After declaring that the US would “run” Venezuela following the abduction of President Nicolas Maduro, US President Donald Trump claims Maria Corina Machado’s opposition leader lacks the support and respect needed to run the nation. The Nobel Peace Prize was given to Machado, who also attributed it in part to Trump.
Published On 4 Jan 2026
As South Korea’s leader makes its first state visit to China in a year’s span, North Korea has fired several ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast.
The missiles launched on Sunday at around 7:50 am (22:50 GMT on Saturday) flew about 900 kilometers (60 miles) in the south of South Korea, according to the military.
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The military added that the nation and the United States were “closely analysing the specifications” while “maintaining a full readiness posture.”
The US forces for the Asia Pacific said in a statement that the missile launches did not “pose an immediate threat to our allies, US personnel, or our territory.”
Additionally, Japan reported that at least two missiles had traveled 900 and 950 kilometers (60 kilometers) in both directions.
The development of nuclear weapons and missiles by North Korea is “absolutely intolerable,” according to Japan’s defense minister Shinjiro Koizumi.
Pyongyang last tested its ballistic missiles on November 7th.
Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, visited a munitions factory on Saturday and demanded that the production of tactical guided weapons double.
Kim has visited a number of weapons factories and a nuclear-powered submarine recently, overseeing missile tests ahead of the Workers’ Party’s ninth-party congress, which will take place later this year, and set out important policy objectives.
The launches from Pyongyang “a message to China to deter closer ties with South Korea and to counter China’s stance on denuclearization,” according to Lim Eul-chul, a professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul.
After the US launched a string of attacks on Saturday and “captured” Venezuela, Lim said it was North Korea who was sending a message of strength.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung reportedly arrived in Beijing on Sunday morning, according to the Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.
More than 200 South Korean business leaders are expected to speak with Lee about supply chain investment, the digital economy, and cultural exchanges.
In just two months, the South Korean leader will meet with Xi Jinping, the leader of China. The brief frequency of the meetings, in the opinion of analysts, indicates Beijing’s desire to boost tourism and economic collaboration.
Seoul has stated that the Beijing trip will include a peacekeeping mission on the Korean Peninsula.
After Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi claimed in November that her country’s military might become involved if China were to act against Taiwan, Lee’s trip comes at a time when China and Japan are atheightened tensions.
Donald Trump, the president, claims that the US will “take back” Venezuela’s oil and that it should be used to pay back Washington for previous expenditures. After seizing Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro and transporting him to New York, Trump claims that the US will “run” Venezuela.
Published On 4 Jan 2026
The ISIL (ISIS) organization appears to be resurgent after a period of relative dormancy in the area, so the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense announced today that its aircraft flew in tandem with France to attack an underground facility in Syria.
The ministry’s statement, which uses the Arabic abbreviation ISIL, stated that “Royal Air Force aircraft have successfully attacked Daesh in a joint operation with France.”
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The area, which is located north of Palmyra’s historic site, was said to be “devoid of any civilian habitation.”
In a string of attacks in Syria over the course of nine days, the US military reported killing or capturing about 25 ISIL fighters in late December.
The US military’s Middle East operations were concluded in a statement released on Tuesday by the Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees the organization’s operations there.
Following the widespread US strikes against the group six days later and the killing of two US soldiers and a civilian interpreter by an ISIL attacker in Syria on December 13, the campaign began.
In the interim, Turkiye’s government announced on Wednesday that it had arrested more than 100 ISIL suspects in nationwide searches as the organization’s continued signs of regional intensification after a brief period of relative dormancy.
According to Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya, Turkish authorities detained 125 suspects from 25 different provinces, including Ankara, during the arrests.
Following a deadly shootout on Tuesday between Turkish police and suspected ISIL members in the northwestern city of Yalova, the operation was the third of its kind in less than a week during the holiday season.
Three Turkish police and six suspected ISIL members, all of whom are Turks, were killed in that incident. In a coordinated crackdown, Turkish security forces made 357 suspected ISIL members.
ISIL attacked an Istanbul nightclub during New Year’s Eve celebrations in 2017, killing 39 people as the group still held large swaths of neighboring Syria and Iraq before being defeated on the battlefield. Turkish police reported that the prosecutor’s office had learned that operatives were “planning attacks against non-Muslims in particular” this holiday season.
ISIL is still active in Syria, where it shares a 900km (560 miles) border, and has launched numerous attacks there since last year’s ouster of former president Bashar al-Assad.
Donald Trump has positioned himself as a distasteful alternative to the country’s traditional hawkish foreign policy since ascending the escalator in 2015 to announce his first presidential run.
