepening international isolation. The recent INSS paper warns that Israel is facing diplomatic and public opinion isolation “not seen since its establishment”, highlighting the emergence of a “creeping economic boycott” as businesses and academic institutions around the world increasingly cut formal ties with Israeli partners. To counter this trend, INSS researchers have called on the Israeli government to ramp up engagement with diaspora Jewish communities and Christian Zionist networks. Proposals put forward include expanding youth travel programs to bring tens of thousands of young Jews and Christians to Israel annually, and a renewed push to build influence within global higher education. The report also recommends creating a $100 million fund to support Israeli research and launching a program to invite leaders of top global universities to visit Israel, with the goal of shoring up institutional partnerships.

1 5 月, 2026
Trump says he’ll place 25% tariff on autos from the EU, accusing it of not complying with trade deal

WASHINGTON — In an unexpected announcement that has sent ripples through global markets already grappling with multiple crises, former and returning U.S. President Donald Trump revealed Friday that he will raise import tariffs on European-manufactured cars and trucks to 25% starting next week. The policy shift arrives at a moment of unprecedented vulnerability for the global economy, threatening to exacerbate already mounting pressures on growth and inflation.

1 5 月, 2026
Former Miami Congressman David Rivera is convicted of secretly lobbying for Maduro’s Venezuela

MIAMI — After a high-profile seven-week federal trial that pulled back the curtain on hidden foreign influence operations targeting U.S. Latin America policy, former Republican U.S. Representative David Rivera has been found guilty on all charges connected to a covert $50 million lobbying campaign on behalf of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro government during the first Donald Trump presidential term.

Jurors delivered the guilty verdict Friday against Rivera, a decades-long close personal friend of U.S. Secretary of State (and former Florida U.S. Senator) Marco Rubio, and his co-defendant, political consultant Esther Nuhfer. All 11 counts against the pair, including conspiracy to commit money laundering and failing to register as agents of a foreign government with the U.S. Department of Justice, resulted in conviction. Rivera remained stoic and expressionless as the verdict was read, a demeanor he maintained throughout the entire course of the trial.

Though Rivera had been released on bond ahead of the verdict, U.S. District Judge Melissa Damian immediately ordered him to be taken into federal custody. Damian ruled Rivera qualifies as a substantial flight risk, citing his access to large unreported assets, the potential for a decades-long prison sentence, and additional pending federal foreign lobbying charges linked to this scheme that he already faces in Washington, D.C.

The trial, one of the few high-profile public proceedings to examine foreign influence operations centered in Miami, offered an unprecedented look at the city’s unique role as a hub for cross-border lobbying campaigns designed to shift U.S. policy toward Latin America. Miami’s large Venezuelan exile community, deep political connections to Washington, and concentration of regional power players have long made it a magnet for both anti-Communist advocacy and foreign corruption operations, a dynamic laid bare by the proceedings.

The case even drew testimony from top Washington political figures, including Rubio and Texas Congressman Pete Sessions, both of whom told jurors they had no idea Rivera held a secret consulting contract with PDV USA, the U.S.-based affiliate of Venezuela’s state-owned oil giant PDVSA. Both said they were shocked when the scheme came to light.

Prosecutors first unsealed the 11-count indictment against Rivera and Nuhfer in 2022. The case alleges that Venezuela’s then-Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez — who now serves as Venezuela’s acting president — personally tapped Rivera to leverage his Republican connections built during his time in Congress to convince the first Trump administration to drop its hardline opposition to Maduro and roll back crippling economic sanctions that had gutted Venezuela’s economy.

Prosecutors argued that the pair manipulated high-profile political contacts including Rubio and Sessions like “pawns on a chessboard” as part of the lobbying push, all to advance Maduro’s goal of normalizing relations with the Trump administration at a time when the Venezuelan government faced widespread global condemnation for gross human rights violations. In his closing arguments to the jury, lead prosecutor Roger Cruz emphasized that the defendants prioritized large payments over ethical or legal obligations, saying “As long as the money kept coming in, they didn’t care from where.”

Per prosecution arguments, Rivera and Nuhfer concealed their work to protect Rivera’s public image as a leading anti-Communist voice in Florida Republican politics; keeping the “massive secret” hidden was the only way to avoid ending his political career, prosecutors said. To hide communications from authorities, Rivera set up an encrypted chat group codenamed MIA (for Miami) with Raúl Gorrín, a Venezuelan media tycoon who served as the main liaison to the Maduro government and has since been charged by U.S. authorities with bribing senior Venezuelan officials. Chat members used coded language to obscure their activities: Maduro was referred to as the “bus driver,” Sessions as “Sombrero,” Rodríguez as “The Lady in Red,” and multi-million dollar payments were called “melons.” Prosecutors added that payments from the Maduro government were consistently referenced in chats using the Spanish word for light, “La Luz.”

The defense pushed back aggressively against the prosecution’s narrative. Attorneys for both defendants argued their clients acted in good faith and had no legal obligation to disclose the consulting contract, which they claimed focused exclusively on commercial efforts to convince oil major ExxonMobil to return to its operations in Venezuela. Commercial work of this nature is typically exempt from foreign agent registration requirements under U.S. law. The defense further contended that Rivera’s later meetings with Rubio and Sessions, which occurred after the consulting contract expired, were focused on promoting a transition to a new Venezuelan government less hostile to U.S. interests, rather than normalizing Maduro’s rule.

“He was working every possible angle to get Nicolás Maduro out,” defense lead attorney Ed Shohat said in closing arguments. “There was not a word in the chats about normalizing relations.” Nuhfer’s attorney, David Oscar Markus, drew a controversial comparison between the government’s case and the 17th-century Salem Witch Trials, arguing the prosecution presumed guilt on thin, insubstantial evidence that did not prove malicious intent. “My client does not have a dark heart,” Markus told the jury.

Prosecutors rejected the defense’s framing, arguing the ExxonMobil-focused contract was just a cover for illegal political lobbying on behalf of the Maduro government. Once the scheme began to unravel, prosecutors said, Rivera and Nuhfer fabricated documents, backdated agreements, and created sham contracts to hide the flow of illegal funds. One example presented to the jury was a fake agreement created to justify a $3.75 million wire transfer to a South Florida company that maintained Gorrín’s luxury yacht.

The political lobbying operation included arranging private meetings for Rodríguez across multiple U.S. and Latin American cities, including New York, Washington, Caracas and Dallas. The pair recruited Sessions to help broker a meeting between Rodríguez and ExxonMobil’s CEO, a position previously held by Trump’s first Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Sessions also agreed to carry a personal letter from Maduro to Trump after holding a secret meeting with the Venezuelan leader in Caracas.

The outreach effort ultimately collapsed within six months of Trump taking office. The Trump administration imposed sweeping sanctions on Maduro, labeled him a dictator, and launched a “maximum pressure” campaign aimed at forcing him from power. A decade later, however, Rodríguez has emerged as a key trusted partner for the second Trump administration following a U.S. military operation that ousted Maduro from power.

Before his election to Congress in 2010, Rivera built his political career as a senior Republican leader in the Florida state legislature, where he shared a home in Tallahassee with a young Marco Rubio, who later rose to become Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, a U.S. Senator, and most recently U.S. Secretary of State. Rivera has a long history of political controversy: in 2012, he was accused of secretly funding a Democratic spoiler candidate in his congressional re-election race, though federal prosecutors dropped the case last year after an appeals court struck down a large fine imposed by a lower court. He was also previously investigated for alleged campaign finance violations and a $1 million no-bid contract with a gambling company while serving in the Florida legislature, but never faced criminal charges in either case.

1 5 月, 2026