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A general view of the International Criminal Court (ICC) building in The Hague, Netherlands on April 30, 2024. [Selman Aksünger – Anadolu Agency]
The US sanctioned four International Criminal Court (ICC) officials Wednesday, including a judge who authorized the arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Anadolu reports.
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) added Nicolas Yann Guillou, Nazhat Shameem Khan, Mame Mandiaye Niang and Kimberly Prost to the Specially Designated Nationals list.
The State Department said Guillou was sanctioned for authorizing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, while Prost faced penalties for approving investigations into US personnel in Afghanistan.
Guillou, a French jurist, serves on the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber I that issued the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant in November 2024. The warrants accuse both officials of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Deputy prosecutors Khan and Niang were designated for “continuing to support illegitimate ICC actions against Israel,” including upholding the warrants targeting Israeli leadership since assuming prosecutor office leadership.
The State Department said sanctions were imposed under Executive Order 14203, which targets “malign efforts by the ICC” and aims to impose consequences on those engaged in “transgressions against the United States and Israel.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused the four officials and the court of efforts to “investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel, without the consent of either nation.”
“The United States has been clear and steadfast in our opposition to the ICC’s politicization, abuse of power, disregard for our national sovereignty, and illegitimate judicial overreach,” he said in a statement, labeling the court as national security threat to Washington and Tel Aviv.
All property and interests of sanctioned individuals in the US or controlled by US persons are now blocked. Entities owned 50% or more by blocked persons are also sanctioned.
The OFAC also published a General License authorizing the winding down of existing transactions with sanctioned individuals until 12.01 a.m. EDT (0401GMT) on Sept. 19. But payments must be made into blocked interest-bearing accounts in the US, preventing those who are sanctioned from accessing funds.
The sanctions came amid an escalation between the US and the ICC, which Washington has not joined. In February, the Trump administration sanctioned the ICC and Prosecutor Karim Khan, accusing the court of “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.”
Israel has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023, devastating the enclave which faces famine. Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
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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/O74hZCKKdpAUK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.Vote Labour for Genocide.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio meets with US Special Operations Command in April, 2025. Photo: X
The action was announced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who called the Venezuelan government a “criminal organization”.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed Thursday, August 14, that he is sending troops to the southern Caribbean Sea to carry out military operations in the region. He said the goal is to arrest Latin American drug traffickers and linked one of these groups to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Rubio reinforced, without presenting evidence, the White House narrative that Maduro is the leader of the Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns), an alleged criminal organization. On July 25, the US State Department classified the group as an international terrorist group.
Now, Rubio has stepped up his game, stating that he is sending air and naval troops to control cartels that bring “poison” to the US. He stated that drug trafficking is a threat to US security and again called the Maduro government a “criminal organization”.
“These are groups that are operating with impunity in international waters, simply exporting to the United States poison that is killing, that is destroying communities… The Cartel de los Soles is one of the largest criminal organizations that exist in the hemisphere, which unfortunately has not been given enough attention. It is a cartel that today is indicted in the federal courts of the United States. It is not a government, the Maduro regime is not a government, it is a criminal organization,” Rubio said in a statement.
The Secretary of State did not provide details of the operation, but said the goal is to intercept the flow of drugs in the region.
Venezuelan military personnel interviewed by Brasil de Fato do not believe the United States could launch a military attack against the country. Sectors within the Armed Forces say they have not definitively ruled out any possibility, but understand the dispatch of planes and ships as yet another threat and a show of force by the White House.
Henry Navas Nieves, head of the Master’s program in Military History at the Bolivarian Military University of Venezuela, agrees with this thesis and states that the US learned from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, two conflicts that had a very high political, military, and economic cost for people in the United States.
“Since Obama, a new model of US warfare against expanding countries has emerged. They have abandoned direct armed confrontations and learned that it was possible to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi in Libya without deploying any soldiers. And they apply and replicate this. The use of their own military forces is inconvenient in these cases, and they resort to harassment and unilateral coercive measures,” Nieves told Brasil de Fato.
The military understands that the White House’s logic is based on encouraging conflicts and attacks by paramilitary and far-right groups in Venezuelan territory.
This week, the Venezuelan government announced that it had demobilized a new attempted attack against strategic structures in Venezuela. Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said on Tuesday, August 12, that security forces had identified terrorist plans organized by far-right sectors in conjunction with paramilitaries.
According to him, explosives were seized that had the capacity to hit targets at a distance of up to 1.2 kilometers and were intended to be used to attack hospitals, gas stations, and political figures.
One of the targets was Venezuela Plaza in downtown Caracas. According to Cabello, the group intended to blow up the Monument to the Victory of the Great Patriotic War against Nazism, a memorial to the Soviet Union, which was inaugurated in the first half of this year.
Navas claims that these new US military threats are “inexplicable” because they are based on an unfounded accusation: that Maduro leads a criminal organization.
