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MADRID (Reuters) -Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called on Monday for Israel’s exclusion from international cultural events such as the Eurovision song contest over its military campaign in Gaza, just as Russia was barred after its invasion of Ukraine.

“We cannot allow double standards, not even in culture,” Sanchez, a Socialist and long-time critic of Israeli policies in occupied Palestinian territory, told a conference in Madrid.

“I believe that no one was shocked three years ago when Russia was asked to withdraw from international competitions after it invaded Ukraine and not participate, for example, at Eurovision. Therefore, Israel should not do so either,” he said.

Israel’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on Sanchez’s remarks.

Sanchez called on artists to stand up for threatened values such as democracy and peace, criticising those who defend “a bland, silent, equidistant cultural sector”.

Eurovision, which stresses its political neutrality, faced controversy again during this month’s finals in Basel, Switzerland, won by Austrian singer JJ, while Israel’s Yuval Raphael emerged as the winner of the televote.

Pro-Palestinian groups had urged the European Broadcasting Union to exclude Israel over the war in Gaza. More than 53,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to local health officials, in Israel’s offensive since a cross-border Hamas militant attack in October 2023 that killed around 1,200 people.

Israel’s declared goal in Gaza is the elimination of the military and governmental capabilities of Hamas. Despite international pressure to end the hostilities, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday Israel would take control of the whole of the Gaza Strip.

A year ago, Spain, along with Norway and Ireland, formally recognised a unified Palestinian state ruled by the Palestinian Authority and with East Jerusalem as its capital – a decision Israel has condemned as bolstering Hamas.

Last October, Sanchez urged the European Union and wider international community to stop selling weapons to Israel, as Spain did in 2023.

(Reporting by Emma Pinedo; editing by Andrei Khalip and Mark Heinrich)

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HONG KONG (AP) — Shares in CATL, the world’s largest maker of batteries for electric vehicles, jumped about 13% Tuesday in its Hong Kong trading debut after it raised about $4.6 billion in the world’s largest initial public offering this year.

The solid reception for Chinese company, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., in Hong Kong suggests there is still an appetite among international investors for leading Chinese manufacturers despite trade tensions between Beijing and Washington.

It sold more than 135 million shares at their maximum offer price, 263 Hong Kong dollars ($33.6) each. Its shares rose after they started trading at 296 Hong Kong dollars ($37.80), 12.5% higher than their offer price. They were up about 13% by midday.

CATL also has shares listed in Shenzhen, a business hub neighboring Hong Kong. They initially fell but then edged 0.1% higher on Tuesday.

CATL held a nearly 38% global market share for EV batteries in 2024, its listing documents showed. It supplies automakers like Tesla, Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Ford, Toyota and Honda.

The company has faced pressure from the U.S. In January, the U.S. Defense Department added it to a list of companies it says have ties to China’s military, an accusation that CATL denied. It called the inclusion a “mistake.”

In April, John Moolenaar, chairperson of the U.S. House Select Committee on China, wrote to the CEOs of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America to demand that the two American banks withdraw from their work on CATL’s IPO. But the two banks stayed on.

In the U.S., Ford Motor Co. is licensing technology from CATL to build batteries, but the plan faces resistance from some Republican lawmakers, who have expressed concern that the Chinese company could benefit from U.S. tax dollars.

The share offering excluded onshore U.S. investors, though many large U.S. institutional investors have offshore accounts that allow them to participate.

The company said it plans to use most of the net proceeds from the IPO to build its factory in Hungary, meant to bring it closer to the manufacturing facilities of its main European customers.

CATL recorded a profit of 55.3 yuan ($7.6 billion) in 2024, up 16.8% from 2023. Its listing surpassed JX Advanced Metals’ $2.9 billion IPO in Japan in March, which was previously the largest this year, according to Renaissance Capital, a provider of pre-IPO research and IPO-focused ETFs.

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Associated Press writers Damian Troise in New York and Didi Tang in Washington contributed to this report.

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LONDON (AP) — The Chelsea Flower Show bloomed with royals, celebrities and a pup or two at the gardening showcase highlight resilient landscapes and natural planting.

King Charles III and Queen Camilla toured the show Monday before it opens to regular visitors. The king is a patron of the Royal Horticultural Society, which puts on the annual event in London.

The show is the place to see cutting-edge garden design, new plants and ideas to take home.

The displays highlighted natural planning, like moss paving and gravel paths bleeding into greenery. One garden was an example of the Atlantic temperate rainforest habitat that once covered western coasts of Britain.

Charles and Camilla visited a dog garden and examined the King’s Rose, a new fuchsia-and-white-striped rose variety named after Charles in support of the King’s Foundation.

