A supporter holds a poster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, January 3, 2026, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that Maduro had been captured and flown out of the country
VENEZUELA’S new interim president Delcy Rodriguez must provide the United States with “total access” to its oil reserves, US President Donald Trump said on Sunday evening.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday night, Mr Trump was asked what his government wants from Ms Rodriguez following its kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores at the weekend.
“Total access,” Mr Trump said. “We need total access to the oil and other things in their country that allow us to rebuild [it].”
Former vice-president Ms Rodriguez was officially sworn in as interim president today, while maintaining that Mr Maduro remains the legitimate president and must be released.
…
Mr Trump also took aim at Colombia and President Gustavo Petro.
“Colombia’s very sick too,” he said. “Run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States. And he’s not going to be doing it very long.”
Asked if that might mean another attack on a peaceful Latin American country, Trump said: “Sounds good to me.”
Mr Petro took to social media today to say: “The US is the first country in the world to bomb a South American capital in all of human history.”
He called on Latin American countries to unite or risk being “treated as a servant and slave.”
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
A member of the militia group known as “Colectivos” takes part in a march calling for release of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, after he and his wife Cilia Flores were captured following U.S. strikes on Venezuela, in Caracas, Venezuela. Photograph: Gaby Oráa/Reuters
“Uncertainty,” said Griselda Guzmán, a 68-year-old pensioner, fighting back tears as she lined up outside a grocery store with her husband to stock up on supplies in case the coming days brought yet more drama.
“Anger,” said Sauriany, a 23-year-old administrative worker from Venezuela’s state-owned electricity company as she queued outside a supermarket on the other side of town with her 24-year-old partner, Leandro.
Leandro voiced shock as the couple waited in a 100-person queue to buy flour, milk and butter alongside a quartet of nuns. “W ho could have imagined that his would happen? That right at the start of the year they’d bomb our country while everyone was asleep?” he asked.
“If I thought it would improve the country I’d welcome it,” Leandro added, as shoppers were allowed into the overcrowded supermarket in small groups. “But I don’t believe this will happen. If they wanted peace, this isn’t the way to achieve it.”
Similarly confused sentiments could be heard all over Caracas on Sunday as its 3 million citizens came to terms with the traumatic nocturnal blitz on their city – a move the governments of Spain, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay warned set “an extremely dangerous precedent for peace and regional security”.
“It’s all so distressing,” said Gabriel Vásquez, a 29-year-old video-maker, recalling how he had been woken by the sound of a “gigantic” explosion at about 2am on Saturday and how his community in central Caracas was plunged into darkness as aircraft circled overhead.
“I thought that any time my house could get bombed too,” said Vásquez, whose neighbourhood was still in the dark on Sunday. “We have no water, no electricity, no phone reception – nothing,” he complained.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel waves a Venezuelan national flag in Havana on January 3, 2026. (Photo by Adalberto Roque/AFP via Getty Images)
“The ‘Trump corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine—applied in recent hours with violent force over the skies of Caracas—is the single greatest threat to peace and prosperity that the Americas confront today,” said Progressive International.
US President Donald Trump and top administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, characterized Saturday’s assault on Venezuela and abduction of the country’s president as a warning shot in the direction of Cuba, Mexico, Colombia, and other Latin American nations.
During a Saturday press conference, Trump openly invoked the Monroe Doctrine—an assertion of US dominance of the Western Hemisphere—and said his campaign of aggression against Venezuela represented the “Donroe Doctrine” in action.
In his unwieldy remarks, Trump called out Colombian President Gustavo Petro by name, accusing him without evidence of “making cocaine and sending it to the United States.”
“So he does have to watch his ass,” the US president said of Petro, who condemned the Trump administration’s Saturday attack on Venezuela as “aggression against the sovereignty of Venezuela and Latin America.”
Petro responded defiantly to the possibility of the US targeting him, writing on social media that he is “not worried at all.”
In a Fox News appearance earlier Saturday, Trump also took aim at the United States’ southern neighbor, declaring ominously that “something’s going to have to be done with Mexico,” which also denounced the attack on Venezuela and abduction of President Nicolás Maduro.
“She is very frightened of the cartels,” Trump said of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. “So we have to do something.”
“This armed attack on Venezuela is not an isolated event. It is the next step in the United States’ campaign of regime change that stretches from Caracas to Havana.”
Rubio, for his part, focused on Cuba—a country whose government he has long sought to topple.
“If I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I’d be concerned, at least a little bit,” Rubio, who was born in Miami to Cuban immigrant parents, said during Saturday’s press conference.
“It is the next step in the United States’ campaign of regime change that stretches from Caracas to Havana—and an attack on the very principle of sovereign equality and the prospects for the Zone of Peace once established by the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States,” the coalition said in a statement. “This renewed declaration of impunity from Washington is a threat to all nations around the world.”
