One of the world’s foremost internet Virtual Private Network (VPN) companies has stated that it would not comply with a “dystopian” Canadian government bill, which, if passed, would both give police extra powers to monitor and search Canadians’ online digital activity without a warrant and mandate that logs be kept of user data.
Proton VPN, a Swiss-based tech company, said there is “no universe” in which it would log user data for the purpose of giving it to the government or officials on demand.
“We’re going to reiterate this one more time: there is no universe in which Proton VPN compromises its no-logs policy,” said Proton in a recent post on X.
Bill C-22 empowers the government to order VPN providers in Canada to retain metadata for up to a year.
The EU's highest court has struck down this type of mass data retention legislation twice already, suggesting it won't stand up to scrutiny:
Proton was referring to Bill C-22, which was introduced by Canadian Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree, purportedly to address privacy concerns relating to another bill, Bill C-2, that would have permitted police and government officials to open and examine Canadians’ personal mail. It would also ban cash donations over $10,000.
Proton said that, as written, Bill C-22 “empowers the government to order VPN providers in Canada to retain metadata for up to a year.”
The Swiss company noted how the European Union’s highest court has already “struck down this type of mass data retention legislation twice already, suggesting it won’t stand up to scrutiny.”
Bill C-22, known as the Lawful Access Act, would require internet service providers across Canada to retain metadata, including location and transmission data, for up to one year.
Proton’s general manager, David Peterson, recently said that complying with any foreign surveillance orders in a legally prudent manner is a criminal offense under Swiss law.
“We’ll defend our Canadian users and never compromise them. We will fight C-22’s application by every means available,” he said.
Anandasangaree has claimed that Bill C-22 would “give our officers the tools they need to keep Canadians safe in the 21st century, while ensuring we continue to uphold Canadians’ Charter and privacy rights.”
Proton VPN is not alone in criticizing Bill C-22. Nord-VPN has raised concerns over it, as have all major tech companies such as Canadian-based Windscribe.
“There isn’t a scenario in which we would compromise our no-logs architecture or encryption protections,” said NordVPN.
The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) recently said that Bill C-22 is a “serious threat” to Canadians’ privacy rights.
A group of Canadian lawyers and top academics have demanded in an open letter that Bill C-22 be amended, stating that there are “serious constitutional concerns” that might violate the privacy and Charter rights of Canadians.
Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s legacy of censorship bills has continued with Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Bill C-9, the “Combating Hate Act,” was passed by the House of Commons earlier this week and now awaits Senate approval. The bill opens the door to criminalization of religious expression and belief when quoting certain parts of the Bible.
Ten “child migrants” who were set to be sent to sent to foster care have been exposed as adults.
Kent County Council staff raised concerns over a group of supposed under-18s in 2025 amid doubts about their true ages.
Ten of the group of 19 people then had their ages reevaluated up.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp has now raised fears over children’s safety after the shock reveal, made following a Freedom of Information probe by The Sun.
“This puts children already in foster or children’s homes in danger,” he said.
“We have seen absurd cases where illegal immigrants, including where a Sudanese man with a receding hairline and facial hair, pretend to be children when clearly adults.
“This will only get worse now Labour’s Borders Act has passed, which no longer allows illegal immigrants to be treated as over-18 if they refuse to take an age assessment test.”
In total, Kent’s local authority took in 2,656 child migrants placed in its care in 2025.
GB News has previously revealed thousands of migrants have lied about their age in an attempt to gain asylum – which is easier if one is a child.
In March, an immigration judge determined a bearded Sudanese national was a youth – despite officials from Liverpool City Council determining he “did not present as a teenager”.
The man – named only as ASB – allegedly shouted at his interpreter after the pair began to row.
Officials determined he was between 23 and 25 years old after two age evaluations, but Upper Tribunal Judge Paul Lodato found the evidence he was a minor to be “compelling”.
A few months prior, a Syrian migrant with a “deep voice and receding grey hair” was ruled to be a 16-year-old teenager, despite Derby City Council officials determining him to be between 24 and 26.
The migrant – a smoker – had a “deep voice”, “stubble” and “a receding hairline with grey hair all over his head”.
