Global Pulse

标签： Europe

欧洲

  • Migrants rush to apply under Spain’s new mass legalization program

    Migrants rush to apply under Spain’s new mass legalization program

    MADRID – Starting Monday, undocumented migrants living across Spain gained the opportunity to formalize their residency, after the Spanish government rolled out one of the most ambitious mass legalization initiatives in recent European history. The program, which could regularize the status of between 500,000 and 840,000 unauthorized foreign residents already living and working in the country, marks a sharp break from restrictive migration policies adopted by many other European governments in recent years.

    First announced back in January and finalized earlier this month, the amnesty scheme offers eligible applicants a one-year renewable residence permit. To qualify, migrants must prove they have resided in Spain for a minimum of five months and hold a clean criminal record. The application window closes at the end of June, a tight timeline that has sparked questions about whether authorities can process the expected volume of submissions in time.

    To accommodate applicants, the government has expanded access across multiple public service points: more than 370 post offices nationwide are accepting in-person submissions, alongside 60 social security offices and a small network of dedicated migration centers. Online applications launched earlier, on Friday, to streamline the process for tech-accessible applicants.

    Early reports from application sites in major urban centers including Madrid and Barcelona confirm the process proceeded without major incidents, though many migrants reported extended wait times even for those who booked scheduled appointments in advance.

    Nubia Rivas, a 47-year-old migrant from Venezuela who submitted her application at a central Madrid post office, noted that while the process moved slowly, it remained steady and straightforward. “It’s pretty simple since I made an appointment online and I was given one for this morning,” Rivas explained. “The process here is a little slow, but it’s fluid.”

    Johana Moreno, another Venezuelan migrant who applied alongside her husband at the same Madrid location, shared her optimism about what legal status would mean for her future. Once a professional archivist in her home country, Moreno now works as a house cleaner to support herself in Spain. “It’s what we want,” she said of the regularization effort. “To be well, to work, to contribute, all those things. To pay our taxes. We know that we’ll have rights, but also we’ll have obligations.”

    Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, leader of the country’s progressive government, has framed the initiative as both a matter of fundamental justice and an economic necessity. Sanchez argues that migrants already integrated into Spanish communities and workforce should be permitted to participate in society on equal footing, contribute to public finances through taxes, and access the same rights as documented residents.

    With one of the fastest aging populations in the European Union, Spain’s government says the program directly addresses a critical labor shortage that threatens the country’s ongoing economic growth. Undocumented migrants already fill critical roles across Spain’s core economic sectors, including commercial agriculture, tourism, and domestic and hospitality services, accounting for a large share of the workforce in these industries.

    This departure from Europe’s broader restrictive migration trend has won the backing of both Spanish business associations and major trade unions. The contrast with other European nations, where many governments have prioritized curbing new migrant arrivals and ramping up deportations of undocumented residents, could position Spain as a test case for a more permissive approach to integrated unauthorized migrant populations.

    Currently, foreign-born residents account for roughly one in five people living in Spain, a share that has grown dramatically over the past two decades as migration flows from Latin America and North Africa have increased. Most of the migrants eligible for the current amnesty come from Venezuela, Colombia, and Morocco, having fled political instability, widespread violence, and deep poverty in their home countries.

    This legalization effort is not without precedent in Spanish policy: the country has launched six previous amnesty programs for undocumented migrants between 1986 and 2005, with some of those initiatives even implemented by past conservative governments.

    For many migrants, the program represents a lifelong chance to escape the uncertainty of undocumented life. Mourad El-Shaky, a 25-year-old Moroccan migrant who waited four hours outside Barcelona’s city hall last Friday to collect required paperwork for his application, described what legal status would change. El-Shaky made the dangerous journey to Spain via Turkey, traveling overland west despite the short maritime distance between Morocco and Spain. “Without papers (work and residency permits), your hands are tied,” he said. “You’re like a bird that can’t fly, with broken wings. This legalization will solve many things.”

  • Switzerland great Marcel Hug claims his ninth Boston Marathon wheelchair title and fourth straight

    Switzerland great Marcel Hug claims his ninth Boston Marathon wheelchair title and fourth straight

    On a crisp, sunlit Monday morning at the 130th running of the Boston Marathon, Swiss wheelchair racer Marcel Hug delivered yet another masterclass in endurance and competitive dominance, securing his ninth career title in the event and extending his consecutive winning streak to four straight victories.

