#venezuela

#venezuela

Everything is very difficult, there's a lot of uncertainty, says Venezuelan taxi driver Jose Luis Ledezma, who works in Caracas. Ledezma has been hit hard by the collapse in trips to Maiquetia airport, his most common route. I used to do six trips a day to the airport. Now, if I do three a week, that's a lot, he explains. I work with people of all ages, from wealthy people to very poor people. I see nervousness.

Christmas follows a routine: shopping, dinner, gifts, family celebrations that vary from humble to lavish, reflecting a country growing increasingly unequal, like Venezuela. The holiday season in Caracas in 2025 masks what is on the minds of many Venezuelans. Festivities are overshadowed by the greatest geopolitical tensions the country has faced in decades, amid the largest recent deployment of U.S. military assets a volatile threat hanging over Venezuela's Caribbean border.

The US has deployed a major military force in the Caribbean and intercepted oil tankers as part of a naval blockade against Venezuelan vessels it considers to be under sanctions. A blockade is a prohibited use of military force against another country under the UN Charter, they added. It is such a serious use of force that it is also expressly recognised as illegal armed aggression under the General Assembly's 1974 Definition of Aggression, the experts said.

The renewed, intensifying threats of regime change, justified through false or inflated claims that Nicolás Maduro, its president, is directing narco-terrorism against the United States, serve as a convenient pretext for deeper and more direct intervention. A recent wave of extrajudicial killings at sea, the directing of the CIA to launch covert ops inside Venezuela, the surge of US troops into the Caribbean, the reopening of a long-shuttered naval base in Puerto Rico,

President Donald Trump is gathering with top national security officials on Monday, a meeting that comes as the U.S. Coast Guard steps up efforts to interdict oil tankers in the Caribbean Sea as part of the Republican administration's escalating pressure campaign on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's government. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Navy Secretary John Phelan are scheduled to join Trump, who is vacationing at his Mar-a-Lago resort,

Three officials, who were speaking to the Reuters news agency on the condition of anonymity, did not say where the operation was taking place but added the Coast Guard was in the lead. Two officials, speaking to The Associated Press news agency, also confirmed the operations. The action was described as a consented boarding, with the tanker stopping voluntarily and allowing US forces to board it, one official said.

The Trump administration launched military strikes Friday in Syria to "eliminate" Islamic State group fighters and weapons sites in retaliation for an ambush attack that killed two U.S. troops and an American civilian interpreter almost a week ago. A U.S. official described it as "a large-scale" strike that hit 70 targets in areas across central Syria that had IS infrastructure and weapons.

President Donald Trump demanded Wednesday that Venezuela return assets that it seized from U.S. oil companies years ago, justifying anew his announcement of a "blockade" against oil tankers traveling to or from the South American country that face American sanctions. Trump cited the lost U.S. investments in Venezuela when asked about his newest tactic in a pressure campaign against leader Nicolás Maduro, suggesting his administration's moves are at least somewhat motivated by disputes over oil investments, along with accusations of drug trafficking.

Speculation was rife when the White House announced Donald Trump would be making an address to the nation on Wednesday night.

Madison called it the crown jewel of Congress. The framers understood a simple truth: to the extent that war-making power devolves to one person, liberty dissolves. If the president believes military action against Venezuela is justified and needed, he should make the case, and Congress should vote before American lives and treasure are spent on regime change in South America,

Venezuela is 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 United Nations has been conspicuously absent. It must assume its role to prevent any bloodshed and to always seek the peaceful resolution of conflicts, the leftwing president told reporters the morning after Washington announced a blockade of sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela. The United States has for months been building a major military deployment in the Caribbean with the stated goal of combatting Latin American drug trafficking.

Drug boats should be stopped and searched, and their operators should be arrested and tried; they should not be blown up. The penalty for transporting drugs is years in prison, not immediate death without proof or jury. When a first bomb strike doesn't kill everyone, survivors should be rescued and tried, not blasted into small bits as they sit atop a capsized boat in the middle of the ocean. As a society, what's come over us?

He has deployed a massive military arsenal in and around the Caribbean Sea and taken a series of provocative actions off the Venezuelan coast, justifying it as necessary to stem the flow of drugs into the United States. The Council on Foreign Relations says that deployment includes an aircraft carrier, destroyers, cruisers, amphibious assault ships, and a special forces support ship.

We just had traffic pass directly in front of us within 5 miles of us maybe 2 or 3 miles but it was an air-to air-refueler from the United States air force and he was at our altitude, the pilot said. We had to stop our climb. The pilot said the US air force plane then headed into Venezuelan airspace.