“Trump has clearly articulated the imperial logic of this intervention—to seize control over Venezuela’s natural resources and reassert US domination over the hemisphere,” said Progressive International. “The ‘Trump corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine—applied in recent hours with violent force over the skies of Caracas—is the single greatest threat to peace and prosperity that the Americas confront today.”
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
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Overview of the courtroom at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands on 22 April, 2024 [Selman Aksünger/Anadolu Agency]
The international court of justice (ICJ) announced on Tuesday that Belgium has joined the legal case brought by South Africa against Israel, accusing it of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip.
Several countries had already joined the case before Belgium, including Brazil, Ireland, Bolivia, Colombia, Libya, Spain and Mexico, at the United Nations’ highest court.
In a ruling issued in January 2024, around four months after the start of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, the court called on Israel to refrain from any acts that could fall under genocide. The court warned of a “real and imminent risk” of “irreparable harm” to Palestinians.
The ICJ also issued provisional measures ordering Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, prevent incitement to genocide and punish those responsible. Israel has so far failed to comply with these orders.
Meanwhile, Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza say they are continuing efforts to complete the first phase of the ceasefire agreement, which began on 10 October this year, by searching for the body of the last Israeli soldier in their possession. At the same time, Israel is accused of continuing to violate the agreement and failing to implement its terms, especially those related to the first phase.
Since the ceasefire took effect on 10 October, Israel has killed at least 406 Palestinians and injured 1,118 others in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the territory.
The ministry added that, since the outbreak of the war on 7 October 2023, the death toll has reached at least 70,942 Palestinians, with 171,195 others wounded.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the White House in Washington, DC on December 8, 2025. (Photo by Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“It’s now taken as a given… that Trump is mulling a ground invasion of Venezuela and a dramatic expansion in his bombing campaign with no congressional authorization,” said one critic.
President Donald Trump said in an interview published Tuesday that a US land attack on Venezuela is coming and signaled that he is open to launching similar military action against Colombia and Mexico.
“We’re gonna hit ‘em on land very soon, too,” Trump toldPolitico‘s Dasha Burns, citing the pretext of stopping fentanyl from entering the United States.
Trump repeated his baseless claim that during the administration of his predecessor, the “very stupid” former President Joe Biden, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro “sent us millions of people, many from prisons, many drug dealers, drug lords,” and “people in mental institutions.”
Burns then noted that most of the illicit fentanyl sold in the United States “is actually produced in Mexico,” which along with Colombia is “even more responsible” for trafficking the potent synthetic opioid into the US. She asked Trump if he would “consider doing something similar” to those countries.
“I would,” Trump replied. “Sure, I would.”
Pressed on his contradictory pardon of convicted narco-trafficking former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández while threatening war against Venezuela, Trump feigned ignorance, claiming that “I don’t know him” and asserting that “he was set up.”
Trump’s latest threat against Venezuela comes amid his deployment of warships and thousands of troops off the coast of the oil-rich South American nation, his approval of covert CIA action against Maduro’s government, and more than 20 airstrikes on boats his administration claims without evidence were smuggling drugs in the southern Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.
The Trump administration’s targeting of Venezuela evokes the long history of US “gunboat diplomacy” in Latin America and continues more than a century of Washington’s meddling in Venezuelan affairs. It also marks a historic escalation of aggression, as the US has never attacked Venezuelan territory.
Officials in Venezuela and Colombia, as well as relatives of men killed in the boat bombings, contend that at least some of the victims were fishermen who were not involved in drug trafficking.
The strikes have killed at least 87 people since early September, according to administration figures—including shipwrecked survivors slain in a so-called double-tap bombing. Legal experts and some former US military officials contend that the strikes are a violation of international law, murders, war crimes, or all of these.
Critics also assert that the boat strikes violate the War Powers Act, which requires the president to report any military action to Congress within 48 hours and mandates that lawmakers must approve troop deployments after 60 days. The Trump administration argues that it is not bound by the War Powers Resolution, citing as precedent the Obama administration’s highly questionable claim of immunity from the law when the US attacked Libya in 2011.
A bipartisan bid to block the boat bombings on the grounds that they run afoul of the War Powers Act failed to muster enough votes in the Senate in October.
“Note that it’s now taken as a given—as an unremarkable and baked-in fact about our politics—that Trump is mulling a ground invasion of Venezuela and a dramatic expansion in his bombing campaign with no congressional authorization,” New Republic staff writer Greg Sargent observed Tuesday in response to the president’s remarks to Politico.
“What emerges from this interview,” he added, “is that Trump is pulling all of this—the substantive case for these bombings, the legal justification for them, the rationale for mulling a massive military escalation in the Western Hemisphere—out of his rear end.”
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
A supporter holds a poster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, January 3, 2026, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that Maduro had been captured and flown out of the country