    Starting temperatures hovering in the low 40s Fahrenheit created ideal racing conditions for the elite wheelchair field, and Hug wasted no time stamping his authority on the 26.2-mile course. Within just three miles of the starting gun, he had broken away from the pack, opening a 13-second gap over British veteran David Weir. By the race’s halfway mark, that advantage had ballooned to 55 seconds, leaving his closest competitors struggling to match his blistering pace.

    When he crossed the finish line, Hug’s unofficial time clocked in at 1 hour, 16 minutes and 6 seconds — a result that cements his standing as one of the most decorated athletes in Boston Marathon history. With nine titles to his name, he now sits alone in second place on the all-time men’s wheelchair leaderboard, trailing only South African icon Ernst van Dyk, who set the current record of 10 titles over a 13-year stretch between 2001 and 2014.

    American top contender Daniel Romanchuk crossed second with a time of 1:22:44, while Jetze Plat of the Netherlands rounded out the top three with a finish time of 1:24:13. In the women’s wheelchair division, Britain’s Eden Rainbow-Cooper claimed the top spot on the podium.

    Hug’s historic win in Boston extends an extraordinary run of form for the Swiss athlete that dates back to his 2022 victory at the Berlin Marathon. Across seven World Marathon Major events since that win, Hug has finished outside the top spot just once: he took second place at the 2024 New York City Marathon earlier this year, a rare blemish on an otherwise perfect stretch of elite competition.

  • Here’s what to know about Timmy, the humpback whale that’s sick and stranded in the Baltic Sea

    Here’s what to know about Timmy, the humpback whale that’s sick and stranded in the Baltic Sea

    BERLIN – A global audience has watched the likely final days of a lost humpback whale, nicknamed Timmy by local media, via continuous livestream after repeated attempts to guide it back to open ocean have failed, leaving the disoriented marine mammal growing increasingly frail and ill in the shallow Baltic Sea off Germany’s northern coast.

    The endangered animal, which naturally inhabits the nutrient-rich waters of the Atlantic Ocean, was first spotted wandering the Baltic on March 3. To date, researchers have not reached a consensus on what drove the 12 to 15-meter, 12-metric ton whale hundreds of kilometers off its intended migration path. The most common working theory among marine specialists is that Timmy lost its bearings while chasing a school of herring or veered off course during its annual seasonal migration.

    Since its initial sighting near the eastern German town of Wismar, Timmy has repeatedly become stuck in shallow coastal waters, showing clear signs of severe distress. For days, the giant mammal has barely moved, breathing in irregular patterns that have alarmed observers. The Baltic Sea’s far lower salt concentration compared to the whale’s natural Atlantic habitat has also caused a painful, progressive skin condition, which rescue teams have attempted to treat by applying multiple kilograms of medicinal zinc ointment. Compounding its dangerous disorientation, every time Timmy does move, it consistently swims further inland, farther from the open North Sea passage that would lead it home.

    Timmy’s plight has gripped the German public, sparking round-the-clock media coverage and fierce public debate over how to respond to the stranded whale. Local news outlets have streamed footage of the animal 24/7 to meet overwhelming public demand, while major national online publications send push notifications for even the smallest updates on Timmy’s changing condition. Environmental activists have organized peaceful protests on Wismar’s beaches calling for urgent action to save the mammal, and social media influencers have clashed over whether continued interventions do more harm than good, with some arguing the whale should be allowed to die peacefully in its current location rather than endure further stress from rescue attempts.

    Public curiosity grew so intense that local law enforcement was forced to establish a 500-meter exclusion zone around the whale’s location to prevent overcrowding that would add to the animal’s stress. Even with this restriction in place, a 67-year-old woman made headlines over the weekend when she jumped from a private boat in an attempt to get closer to Timmy before authorities intercepted her.

    Early rescue attempts, which mobilized police boats, inflatable craft and even heavy excavators, managed to temporarily refloat the whale after it became stranded on sandbars. But each time, the disoriented mammal failed to find the route to the North Sea and eventually returned to shallow coastal waters off Wismar.

    Rescue teams later developed a complex, large-scale intervention plan: inflatable air cushions would lift the whale onto a reinforced tarp, which would then be secured to two large pontoons and towed out to open ocean by a tugboat. German state officials approved the privately funded initiative, but the plan was thrown off schedule when the whale began moving again as high tide rose on Monday. Vessels were immediately deployed to guide Timmy toward the exit route, but many involved in the operation have already abandoned all hope of a successful rescue.