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This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.

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BOTHAVILLE, South Africa (AP) — Days before South Africa’s president meets with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House this week, Afrikaner farmers at the center of an extraordinary new U.S. refugee policy roamed a memorial to farm attacks in their country’s agricultural heartland, some touching the names of the dead — both Black and white.

Here in Bothaville, where thousands of farmers gathered for a lively agricultural fair with everything from grains to guns on display, even some conservative white Afrikaner groups debunked the Trump administration’s “genocide” and land seizure claims that led it to cut all financial aid to South Africa.

The bustling scene was business as usual, with milkshakes and burgers and tow-headed children pulled in wagons.

The late President Nelson Mandela — South Africa’s first Black leader — stood in Bothaville over a quarter-century ago and acknowledged the increasing violent attacks on farmers in the first years following the decades-long racial system of apartheid. “But the complex problem of crime on our farms, as elsewhere, demand long-term solutions,” he said.

Some at the agricultural fair said fleeing the country isn’t one of them.

“I really hope that during the upcoming visit to Washington, (President Cyril Ramaphosa) is going to be able to put the facts before his counterpart and to demonstrate that there is no mass expropriation of land taking place in South Africa, and there is no genocide taking place,” John Steenhuisen, minister of agriculture, told The Associated Press. He will be part of the delegation for Wednesday’s meeting.

The minority white Afrikaner community is in the spotlight after the U.S. granted refugee status to at least 49 of them claiming to flee racial and violent persecution and widespread seizures of white-owned land — despite evidence that such claims are untrue.

While many at the agricultural fair raised serious concerns about the safety of farmers and farm workers, others were quick to point out that crime targeted both Black and white farmers and farm workers, as shown by South Africa’s crime statistics.

Thobani Ntonga, a Black farmer from Eastern Cape province, told the AP he had been attacked on his farm by criminals and almost kidnapped but a Black neighbor intervened.

“Crime affects both Black and white. … It’s an issue of vulnerability,” he said. “Farmers are separated from your general public. We’re not near towns, we are in the rural areas. And I think it’s exactly that. So, perpetrators, they thrive on that, on the fact that farms are isolated.”

Other farmers echoed his thoughts and called for more resources and policing.

“Crime especially hits small-scale farmers worse because they don’t have resources for private security,” said Afrikaner farmer Willem de Chavonnes Vrugt. He and other farmers wondered why they would leave the land where they have been rooted for decades.

Ramaphosa, himself a cattle farmer, also visited the agricultural fair for the first time in about 20 years — to buy equipment but also do outreach as many in South Africa puzzle over the Trump administration’s focus on their country.

“We must not run away from our problems,” the president said during his visit. “When you run away, you’re a coward.”

The fast-tracking of the Afrikaners’ refugee applications has raised questions about a system where many seeking asylum in the U.S. can languish for years, waiting.

The State Department has not made details of the process public, but one person who has applied to be resettled told the AP the online application process was “rigorous.”

Katia Beeden, a member of an advocacy group established to assist white South Africans seeking resettlement, said applicants have to go through at least three online interviews and answer questions about their health and criminal background.

They are also required to submit information or proof of being persecuted in South Africa, she said. She said she has been robbed in her house, with robbers locking her in her bedroom.

“They’ve already warned that you can’t lie or hide anything from them. So it’s quite a thorough process and not everyone is guaranteed,” she said.

Violent crime is rife in South Africa, but experts say the vast majority of victims are Black and poor. Police statistics show that up to 75 people are killed daily across the country.

Afrikaner agriculture union TLU SA says it believes farmers are more susceptible to such attacks because of their isolation.

Twelve murders occurred on farms in 2024, police statistics show. One of those killed was a farmer. The rest were farm workers, people staying on farms and a security guard. The data don’t reflect the victims’ race.

Overall across South Africa last year, 6,953 people were killed.

Government data also show that white farmers own the vast majority of South Africa’s farmland — 80% of it, according to the 2017 census of commercial agriculture, which recorded over 40,000 white farmers.

That data, however, only reflects farmers who have revenue of $55,396 a year, which excludes many small-scale farmers, the majority of them Black.

Overall, the white minority — just 7% of the population is white — still owns the vast majority of the land in South Africa, which the World Bank has called “the most unequal country in the world.”

According to the 2017 government land audit, white South Africans hold about 72% of individually owned land — while Black South Africans own 15%.

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Associated Press writer Michelle Gumede in Johannesburg contributed to this report. ____

Follow AP’s Africa coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

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MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin on Monday described Romania’s presidential election as “strange”, saying the pro-Russian candidate who won an aborted vote last year had been unfairly disqualified.