“The Venezuelan government has actually dealt a severe blow to drug trafficking. These aggressive measures also respond to Venezuelan police operations against the far right, which attempted to organize terrorist attacks, something that was denounced and dismantled by security forces, in addition to the tons of explosives seized,” he stated.
Escalation in threats
Since the July 27 municipal elections, the US has increased its attacks on the Venezuelan government. In an interview with Fox News, US Attorney General Pamela Bondi said that more than USD 700 million in Maduro’s assets had been seized. She said that these were “mansions, cars, planes, and jewelry”, but presented no evidence and gave no indication of the location of these assets.
Navas argues that this escalation of threats is the result of a profound crisis the US is experiencing, involving a struggle between different conservative wings. He believes Rubio’s group seeks dominance in the region to regain the “sympathy” of its support base in Florida, where the Latin American far-right living in the US is concentrated.
“There is a mosaic of interests in the US vying for space and seeking to control the White House’s political decisions. Rubio leads one of them, and he is putting pressure on the government to launch an offensive against Venezuela in an attempt to overthrow the government. This is an escalation and a response to the Maduro government’s advance, which has seen significant victories in the recent regional, legislative, and municipal elections,” he said.
Last week, the US announced an increase to USD 50 million (approximately R$270 million) in the reward for information leading to the arrest of President Nicolás Maduro. The message was promptly responded to by the Venezuelan government. Foreign Minister Yván Gil called the announcement “a ridiculous political propaganda operation and a joke.”
Another speaker was Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López. He called this “immoral” and emphasized that criminal groups operating in Venezuela, such as the Aragua Train, have been “completely dismantled”.
Maduro also refuted the accusations and said that the Venezuelan response could be “the beginning of the end of the American empire”. This Thursday, August 14, the president called the US advance a “war of declarations”.
The heightened tension also resonated with the Venezuelan far right. Former extreme-neoliberal congresswoman and opposition figure María Corina Machado thanked the Republican president on Thursday for “pressuring to defeat this criminal organization”.
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A US Beechcraft surveillance aircraft circling Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza less than 24 hours before Israel’s deadly aircraft (Source: ADBS Exchange)
A US military contractor hired by Britain to conduct surveillance over Gaza operated above Nuseirat refugee camp the night before an Israeli bombing killed over 30 Palestinians in December 2024.
On the evening of 12 December 2024, Israel bombed the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza without warning. A post office sheltering displaced families was hit; nearby houses were shredded.
More than 30 Palestinians were killed and over 50 wounded. Entire families died, their names posted online within minutes.
Declassified can now reveal that a spy plane owned by a US contractor to whom the RAF is outsourcing its spy flights circled over Nuseirat refugee camp the night before the bombing.
Publicly available flight-tracking data show that in the hours before the blast, and again afterwards, two surveillance aircraft operating from RAF Akrotiri, Britain’s military base on Cyprus, circled close to or over Gaza.
One of these was a RAF Shadow R1 (registration ZZ419) surveillance plane that flew towards Gaza in mid-afternoon before vanishing from public tracking near the territory.
But the other belonged to Straight Flight Nevada Commercial Leasing LLC, a subsidiary of America’s Sierra Nevada Corporation. This was a Beechcraft Super King Air 350 with the registration N60125 and call sign CROOK11.
The presence of this US aircraft alongside RAF spy planes raises uncomfortable questions about whether British intelligence, directly or indirectly, assisted Israel’s targeting of the camp.
Further, the presence of the US contractor over Gaza as early as December 2024 appears to contradict the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) claim that the company was only hired to take over the missions in recent weeks due to strain on RAF’s Shadow R1 fleet.
The MoD insists the flights are “unarmed” and “solely related to hostage rescue”, and denies aiding Israel’s prosecution of the war. But there is no known mechanism to ensure that data shared with the Israeli authorities is not repurposed for attacks in serious violations of international humanitarian law.
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/O74hZCKKdpAUK Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary repeatedly heckled at a speech to the Fabian Society over his and the Labour Party’s support for and complicity in Israel’s genocide of Gaza.Vote Labour for Genocide.
Nicolás Maduro greets thousands of supporters outside of MIraflores Palace on July 28, 2024. Photo: Zoe Alexandra
The reaction came after the US Attorney General increased the reward to USD 50 million for information leading to the arrest of the Venezuelan president.
The Venezuelan government has said that the increase in the reward for the arrest of President Nicolás Maduro by US Attorney General Pam Bondi is “ridiculous” and that it is part of a “propaganda operation” and a “desperate distraction” from the internal problems facing the United States.
Bondi published a video on August 7, announcing that the US Department of Justice and Department of State are offering USD 50 million for “information leading to the arrest of Nicolás Maduro”.
This is not the first time the US government has tried to pressure the Bolivarian government in this way. In 2020, the US Department of Justice offered USD 15 million for Maduro’s arrest. The accusations were based on alleged acts of “narco-terrorism” by the Venezuelan government.