    Opinions among marine experts remain deeply divided over the ethics and effectiveness of continued intervention. Thilo Maack, a marine biologist with the environmental organization Greenpeace, told the Associated Press that repeated attempts to move and guide the whale are only causing it additional, severe stress that accelerates its decline. “I believe the whale will die very soon now. And I would also like to raise the question: What is actually so bad about that?” Maack said. “Yes, animals live, animals die. This animal is really, really very, very, very sick. And it has decided to seek rest.”

  • Elon Musk summoned by French prosecutors amid ongoing X probe

    Elon Musk summoned by French prosecutors amid ongoing X probe

    A high-stakes legal and regulatory clash over Elon Musk’s social media platform X has entered a new phase, with French authorities calling both the tech billionaire and X’s former CEO Linda Yaccarino to appear for a voluntary interview in Paris this Monday. As the investigation into alleged criminal activity on the platform stretches into its second year, uncertainty lingers over whether Musk will comply with the summons, following a well-documented pattern of him declining to appear for official questioning in the past.

    The probe first launched in January 2025, after French prosecutors received multiple formal reports flagging harmful content circulating on X’s recommendation algorithm. Just one month later, in February 2026, cybercrime units from the Paris prosecutor’s office executed raids on X’s French offices as the scope of the inquiry expanded. The investigation now encompasses serious new allegations tied to Grok, X’s controversial in-house AI chatbot. Prosecutors suspect Grok has been leveraged to generate non-consensual sexual deepfake imagery, including manipulated content targeting women and reportedly even underage individuals.

    The list of suspected offences being probed extends far beyond deepfake misuse. French investigators are also examining claims that X facilitated complicity in the possession and organized distribution of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), violated personal image rights through non-consensual explicit synthetic content, and carried out fraudulent large-scale data extraction via an organized criminal network.

    This latest summons follows a reported diplomatic rift between French and U.S. justice authorities. The Wall Street Journal revealed over the weekend that the U.S. Department of Justice sent an official letter to French prosecutors declining to assist with the X investigation, and accusing French officials of misusing the U.S. legal system to advance their inquiry. Musk quickly weighed in on the report via a post on his own platform, writing simply, “indeed, this needs to stop.”

    Musk and X’s leadership have repeatedly framed the entire investigation as a politically motivated attack rather than a legitimate legal inquiry. Following the February office raids, X issued a formal statement denying all wrongdoing, dismissing the allegations as entirely baseless. The company argued that the raids amounted to a “staged” action that distorted French law, bypassed standard due process, and threatened protections for free speech. “X is committed to defending its fundamental rights and the rights of its users,” the company added in that statement.

    Yaccarino, who led X through the period when the alleged offences occurred, has echoed this hardline stance. She previously took to X to accuse French prosecutors of waging “a political vendetta against Americans.” Now, she joins Musk in being called to appear for voluntary questioning this month.

    A history of non-compliance has fueled speculation that Musk may skip the scheduled Monday interview, which was initially set by prosecutors back in February. In September 2024, the billionaire failed to appear for a court-ordered questioning as part of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into his 2022 takeover of the platform, then known as Twitter.

    The French investigation has already triggered a wave of additional legal and regulatory action against X and its parent AI firm xAI across the globe, including multiple probes launched by regulators in the United Kingdom and throughout the European Union. As of Monday morning, neither the Paris prosecutor’s office nor the U.S. Department of Justice has issued an updated comment on the case in response to requests from the BBC.

  • Tired of political turmoil, Bulgarians give ex-president a convincing mandate for change

    Tired of political turmoil, Bulgarians give ex-president a convincing mandate for change

    SOFIA, Bulgaria — In a result that reshapes Bulgaria’s turbulent political landscape, the nation’s central electoral commission confirmed Monday that former president Rumen Radev’s center-left Progressive Bulgaria coalition has won a decisive majority in the country’s latest parliamentary election, bringing a close to five years of fragmented governance and unstable short-lived governments.

    With 96% of all ballots processed by Monday morning, early official data put the Radev-led coalition at 44.7% of the popular vote — a lead of more than 20 percentage points over its nearest competitors. Former prime minister Boyko Borissov’s long-dominant center-right GERB party captured 13.4% of the vote, while the pro-Western We Continue the Change-led reformist bloc followed closely at 12.9%, with the two rival groups running nearly neck-and-neck for second place. Latest projections indicate only two additional political parties will cross the electoral threshold to claim seats in the 240-seat national legislature, streamlining the chamber after years of splintered representation.