But Judge Gaenor Bruce, in her ruling, said genetics, exposure to the elements, and “traumatic life experiences” could make someone appear older.
Last year, Darren Jones, then-Treasury Minister, claimed the “majority” of asylum seekers were “children, babies and women” – remarks which he later said were “misrepresented”.
The current Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister said: “Of course, the overall majority of people arriving illegally on small boats are men – but not ‘north of 90 per cent’ as Reform claimed.”
“On Question Time, I shared a story from my visit to the Border Security Command about a dinghy that arrived mostly carrying women, children and babies who had suffered horrific burns. I’m happy to clarify this given how this is now being misrepresented.”
Since January 2018, a staggering 75 per cent of small boat arrivals have been adult males aged 18 and over, according to Home Office figures.
Nearly 1,000 small boat migrants have crossed the Channel during the Bank Holiday weekend as temperatures soared throughout Europe.
The Home Office said: “The safety and wellbeing of children in care is paramount.
“We have robust processes to verify and assess an individual’s age.
“We will continue to modernise and strengthen that process in coming months by testing Facial Age Estimation technology.”
Until 2019, the German foreign office supported an aid organization with close ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood without knowing how the funds were actually being used.
This information appears in a newly released confidential audit by Germany’s Federal Court of Auditors, which the Institute for Secular Law (Institut für Weltanschauungsrecht or IFW) has been trying to obtain for five years. Until now, unsuccessfully.
The audit concerns state funding for the organization Islamic Relief, purported to have ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
The now-public documents reveal, according to ifw advisory board member Seyran Ateş, “a shocking naivety on the part of the Foreign Office.”
Islamic Relief Germany (IRD) had long been regarded in Germany as a respected Muslim charity organization. Several consecutive German governments, including former chancellor Angela Merkel’s second, third, and fourth cabinets, provided IRD with millions of euros in funding.
IRD was a member of the German aid alliance Aktion Deutschland Hilft, and gained prominent supporters for its “Meals for Orphans” campaign, including former President Christian Wulff and his successor Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
However, in 2019, the Foreign Ministry stopped funding the organization, and, in 2020, IRD’s membership in Aktion Deutschland Hilft was suspended.
On April 15, 2019, the German government noted that both Islamic Relief Germany and its parent organization, Islamic Relief Worldwide, had “significant personnel connections to the Muslim Brotherhood or organizations close to it.”
The government also admitted that since 2014 it had known that “Islamic Relief Worldwide,” including its German branch IRD, was banned in Israel, regarded as “part of the financial system of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood movement,” and therefore classified as a “terrorist organization.”
It is worth noting that the IRW is also banned in the UAE, due to its ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The German government refused to provide detailed information on how public funds given to Islamic Relief had been used, instead referring to an ongoing audit by the Federal Court of Auditors.
Former Scottish PM Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell in happier days – Wiki Commons
The former chief executive of SNP used stolen funds to finance his luxurious lifestyle.
Another ‘progressive’ politician has been shown to be pocketing money to advance himself.
The husband of former Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon pleaded guilty today (25) to embezzling more than half a million dollars (400,000 pounds) from the Scottish National Party.
North of England correspondent @ShingiMararike looks at the timeline for Peter Murrell, a former SNP chief executive who has admitted embezzling £400,310.65 from the party.
“Peter Murrell, 61, who was remanded into custody in the High Court in Edinburgh after his plea, admitted using party funds to buy a high-priced motorhome, two cars, including a Jaguar, and luxury goods, including Bremont watches and household items that included two toilet seats.
‘By embezzling from the SNP, Peter Murrell was stealing the hopes, the dreams and the aspirations of thousands of people all over Scotland, people who gave what they could over many years in the hope that it would help contribute to a better country’, SNP leader John Swinney told a press conference. ‘I am horrified; I am betrayed’.”
Murrell’s guilty plea is the culmination of a five-year police investigation, and a tumultuous period for Scotland’s dominant party.
Sturgeon dominated Scottish politics for almost a decade, but she abruptly resigned as first minister of Scotland’s semi-autonomous government in February 2023.
