The Australian government says it is waiting for the US to “set out the facts” on the operation to capture the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, before passing judgment.
The Labor ministers Jim Chalmers and Tim Ayres on Monday stressed the importance of international law after the US military intervention.
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
Sunday morning’s cable news circuit once again demonstrated why senior administration officials so often spend more time correcting media narratives than explaining policy.
Appearing across Meet the Press and Face the Nation, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was subjected to a familiar pattern of questioning: assumptions embedded as facts, motives ascribed rather than examined, and repeated demands to justify actions that were already explained. The pushback Rubio delivered was not theatrical, nor was it evasive. It was corrective. And it was necessary only because the framing itself was flawed.
The first line of attack centered on Venezuela’s oil industry, with the implication that American involvement following the capture of Nicolás Maduro must be driven by resource acquisition rather than security.
Marco Rubio is so good.
“This is the Western Hemisphere. We’re not going to allow it to be a base of operations for our adversaries… They won’t come from outside our hemisphere, destabilize our region in our own backyard, and us have to pay the price for it. It’s over.” pic.twitter.com/GzLjNtBV3h
Protests erupted in cities such as Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and New York City after it was announced that the U.S. captured Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro.
Video footage posted to X showed protesters marching through New York City carrying signs that said, “Free Pres. Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores, Now!” and “No Blood For Oil.”
According to ABC7NY, “a group of people demonstrated in Times Square” over Maduro’s capture. The protesters claimed that Maduro’s capture was not “about drug trafficking or democracy,” but that it was “about stealing oil and dominating Latin America.”
Venezuela’s Supreme Court ordered Vice President Delcy Rodriguez to take over as interim president for Nicolas Maduro, the now-former leader who was captured by the United States during a military operation and is now detained in New York City.
The nation’s highest court ruled on Saturday night that Rodriguez will, at the very least, temporarily succeed Maduro for the sake of “administrative continuity and the comprehensive defense of the Nation.”
The ruling is in accordance with Venezuela’s constitution, which states that the vice president handles presidential duties in the event of an absence. The court said in its order that Maduro is currently in a “material and temporary impossibility to exercise his functions.”
New details are emerging about Vice President JD Vance and his behind-the-scenes role in the dramatic U.S. military operation that led to the capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, an unprecedented action that has sent shockwaves across Latin America and the world.
In the early hours of January 3, U.S. forces launched a large-scale, highly coordinated military operation inside Venezuela. Explosions were reported in and around Caracas as American aircraft and special operations units struck key military and security targets tied to Maduro’s regime. The operation culminated in the capture of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, who were extracted from the country and flown to the United States.
Within hours of news breaking about Maduro’s capture, protests broke out in NYC with professionally printed signs and flags in support of Venezuela and other third-world countries like Cuba and Palestine.
Who paid for all of this?
Real Venezuelans are stormed NYC to counteract the white liberal Democrats protesting against Trump’s Maduro capture and strikes
Actual Venezuelans are ecstatic right now.
The Democrats are apoplectic. Democrats screaming over the arrest of the blood-soaked dictator Nicolás Maduro is the perfect hill for them to die on—after defending Barack Obama, who dropped 26,171 bombs in a single year without congressional approval, and Joe Biden, who launched strikes across Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Somalia the same way—hypocrisy laid bare.
At least 40 people were killed in the U.S. attack on Venezuela early Saturday, including military personnel and civilians, according to a senior Venezuelan official who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe preliminary reports.
President Trump, speaking on Fox News on Saturday, said that no American troops had been killed. He suggested, however, that some service members had been injured. Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said later in the day at a news conference at Mar-a-Lago with Mr. Trump that U.S. helicopters moving to extract President Nicolás Maduro and his wife had come under fire. He said that one helicopter had been hit but “remained flyable,” and that all U.S. aircraft “came home.”
The brilliantly executed US operation to snatch Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro benefits American citizens in many different ways.
It took out the head of a major international organized crime cartel. The cartel, which the US has labeled the “Cartel de los Soles,” or Cartel of the Suns, is responsible for cocaine trafficking into the United States. Maduro had turned the upper levels of the Venezuelan government, military, and security services into a huge organized crime entity. The Department of Justice is prosecuting Maduro and others for running what a federal grand jury indictment calls “a corrupt and violent narco-terrorism conspiracy.” While no evidence indicates that Maduro’s cartel directly trafficked fentanyl into the U.S., the Treasury Department sanctioned the Cartel of the Suns last July for providing material support to the Sinaloa cartel of Mexico, which the DOJ described as “flooding the United States with fentanyl.”