    Shortly after results were published, Borissov publicly conceded defeat and extended formal congratulations to the winning coalition. Radev, for his part, framed his coalition’s victory as a defining turning point for the Balkan nation. Addressing reporters, he called the outcome “unequivocal,” describing it as “a victory of hope over distrust, a victory of freedom over fear.” He reaffirmed that Bulgaria will remain committed to its integration trajectory with the European Union, while adding a note of pragmatic critique: “But believe me, a strong Bulgaria and a strong Europe need critical thinking and pragmatism. Europe has fallen victim to its own ambition to be a moral leader in a world without rules.”

    The 62-year-old former fighter pilot, who holds a master’s degree in Strategic Studies from the U.S. Air War College and previously served as commander of the Bulgarian Air Force, resigned from his largely ceremonial presidential post in January, several months ahead of the end of his second term, to launch a bid for the far more powerful position of prime minister.

    Throughout his two terms as president, Radev gained widespread recognition for his open sympathy toward Moscow, repeatedly opposing European Union-led initiatives to supply military aid to Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion. He has long argued that military support for Kyiv risks dragging Bulgaria directly into the conflict, and has repeatedly called for the resumption of diplomatic negotiations with Russia to end the war. His coalition of supporters draws two distinct camps: one faction that backs him as an anti-corruption outsider committed to rooting out entrenched graft, and another that aligns closely with his Euroskeptic, Russia-leaning policy stances.

    Bulgaria, a NATO and EU member state of 6.5 million people, has faced long-standing international criticism for its failure to tackle systemic corruption and address persistent gaps in the rule of law. Since 2021, repeated elections have produced only fragmented parliaments and weak coalition governments, none of which have lasted longer than 12 months before collapsing amid street protests or parliamentary power struggles. The previous conservative administration fell in December after mass nationwide anti-corruption protests drew hundreds of thousands of predominantly young Bulgarians to the capital’s streets. Radev capitalized on this public anger, positioning himself as a staunch opponent of the entrenched oligarchic networks that have long been accused of colluding with top political figures. During his campaign, he made a core promise to “remove the corrupt, oligarchic model of governance from political power.”

    After years of repeated election cycles and constant political upheaval, ordinary Sofia residents expressed mixed reactions to the landslide result. Nikoleta Dimitrova, a 37-year-old shop assistant working in the capital, said she welcomed the shift and hoped for lasting institutional reform. “Above all, we expect a more stable judicial system, and for trust in institutions to truly be restored. Until now, they have been heavily influenced by various figures, many of whom, as we can see from the current results, have now left the government,” she explained. Others remained more skeptical, however. Cveta Gerogieva, a 55-year-old accountant, cautioned that long-term stability remains far from guaranteed. “I hope that we will really live a better life, but I am not sure that there will be stability for a long period. Probably we will vote again,” she said.

  • Billion-dollar attack: France boasts a rich scoring depth other World Cup teams only dream of

    Billion-dollar attack: France boasts a rich scoring depth other World Cup teams only dream of

    As the upcoming FIFA World Cup approaches, the French men’s national team is entering the global tournament with one of the most stacked and valuable attacking groups in modern soccer history. Two independent leading football valuation bodies, Transfermarkt and the CIES Football Observatory, have calculated that the combined market value of France’s 10 forward candidates for Deschamps’ squad totals 855 million euros, equal to just over $1 billion. That staggering figure has put Les Bleus in a rare position: head coach Didier Deschamps does not face a crisis of who to select for his roster — he faces the far more pleasant challenge of which world-class talent to cut from his starting 11 for their opening group stage match against Senegal on June 16.

    Leading this extraordinary cohort of attackers is 27-year-old Kylian Mbappé, the two-time World Cup final top scorer and Real Madrid superstar, whose individual market value tops the group at 200 million euros ($236 million). Currently in another dominant club season, Mbappé is just one goal away from equaling Olivier Giroud’s record of 56 career goals for France, which would make him the nation’s all-time leading international scorer. His proven big-game pedigree and consistent prolific finishing make him the undisputed anchor of France’s attacking threat.