“The following month, Murrell quit his job after two decades as party executive. He took responsibility for misleading the news media about the collapsing membership of the party. Three weeks later he was arrested by police at the couple’s home in Glasgow. Police officers spent two days searching the house. They also searched SNP headquarters in Edinburgh and confiscated a luxury motorhome parked in the driveway at Murrell’s mother’s home north of the capital.”
BREAKING: GB News National Reporter @willgodley says former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell has been remanded into custody after pleading guilty to embezzling £400,000 from the party at the High Court in Edinburgh.
Scottish police say Murrell covered his tracks over a 12-year period by making false entries in the SNP’s accounts.
“’Peter Murrell has shown utter contempt for the high public trust placed in him’, [Assistant Chief Constable Stuart] Houston said. ‘He abused his privileged position with access to Scottish National Party funds to divert cash into his own accounts and bankroll the lavish lifestyle he craved but could not afford’.”
A woman in New Hampshire has had her Planet Fitness membership revoked after voicing concerns about a trans-identified male in the women’s locker room. The man observed in the women’s locker room was later identified by a local predator hunter as Christopher Beaulieu, a registered child sex offender.
Speaking to WMUR9, Concord woman Judy Walcott explained that she had been using the locker room at Planet Fitness on April 11 when she noticed a man hanging up his belongings outside of a shower. Walcott left the facilities to lodge a complaint.
“He gave me goosebumps,” Walcott said. “I went to the front desk. I said, ‘There’s somebody there who’s really creepy, and it’s freaking me out.’ And it was just a kid, you know, I think he was new even, and he just said, ‘There’s nothing I can do about it.’”
Walcott told the outlet that she believed the incident was not investigated by staff. Disturbed by the encounter, she pressed the matter further in the following days by raising further concerns about the man she said she encountered in the locker room to another staff member. In response, she was called “transphobic” and subsequently, her membership of over a decade was revoked.
“She just kept calling me transphobic,” Walcott said. “Told me I should quit if I didn’t like it. Pointed to the door. So I just walked away. And it was a few hours later that the assistant manager in Concord called me and canceled me. She didn’t ask me anything. She wasn’t present for any of it. She just canceled me for a policy violation.”
Walcott discovered her membership had been cancelled by a Planet Fitness employee on her behalf. According to Walcott, a Planet Fitness employee submitted a cancellation request in her name that included the notation “Nondiscrimination Trans.” Walcott alleges the signature on the form was not hers, and had been forged by the employee.
Having paid for her membership, Walcott returned to Planet Fitness to use the facilities when she says the staff called the police and filed a report against her. She said she was issued a no-trespass order by Concord police.
On May 21, Gator Boy took to Facebook to post about Beaulieu, noting that he was known to frequent that Planet Fitness, as well as other venues in the Concord, New Hampshire, area.
Gator Boy has posted about Beaulieu in the past, noting he had been spotted at the community’s Chuck E. Cheese franchise, and expressed concerns for the safety of the children and families who frequent the establishment. Gator Boy has also reported receiving threatening emails he alleges are from Beaulieu in apparent retaliation for posting information on his whereabouts within the community.
During an interview with Newsmax on Thursday, Judy Walcott referenced Gator Boy’s identification of Beaulieu and stated that photographs circulating online of Beaulieu “look exactly the same” as the individual she recalled seeing in the locker room.
Gator Boy‘s findings were reposted by New Hampshire state representative Lisa Mazur on X.
The main stream news is failing to do their job, so here is the bigger picture on this story out of NH. The man pretending to be a woman hanging out in women and children's private spaces is Christopher Beaulieu. He was previously convicted of felonious sexual assault (victim was… https://t.co/GZ2pJXfaacpic.twitter.com/PAX5GMfEwg
Reduxx obtained Beaulieu’s court records, which reveal he began transitioning while in prison for sexual assault against a child who was between 13 and 16 years of age. Beaulieu also has convictions for theft, criminal mischief, receiving stolen property, breach of bail, criminal threatening, violation of probation-parole, criminal mischief, and violation of a protective order.