It took out the leader who flooded the United States with hardened criminals, organized terrorist gangs like Tren de Aragua, and millions of refugees. Once a new leadership is established in Venezuela, the country can take back its criminals and terrorists, and its refugees can return home and rebuild.
San Francisco has been a nutty place for some time now. The city’s been a stronghold of liberals for years, arguably since shortly after World War 2. But over the last couple of decades, the city’s leftist population has crossed over into pure wackadoodle. It’s also a hotbed of Trump Derangement Syndrome; if President Trump found a way to generate clean, free electricity from nothing, the San Francisco left would suddenly be campaigning in favor of coal plants.
After President Donald Trump ordered the capture and arrest of Venezuelan leader Nicholas Maduro for charges of narcoterrorism, drug trafficking, and other crimes, Democratic lawmakers want to impeach the president and remove him from office. All the while, Venezuelans around the world have been seen celebrating the fall of Maduro.
Early on Saturday, President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social, “The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country. This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement. Details to follow. There will be a News Conference today at 11 A.M., at Mar-a-Lago. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
Until the past 24 hours, Nicolás Maduro Moros and other Venezuelan high-ranking individuals in the Maduro regime ran the Cartel of the Suns (Cartel de los Soles). Now that the U.S. has penetrated Venezuela’s defenses to capture and arrest Maduro, things have changed.
Maduro and his regime had corrupted the institutions of that country, including its military, its intelligence apparatus, its legislature, and its judiciary, all to aid his cartel’s massive criminal operations.
The Cartel de los Soles originated in Venezuela, and has been involved in the illicit drug trade, human smuggling and trafficking, extortion, sexual exploitation of women and children, and money laundering, along with other criminal activities. Reports are that the cartel’s name is derived from the sun insignias often portrayed on the uniforms of Venezuelan military officials; the relationship is that symbiotic.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested Sunday that the United States would not take a day-to-day role in governing Venezuela other than enforcing an existing “oil quarantine” on the country, a turnaround after President Donald Trump announced a day earlier that the U.S. would be running Venezuela following its ouster of leader Nicolás Maduro.
Rubio’s statements on TV talk shows seemed designed to temper concerns about whether the assertive American action to achieve regime change might again produce a prolonged foreign intervention or failed attempt at nation-building. They stood in contrast to Trump’s broad but vague claims that the U.S. would at least temporarily “run” the oil-rich nation, comments that suggested some sort of governing structure under which Caracas would be controlled by Washington.
The 15-member Security Council met at UN headquarters in New York just hours before Maduro was due to appear in a Manhattan federal court on drug charges including narco-terrorism conspiracy. The US gave it’s point of view on the operation conducted by its army in Venezuela two days ago.
from www.france24.com
Defense stocks in Europe and Asia surged on Monday as investors assessed how the dramatic overthrow of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro could herald a significant geopolitical shift that will boost the rearmament trade in the long run.
Rheinmetall, Germany’s largest arms manufacturer, gained over 8%, while military technology and surveillance specialist Hensoldt rose more than 7%. Italy’s Leonardo added more than 5%, while German counterpart Renk added around 8%.
Swedish fighter jet maker Saab added more than 6%.
U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein has been assigned to preside over the federal criminal case against former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in the Southern District of New York.
The toppled socialist dictator faces sweeping narco-terrorism and weapons charges in the U.S. after being captured by American forces in Venezuela on Saturday.
Hellerstein, 92, was nominated to the federal bench by President Bill Clinton in 1998 and confirmed by the Senate that same year.
A US Navy plane has been spotted circling near a part of Mexico’s coast after President Donald Trump threatened military action against the country. The P-8 Poseidon was detected on flight tracking websites conductin surveillance and reconnaisance missions off Tijuana – just south of California.
It launched from Naval Air Station Whidbey Island in Washington, flying over Oregon and California. It then looped several times off the coast of Mexico and Southern California before returning to base. The P-8 has been used to monitor suspicious ships and movements in the ocean as it’s equipped with with sensors that can detect targets on the surface and underwater.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent in any way the editorial position of Euronews.
There has never been a rules-based international order. What is new is admitting it.
The American arrest of Venezuela’s dictator Nicolás Maduro (and his wife), accompanied by the use of military force, has understandably prompted many in Europe to lament what they see as a breach of the rules-based international order.