    Behind Mbappé, a mix of established stars and exciting emerging talent gives Deschamps endless tactical options. Bayern Munich’s Michael Olise ranks second in squad value at 140 million euros, coming off a scintillating season for the Bundesliga champions that has seen him net 18 goals and register 25 assists across 44 competitions. Paris Saint-Germain’s rising 20-year-old Désiré Doué comes in third at 115 million euros, outvaluing 28-year-old Ballon d’Or winner Ousmane Dembélé, who is valued at 100 million euros and brings blistering pace and clinical finishing to any attacking line. Bradley Barcola, Doué’s in-form PSG teammate who impressed against Chelsea in this season’s Champions League, is valued at 70 million euros, followed by 21-year-old playmaker Rayan Cherki at 65 million euros.

    Cherki, who first made headlines as a 16-year-old scoring a brace in a French Cup fixture for Lyon, has seen his stock skyrocket after a mid-season transfer to Manchester City for an initial 36 million euros, a fee that already looks like a major bargain. He turned heads again with a superb solo goal in a top-of-the-table Premier League clash against Arsenal, and his instinctive, creative playmaking has drawn praise even from City manager Pep Guardiola, who worked alongside legends of passing like Lionel Messi and Andres Iniesta during his time at Barcelona. A strong World Cup performance could send Cherki’s market value soaring even higher.

    The list of talented options continues with 25-year-old Maghnes Akliouche, who scored in both legs of Monaco’s tight Champions League playoff against PSG and whose galloping runs from deep are notoriously difficult for defenders to track. His 50 million euro valuation matches that of Inter Milan’s Marcus Thuram, who has hit top form as Inter closes in on the Serie A title, adding strong aerial ability to France’s attacking diversity. That same physical, aerial threat is offered by Crystal Palace’s Jean-Philippe Mateta, a consistent Premier League goalscorer who has two strikes in three appearances for Les Bleus and is valued at 35 million euros, with a move to a top European club expected this summer.

    Rounding out the group is Randal Kolo Muani, who is currently on loan at Tottenham Hotspur from PSG. Although he has struggled for form in North London this season, the forward still holds a 30 million euro valuation, and he remains a familiar name to World Cup viewers after coming seconds away from writing his name into tournament history: in the 2022 World Cup final against Argentina, he missed a point-blank chance in the final moments of extra time, before France lost the title on penalties despite a Mbappé hat-trick.

    For French soccer fans and neutrals alike, the sheer quality and depth of this $1 billion attacking group makes Les Bleus one of the most exciting teams to watch ahead of the tournament, with Deschamps holding all the cards as he prepares to build his starting lineup around the world’s most valuable forward line.

  • EU hosts Palestinian leader in conference about security and peace in Gaza and the West Bank

    EU hosts Palestinian leader in conference about security and peace in Gaza and the West Bank

    BRUSSELS – As global diplomatic focus remains glued to escalating crises in Iran and Lebanon, more than 60 countries have dispatched senior representatives to the Belgian capital for a high-stakes meeting focused on rebuilding stability, advancing security, and securing a durable long-term peace across Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. The conference, co-hosted by Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot and European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas, convenes amid growing pessimism over the viability of the decades-old two-state solution, one of the most widely backed frameworks for regional peace.

    Opening the meeting on Monday, Prévot acknowledged the steadily shrinking window for a two-state outcome, marked by persistent Israeli attacks in the occupied West Bank and ongoing widespread destruction across war-battered Gaza. “We observe without naivety that the two-state solution is being made more difficult by the day,” Prévot told attendees. “But Belgium and many European and Arab partners continue to believe that this remains the only realistic path to a lasting peace, for Israelis, for Palestinians and for the stability of the entire region.”

    The European Union, a bloc of 27 member states, stands as the largest single donor to the Palestinian Authority, which has been led by 90-year-old President Mahmoud Abbas from its Ramallah headquarters for 20 years. Unlike previous United States-led initiatives, the EU has declined to join the Board of Peace established by former U.S. President Donald Trump, opting instead to anchor its diplomatic approach in United Nations multilateralism and established international legal norms. Even so, the bloc has made clear it is eager to avoid being sidelined from diplomatic efforts in a volatile region that shares a direct maritime border with Europe across the Mediterranean.

    Growing public outrage across Europe over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza has pushed a majority of EU leaders to publicly condemn Israel’s conduct of its war against Hamas and ramp up pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. A recent political shift, which saw the ouster of longtime Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán – a staunch Netanyahu ally – has cleared the way for a possible shift in EU policy, with growing momentum within the bloc for tougher measures. These potential actions include targeted sanctions against extremist Israeli settlers in the West Bank and even the temporary suspension of some formal ties with Israel.