Pro-European centrist Nicusor Dan defeated a hard-right, nationalist rival in Sunday’s election – a re-run of the 2024 vote when front-runner Calin Georgescu was disqualified over what Romanian authorities said was an undeclared Russian influence campaign on his behalf.

“The elections were strange, to say the least,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

“We know the story of the candidate who had the best chance of winning. Without bothering to find any justification, he was simply forcibly removed from the race.”

Russia has previously denied any role in Georgescu’s campaign, and accused Romanian authorities of barring him for political reasons.

Dan’s victory was a relief for centrist policymakers in Brussels where there is concern that popular anger with mainstream elites over migration and cost of living pressures could bolster support for far-right parties and erode unity on the continent over how to deal with Russia.

Separately, the Russian-born founder of the Telegram messenger app Pavel Durov, who has dual French and United Arab Emirates citizenship, said that French intelligence services had pressured him to suppress voices supportive of hard-right runner-up George Simion, who had pledged to end military aid to Ukraine.

Peskov said of Durov’s allegations: “The fact that European countries, France, Great Britain, Germany, interfere in the internal affairs of other countries is not news.”

France’s foreign intelligence service has denied the allegations made by Durov. The tech entrepreneur is currently banned from leaving France, where he is under investigation over the suspected abuse of Telegram for purposes of organised crime.

(This story has been refiled to clarify that Pavel Durov is Russian-born and has dual French and United Arab Emirates citizenship, in paragraph 7)

(Reporting by Reuters, Writing by Felix Light; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

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CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela on Monday banned the arrival of flights from neighboring Colombia after authorities detained more than 30 people who were allegedly plotting activities to destabilize the country ahead of Sunday’s election.

The arrests were announced just as an independent panel of experts backed by the Organization of American States released a report documenting serious human rights abuses in Venezuela as the government tightened its grip on dissent after the July 28 presidential election.

Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello on state television said the flight ban was “immediate” and would last beyond Sunday, when voters across the country are expected to elect governors and National Assembly members. But Colombia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement said Venezuela’s government had notified it that flights would resume the day after the election.

Cabello said the anti-government plans involved placing explosives at embassies and other facilities in Venezuela. He said authorities had detained 21 Venezuelans and 17 foreigners, some of whom hold Colombian, Mexican and Ukrainian citizenship.

Cabello, without offering any evidence, said the group included experts in explosive devices, human smugglers and mercenaries, and was working with members of Venezuela’s political opposition.

“The scenario they want to present is that there are no conditions in Venezuela for holding an election,” Cabello said, referring to the opposition.

Colombia’s Foreign Ministry in a statement said it had not received any information from Venezuela’s government regarding the detention of Colombian citizens.

President Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first leftist president, resumed his country’s diplomatic relations with Venezuela after taking office in 2022 and becoming an ally of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Maduro, during a televised meeting with leaders of the military and state security forces, alleged that members of an Albanian crime organization involved in drug trafficking in Ecuador were also linked to the alleged plot and added that an investigation into the group’s plans is ongoing.

The arrests come nearly two weeks after members of the opposition left the country after having lived at a diplomatic compound in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, for more than a year to avoid arrest. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the faction of the opposition led by María Corina Machado described the departure as an international rescue operation, but Cabello said they left Venezuela through a negotiation with Maduro’s government.

Machado has called on Venezuelans to boycott the election scheduled for Sunday, almost 10 months since the presidential contest that electoral authorities claimed Maduro won despite credible evidence to the contrary. Several countries do not recognize Maduro’s victory and have broken diplomatic relations with his government, disrupting commercial air travel.

Five of the six people who sheltered at the diplomatic compound were part of Machado’s staff. Dozens of people affiliated with her movement, including its lawyer, as well as opposition leaders, activists and others detained before and after the presidential election remain behind bars.

The panel of experts backed by the Organization of American States on Monday reported that the post-election period has seen “the most severe and sophisticated phase of political repression in Venezuela’s modern history.” This included the execution of unarmed protesters, enforced disappearances and an increase in arbitrary detentions. The panel also reported that the state expanded its repression targets beyond political opponents and human rights defenders by going after poll workers, election witnesses, relatives of opposition members, minors and others.

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Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

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PARIS (AP) — Pierpaolo Piccioli, who left Valentino last year, is the new creative director of the iconic fashion house Balenciaga, parent company Kering announced Monday.

He replaces Demna, who joined Balenciaga in 2015 and has since moved to Gucci in a shake-up of Kering’s creative stable. Gucci is also owned by Kering. Piccioli takes over at Balenciaga on July 10.

