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Inside the European and US alliances of Venezuelan opposition leader Machado

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Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Venezuelan opposition figure María Corina Machado has many friends in Europe, in addition to US President Donald Trump and his Latin American allies.

For example, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, which has close ties to the Free Democrats (FDP), the junior partner in Germany’s previous “traffic light” coalition, stated that it is “proud” to have been cooperating “intensively for years” with the right-wing Machado and her supporters.

Machado, who has been involved in several coup attempts in Venezuela and has defended American sanctions against her country, also works with the Patriots for Europe (PfE), a right-wing alliance in the European Parliament (EP) that includes Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party.

The PfE event in September, where Machado also gave a speech, was held under the slogan “The Reconquista begins.” “Reconquista” (reconquest) is the name given to the efforts and aims of Christians on the Iberian Peninsula during the Al-Andalus period to eliminate the Muslim presence there.

She was also involved in the coup against Chávez

Hailing from a wealthy and conservative business family in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, María Corina Machado has always been part of the far-right wing of the opposition against Presidents Hugo Chávez (1999-2013) and Nicolás Maduro (since 2013).

Machado’s signature even appeared on the Carmona Decree of April 12, 2002, which dissolved the parliament and the Supreme Court and suspended numerous other officials following the coup against Chávez.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Machado was one of four activists from the right-wing Venezuelan opposition who attempted a coup in 2019 by unilaterally declaring parliament speaker Juan Guaidó as president.

At the time, this attempt was openly supported by Germany and the EU; the US recognized Guaidó as president, but the plan ultimately failed.

Machado has always maintained close relations with the US. At the end of May 2005, she was received at the White House by US President George W. Bush, with whom she reportedly had a meeting lasting about an hour.

The German foundation connection: Dirty coups in Latin America

She also has good relations with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, which is close to the FDP and recently stated it was “proud to have worked closely with Machado and her supporters for many years.”

The Friedrich Naumann Foundation has been connected to Machado’s party, Vente Venezuela, since 2017 through the RELIAL (Red Liberal de América Latina) network.

RELIAL was founded in 2004 at the initiative of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and continues to receive its support. The network brings together right-wing liberal organizations from across Latin America, each representing the interests of the subcontinent’s “old white elites.”

RELIAL members have occasionally been involved in coups. Officials from the RELIAL member Partido Liberal de Honduras (PLH) played a leading role in the coup in Tegucigalpa in June 2009.

The Partido Liberal Radical Auténtico (PLRA) in Paraguay was also a member of RELIAL when its leader, Federico Franco, seized power in Asunción in June 2012.

The right-wing ‘Venezuela Coalition’ in the EU had awarded Machado

Before receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Machado had received the European Parliament’s “Sakharov Prize” as a result of a vote that helped establish a far-right parliamentary majority.

Prior to this, in September 2024, the EP had adopted a resolution recognizing Edmundo González, the candidate who lost the Venezuelan election on July 28, 2024, as the winner.

The resolution was proposed by the “center-right” European People’s Party (EPP) and the nationalist-conservative European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), which includes Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy (FdI) party.

The resolution secured a majority thanks to the support of several members of the right-wing Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) group, led by PfE and AfD.

When the Parliament voted on the Sakharov Prize in October 2024, González and Machado received it only with the support of the ECR and PfE.

Since then, the majority that brings together all shades of the right, supported by the EPP, ECR, PfE, and partly the ESN, has been dubbed the “Venezuela coalition.”

Christian conqueror ideology in the heart of Europe

Machado has intensified her cooperation with PfE this year. For example, on February 8, she participated via video conference in a major PfE event in Madrid titled “Make Europe Great Again.”

The event was organized by the Spanish party Vox, which has good relations with the far-right in Latin America. At the February 8 event, which was also attended by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Marine Le Pen, reports indicate that “all speakers made harsh criticisms against immigrants” and “most called for a new ‘Reconquista’.”

At the end of May, Machado participated, again via video conference, in this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) event in Hungary.

Machado also joined another major event organized by Vox in Madrid on September 13-14, Europa Viva, with a video speech.

