12 h. ago Maduro urges Trump to abandon ‘illegal warmongering’ and start ‘serious talks’

Venezuelan president warns of a ‘forever war’ similar to Iraq after US counterpart claims first land strike on dockThe Venezuelan leader, Nicolás Maduro, has urged Donald Trump to abandon his “illegal warmongering” and begin “serious talks” with his administration as mystery continued to surround a purported pre-Christmas CIA airstrike on the South American country.Speaking during an hour-long TV interview, Maduro declined to confirm reports of the apparent US attack, which would be the first on Venezuelan soil since Trump began his five-month campaign of military pressure in August. Continue reading...

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15 h. ago Venezuela’s Maduro ready for ‘serious talks’ with US on drug trafficking

Nicolas Maduro has described Venezuela as a "brother country" to the United States and a friendly government

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22 h. ago Venezuela open to talks on drug trafficking, says Maduro, but refuses to comment on reported US strike on land

President Nicolás Maduro reiterated his belief that the US wants to force a change of government in Venezuela and gain access to its vast oil reserves Venezuela is open to negotiating an agreement with the US to combat drug trafficking, the country’s president Nicolás Maduro has said, but he declined to comment on a reported CIA-led strike on a Venezuelan docking area that Donald Trump claimed was used by cartels.Maduro, in the pre-recorded interview with Spanish journalist Ignacio Ramonet, reiterated his belief that the US wants to force a change of government in Venezuela and gain access to its vast oil reserves through its months-long pressure campaign that began with a massive military deployment to the Caribbean Sea in August. Continue reading...

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24 h. ago Maduro open to US talks on drug trafficking, but silent on CIA strike

Venezuela is open to reaching an agreement with the United States to combat drug trafficking, according to President Nicolás Maduro

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3 d. ago Trump’s shadow war in Venezuela grows, but country’s strongman leader still clings to power

Report of a drone attack on a port facility signals new phase in US military campaign against Nicolás MaduroUS wargames played out scenarios for Maduro’s fall. None of them ended well for VenezuelaNearly a week after Donald Trump first announced what he said was the first US ground strike in a four-month-long military pressure campaign against Venezuela, details remain very thin on the ground.CNN and the New York Times reported late on Monday that they had confirmed the CIA had used a drone to target a “port facility” allegedly used by the Tren de Aragua street gang. No casualties were reported, but the date, time and location of the attack remain unknown. Venezuela’s strongman leader, Nicolás Maduro, and his government have remained silent. If confirmed, the first strike on land would mark a new phase in a campaign that since August has involved the deployment of a massive US naval fleet, airstrikes that have so far killed 107 people, a “total blockade” of sanctioned oil tankers, t...

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3 d. ago CBS News veterans urge David Ellison to protect 60 Minutes from Bari Weiss’ ‘editorial interference’

‘Weiss’ last-minute proposal that the story be delayed until it included a White House official, despite reported efforts by the 60 Minutes team to get comment from the Administration, was inappropriate,’ the letter states

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3 d. ago CIA carries out first drone strike on Venezuelan soil in latest escalation of Trump admin’s attacks on ‘narco terrorists’

US targeted alleged drug traffickers in first-known land attack inside the country

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3 d. ago CIA 'carries out drone strike' on Venezuelan drug port in first US land attack inside the country

The CIA drone strike was carried out on a remote dock on the coast of Venezuela believed to used by the Tren de Aragua gang to stockpile and transfer drugs.

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4 d. ago US struck ‘big facility’ in Venezuela, Trump claimed without offering details

Trump alleged that US forces hit ‘very hard’ in what would mark his team’s first land strike on Venezuela if confirmedDonald Trump has claimed that US forces struck a “big facility” in Venezuela last week – but the president did not specify what it was, or where, and the White House has not commented further.“We just knocked out – I don’t know if you read or you saw – they have a big plant, or a big facility, where the ships come from. Two nights ago, we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard,” Trump told Republican donor and New York supermarket owner John Catsimatidis on Friday. Continue reading...

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4 d. ago Trump casually confirms first land strike on plant in Venezuela: 'We knocked that out'

Donald Trump appeared to give nonchalant confirmation of the first US land strike in Venezuela during a call on December 26.