Some of the US president’s political rivals have been called “warmongers” and “war hawks” by the president.
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However, Trump’s decision to kidnap Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and declare that the US would “run” the Latin American nation has drawn comparisons to the regime change wars he has opposed in his political career.
Some Trump supporters of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement criticize Washington’s ongoing conflict with Venezuela. They support Trump’s policy of focusing on the nation’s own problems rather than regional conflicts.
Trump’s influence on Republican politics appears to be strong, with the majority of his party’s lawmakers applauding his actions.
Senator Lindsey Graham wrote in a social media post, “You should take great pride in initiating the liberation of Venezuela.”
“It is in America’s national security interest to deal with Venezuela, the centerpiece of which,” I have frequently said.
Graham’s reference to a “drug caliphate” seems to support the trend toward comparing the US’s actions against alleged drug traffickers in Latin America to the so-called “war on terror” ().
The US senator praised the FIFA Peace Prize winner, who was named in honor of him by Gianni Infantino, the association’s president, in December, and called him “the GOAT of the American presidency,” which means “the greatest of all time.”
Even some of the Republican skeptics of foreign interventions favored the arrest of Maduro, even though it was anticipated that Graham and other foreign policy hawks in Trump’s orbit would support the actions taken against Venezuela.
Former Congressman Matt Gaetz, one of the most vocal opponents of left-wing hawkish foreign policy, made fun of Venezuela’s “capture.”
According to him, “Maduro will hate CECOT,” he wrote on X, referring to the notorious prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration sent hundreds of alleged gang members without due process.
Senator Rand Paul, a libertarian who has been a vocal critic of Congress’s war-making power, only expressed muted disapproval of Trump’s failure to grant lawmakers’ permission to launch military operations in Venezuela.
In a lengthy statement, which mostly refuted the idea of “socialism” in the US, he wrote that “time will tell whether regime change in Venezuela is successful without significant monetary or human cost.
The executive’s authority to go to war without Congressional authorization was best, but not forget, to limit the horror of war and to restrict war to acts of defense. Hope that Maduro’s passing and the Venezuelan people’s desire for a second chance do not diminish those peace principles.
Republican Senator Mike Lee questioned the legality of the attack early on Saturday morning. Without a declaration of war or authorization for the use of military force, he wrote on X, “I look forward to learning what, if anything, might constitutionally justify this action.”
Later, Lee claimed that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio informed him that Maduro was being legally arrested while US troops were carrying out an arrest warrant.
According to the senator, “This action likely falls within the president’s inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution to protect US personnel from actual or imminent attacks.”
One of the few voices withdrew was Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Americans are depressed by our own government’s unending military hostility and support for international conflicts because they are forced to pay for it, according to Greene, who wrote on X.
Greene, a former ally of Trump who split with the president and is leaving Congress next week, refuted the claim that Trump had ordered Maduro’s “capture” due to his alleged involvement in the drug trade.
She noted that Venezuela is not a major exporter of fentanyl, which accounts for the majority of US overdose deaths.
She also emphasized that Trump was granted a pardon last month for former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, a drug trafficker who was serving a 45-year prison sentence.
While Americans are consistently facing rising costs of living, housing, healthcare, and learning about scams and tax fraud, according to Greene, “Regime change, funding foreign wars, and American’s]sic] tax dollars being consistently funneled to foreign causes, foreigners both home and abroad, and foreign governments,”
Another Republican member, Congressman Tomas Massie, warned that attacking Venezuela would involve “oil and regime change” in a speech he delivered earlier this month in the House of Representatives.
Are we prepared to receive swarms of Venezuelans, who are likely to turn out to be refugees, and billions in American assets that will be used to devastate and inevitably rebuild the country? In the Western Hemisphere, is there a “miniature Afghanistan”? In the remarks, Massie stated.
We should vote on it as a people’s voice and in accordance with our Constitution if that cost is afeu for this Congress.
While Greene and Massie are party outliers, Trump’s risky moves in Venezuela were successful in the short run because Washington has little to lose from Maduro’s arrest.
Few Republicans, in contrast, were against the US invasion of Iraq when former president George W. Bush resigned in 2003 after replacing Saddam Hussein with the “mission accomplished” sign on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.
However, there is now a nearly universal opinion that the invasion of Iraq was a geopolitical disaster.
Venezuela is still awash with the sand of war, and it’s not clear who will take over or how Trump will “run” it.
The US president has not ruled out sending “boots on the ground” to Venezuela, which raises the possibility of another Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan as well as the possibility of US occupation.
Do we really think George Washington will take the place of Nicolas Maduro? How did that go in Syria, Iraq, or Libya? In his address to Congress, Massie made a warning.