At the meeting, held under the slogan “The Reconquista Begins,” Vox leader Santiago Abascal criticized the “caliphate of Brussels,” referring to the European Commission. Argentine President Javier Milei also delivered a video speech at the meeting.

In response, on October 10, PfE congratulated Nobel Peace Prize laureate Machado, stating that she is a “special inspiration for everyone” who “fights by peaceful means for the triumph of justice and freedom.”

The link between Machado and Likud: The new European right

Israel’s ruling party, Likud, which Machado is associated with, also holds observer status in PfE.

Machado and her party, Vente Venezuela, have long expanded their contacts with the Israeli right wing. On July 21, 2020, Machado, representing Vente Venezuela, and Eli Vered Hazan, representing Likud, signed an “Inter-Party Agreement” in which they declared their intention to form an “alliance” with each other.

On February 26 of this year, the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., released a podcast in which he interviewed Machado. Machado has not spoken with the president himself, at least since he took office, but she has had detailed discussions with leading officials from the US State Department, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Machado approves of the actions of the Trump administration, which has greatly increased pressure on Venezuela since taking office and has had the US military sink several Venezuelan ships on the unproven pretext that they belonged to drug cartels.

When asked if she agreed with this, despite the undisputed fact that Venezuelan citizens were killed in the process, Machado reiterated that she thought the “elimination of this criminal infrastructure” was a good thing.

Machado has described Trump as “the greatest opportunity they have ever had.”

Indeed, after receiving the Nobel Prize, Machado reported that she called Trump to express her thanks and also said that Trump would “deserve” the award next year.

America

Federal filing reveals Trump earned over $1 billion from crypto businesses

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US President Donald Trump earned more than $1 billion from his cryptocurrency ventures over the past year, according to a federal financial disclosure released on Tuesday.

During his second term in office, Trump and his family have invested heavily in digital assets and a range of cryptocurrency businesses.

Trump said earlier in 2025 that he wanted the United States to become the “crypto capital of the world.”

The president’s cryptocurrency earnings come in addition to profits generated through legal settlements, real estate holdings and royalty agreements.

Most of Trump’s crypto ventures were newly established companies when he took office. They have since grown to generate more income than much of the vast real estate portfolio he spent decades building.

The surge was fueled by billionaire investors and by Trump’s efforts to dismantle the federal crackdown on the cryptocurrency industry.

According to the mandatory annual financial disclosure filed with the government ethics office for 2025, Trump earned more than $500 million from World Liberty Financial, his flagship cryptocurrency company, which sells new crypto products including governance tokens.

The report also disclosed that CIC Digital LLC, another cryptocurrency company, generated more than $600 million in revenue from sales of commemorative meme coins bearing Trump’s image. The tokens were launched just days before his inauguration.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said:

“Neither the President nor his family has ever had or will ever have a conflict of interest. Through executive actions, support for legislation such as the GENIUS Act, and other common-sense policies that promote innovation and economic opportunity for all Americans, President Trump has proudly made the United States the crypto capital of the world.”

Kelly also maintained that Trump and his administration had taken every action “in the best interests of the American people.”

Trump’s cryptocurrency ventures, including his tokens and meme coins, have declined in value since their launch.

In another unprecedented move for a sitting president, Trump also earned millions of dollars last year from the sale of Trump-branded Bibles, sneakers and other merchandise.

The president earned $4.7 million from Trump-branded watches alone.

The rise of Trump’s cryptocurrency business is particularly notable compared with his real estate operations, even as he earned tens of millions of dollars from fees and licensing agreements tied to new hotels, resorts and residential developments overseas.

Many of those countries were simultaneously engaged in negotiations with the United States over tariffs, military assistance and other major issues.

A real estate project in the United Arab Emirates generated $10.4 million in income.

In Saudi Arabia, a property developed by a real estate company closely linked to the ruling family generated $9 million for Trump’s business.

Properties in Bucharest, Romania, and Qatar each generated $5 million for Trump.

The disclosure also detailed that the president received more than $86 million through five separate legal settlements involving ABC, CBS, YouTube, Meta and X.