According to the US government, Maduro allegedly collaborated with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) “to use cocaine as a weapon to ‘flood’ the United States”.
During the Biden administration, this figure was increased to USD 25 million (the same amount offered for the capture of Osama Bin Laden after the attacks of September 11, 2011).
This time, Washington is doubling the “bet” to USD 50 million. According to the Trump administration, Maduro is one of the world’s most prominent drug traffickers, as he allegedly works closely with the criminal gangs the Sinaloa Cartel, the Tren de Aragua, and the Cartel de Los Soles.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, Maduro will not escape justice, and he will be held accountable for his despicable crimes,” said US Attorney General Pamela Bondi in a video. Bondi accused Maduro of using Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) Tren de Aragua, Sinaloa Cartel, and the Cartel de Los Soles to “to bring deadly drugs and violence into our country”.
For his part, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil said the accusations are nothing more than a media show aimed at satisfying Trump’s most extremist supporters.
“Pamela Bondi’s pathetic ‘reward’ is the most ridiculous smokescreen we have ever seen. While we dismantle the terrorist plots orchestrated from your country, this lady comes out with a media circus to please Venezuela’s defeated far right,” Gil affirmed in response to Bondi’s statements.
According to Caracas, the accusations have no real basis and are part of a smear campaign against the Venezuelan government, in addition to the sanctions and economic and trade blockades imposed by the United States on Venezuela.
Maduro also reacted to Bondi’s accusations, describing them as part of a “fascist conspiracy” to destabilize his government: “Colombian drug trafficking linked to [ex-President Álvaro] Uribe, criminal gangs and recycled criminals that still exist in the country, and the fascist conspiracy financed by the United States, are a disastrous equation against Venezuela.”
The Cuban government also rejected the decision to increase the reward for Maduro’s “head”. The country’s Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodríguez, posted on X: “We condemn the fraudulent reward announced by the US government against the legitimate President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, which constitutes a new act of aggression against that sister nation. The US government lacks the legal and moral authority to take such a measure.”
Wildfires have scorched more than 40,000 hectares of land so far this year across the UK – an area more than twice the size of the Scottish city of Glasgow.
This is already a record amount of land burned in a single year, far exceeding the previous high, Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS) data shows.
It is also almost four times the average area burned in wildfires by this stage of the year over 2012-24 – and 50% higher than the previous record amount burned by this time in 2019.
The burned area overtook the previous annual record in April, BBC News reported at the time, and has continued to soar in the months since.
Major wildfires
The chart below shows that UK wildfires in 2025 so far have already burned by far the largest area of land over any calendar year since GWIS records began in 2012. The previous record year was 2019, followed by 2022, while 2024 saw the lowest area size burned.
Annual land area burned by wildfires across the UK from 2012 to 2025 (red), alongside the average area burned each year over 2012-24. Source: Global Wildfire Information System.
Climate change can increase the risk and impact of wildfires. Warmer temperatures and drought can leave land parched and dry out vegetation, which helps fires spread more rapidly. Climate change is making these types of extreme conditions more likely to occur, as well as more severe.
Fire services in England and Wales responded to 564 wildfires from January to June 2025 – an increase from 69 fires in the same period last year, the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) said in a statement in June.
Most wildfires in the UK are caused by human activity, whether accidental or deliberate, according to the NFCC. Some common ignition sources are disposable barbecues, lit cigarettes and campfires.
Jessica Richter, a research analyst at Global Forest Watch, says that, while fires are also a key part of some ecosystems, climate change is the “major driver behind the increasing fire activity around the globe”. She tells Carbon Brief:
“As we see more fires, we’re going to see more carbon being emitted and that’s just going to be, for lack of a better phrasing, adding fuel to the fire.”
Examples of 2025 wildfires around Galloway (1) and Inverness (2) in Scotland, and a wildfire in Powys (3) in Wales. Source: FIRMS, MapTiler, OpenStreetMap contributors.
The UK has also recorded its highest-ever wildfire emissions this year, according to Copernicus, which was “primarily driven” by major wildfires in Scotland from late June to early July.
These were the largest wildfires ever recorded in the country, reported the Scotsman. They “ravaged” land in Moray and the Highlands in the north of the country, the newspaper added.
Scotland experienced an extreme wildfire in Galloway Forest Park in April, which was “so intense it could be seen from space”, the Financial Times said.
Elsewhere, in April, the Belfast News Letter reported that firefighters tackled almost 150 fires on the Mourne Mountains in Northern Ireland.
More recently, BBC News reported that firefighters in Dorset, England received “non-stop” wildfire calls in the first weekend of August, with one blaze “engulf[ing] an area the size of 30 football pitches”.
Wildfires have also caused devastation across many parts of Europe in recent weeks – including Albania, Cyprus, France, Greece, Spain and Turkey – as well as in the US and Canada.
Words by Orla Dwyer. Analysis by Ho Woo Nam. Charts by Tom Prater.
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