While in prison, Beaulieu filed multiple civil rights complaints against the prison he had been housed in and the New Hampshire Department of Corrections, alleging several civil rights violations after claiming to have been the victim of assault by other inmates and staff. Beaulieu also claimed that the institution’s medical staff had refused to diagnose him with gender dysphoria, thus making it difficult for him to access cross-sex hormones. As a result of his complaints, he was granted access to feminizing hormones in 2015. Beaulieu would later be sympathetically profiled by New Hampshire Public Radio for his experiences in prison.
A 2017 court filing is the first time Beaulieu’s gender identity is formally mentioned in court records, noting that he was changing his name to “Crystal” and preferred to be referred to using feminine pronouns, a courtesy the court granted.
From a 2017 court filing.
In 2020, Beaulieu’s name change petition was approved, and he officially became known as Crystal Beaulieu. But, following his release from prison, he began using the name Krystal Robert Robie. In 2022 and 2023, Beaulieu would be convicted of failing to inform authorities of a change to his identity, a requirement under his sex offender registration status.
In 2024, Beaulieu was arrested once again after he failed to inform authorities about a secret Instagram account he had been operating.
While he is currently listed as transient in his New Hampshire sex offender profile, Beaulieu appears well-known amongst residents in Merrimack County, New Hampshire, and social media shows locals discussing concerning encounters they have had with him in their communities. He has been known to have been employed at local pizza establishments, including 911 Pizza and Little Caesar’s.
Reduxx found that Beaulieu operated several Facebook accounts, but has deleted all of them within the past month.
This is not the first time Planet Fitness has come under fire for allowing males to use the female restrooms, often with disturbing outcomes.
As previously reported by Reduxx in 2023, a man was arrested after repeatedly exposing himself to teenage girls in a women’s locker room at a Planet Fitness in Monroe, Georgia.
Despite being aware that the man had a history of indecent exposure, Planet Fitness employees reportedly stated the man had a “right” to use the women’s facilities as per the gym’s gender self-identification policy.
A man has been arrested in connection to multiple indecent exposure incidents in a women's locker room at a Planet Fitness in Georgia.
Staff said that JaKorbie Dixon had a "right" to use the women's facilities even after exposing himself to a teen girl.https://t.co/tHKQr0nkiz
In another similar incident from 2021, a Korean spa in California made international headlines after a transgender sex offender had been granted access to the women’s facilities in accordance with California state law.
Wi Spa, a jjimjilbang-style establishment in Los Angeles was the subject of viral attention after a video recorded by a female patron began circulating on social media. In the video, the woman confronts spa staff because of a nude male who was exposing himself in front of women and girls in the women’s changing room.
The incident was initially dismissed as a “transphobic” hoax by progressive commentators, but the trans-identified male was identified as Darren Agee Merager, a registered sex offender, shortly after. Merager was arrested in December of 2022.
People are beginning to understand that those who rule in their name have long been working to eliminate the nation-state.
The United Nations is not neutral ground for national governments to discuss their differences; it is a governmental construct meant to replace national governments. The World Health Organization is not an international body meant to coordinate complex responses to global health emergencies; it is an institution vested with vast power and authority to track and regulate every human on the planet. The Bank for International Settlements, the World Bank Group, and the International Monetary Fund don’t exist to expand free trade, open markets, and assist developing nations; they exist to centralize control over all economic transactions in the world.
The onslaught of “green new deal” laws in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Australia, and New Zealand have nothing to do with preserving the environment or “saving the planet”; they are part of a broader U.N. initiative to track every person’s so-called “carbon footprint” in order to monitor, tax, and regulate all human activity. The U.N.’s “climate reparations” policy has nothing to do with “justice” or “science”; it exists to justify the redistribution of wealth from Western nations to non-Western nations under the guise of “international law.”
The message we have heard all our lives is loud and clear: Nations do bad things. International organizations do good things.
The rhetorical war on “nationalism” didn’t begin because people who are proud of their nations magically became Nazis; people who are proud of their nations are called “Nazis” so that those who rule over us can demonize the nation-state. If you go back through newspapers and scholarly essays before WWII, “nationalism” and “patriotism” are used interchangeably. After WWII, there is an obvious linguistic break. “Patriotism,” for the most part, survives as an acceptable civic virtue (How else can governments send men into battle if there are no patriots?). “Nationalism,” however, becomes increasingly used through the decades as a derogatory term linked to fascism — as if the very organizing concept of a nation-state is inherently authoritarian and anti-democratic.