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US lifts export controls on Anthropic’s Claude 5 models after security upgrade

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Anthropic has announced that the US government has lifted export controls on its newest artificial intelligence models, Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5, paving the way for the high-profile systems to return to active use.

The AI research and development company had temporarily suspended access for all users following the June 12 imposition of the restrictions, which blocked foreign nationals both inside and outside the US from accessing the models. Anthropic stated that the complete suspension was necessary because it was unable to perform real-time nationality verification. With the lifting of the export controls, the access restrictions have now been terminated.

Anthropic announced that Claude Fable 5 will be made available for global general availability starting Wednesday, July 1, across the Claude Platform, Claude.ai, Claude Code, and Claude Cowork. Users on Pro, Max, Team, and select Enterprise plans will be permitted to use Fable 5 for up to 50% of their weekly usage limits at no additional cost until July 7.

After that date, access will be transitioned to a usage-credit basis. The company is also working to restore access via Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, and Microsoft Foundry as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile, access to Claude Mythos 5—a model designed for defense-oriented cybersecurity work that operates with fewer safety constraints—was restored to select US entities following approval from the US government on June 26.

The company stated that it continues to work in coordination with the US government to expand access to domestic and international partners under its Glasswing program.

The cybersecurity report that triggered export restrictions

According to the timeline disclosed by the company, the export controls were instituted on June 12, just three days after the models’ June 9 launch. The regulatory intervention was triggered by a report from Amazon researchers who successfully bypassed the safety guardrails of the Fable 5 model to identify specific software vulnerabilities.

The report highlighted a single instance where the model generated code demonstrating how the vulnerability in question could be exploited. Anthropic collaborated with the US government and partners, including Amazon, over a two-week period. During subsequent testing, Anthropic confirmed that lower-capacity models—such as Claude Opus 4.8, GPT-5.5, and Kimi K2.7—were also capable of identifying the same vulnerabilities.

Furthermore, the tests revealed that the code demonstrating how to exploit the vulnerability could be generated by all tested models, including Claude Haiku 4.5, Sonnet 4.6, Opus 4.7, GPT-5.4, and Kimi K2.7.

Anthropic maintained that the bypass technique did not expose any unique offensive cyber capabilities at the Mythos level, describing it instead as a borderline case involving routine defensive activities.

Nevertheless, in cooperation with the US government, the company trained an advanced safety classifier targeting the behavior identified in the report, which it claims blocks the exploit with a success rate of over 99%.

When cybersecurity-related queries directed at Fable 5 are blocked by this system, users will be notified and their prompts will be automatically redirected to the Opus 4.8 model.

Anthropic acknowledged that the new safety mechanism carries the risk of triggering more frequent false positives—blocking harmless queries during routine coding and debugging—but said it is optimizing the system to reduce these occurrences.

The company noted that Claude Mythos 5 is more capable of finding and exploiting cybersecurity vulnerabilities than any actor other than high-level human experts, making it an attractive target for malicious actors.

In contrast, Claude Fable 5 does not possess these offensive cyber capabilities. Anthropic stated that it doubled its staffing resources in the month leading up to the launch to implement its most robust cybersecurity measures to date on the model.

This approach, termed “defense-in-depth,” combines training the model to reject dangerous requests with the deployment of automated cybersecurity classifiers.

These classifiers, which function as smaller auxiliary AI systems, detect and block suspicious requests during cybersecurity operations. To counter the risk of “jailbreaking”—where users manipulate the system to bypass safety rules—Anthropic expanded its safety margins significantly.

While the company acknowledged that this conservative posture leads to the blocking of some harmless queries, it stated that the trade-off was necessary to prevent offensive cyber exploits.

Researchers at the Center for AI Safety and Innovation (CAISI), an agency under the US Department of Commerce, also evaluated the new measures and confirmed that the cybersecurity guardrails are highly robust.

A call for industry-wide safety standards

Pointing to a lack of objective, industry-wide standards to evaluate the severity of safety guardrail bypasses, Anthropic announced that it has begun developing a consensus-based framework alongside Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and other Glasswing partners.