“What I am receiving is a brand full of possibilities that is incredibly fascinating. I must first and foremost thank Demna; I’ve always admired his talent and vision. I couldn’t ask for a better passing of the torch,” Piccioli said in a company statement.

He will head womenswear, menswear, accessories and couture at the Paris-based house.

Demna, who goes by one name, was not without controversy, often taking on political and social issues of the day. Piccioli is viewed as more of a romantic than a disrupter.

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By Olivia Le Poidevin

GENEVA (Reuters) -Members of the World Health Organization voted emphatically in favour of a potentially groundbreaking global treaty on improving pandemic preparedness at the World Health Assembly on Monday.

124 countries voted in favour, after Slovakia called for a vote on Monday, as its COVID-19 vaccine sceptic prime minister demanded that his country challenge the adoption of the agreement. No countries voted against, while 11 countries, including Poland, Israel, Italy, Russia, Slovakia and Iran abstained.

The draft accord, which addresses structural inequities about how drugs or vaccines and health tools are developed, will be formally adopted on Tuesday in a plenary session at the World Health Assembly in Geneva.

However, it will not formally come into effect until an annex on pathogen sharing is negotiated, which could take up to two years, after which states will have to ratify the accord.

(Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin, Editing by Franklin Paul)

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By David Lawder, Promit Mukherjee and Julia Payne

WASHINGTON/BANFF, Alberta (Reuters) -Finance leaders from the Group of Seven democracies will strive for a show of unity when they meet this week on topics other than U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs, including economic security, Ukraine and artificial intelligence cooperation.

But mostly, they’ll want to keep the powerful Western policy alliance from fracturing, even if it means less-specific language and agreed actions, according to G7 officials and economic diplomacy experts.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will join fellow G7 finance ministers and central bank governors for the Tuesday-to-Thursday meeting in the Canadian Rocky Mountain resort town of Banff, Alberta. That puts disagreements over steep new tariffs imposed by Trump at the center of the discussions.

G7 members Japan, Germany, France and Italy all face a potential doubling of U.S. “reciprocal” duties to 20% or more in early July. Britain negotiated a limited trade deal that leaves it saddled with 10% U.S. tariffs on most goods, and host Canada is still struggling with Trump’s separate 25% duty on many exports.

“No one expects this to be a big moment where the U.S. declares that for G7 and other partners there will be a special regime that’s more favorable,” said Charles Lichfield, deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center in Washington. 

But ministers from the other six countries will likely try to tactfully remind Bessent that they are the closest U.S. allies and that it’s difficult for them to meet Washington’s demands that they exert economic pressure on China when they are facing U.S. coercion themselves, Lichfield said.

A Treasury spokesperson said on Sunday that Bessent would seek to get the G7 “back to basics and focused on addressing imbalances and non-market practices in both G7 and non-G7 countries.”

Bessent, a former hedge fund manager, has consistently called for push back against China’s state-led, export-driven economic model that has fueled excess production capacity and a flood of subsidized goods into market economies.

In bilateral meetings with Bessent, some of the ministers are expected to further their own negotiations to lower Trump’s tariffs. 

Bessent is leading the negotiations with Japan, which has been described by administration officials as being in advanced talks with the U.S.

The Treasury Secretary said on Sunday that countries that don’t negotiate “in good faith” will again face the higher reciprocal tariff rates that Trump imposed on April 2 – 24% in Japan’s case.      

Bessent is widely seen as a moderating influence on Trump’s trade agenda, so G7 ministers will “encourage him to push for more moderate administration policies on trade,” said Mark Sobel, a former U.S. Treasury and International Monetary Fund official who is U.S. chairman of OMFIF, an independent financial policy think-tank.

TRICKY LANGUAGE

Despite disagreements over tariffs, G7 officials, especially from host Canada, appear determined to agree on a joint statement from the finance meeting, which will set the stage for a G7 leaders’ summit in June in the nearby mountain resort area of Kananaskis.

G7 government sources familiar with the finance negotiations said that a draft communique was already prepared and that Canada was pushing to achieve a consensus to show that the G7 countries were standing together on a range of issues.

These are expected to include a broad statement of support for Ukraine in its struggle against Russia’s full-scale invasion, with Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhii Marchenko in attendance and the EU readying a new package of sanctions to increase pressure on Moscow.

Any statement on Ukraine will be far less specific than the G7’s last joint finance statement in October 2024, which announced terms for $50 billion in loans to Ukraine backed by earnings from frozen Russia’s sovereign assets.

