John Addison, front right, energy trader for Vitol, attends a meeting with oil company executives hosted by US President Donald Trump in the East Room of the White House on January 9, 2026. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
“Trump took Venezuela’s oil at gunpoint, and gave it to one of his biggest campaign donors,” wrote one US senator.
The first US sale of Venezuelan oil since the Trump administration illegally attacked the South American country earlier this month went to the company of a trader who donated millions to President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign.
The roughly $250 million sale of Venezuelan crude went to Vitol, a Geneva-based energy and commodity trading firm whose US arm is headquartered in Houston. The Financial Timesreported late last week that John Addison, a senior trader at Vitol, was involved in his company’s efforts to secure the deal.
Addison, who attended a recent White House meeting with other top oil executives, donated $6 million total to Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign via several super PACs, including $5 million to MAGA Inc.
“Addison pledged to Trump at the [White House] event that Vitol would attain the best price possible for Venezuelan oil for the US, ‘so that the influence you have over the Venezuelans will ensure that you get what you want,’” according to the Financial Times.
US Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), noted on social media that Vitol has a “criminal history of bribing foreign governments” and called the Venezuelan oil deal “fundamentally corrupt.”
“Trump took Venezuela’s oil at gunpoint, and gave it to one of his biggest campaign donors,” Murphy wrote. “Vitol had to buy access to Trump because under normal circumstances, they wouldn’t be able to get a deal like this.”
Vitol is one of a number of corporations positioned to reap windfall profits from the Trump administration’s assault on Venezuela, abduction of its president, and efforts to seize and indefinitely control the country’s vast oil reserves.
Hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer’s firm Elliott Investment Management has for years been in the process of acquiring distressed Venezuelan-owned assets in the US and is on the cusp of owning them. After clearing final regulatory and legal approval, the firm can use them to make a considerable profit turning newly available Venezuelan oil into gasoline. The company that would be acquired by an Elliott affiliate is Citgo, the Houston-based refining firm owned by Venezuela’s state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). Citgo owns refineries in Illinois, Louisiana and Texas that are well-positioned to profit off the millions of barrels of Venezuelan oil that Trump says will be steered to US refineries because it is a particularly heavy blend of crude that is difficult to process. Only certain refineries, like those run by Citgo, are equipped to handle it.
Proceeds from the US sale of Venezuelan oil are being stashed in Qatar—an arrangement that critics said opens the door to additional corruption.
“After illegally and unconstitutionally striking Venezuela, Trump is now selling Venezuelan oil through a campaign donor, and funneling the proceeds to an offshore account in Qatar—creating a potential slush fund with no accountability, oversight, or guardrails for Trump and his allies,” US Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) wrote late Sunday. “His continued abuse of power doesn’t serve the Venezuelan people or the American people—and it certainly doesn’t lower costs for Americans.”
“This outrage,” Booker added, “is yet another example of his unchecked corruption as he again ignores laws and enriches his friends, donors, and himself.”
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.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.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Presidential candidate Fernando Dias da Costa of the Party for Social Renewal (PRS) in a pre-election meeting. Photo: JAAC / Facebook
Claiming to be under arrest, President Embaló has left the country while his opponents remain in custody after a military coup a day ahead of the announcement of the final results
The military coup in Guinea-Bissau on November 26 was not directed against the outgoing president, Umaro Sissoco Embaló, but orchestrated by him to thwart the return to constitutional order, opposition parties and members of the dissolved parliament allege.
Claiming to be arrested by the coup leaders – while still communicating with the French media – Embaló flew to neighboring Senegal the following day. His opponents, on the other hand, are still held in military custody.
The coup came on the heels of the long-delayed elections on Sunday, November 23. Both domestic and international observers had reportedly agreed that Embaló was voted out of the presidency.
“Why would anyone do a coup against a losing candidate?” asked Imani Umoja, Central Committee member of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC).
Having led the country’s liberation struggle against Portuguese colonialism under the leadership of the Marxist revolutionary Amilcar Cabral, PAIGC is the country’s largest party. Its presidential candidate, Domingos Simões Pereira, Embaló’s main opponent, was barred from contesting the election by the Supreme Court, whose legitimate president had been replaced in 2023 by militias of the presidential guard under Embaló’s command.