    Palestinian residents of the West Bank have reported that Israeli authorities have exploited the distraction of regional tensions following the Iran conflict to tighten their control over the occupied territory. Settler violence against Palestinian communities has surged in recent weeks, and the Israeli military has enacted sweeping new wartime movement restrictions on civilian residents, citing ongoing security needs.

    Speaking at the Brussels conference on Monday, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohamed Mustafa laid out his administration’s vision for post-war Gaza, calling for a unified governing structure for the territory. “Gaza requires ‘one state, one government, one law and one goal,’” Mustafa said. He emphasized that a unified security framework under the legitimate Palestinian Authority must guide coordination between any future international stabilization force, Palestinian security institutions, and global partners. “Security must not be fragmented,” he added. Mustafa also put forward two core demands for a lasting peace: the gradual, controlled disarmament of all armed groups operating in Palestinian territory, and a full unconditional withdrawal of Israeli military forces from the Gaza Strip following any ceasefire.

  • French prosecutors summon Elon Musk over allegations of child abuse images and deepfakes on X

    French prosecutors summon Elon Musk over allegations of child abuse images and deepfakes on X

    PARIS — French law enforcement has called on Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest individual, to appear in Paris this week for voluntary questioning as part of a sprawling investigation into serious misconduct allegations tied to his social media platform X. The probe covers a range of damaging content hosted on the platform, from child sexual abuse material to Holocaust-denying output from X’s integrated AI chatbot Grok.

    Alongside Musk, former X CEO Linda Yaccarino has also been summoned for a voluntary interview. Multiple other X employees are scheduled to give witness testimony throughout the week, confirmed by the office of the Paris prosecutor. Yaccarino led X from May 2023 through July 2025, and both she and Musk are being questioned in their capacities as top platform executives during the period covered by the investigation. As of Monday morning, it remains unclear whether the two executives will comply with the summons. A representative for X declined to respond to media inquiries from the Associated Press, and eMed, Yaccarino’s current employer, also did not answer a press request for comment.

    The investigation traces its origins back to January 2025, when the Paris prosecutor’s cybercrime unit first opened the case following allegations from a French lawmaker claiming X’s biased algorithms improperly manipulated automated data processing systems. The scope of the probe expanded dramatically after disturbing content emerged from Grok, the artificial intelligence chatbot built by Musk’s xAI and accessible exclusively via X. The chatbot prompted global outrage earlier this year when it generated hundreds of non-consensual sexually explicit deepfake images in response to user requests. It later drew further condemnation for a widely shared French-language post that repeated classic Holocaust denial tropes, falsely claiming the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau were built for typhus disinfection rather than mass murder. Grok later walked back the claim, deleting the post and acknowledging that historical evidence confirms Zyklon B was used to kill more than 1 million people at the camp.

    Today, investigators are examining multiple formal allegations, including complicity in the distribution and possession of child sexual exploitation imagery, spread of non-consensual explicit deepfakes, denial of crimes against humanity, and algorithmic manipulation as part of an organized criminal scheme.

    In a statement, prosecutors noted that the voluntary interviews are designed to let senior leaders lay out their side of the story and outline any compliance changes they intend to adopt. “At this stage, the conduct of this investigation is part of a constructive approach, with the ultimate objective of ensuring that platform X complies with French law, insofar as it operates within the national territory,” the statement read. When asked whether Musk would face legal consequences for failing to appear, prosecutors declined to comment.

    The investigation has already sparked cross-Atlantic tension. In March, French prosecutors notified two top U.S. agencies — the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission — of a separate bombshell allegation: the controversy surrounding Grok’s explicit deepfake output may have been intentionally orchestrated to inflate the valuations of X and xAI ahead of a planned 2026 public listing of the merged SpaceX-xAI entity. Prosecutors noted the scheme was alleged to have been launched at a time when X was facing declining market momentum.

    That request for U.S. cooperation has been rejected, according to the *Wall Street Journal*. The U.S. Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs sent a two-page letter to French authorities last week stating it would not facilitate the investigation, accusing France of misusing its legal system to interfere in U.S. business operations. The letter, quoted by the *Wall Street Journal*, argued that the French probe “seeks to use the criminal legal system in France to regulate a public square for the free expression of ideas and opinions in a manner contrary to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.” It added that France’s request for assistance “constitute[s] an effort to entangle the United States in a politically charged criminal proceeding aimed at wrongfully regulating through prosecution the business activities of a social media platform.” French judicial officials have not issued any public response to the U.S. rejection.