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5 d. ago Inmate on the run after Christmas prison break was jailed for county lines drug dealing

Mahad Elmi is being hunted by police after setting up a drug dealing operation using a teenager to sell crack and heroin trafficked from London to Cardiff

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8 d. ago Falling price of cocaine forces drug traffickers to reuse narco

Previously vessels would be sunk once they had completed their cargo runs from South America to EuropeThe plummeting price of cocaine is forcing drug-traffickers to reuse the “narco-submarines” they would previously have scuttled once the custom-built vessels had completed their cargo runs from South America to Europe, according to a senior Spanish police officer.While semi-submersible vehicles have been used regularly in Colombia and other parts of South and Central America since the 1980s, they were not detected in European waters until 2006, when an abandoned sub was found in an estuary in the north-west Spanish region of Galicia. Continue reading...

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9 d. ago Trump’s claims to Venezuelan oil are part of broader ‘resource imperialism’, experts say

Critics compare offensive to Iraq war, citing familiar mix of regime-change rhetoric, security pretexts and oil interestsDonald Trump’s recent claims that the US should keep Venezuelan oil from seized tankers are part of a broader belief in rightwing “resource imperialism”, experts say.In recent weeks, the Trump administration has escalated pressure on Venezuela, invoking drug-trafficking claims. This month, the US intercepted two tankers carrying Venezuelan oil and began pursuing a third, while intensifying its campaign against the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro. Continue reading...

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1 week ago A Canadian lawyer linked to a former Olympic snowboarder accused of drug trafficking gets bail

A Canadian lawyer accused of playing a key role in an international drug smuggling network involving a former Olympic snowboarder has been granted bail ahead of his extradition hearing to the United States

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1 week ago Ecuador court sentences 11 air force troops over disappearance of four boys

Long sentences in case of Afro-Ecuadorian ‘Guayaquil Four’ focuses attention on president’s crackdown on crimeA court in Ecuador has sentenced 11 air force personnel to decades in prison over the forced disappearance” of four Afro-Ecuadorian boys aged between 11 and 15 during security operations in the country’s largest city last year.The case of the “Guayaquil Four” is widely seen as the starkest example of human rights abuses under the iron-fist security policy pursued by the rightwing president, Daniel Noboa, who placed the armed forces at the centre of the fight against drug trafficking. Continue reading...

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2 w. ago Trump refuses to rule out going to war with Venezuela and says Maduro ‘knows what I want’

The US has amassed a huge military force near the country and announced a ‘blockade’ on sanctioned vessels

Politics

2 w. ago US strikes two more alleged drug boats, bringing death toll to over 100

US military declares five alleged drug traffickers killed in Pacific OceanThe US military said it killed on Thursday five more alleged drug traffickers aboard two vessels in the Pacific Ocean, bringing the divisive campaign’s death toll to over 100.The Trump administration has carried out such strikes in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean since September but has provided no evidence that the boats are involved in drug trafficking, prompting debate about the operations’ legality. Continue reading...

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2 w. ago A look at the US military's unusually large force near Venezuela

The U.S. military has amassed an unusually large force in the Caribbean Sea and the waters off the coast of Venezuela since this summer, when the Trump administration first began to shift assets to the region as part of its anti-drug trafficking operations

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2 w. ago US strike on alleged drug boat in Pacific kills four, as Trump accuses Venezuela of taking ‘our oil’

The announcement from Pete Hegseth comes a day after Trump issued a blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving VenezuelaThe US military carried out a lethal strike on a vessel it said was engaged in drug trafficking in the eastern Pacific, according to defense secretary Pete Hegseth, as Trump further ratcheted up pressure on Venezuela, accusing the country of taking US oil.On Wednesday Hegseth said the “lethal kinetic strike” on a vessel engaged in “narco-trafficking operations” had killed four people. The latest strike in the Pacific brings the death toll to 99 since the US began its campaign of striking alleged drug-trafficking boats in September. Continue reading...

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2 w. ago Bella Culley's emotional baby post after jail hell as she has ‘her hands full'

Teenager Bella Culley, who was convicted of drug trafficking from Thailand into Georgia this year, announced the arrival of her baby boy on TikTok last week

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