A couple of centrist House Democrats are reportedly upset with their more leftist peers for publicly complaining about the Trump administration’s capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.
One swing-district House Democrat anonymously told Axios that this idea that “everything Trump touches must be bad” held by the Democratic base is not wise.
“Maduro is bad, glad he is gone,” the Democrat said, adding that his left-wing peers “can’t have it both ways.”
There’s nothing like a dramatic military action by President Trump to underline how much National “Public” Radio sounds like DNC Radio. On Weekend Edition Saturday, within hours of Maduro being seized, guest host Daniel Estrin interviewed Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and energetically pushed that Trump’s actions were illegal:
ESTRIN: You were among the lawmakers who said the Trump administration’s strikes on boats in the Caribbean were illegal. You were even discussing the possibility of those strikes constituting a war crime. So how do you see last night’s operations?
After President Donald Trump ratcheted up the pressure on Venezuela’s Maduro regime through drone strikes on drug boats, Venezuela has responded with vows to “protect” their interests from U.S. aggression. Now, the President is pushing both nations towards the brink of war, declaring the Maduro regime a terrorist organization and ordering all oil tankers seized.
Trump alerted Americans through Truth Social, “I am ordering A TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS going into, and out of, Venezuela. (They are) completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America. It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before — Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.”
The Maduro regime has responded by promising to protect their oil tankers with their own Navy. Trump has also placed a $50 million bounty on Maduro’s head. Maduro is alleged to have offered to resign on condition he remain in control of the military, but that offer, if it happened, was refused. The reason for Trump’s incursion into Venezuela may have more to do with China than anything else. A future MIA might delve into that possibility.
President Donald Trump announced the escalation of U.S. efforts against the regime in Venezuela after a series of military strikes on alleged narco-terrorist drug boats.
The president said he was designating the regime a foreign terrorist organization and ordered a blockade against oil tankers.
President Claudia Sheinbaum on Wednesday reiterated Mexico’s opposition to foreign interventions and interference as the United States ramps up its aggressive posture against Venezuela.
Speaking at her morning press conference, Sheinbaum also called on the United Nations to assume its “role” and prevent bloodshed in Venezuela.
Trump also wrote that “the Venezuelan Regime has been designated a foreign terrorist organization” by the U.S. government, and declared that “Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America.”
The Trump Administration dramatically escalated its standoff with Venezuela on Wednesday by seizing a large tanker loaded with crude oil bound for Cuba.
Why it matters: President Trump’s pressure campaign on Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro has now struck at the heart of Venezuela’s oil-based economy.
While taking questions from reporters at the White House President Donald Trump reiterated his administration’s intent to pursue land-based military actions against drug trafficking networks in Venezuela.
“We’re going to start doing those strikes on land, too. You know, the land is much easier, much easier. And we know the routes they take. We know everything about them. We know where they live. We know where the bad ones live, and we’re going to start that very soon too,” the president told reporters.
The president’s comments build on similar remarks made earlier in the week and underscores an escalation from maritime interdictions to potential operations on Venezuelan soil.
In a dramatic escalation of U.S. pressure on hostile regimes, federal forces intercepted and seized a massive crude-oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela—one of the largest ever captured. President Trump confirmed the operation from the White House, calling it a major blow to an international smuggling network that moved sanctioned oil from both Venezuela and Iran to fund foreign terrorist organizations. The FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, and the U.S. Coast Guard executed the warrant with military support, neutralizing what officials described as a “stateless vessel” deeply embedded in years of illicit energy trade. The move jolted global markets, lifting Brent crude prices, and signaled Washington’s readiness to disrupt rogue-state financing far beyond U.S. shores.
When Pete Hegseth was made Donald Trump’s secretary of war, there was shock and consternation. Since then he has put highly classified plans to bomb Yemen on a group chat and ordered executions of Venezuelans in the sea, reportedly insisting they “kill everybody”, even when the survivors who were seen clinging to a boat could pose no threat.
The former Fox News talkshow host holds one of the most powerful jobs in the world and has come to it with a clear ideology. He wants to bring his “warrior culture” to the US military. Joseph Gedeon, a breaking news reporter for the Guardian US, tells Nosheen Iqbal:
His whole thing is about what he calls the warrior ethos. His whole message is that America fights with one hand tied behind its back because of lawyers, oversight and cultural distractions.