The Atlantic Council’s Lichfield said that after the failure of ceasefire talks in Istanbul on Friday that were spurned by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Bessent and fellow G7 ministers may be more likely to agree on some language supportive of increased sanctions pressure without actually committing to take specific action. 

Trump spoke to Putin about Ukraine on Monday. The leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Italy talked to Trump on Sunday ahead of the call.

Another area for common ground is likely to be on support for the IMF and World Bank after Bessent reaffirmed U.S. backing for the institutions in April.

G7 sources said that cooperation to fight money laundering and other financial crimes is another topic where agreements are reachable, as well as on Bessent’s call for stronger reliance on the private sector to drive growth.   

But given Trump’s opposition to the previous U.S. green energy agenda, language on climate change is expected to be a source of discord.

How the G7 will describe the economic uncertainty and stalled investment unleashed by Trump’s tariffs without explicitly blaming his policies is another thorny issue in the negotiations.

“My crystal ball is so murky now, I can’t really see the future very well,” said Suzanne Clark, CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce at a conference in Ottawa of business leaders from the G7 countries. 

“I think we have to advocate for the future … where the business community globally can share values of democracy and rule of law, enterprise and open market,” she added.   

(Reporting by Makiko Yamazaki, Julia Payne, David Lawder and Promit Mukherjee; Editing by Kate Mayberry and Andrea Ricci)

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European Leaders Push for Stronger Israel Ties, Warn of Russian-Iranian Axis 

Senior lawmakers, defense analysts, and civil society leaders from across Europe, Israel, and the Middle East gathered Sunday in Paris to open the 2025 International Policy Conference (EIPC), hosted by the European Leadership Network (ELNET). The annual event serves as a high-level platform for addressing threats to Western democratic values and security cooperation, with this year’s discussions centering on growing authoritarian influence and internal vulnerabilities within democratic states. 

ELNET France CEO Dr. Arié Bensemhoun opened the proceedings with a stark appeal to moral clarity and collective determination. “Now the world is black and white. Either you stand on democratic principles, or you don’t,” he said, warning that the future of democratic societies depends on their ability to confront rising aggression. 

A key panel featured Latvian Member of the European Parliament Rihards Kols and Israeli Member of Knesset Orit Farkash-Hacohen, who debated the primary sources of danger to democracies—whether from foreign autocratic coalitions or domestic fragmentation and fear. Kols, who serves on the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, argued that internal paralysis driven by fear is the most immediate threat. 

“I would argue our main enemy is fear,” Kols said. “The autocrats drive us by fear. Because fear, for any human being, is paralyzing. And this is what they prey on—to spread fear through intimidation, through threats, and particularly through hybrid threats.” 

Kols described what he called a growing alliance between Russia and Iran as “the new autocratic axis in the making,” citing the deployment of Iranian Shahed drones on NATO territory as evidence of deepening strategic coordination. “Shahed drones produced by Iran fall out of the sky on our soil. … Together with Iranian hardware and Russian software, they have adjusted these ‘Shaheds’ to avoid radar systems and with a longer range. So, this is the axis in action—not just for ad hoc interests,” he said. 

He warned that democracies projecting uncertainty or division only encourage further hostility from authoritarian powers. “Nothing provokes autocrats more than the show of weakness by free people. And this is our favorite moment,” he said, referring to the tendency of adversaries to exploit democratic indecision. 

Spanish Member of the European Parliament Nicolás Pascual de la Parte also addressed the conference, voicing concern over the United States redirecting its strategic focus toward the Indo-Pacific, which he argued leaves Europe exposed. “America’s concentration of energy and attention … to the Indo-Pacific has left Europe more vulnerable,” he said. 

Pascual de la Parte urged European countries to invest in defense as a “complementary pillar” within NATO and called for closer ties with Israel. “Israel has a paramount role to play … because you are a democratic country in the Middle East, the only one. You share our principles. We can rely on you, and you can rely on us,” he said. 

He emphasized that cooperation should go beyond symbolic gestures. “We must recover the trust that sometimes we have lost in the past,” he said. “We must reinforce our relationship … not only with words, but with facts.” 

With discussions set to continue throughout the week, the tone of EIPC 2025 was defined by a sense of urgency and a call to unity. Participants argued that the ability of democratic nations to stand firm will determine whether the West can continue to define its future—or be shaped by external and internal threats. 

PHOTO – Panel featuring Latvian Member of the European Parliament Rihards Kols, moderator Maurizio Molinari, and Israeli Member of Knesset Orit Farkash-Hacohen, at the ELNET International Policy Conference in Paris, May 18, 2025. (Gabriel Colodro/The Media Line) 

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