Thinking about this anti-nationalism campaign for more than a second reveals its silliness. Why would a constitutional republic with representative democracy be “fascist” at the national level but “democratic” when organized internationally? Why would the Executive leader of a nation such as Germany, France, or the United States be more “authoritarian” than the secretary-general of the U.N. or the president of the European Commission? Why would an international governing body be considered more “democratic” than a town, region, or nation of people governing themselves? Why should the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, be considered Europe’s “representative leader” when the European people never voted for her to “represent” them?
The U.N. has 193 member state ambassadors representing roughly 8.3 billion people. Why should such a minuscule parliamentary assembly be considered “democratic” or “representative” at all? At best, it uses the veneer of “democracy” to justify imposing its authoritarian will upon all of humanity. Whether one dictator or 193 dictators working in concert — when humanity is forced to obey the edicts of rulers, it doesn’t matter if those edicts come from a national or international body.
Natural rights and freedoms do not become more natural because 193 people in New York City say so. God-given liberties exist despite the existence of government, not because of government. The more people over whom a government claims jurisdiction, the less likely that any one person’s natural rights will be respected and protected. When a citizen cannot look his “representative” in the face, his “representative” is much less concerned about infringing that citizen’s natural liberties.
International governments are no less likely to become totalitarian than national governments. Just as Hitler’s national socialism and Mussolini’s fascism did last century, international tyranny prefers to disguise itself as something peaceful, benevolent, and for the common good. Had Hitler successfully conquered Europe, perhaps the German Empire would have been called the European Union. Had Hitler conquered the world, perhaps the U.N.’s headquarters would be in Berlin. National totalitarianism becomes international totalitarianism just as easily as national mask and vaccine mandates transform into “vaccine passports” and World Health Organization mandates.
The same people who hyperventilate about President Trump’s supposed “authoritarianism” roundly applaud the authoritarianism of global institutions such as the World Health Organization. In fact, when the president withdrew the United States from WHO on his first day back in office last year due to the international body’s mishandling of the COVID pandemic and efforts to cover up the pandemic’s origin in Wuhan, China, critics in the press accused Trump of being “scientifically reckless” and called “global cooperation” a “biological necessity.”
That’s another part of internationalism’s linguistic magic trick: The same global corporate news machine that has spent the last eighty-plus years conditioning people to understand the word “nationalism” as something evil, militant, and barbaric has simultaneously conditioned the world to see anything “international” as inherently good, peaceful, and progressive. The “national / international” dichotomy didn’t happen by accident; it’s been shoved down our throats all our lives. But once again, if a rational person takes a moment to consider the semantic manipulation, it is quite absurd.
If the International Monetary Fund, headquartered in Washington, D.C., were more accurately renamed the “American Monetary Fund,” would the financial institution become more suspect? If so, then how should we view the word “international” as anything other than a verbal ruse meant to project a false message that the IMF acts on behalf of all people on the planet? American taxpayers have principally funded the World Health Organization since its formation in 1948. If it had been called the American Health Organization, would the press have been as upset when “authoritarian” Trump decided to stop funding it? If not, does this not suggest that words such as “world” and “global” distort the identity and purpose of these intrusive organizations?
“Internationalism” is a Trojan Horse or at least the camel’s nose under the tent for Big Government authoritarians who wish to impose their will on the whole planet.
When “international” agents or soldiers come knocking, their mission sounds downright “humanitarian,” doesn’t it? The United Nations has a whole Department of Peace Operations. That department sends out military and law enforcement personnel known as “peacekeepers.” And for decades the “peacekeepers” from the Department of Peace Operations have raped women and girls all over the world. The “internationals” have been abusing the “nationals,” and the international United Nations and the multinational corporate news organizations have spent decades covering up all of the “internationals’” prolific raping. International organizations dedicated to “peace” can’t be seen doing things that only “fascist” nationals do.