“We had three options. One was to boycott the election,” which would have only handed over power to Embaló for the second term without a fight, Umoja told Peoples Dispatch. “Or we could have taken the streets in protest, but that is what the regime wanted. They would have killed us and postponed the election,” further extending his rule that had already continued beyond his term.
“So we decided to back one of the candidates approved to contest. Dias was our natural choice,” because he is the head of the Party for Social Renewal (PRS) – a splinter from the PAIGC. “There is no great ideological difference between us,” he added, explaining the split was over tactical differences, overcoming which the two parties had often collaborated on broader struggles.
Although the leadership of the PRS identified the party as “social-democratic” as opposed to PAIGC’s “socialist” identification, the rank-and-file of both parties are Cabralists.
“So we were able to reach an agreement that once Dias becomes the president, he would reverse all the unconstitutional decrees by Embaló.”
An unconstitutional regime
Swearing himself in as the country’s president at a hotel guarded by soldiers in February 2020 after a disputed election against the PAIGC leader Pereira, who was barred from contesting this time, Embaló had the president of the Supreme Court replaced, practically at gunpoint, in November 2023. Then, in December that year, he unconstitutionally dissolved the parliament, where the PAIGC had the majority, justifying the action by citing a coup attempt he had allegedly staged himself.
Removing the ministers constitutionally chosen by this parliament, he replaced them with a so-called “Government of Presidential Initiative.”
Thus, grabbing all power and dismantling democratic structures, Embaló has allegedly been signing away in secret valuable natural resources and lucrative infrastructure projects to France and the neighboring West African states under its neocolonial yoke.
A reversal of this neocolonial penetration was set to begin under Dias’s presidency, starting with the restoration of the dissolved parliament, the National People’s Assembly, dominated by the PAIGC and presided by its leader and barred candidate, Pereira.
According to the vote count from each region published by the Regional Electoral Councils, Embaló bagged around 43% of the votes, while Dias had won with about 53%, said Umoja.
A staged coup
However, one day before the National Electoral Council was set to publish the final results, summing up the nationwide count and the votes from the diaspora, gunfire erupted near the presidential palace.
“But there was no fighting. Soldiers were shooting in the air,” said Umoja. Embaló then told the French media that he had been removed from power in a coup led by a group of soldiers who had put him under arrest. “It was all staged. The coup was not against Embaló, but Dias… the president-elect.”
Opening fire near the National Election Council, “another group of armed people from the Ministry of Interior, accompanied by some soldiers, barged into its office and seized the phones of all the workers there, including the representatives of the candidates,” he added.
“A group of heavily armed militias associated with the Presidential Palace” also “invaded the campaign headquarters of the presidential candidate [Dias],” said Ruth Monteiro, Director of the Office of the President of the National People’s Assembly, namely Pereira.
Pereira was arrested with Dias’s National Representative, Octávio Lopes, and several others, Monteiro added. Dias himself managed to escape arrest “through a back door,” he later said in a video message.
Shutting down the radio, the officers who carried out the coup read out a statement on television, declaring themselves in charge, christening their junta as the “High Military Command for the Restoration of Order.”
Announcing the closure of borders, they ordered the suspension of the electoral process “until further notice”, ostensibly to thwart the “capture of Guinean democracy” by “narcotraffickers”.
Labeling this as “a self-coup orchestrated by Umaru Sissoko Embaló, who was overwhelmingly defeated at the polls,” the West Africa People’s Organization said: “The very clear aim is to prevent the electoral body from announcing results that are unfavorable to this well-known agent of the neo-colonial system.”
On November 27, when General Horta Nta Na Man swore in as transitional president for one year, the junta announced that it “strictly prohibits any demonstration, march, strike or action that disrupts peace and stability.”
Protests
“We cannot fold our hands while our leadership is imprisoned unjustly. When our leader and candidate was barred from contesting, we chose to avoid” a confrontation by not taking to the streets, backing another candidate instead. “But now we have run out of options. We have to protest.”
The Amílcar Cabral African Youth (JAAC) posted videos of protest marches in some neighborhoods around the Ministry of Interior. Large-scale protests are at high risk at the moment in Guinea-Bissau. A large section of “our leadership is still in hiding,” Umoja added.
However, the diaspora is mobilizing. In Dakar, the capital of Senegal, progressive Senegalese activists protested alongside the diaspora outside the Guinea-Bissau embassy against hosting Embaló in the country. “Dictators are not wanted anywhere!” Umoja remarked.