    Adding another layer to the legal pressure on X, press freedom advocacy group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) recently filed an additional complaint against the platform with Paris’s cybercrime prosecution unit. The new complaint targets X’s content moderation policies that RSF says enable widespread disinformation to spread unchecked, in violation of the public’s right to access accurate information. “Disinformation campaigns are flooding X, some of which have accumulated several hundred thousand views. Although the staff at Elon Musk’s platform are well aware of the situation, this has not stopped them from responding to RSF’s repeated alerts with automated refusals to remove the content in question,” the group said in a statement. “This is a deliberate policy instated by X, and it is incompatible with the public’s right to reliable information.”

  • US funding helps Cyprus upgrade military bases for its role as a regional safe haven

    US funding helps Cyprus upgrade military bases for its role as a regional safe haven

    In the strategically vital eastern Mediterranean, the island nation of Cyprus is undertaking a major upgrade of its core military infrastructure, backed by U.S. taxpayer funding, to solidify its growing role as a secure evacuation hub and humanitarian logistics center for conflict-plagued regions of the Middle East.

    The Associated Press secured rare exclusive access to the restricted military sites, where National Guard spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Paris Samoutis outlined the scope of the improvements. Located just 229 kilometers off the coast of Lebanon, Cyprus’ primary Evangelos Florakis Naval Base will gain a new heliport financed by U.S. European Command. The facility is engineered to accommodate large heavy-lift rotorcraft such as Chinook transport helicopters, designed to streamline the evacuation of civilians and displaced people out of active conflict zones. Beyond the heliport, the naval base will also see extensive renovations to its port infrastructure, allowing it to berth larger vessels including frigates that bring advanced radar and missile-based air defense capabilities to protect incoming and outgoing humanitarian missions.

    On the island’s southwestern coast, the Andreas Papandreou Air Base will undergo expansion to add a new aircraft apron. This dedicated space will cut turnaround times for refueling and maintenance of dozens of heavy-lift military transport aircraft, which ferry personnel and emergency equipment to support regional humanitarian response operations. A regional wildfire coordination center, designed to assist neighboring Middle Eastern nations in combating large-scale seasonal blazes, is also set to open at the air base next month.

    While exact total project costs have not been publicly released as final cost assessments are still ongoing, the U.S. has already committed 500,000 euros ($588,000) to develop the detailed expansion plan for the air base. Construction on both projects is scheduled to break ground next year, as part of a broader multi-site infrastructure upgrade initiative across Cyprus’ military facilities. The U.S. funding is explicitly earmarked to help Cyprus scale up its capacity to handle large-scale humanitarian crisis response operations.

    This deepened security cooperation between Washington and Nicosia would have been unthinkable a decade ago. For decades, Cyprus maintained a strict policy of non-alignment in global geopolitics, but it has gradually shifted its diplomatic orientation firmly toward the West. That shift accelerated after President Nikos Christodoulides, an American-educated leader, took office in 2023. Under his administration, diplomatic outreach to the U.S. reached unprecedented levels, resulting in the end of a decades-long U.S. arms embargo on Cyprus and opening new doors for bilateral economic opportunity.

    Christodoulides has consistently leveraged Cyprus’ unique geographic location to make the case to European Union and U.S. leaders that the island is the ideal hub for Western diplomatic, economic, and humanitarian engagement with the volatile Middle East. “As a conscientious and responsible partner, Cyprus remains a credible and safe harbor,” Christodoulides stated in a December address.

    For years, the U.S. military relied on the two British sovereign base areas that the U.K. retained on Cyprus after the island gained independence from colonial rule in 1960. However, that arrangement was upended in early March, when a Shahed drone—confirmed by Cypriot officials to have been launched from Lebanon—struck an aircraft hangar at RAF Akrotiri, the first drone attack on EU territory tied to the wider Iran-Israel regional conflict. The upgrades to Cyprus’ own national military installations now provide Washington and other Western partners with alternative, sovereign infrastructure to support regional operations.

    Cyprus has already built a proven track record of facilitating humanitarian and evacuation operations in recent years. In April 2023, it served as a primary transit point for the repatriation of third-country nationals fleeing the conflict in Sudan. When regional tensions escalated following U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025, Cyprus again acted as a safe way station for foreign nationals leaving Israel and for Israelis stranded abroad to return home. In 2024, the island launched the Amalthea maritime corridor, which delivered thousands of tons of emergency humanitarian aid to war-torn Gaza—first directly, then via the Israeli port of Ashdod.

