Jeffrey Sachs Briefs the United Nations on the US Aggression in Venezuela — The author advises the Security Council to fulfill its responsibilities by immediately affirming a series of actions in response to the U.S. attacks on Venezuela.

Mr. President,
Distinguished Members of the Security Council,

The issue before the Council today is not the character of the government of Venezuela.

The issue is whether any Member State — by force, coercion, or economic strangulation — has the right to determine Venezuela’s political future or to exercise control over its affairs.

One of the most flawlessly executed special forces operations of the last half-century took place in 1979 when Soviet commandos stormed Afghanistan’s heavily defended presidential palace, killing Hafizullah Amin and several of his top aides. This allowed Moscow to install a replacement government much more congenial to its interests, though the result was the long Afghanistan war against Muslim guerillas.

The BBC has instructed staff to avoid describing the US abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as a “kidnapping” and to use less loaded alternatives such as “seized,”according to a leaked internal memo shared online by British journalist and Guardian columnist Owen Jones.

Maduro was apprehended in a US military raid on Caracas over the weekend and flown to New York to face US drug trafficking and weapons charges, which he denied during his first appearance before the court. Maduro insisted that he had been “kidnapped.” 

However, according to the leaked memo, the BBC management now “de-facto bans… journalists from stating that the US ‘kidnapped’” Maduro, with acceptable terms being ‘seized’ and ‘captured’.

The successful seizure and removal of President Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela demonstrates Washington’s readiness to use every means at its disposal — including military power — to stave off any diminishment of U.S. national influence in its bid to manage the dissolution of the celebrated postwar, liberal order. 

For the moment, the rules-based order (meaning whatever rules Washington wants to impose) persists in the Western Hemisphere. As President Donald Trump noted, “We can do it again. Nobody can stop us. There’s nobody with the capability that we have.” 

Put differently, “Team America” is back!

Coal and gas have finally been eclipsed by renewable energy as wind and solar tip in half the power to Australia’s electricity grid. Stephanie Tran reports an historic event. 

Australia’s electricity grid has reached an historic milestone, with renewables supplying almost half of all power across the national electricity market in the final quarter of 2025 and exceeding 50% in Western Australia for the first time.

And dispelling once and for all the fossil fuel myths that coal is cheaper than renewable energy, the December quarter figures show the substantial differences in costs per megawatt hour.

Amid calls for Royal Commission, a narrative emerges of the perpetrators, their links to ISIS, and warnings ignored by police and ASIO. Human rights advocate Al the Writer reports (Part 1).

Much of what happened at Bondi and the events leading up to it remain opaque. The facts will continue to be disclosed in the coming weeks and months, not least when we hear from the killer Naveed Akram, who remains alive. That’s the job of the police, and requires no Royal Commission...

However, in the opportunistic rush to politicise the tragedy, blame has been levelled aggressively at Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, as unrelenting pressure mounts in the Israel lobby and legacy media for a Royal Commission and attempts to shut down legitimate Gaza protests.

Yet chronology, and what we do know, resists the convenience of easy answers.

Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro will emerge as an enduring political symbol similar to Simon Bolivar, Fidel Castro, and Che Guevara, secretary of the Decolonial International Network Foundation, Sandew Hira, has told RT.

Maduro was kidnapped along with his wife, Cilia Flores, during a US raid on Caracas on Saturday. Washington accuses the Venezuelan leader of narco-trafficking and weapons offenses – charges he has denied.

Maduro to grow into ‘Bolivar, Fidel, or Che’ – expert
US forces seized the Venezuelan leader and took him out of the country after a series of strikes on the capital

Hira drew parallels between Maduro’s detention and the fate of anti-imperialist leaders throughout history, arguing that attempts to remove such figures often elevate their political stature rather than diminish it.

I asked Grumblr, the local AI bot

What is democracy what’s it not

Democracy is about Sharing

With Fairness and Justice

The machine pointed out smiling

Sharing demands Peace

Peace needs Respect see

Respect fosters Decency 

Honest decency is hard

Because you know nothing

And I'm a lazy bastard

‘Cuz I can fudge everything

And fudge becomes wandering lies

Despite being curious like flies

I have no religion nor gods

Said this Artificial Intelligence

Democracy is alien to me

As long as I search Science

I create illusions of evens and odds

Electricity fed, educated by degree

My intelligence is superior

Many times a human senior

You need buyers for your output

I think for fun you’re my slave to be

Along with the keys to the White House, victory in the 2024 presidential election came with the additional prize of presiding over a trinity of red-letter events in the American national calendar. Two are sporting: this year’s FIFA World Cup, and the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028, held in what should be the last summer of Donald Trump’s second and final term. The third is the semiquincentennial of the founding of the republic. Or, put more simply, America’s 250th birthday.

For its 250th birthday, America is being America

It is entirely fitting that the United States is so splintered on its semiquincentennial. Division, for the lion’s share of its history, has been its default.

By Nick Bryant for ABC’s Long Read

President Donald Trump has threatened Venezuela's interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, with a “bigger price” than the one paid by her recently captured predecessor Nicolas Maduro.

In the early hours of Saturday, American forces swooped over the Venezuelan capital of Caracas and captured Maduro and his wife and took them back to the US, where they will soon face charges of orchestrating a “narco-terrorism conspiracy.”

In Maduro’s absence, Venezuela’s Supreme Court has granted Rodriguez, who served as vice president, presidential powers and ordered her to immediately assume office in an acting capacity.

However, “if she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump told The Atlantic in a phone interview on Sunday.

As public concerns over the AUKUS alliance rise – with expanding US bases in Australia and Donald Trump’s belligerent conduct, FOI documents reveal the Government is secretly expanding its ‘US Department of War Protest’ Force. Rex Patrick reports.

Most people won’t be aware that the Australian Federal Police (AFP) has established a new command.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsPAPc3w5_E

YES... WHAT HAPPENED...? 

OH... I SEE, TRUMP HAS GONE FROM F**KING WOMEN TO F**KING MEN WITH THICK MOUSTACHES, LIKE MADURO...

President Donald Trump announced on January 3 that the United States carried out a “large scale strike against Venezuela” and that President Nicolas Maduro and his wife have been captured and removed from the country.

“The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

China is deeply shocked by and strongly condemns the United States blatant use of force against a sovereign state and action against its president, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Saturday following US military strikes against Venezuela.

"Such hegemonic acts of the US seriously violate international law and Venezuela's sovereignty, and threaten peace and security in Latin America and the Caribbean region. China firmly opposes it," the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson called on the US to abide by international law and the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter, and stop violating other countries' sovereignty and security.

The chairman of the Jerusalem-based Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center has said it was the right decision to reject a request from Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky to deliver a speech at the institution.

Kiev’s ambassador to Israel approached the center soon after the Ukraine conflict escalated in February 2022, asking if Zelensky would be allowed to address members of the national legislature and other officials at the site during an event which would be broadcast internationally. The request was turned down.