The proposed cybersecurity assessment framework aims to score the severity of vulnerabilities based on four distinct criteria:

  • Capability gain: The degree to which a vulnerability empowers a user beyond currently available tools.
  • Scope of capability gain: The number of different offensive tasks that can be executed using the same bypass technique.
  • Ease of weaponization: The level of human effort required to convert the method into an active exploit.
  • Discoverability: How easily the technique can be identified and acquired.

Additionally, the company is launching a new HackerOne bounty program where security researchers can report cybersecurity vulnerabilities they discover within the Fable 5 model.

Deepening cooperation with the US government

Over the past ten weeks, Anthropic has worked closely with cybersecurity and national security agencies under the framework of the June 2 US Executive Order on “Promoting Advanced AI Innovation and Security.” The company announced it will further deepen its public-sector collaboration.

Under this expanded partnership, Anthropic will provide early, pre-launch access to critical national security-relevant models to government partners for independent testing.

The company has pledged to share information rapidly if vulnerabilities or abuse patterns are detected, and to submit newly developed safeguards to state agencies for evaluation.

Furthermore, Anthropic will establish dedicated internal teams focused on joint AI safety research and will allocate significant computing resources to support government-backed testing initiatives.

The company emphasized that transparent, permanent, and robust legal regulations applied equally to all frontier model developers are critical for the future of cyber defense.

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Twenty-five US states sue Trump administration over Medicaid work-requirement exemptions

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A coalition of 25 US states and the District of Columbia has filed a joint lawsuit against the Trump administration, challenging a new regulation that restricts work-requirement exemptions for medically frail individuals under Medicaid, the government health insurance program for low-income populations.

The lawsuit, filed on Monday in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts, alleges that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) violated statutory protections established by Congress through its issuance of an interim final rule governing who qualifies for exemptions from the new work mandates.

In their joint complaint, the states argue that the newly adopted rule “dramatically narrows the work exemption boundaries legally secured by Congress for some of the most vulnerable members of the Medicaid program.”

The states contend that the regulation will cause a significant number of individuals who are currently working or who legitimately qualify for exemptions to lose their health coverage or be denied access to these vital services.

“This regulation introduces new rules that restrict who should be exempted due to their medically frail status, forcing these vulnerable individuals who require healthcare services to navigate unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles to obtain and maintain their vital health coverage,” the lawsuit states.

The rule, published earlier this month, serves as implementation guidance for how the work requirements enacted under the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” will be applied across 42 states and the District of Columbia.

Republican lawmakers and administration officials have defended the policy, characterizing it as a mechanism to combat waste, fraud, and abuse within the Medicaid program.

Under the new rules, which are scheduled to take effect in January, beneficiaries enrolled in expanded Medicaid programs must work, participate in volunteer activities, attend an educational institution at least part-time, or take part in job training programs for at least 80 hours per month to maintain their insurance coverage.

While the statutory text of the legislation outlines various exceptions for specific vulnerable groups—explicitly exempting “medically frail” individuals from the mandate—the statute did not provide a precise definition for the term.

The administration’s new rules narrow the definition of medical frailty by tying it directly to an individual’s capacity to work. Under the new regulation, to qualify for an exemption, a beneficiary must prove that their medical condition completely prevents them from working.

State governments state that they had spent months negotiating implementation plans with CMS prior to the publication of the regulation, but were caught unprepared by this highly restrictive definition, which they argue was not present in the legislative text.

State officials emphasize that individuals who are legally entitled to protection risk losing their health coverage because they will be unable to overcome the bureaucratic barriers imposed to prove their exempt status.

“These changes flagrantly ignore the concrete evidence that the agency was required to consider, or which was already before it,” the complaint states regarding the agency’s decision-making process. “Reasonable alternatives and potential major adverse consequences were not adequately evaluated, nor was it clarified what exactly is being demanded of the plaintiff states.”

The plaintiff states point out that Congress deliberately kept the scope of the exemptions broad when drafting the legislation.

Stressing that the broad exemptions in the law are well-founded, the complaint states: “Individuals with disabilities, patients undergoing cancer treatment, or people battling serious and complex health conditions must not be placed at risk of losing this vital care that helps them maintain their health.”

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