Big lies expose internationalism’s true intent: Internationalists are building a global empire. This empire is authoritarian (because it demands global compliance at the expense of personal freedom) and totalitarian (because it requires complete subservience to a centralized and dictatorial global government). There is nothing “democratic” or “representative” about this international system of governance. It has no interest in protecting an individual’s rights and freedoms. It has no interest in respecting a nation’s sovereignty. It will permit both individuals and nations to be raped in the name of “global peace.”
Therefore, it makes perfect sense why the United Nations encourages mass illegal immigration into the United States and Europe. When you are in the business of destroying nations, you do not care if murderers and rapists destroy local families. You do not care if Islamic terrorists burn down Christian churches. You do not care if the “newcomers” to Europe and America have pledged to conquer the West.
For globalism to win, it must first kill the nation-state.
When Spain’s former Socialist prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero appears before Judge José Luis Calama at the country’s high criminal court, the Audiencia Nacional, on June 2, he will become the first former Spanish head of government questioned as a corruption suspect since the country’s return to democracy in 1977. The proceedings — based largely on report 1908/26 of Spain’s UDEF financial crimes unit, dated April 22 — are only one of four fronts now closing on the former leader at the same time.
Calama’s 85-page order, signed on May 18, was followed the next day by Operation Tibet — a search by the UDEF of Zapatero’s office at 35 Ferraz Street, directly opposite the headquarters of the governing Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE). Investigators seized a concealed safe, diaries and cash.
What makes the Plus Ultra case unusual is its scope. Earlier Socialist corruption files — the Andalusian ERE scandal over regional unemployment funds and the more recent Koldo affair around former transport ministry contracts — were essentially domestic. This investigation interlocks Spanish criminal procedure with a US sanctions inquiry, a perjury complaint in preparation at the Spanish Senate and the diplomatic mediation channel that has held the Sánchez minority government in office.
THE SPANISH COURTS
The 158-page UDEF report reconstructs, message by message, the steps that led Spain’s State holding company SEPI to grant €53 million in March 2021 to Plus Ultra Líneas Aéreas, a small airline with documented ties to Venezuela. The raw material is twofold: an extraction of the mobile phone of Rodolfo Reyes Rojas, the airline’s main shareholder, handed over by the US Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) office; and devices seized in a Spanish police operation on December 11, 2025.
According to the report, the suspects refer to their own structure as a “finance boutique” — a phrase attributed to Plus Ultra’s chief financial officer Roberto Roselli Miele in May 2020. From March 23, 2020, six days after Spain declared its first Covid-19 state of alarm, Reyes is said to have activated two parallel channels: one through then-Transport Minister José Luis Ábalos, run by his aide Koldo García Izaguirre, and another opened on March 30 via Venezuelan national Ramón Gordils, allegedly leading to Zapatero. On April 28, Reyes is quoted as saying “the bridge with ZP has just been made”. The two channels converged on July 8, 2020 in a meeting organised by the then secretary of state for transport Pedro Saura.
The police conclusion is explicit. At “the top of the influence network”, the report states, “José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero would be located”, exercising “non-visible leadership” and “strategic supervision”. Calama charges him with influence peddling, criminal organisation, document falsification and money laundering, naming businessman Julio Martínez Martínez — owner of consultancy Análisis Relevante — and Manuel Aarón Fajardo as intermediaries, and his long-time secretary María Gertrudis Alcázar together with Cristóbal Cano at the operational level.
The most compromising thread is dated February 26, 2021. According to the report, Martínez Martínez congratulated Reyes that day on the “upcoming obtaining of the SEPI loan” and predicted approval in the Council of Ministers of March 9 — six days before SEPI’s FASEE management board would meet. For the UDEF, this evidences “the capacity of the influence network to access privileged information”.
THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
The international dimension is structural, not incidental. The HSI was already investigating Reyes as part of a transnational organised crime group dedicated to money laundering and the circumvention of US sanctions, with Plus Ultra named in the network. Cooperation between Madrid and Washington — explicitly noted in Calama’s order — has been the channel through which the most damaging evidence reached the Spanish court.
The US Southern District of New York prosecutor’s office has included Zapatero on a list of 64 individuals under investigation for alleged ties to Chavismo, the political movement founded by the late Hugo Chávez. The US Treasury Department has separately traced a $519,000 (€478,000) transfer to a Swiss account linked to alleged Venezuelan oil-related corruption.