JAAC Portugal and Firkidja di Pubis, an organization of Guinean students and workers abroad, protested in Lisbon, capital of their former colony, outside the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), chaired by Embaló.
“The CPLP and the so-called international community” is complicit with Embaló, who “orchestrated a fake coup d’état with the sole purpose of derailing the electoral process in which the people had defeated his dictatorship,” Firkidja di Pubis accused. Protesters demanded the “completion of the electoral process in which the people chose Fernando Dias da Costa as their President.”
Should the junta not pay heed, Umoja warns, “Embaló’s followers in the military are only those who are paid” for their loyalty, but the bulk of the rank-and-file soldiers are unpaid.
The PAIGC denounced on Saturday, November 29, that a group of masked and armed men raided their headquarters, attacking party leaders and those present. In statements released, the party alleges that the objective of the raid was to plant weapons in the office to later serve as evidence against them. The party called on the international community to “follow these events closely and support all of the efforts to preserve democratic legality.” The party has also called for authorities to release Pereira and all others arrested amid the coup plot.
Graffiti in Lima condemning police repression of protests. Photo via Joxe Carlos / X
Protesters are demanding an end to the government with the highest disapproval rating on the entire continent. Boluarte, however, says she will not resign.
Another massive mobilization took place on October 4 in Lima, Peru’s capital, against the government of Dina Boluarte. With this mobilization, it has now been three weeks in a row that thousands of Peruvians have taken to the streets to demand an end to the proposed pension reform, corruption, insecurity, and police abuse.
But, as several analysts have pointed out, the protests are no longer focused solely on specific issues, but on raising the demand for an end to the Boluarte government. Boluarte took office after the overthrow of then-President Pedro Castillo, and led to the deaths of more than 60 Peruvians following massive protests between 2022 and 2023.
Protests in Lima
On Saturday, October 4, the streets of downtown Lima were once again filled with cries against the government and the national congress. The demonstrations were attended by young people, university students, workers, transport workers, and various collectives who denounced the Peruvian state structure as corrupt due to the presence of political and economic mafias. The General Confederation of Workers of Peru (CGTP) also joined the demonstration.
However, journalist Ricardo Rodríguez argues that perhaps the most important aspect of the protests is not the repression, but rather the ability of Peruvians to mobilize in the face of a government that refuses to step aside: “It’s not just about bullets, tear gas, or arrests. What those in power fear – and are already beginning to feel – is that these young people are not just taking to the streets: they know, they understand, they articulate. They organize in a decentralized manner; they mobilize without waiting for permission; they use social media not as a showcase but as a tool for coordination; they demand not crumbs, but real change.
Rodríguez also pointed out that there is a spirit of rejection not only of the current government, but of a system that offers no opportunities for growth for Peruvians, felt most strongly among young people: “Many reject the economic model that offers them precariousness, miserable wages, and old age without decent pensions. The proposed reform is not the only cause: it is the trigger for accumulated resentment against decades of broken promises and state neglect.”
Transport workers’ strike
In addition to the demonstrations on Saturday, October 4, several dozen transport companies in Peru staged protests against the government of Dina Boluarte on October 7.
Their main demand is that the government take action to stop the growing wave of insecurity and extortion suffered by transport workers at the hands of organized crime groups. Attacks on transport workers have caused the deaths of 47 drivers.
At various points in Lima, transport workers stopped work and gathered in the streets to demand a change in the state’s security policy, even blocking roads to make themselves heard.
France 24 correspondent Francisco Zacarías reported that there were clashes between protesters and police. He also stated that President Boluarte “downplayed” the transport strike and said that the protests “will not solve the problem,” which has further provoked the transport unions.
Sign on a bus reads “We want to work and return home. We do NOT want to die working. We have family and children that wait for us at home.” Photo via X
Almost total rejection of the Boluarte government and Congress
Currently, Peru’s Congress has one of the lowest approval ratings among the country’s various state institutions, reaching almost total rejection. Not far behind, President Boluarte has a 96% disapproval rating, according to an IPSOS poll.
In this regard, IPSOS CEO Alfredo Torres stated: “This is something that has never been seen before in history, nor has it been seen in other countries. A poor approval rating for any president is 20% in favor and 80% against, but a 96% disapproval rating is extremely high. It is absolute rejection, absolute distrust. People no longer expect anything. It is also outrageous that scandals continue to emerge and nothing happens.”