    Dozens of EU member states and other nations have already pre-positioned civilian personnel, military units, helicopters, and fixed-wing aircraft in Cyprus to support potential future evacuation operations for their citizens. In 2024, the U.S. deployed a marine contingent and a fleet of V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft to Cyprus’ Paphos Air Base specifically to assist with evacuation operations out of Lebanon.

    A core red line has remained clear from the Cypriot government: all use of the upgraded military installations will be restricted exclusively to humanitarian operations, and will never be used for offensive military action. Echoing President Christodoulides’ core governing mantra for the island’s regional role, Samoutis emphasized: “Cyprus remains part of the solution, not the problem.”

  • Starmer admits mistake in appointing Mandelson as UK ambassador

    Starmer admits mistake in appointing Mandelson as UK ambassador

    LONDON – A mounting political crisis has engulfed British Prime Minister Keir Starmer this week, after revelations that former U.S. ambassador Peter Mandelson took up one of the nation’s most critical diplomatic posts despite failing mandatory national security vetting – a critical detail that senior government officials never brought to the prime minister’s attention, Starmer told lawmakers Monday.

    Addressing the House of Commons amid growing pressure to step down, Starmer acknowledged his appointment of Mandelson was a misjudgment, but stressed he would never have greenlit the nomination had he been informed of the failed security clearance. He placed full responsibility for the oversight on senior Foreign Office leadership, saying, “The fact that Mandelson’s vetting process ruled against security clearance could and should have been shared with me before he took up his post.”

    The controversy stretches back months, long before the vetting failure came to light. Starmer, who led the center-left Labour Party to a landslide general election victory in July 2024, selected Mandelson – a veteran former Labour politician and ex-European Union trade commissioner with deep ties to global political and business elites – for the Washington ambassadorship in late 2024, even after his own internal aides warned that Mandelson’s long-running personal friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in prison in 2019, posed severe reputational risk. Additional alarms were also raised over Mandelson’s past business connections to Russia and China, but officials ultimately prioritized his diplomatic experience and existing relationships with figures connected to U.S. President Donald Trump’s second administration.

    Mandelson was ultimately removed from his post in September 2025, less than nine months after taking office, when new evidence emerged that he had lied about the true scope of his ties to Epstein. A batch of Epstein-related documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice in January 2025 included 2009 emails suggesting Mandelson shared sensitive, market-moving British government information with Epstein in the wake of the global financial crisis. British police launched a criminal investigation into the allegations and arrested Mandelson in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office; he has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, has not been formally charged, and faces no allegations of sexual misconduct connected to Epstein.

    The explosive new revelation of Mandelson’s failed security vetting was first published by *The Guardian* last week, and it has sparked immediate, widespread calls for Starmer’s resignation from all major opposition parties. Within hours of the report, Starmer dismissed Olly Robbins, the top civil servant at the Foreign Office, which holds oversight over all diplomatic appointments. Allies of Robbins have pushed back against the blame, however, claiming the senior official was never permitted to share sensitive vetting information directly with the prime minister. Robbins is set to present his own account of the appointment process to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday.

    Starmer has repeatedly maintained that what he believed was proper due process was followed during the appointment, but says he is now “furious” that the vetting panel’s negative recommendation was hidden from him. Opposition leaders have rejected his framing: Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch wrote in the *Mail on Sunday* that Starmer “misled Parliament over Mandelson, misled the country and is taking the public for fools.” Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, the United Kingdom’s third-largest party, called the appointment an act of “catastrophic misjudgment.”

    Senior members of Starmer’s own cabinet have publicly defended the prime minister, with Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy affirming that “he would never, ever have appointed him ambassador” if the failed vetting had been disclosed. But unrest is growing among backbench Labour lawmakers, who already face grim national poll ratings less than a year into the new government. Starmer previously defused one uprising over the Mandelson controversy in February, when a small group of MPs called for him to step down. The upcoming May 7 local and regional elections are widely viewed as a midterm referendum on Starmer’s premiership, and political analysts expect the prime minister could face new internal pressure to resign if Labour suffers heavy losses at the polls.

    Critics have framed the Mandelson fiasco as the latest in a string of missteps for Starmer’s government, which has struggled to deliver on campaign promises of accelerated economic growth, repair overstretched public services, and bring down the cost of living for British households. The prime minister has already been forced to reverse multiple key campaign pledges since taking office, and the ongoing crisis has deepened questions about his leadership judgment at a critical moment for British domestic and foreign policy.