THE SPANISH SENATE
The Spanish Senate, controlled by an absolute majority of the opposition People’s Party (PP), is preparing a perjury complaint. Under oath on March 2, 2026, Zapatero denied any involvement in the Plus Ultra rescue and any relationship with the airline. The documentary evidence held by the court contradicts both claims, and the PP intends to pursue the matter as a separate criminal action.
POLITICS AND MEDIATION
The fourth front is political. Following the pretrial detention of former PSOE organisation secretary Santos Cerdán, Zapatero had assumed a central mediating role between the Sánchez government and Junts per Catalunya, the Catalan separatist party led by fugitive Carles Puigdemont. Spanish press reports document trips by Zapatero to Waterloo, Brussels and Geneva and commitments — including a “Catalan CGPJ” and the continuity of the so-called Bolaños amnesty law — on which the parliamentary arithmetic of the legislature depends. The indictment has effectively decapitated that function.
Reactions came swiftly. Aitor Esteban, leader of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), has said it “would be irresponsible for Sánchez to continue beyond 2026”. Prime Minister Sánchez has publicly offered Zapatero “all my support”. Zapatero himself denies wrongdoing. The PP is demanding fresh elections, while right-wing Vox is calling for pretrial detention and the withdrawal of his diplomatic passport.
The hearing on June 2 will test not only Zapatero’s legal defence but the political durability of the Sánchez minority government — whose parliamentary arithmetic the former prime minister had helped to hold together.
France’s Justice Minister has called for a sweeping three-year halt to immigration, warning that the country has reached a breaking point after decades of mass migration.
Gérald Darmanin, a senior figure in President Emmanuel Macron’s government and a likely contender in next year’s presidential election, said France no longer has the capacity to properly integrate new arrivals.
“We have reached the limit of our capacities for integration and assimilation,” Darmanin said in an interview with Le Journal du Dimanche.
”So I now have a very strong conviction: we must put an end to immigration as it is today.”
”This is why I am proposing a three-year moratorium on legal immigration.
The comments mark one of the starkest admissions yet from a senior member of the French establishment over the scale of the migration crisis.
Darmanin also called for tougher deportation enforcement.
“Let’s put a stop to immigration, let’s expel those who must be expelled by conditioning visas on the acceptance of deportation orders, and let’s work on the assimilation of those who are on the national territory.”
🚨🇫🇷 France hits immigration BREAKING POINT
Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin says “we’ve reached the limit” and pushes a plan to HALT legal immigration for 3 years.
He also proposed ending automatic family reunification pathways and replacing them with strict annual visa quotas based on labor needs and country of origin.
Darmanin said many migrants lack “respect for the values” of France and blamed business interests for encouraging mass migration to suppress wages.
“Many difficult jobs are now reserved for foreign workers,” he remarked.
The comments come as immigration is expected to dominate France’s 2027 presidential race after decades of mass migration.
Opponents have dismissed Darmanin’s remarks as political posturing, noting that the current French establishment bears significant responsibility for the country’s immigration policies.
Darmanin is widely expected to seek the presidency under President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance banner.
A recent study by France’s National Institute of Demographic Studies found that by 2020, roughly one in three people in France were either immigrants or the children of immigrants.
Polling also suggests, as in the United States, that migration policy can significantly reshape electoral politics.
An Ifop survey found that 40 percent of voters with two non-European parents intend to back far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, with that figure rising to 51 percent among Muslim voters.
The British government is reviewing the ‘Youth Rehabilitation Order’ sentences given to two teenage rapists by a judge who said he didn’t want to “criminalise” the perpetrators.
Two 15-year-old boys were spared jail sentences by a British court last week, prompting one of their victims to come forward and question what the point of going to court at all had been, calling the soft-touch sentence akin to being struck in the face.
The unnamed girl, who was 15-years-old at the time of the November 2024 attack, has now told British state broadcaster the BBC that going through the process of reporting her attack to police and reliving it in detail for the court case had been traumatising. The perpetrators, who were also found guilty of a second gang rape of a teenage girl that took place in the same town at a playing fields in January 2025, were even praised in court by the judge for the way they had behaved while in the dock.