“I will not resign,” says Boluarte
Faced with periodic protests and a huge crisis of legitimacy, President Boluarte stated that she has no intention of leaving power before the 2026 elections. According to Boluarte, Peru has become a prime destination for foreign investment, so her administration is more than justified.
“If those small-time leaders believe that with riots, violence, hatred, and the desire to impose an anarchic world, they are going to change the history of Peru … We are seeing other countries that have done the same and have failed governments,” Boluarte said.
However, Boluarte will still have to endure protests that seem to be increasing in frequency in line with the disapproval of her mandate.
Axel Kicillof and other Peronist leaders in Buenos Aires celebrating their victory on Sunday, September 7. Photo: Fuerza Patria / X
Despite the president taking a front-line role in the election campaign and predicting victory for his party (“Buenos Aires will be painted purple,” Milei claimed), the figures speak for themselves. Voter turnout is estimated at almost 61%.
On September 7, 2025, the province of Buenos Aires dealt a crushing defeat to the right-wing libertarian project of President Javier Milei, who, after learning the results of the provincial elections, said: “Today we have suffered a clear defeat and we must accept it.”
The people of Buenos Aires province, which accounts for 38% of the country’s population, elected senators, deputies, and delegates of their municipalities. Peronism decided to join forces and form a large anti-Milei alliance called Fuerza Patria (Homeland Force), which, according to official data, obtained almost 47% of the valid votes. Meanwhile, La Libertad Avanza, Milei’s party that allied itself with the PRO (the party of former president Mauricio Macri), reached almost 34%. In third and fourth place were the centrist SOMOS and the Left Front, respectively, which each obtained almost 5%. The rest of the votes were divided among the other contenders.
In other words, Peronism won by more than 13 points over the far right, allowing it to take six of the eight electoral districts. La Libertad Avanza only managed to win the fifth and sixth districts. In addition, Peronism swept the municipal elections, winning 95 of the 135 municipalities in the province.
Milei says he will not back down
Despite the resounding defeat, Milei stated that while the necessary political mistakes must be corrected, he will not back down from his neoliberal project. “We will not back down one millimeter in the government’s policy; we will accelerate the course even more. If we have made political mistakes, we will process them and do better to win in October… We will continue to defend fiscal balance.”
He also took the opportunity to criticize his primary opposition, “They have put all the Peronist apparatus that they have been managing for 40 years into play, and this [result] is the floor for us and the ceiling for them.”
Peronism celebrates
For its part, the main opposition force, Peronism, celebrated the results. Former President Cristina Fernández, who is currently under house arrest, wrote on her X account: “Did you see that, Milei? Trivializing and vandalizing the ‘Never Again’ movement, which represents the darkest and most tragic period in Argentine history, does not come without a price. Neither is laughing at the death and pain of your opponents. But pointing fingers and stigmatizing the disabled, while your sister charges a 3% kickback on their medications, is lethal. And I’d better not even tell you how the rest (of those who still have jobs) are doing. Indebted for food, rent, expenses, or medications, and on top of that, with maxed-out credit cards. Get out of your bubble, brother.”
The Peronist governor of the province of Buenos Aires, Axel Kicillof, said to his supporters after learning the results: “The message from the polls is that you can’t govern for outsiders, for those who have the most. Milei: You have to govern for the people.” Furthermore, looking ahead to future elections, including the presidential election, Kicillof stated: “The elections have shown that there is another way, and today we are beginning to follow it.”
What is the reason for the crisis of ultraliberalism?
There are several elements which can help explain the defeat of Milei and his party on Sunday.
Other interpretations also point to an increasingly difficult management of the economy. The government has implemented a radical neoliberal policy that is in line with the demands of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This has brought some stability to inflation, but it has also caused enormous social unrest, such as that of retirees who have taken to the streets every week to protest against government cuts to health care and freeze pensions.
In this regard, journalist Federico Rivas Molina wrote in El País: “The economic team is finding it increasingly difficult to maintain the value of the peso against the dollar. To prevent the dollarization of peso portfolios, it first raised rates to 80%, triple the inflation forecast for this year. Then it raised bank reserve requirements to 50% to reduce the amount of pesos in circulation. In the middle of last week, the floating bands it had agreed with the International Monetary Fund and sold dollars from the Treasury. Milei then blamed the turbulence on what he called ‘the kuka risk,’ that is, the fear of a Kirchnerist victory that had investors terrified. With the prophecy fulfilled, the scenario is now much more hostile than it was on Friday.”