The attacks were filmed on smartphones and the footage, which showed the attackers laughing and encouraging each other, were shared online.
At the end of the trial, the judge praised how the two convicted rapists had conducted themselves:
‘You have done very well…’
He then let them off with a ‘rehabilitation order’. It was a disgrace.
It wasn’t justice for the victims and their families.
The first victim, who was attacked in an underpass in Fordingbridge, Hampshire by the River Avon in 2024 said, the broadcaster related: “Why did I sit and put myself through the pain of going to court, going through a trial, reliving everything because of evidence and watching it all happen again?… It sort of gave me a sense of what’s the point…what was the point in putting me through that just to say that it’s fine.”
She compared the soft-touch sentencing to being like a “rock straight in my face”.
Judge Nicholas Rowland had said at sentencing: “I have to remember that you are not small adults… I should avoid criminalising these children unnecessarily and understand the effects of their behaviour and support their reintegration into society”. One of the attackers, who is now 15-years-old, was found guilty of rape of two girls and two charges of taking indecent images. He was handed a three-year ‘Youth Rehabilitation Order’ (YRO) with 180 days of intensive supervision.
A YRO is a “community sentences given to children” with a maximum term of three years. Requirements of the orders can include being subjected to mental health treatment, a curfew, mandatory drugs testing, and undertaking unpaid work.
The second attacker, also now 15-years-old, was found guilty of three charges of rape and four charges of taking indecent images. He received the same sentence.
A third teenager, who is now 14-years-old, was present at the second attack and was found guilty of aiding and abetting. He was given an 18-month YRO.
The court heard that one of the rapists had a “bottom one per cent” IQ score, and another of the convicted teenagers had a “mild cognitive impairment”. None of the victims or attackers have been publicly identified because of their ages.
The mother of the first victim, also speaking to the BBC, appealed to the government for help. Addressing the Prime Minister directly to intervene in this “slap on the wrist” sentencing, she is reported to have said: “Please help. If it was your daughter, your niece, your son, your nephew, your family member, would you be happy? Because we’re not happy and I don’t think any other member of the public will be happy too. So you’re in a position of power to help, so please help.”
The sentencing was roundly criticised in the political sphere, including by the government and the Prime Minister himself, who said he found the case appalling. It was stated the government is reviewing the case “urgently” and may exercise its prerogative to refer the sentencing to the Court of Appeal.
Nearly 1,000 migrant small-boat arrivals in just 48 hours DOUBLING May’s total.Screenshot youtube
A fresh boatload of illegal migrants have crossing the English Channel this morning – with more already seen massing on the beaches of northern France.
Around 70 migrants arrived in Dover this morning on a dinghy, GB News can reveal.
Meanwhile, further “asylum seekers” have been seen massing in Dunkirk, to the east of Calais on France’s north coast.
The first boat left for Britain from near Calais between 2am and 3am this morning.
It then sailed past the French navy to the halfway point in the Channel, where it was intercepted by the British Border Force vessel BSC Courageous.
That dinghy was intercepted at around 5am – and is understood to have arrived in Dover shortly after 6am.
Further images obtained by Britain’s News Channel from Dunkirk today show migrants wading out into the water to board a “taxi boat”.
Taxi boats travel along the beaches of France, picking up passengers before then making the crossing towards the Kent coast.
The vessels use this method to stop French police trying to slash them.
Once the taxi boats are in the water, they are harder for police to stop.
A growing number of military men have been spotted “accompanying” the boats, making it too dangerous for police to intervene, local force chief Nicholas Paelinck revealed just days ago.
Police have also found “weapons of war and ammunition” in migrant tent camps.
They say it is “only a matter of time” before officers are confronted.
And Ostend police chief Hannelore Hochepied told Belgian MPs it will only get more difficult, with summer a “very busy period” for his men.
Former border inspector John Vine told GB News the soldiers posed a “very serious threat”.
“If some of them are armed, [police] should be immediately calling for armed support for officers to actually do their job in Belgium,” he said.
“They need to tackle it now before it becomes something that becomes a routine part of the smuggling gangs’ operation.”