Along these lines, Erika Gimenez, a journalist at ARG Medios, told Peoples Dispatch that Milei’s economic plan is not working and the people know it. She explained, “No one feels that their economic situation has improved under Milei’s government; quite the contrary: inflation is rising, salaries are insufficient, pensions for retirees and disabled people are being cut, among other cruel policies implemented by Milei. He is not convincing a sector that previously voted for him.”
She also expressed her opinion that Peronism, which has several internal tendencies (not always compatible), could sustain this alliance in the medium term thanks to the emergence of a figure who can bring together the different internal forces: “I think that Axel Kicillof’s leadership [in Peronism] is indisputable.”
Regarding the immediate future of Milei’s government, Gimenez said that a process of internal crisis is coming: “The figure of his sister is weighing on Milei, and despite this, he is not going to remove her. In addition, some ministers are going to resign or be fired, although it is not known which ones. There is a kind of political instability and instability in the Milei government’s economic project. It is most likely that between now and October, when there will be national legislative elections in which everyone in the country votes, political and economic stability will be at stake.”
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends his trial on corruption charges at the district court in Tel Aviv, on April 21, 2025. [Moti KIMCHI / POOL / AFP / Getty Images]
Members of Israel’s Knesset (parliament) have accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of using the ongoing Gaza war to secure an end to his corruption trial, Anadolu reports.
“(Netanyahu) is conditioning the future of Israel and our children on his trial,” Knesset member for the Democrats Party, Naama Lazimi, said in statements cited by The Times of Israel news outlet on Sunday.
She said that the Israeli premier showed that he is unfit for the office by “trading his indictment in exchange for a political settlement and an end to the war.”
US President Donald Trump called again on Saturday for Netanyahu’s corruption trial to be cancelled.
Highlighting the billions of dollars the US spends annually to support Israel, Trump declared, “We are not going to stand for this,” and urged authorities to “Let Bibi go.”
“Those behind President Trump’s tweet are Netanyahu and his corrupt gang,” Democrats lawmaker Gilad Kariv said.
He denounced the Israeli premier and his circle’s “willingness to play with the national security of the State of Israel and the issue of the hostages in order to save Netanyahu from conviction in court.”
The Palestinian resistance group Hamas has repeatedly said that it is ready to release all Israeli captives in Gaza in exchange for an end to the ongoing war, Israeli withdrawal from the enclave, and the release of Palestinian prisoners.
However, Netanyahu has rejected these terms, and continued his genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, where more than 56,400 people have been killed since October 2023.
Yesh Atid Knesset member Karine Elharrar warned that Netanyahu was “acting against the Israeli public interest” by linking his legal fate with hostage negotiations and regional normalization agreements.
She also accused Trump of effectively “conditioning US aid on the prime minister’s trial.”
Opposition leader Yair Lapid urged the US president “not to interfere in a legal process in an independent country.”
He also suggested that Trump’s interference might be a form of “compensation” to Netanyahu for political concessions in Gaza.
Religious Zionism lawmaker Simcha Rothman, chairman of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, called Trump’s call to end Netanyahu’s trial “inappropriate even if he is correct.”
Netanyahu faces charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust that could lead to imprisonment if proven.
In January, Netanyahu began interrogation sessions related to Cases 1000, 2000, and 4000, which he denies. The attorney general filed an indictment related to these cases at the end of November 2019.
Case 1000 involves Netanyahu and his family receiving expensive gifts from wealthy businessmen in exchange for favors.
Case 2000 concerns alleged negotiations with Arnon Mozes, the publisher of the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, to gain positive media coverage.
Case 4000, considered the most serious, involves providing facilitation to Shaul Elovitch, the former owner of the news site Walla and a telecommunications company Bezeq, in return for favorable media coverage.
Netanyahu, whose trial began on May 24, 2020, is the first sitting Israeli leader to take the stand as a criminal defendant in the country’s history.
He also faces charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, with the International Criminal Court issuing arrest warrants for him and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in November 2024 over atrocities in Gaza.
