Category World News

A human rights advocacy group claims that Venezuelan authorities have released at least 60 people who were detained during demonstrations against President Nicolas Maduro’s re-election, but hundreds of others are still imprisoned.

According to the Committee for the Freedom of Political Prisoners, a group of rights activists and detainees’ relatives who were detained as a result of the unrest that followed July’s presidential election, the releases started early on Thursday, over Christmas.

More than 60 Venezuelans who should never have been arbitrarily detained are being released, according to committee head Andreina Baduel, who spoke to the AFP news agency.

We will continue fighting for their full freedom, as well as that of all political prisoners, even though they are not entirely free.

In the July 2024 election, Maduro won a third term in office despite allegations of fraud in part by some members of the opposition. About 2,400 people were arrested as a result of the disputed outcome, which sparked weeks of demonstrations. Approximately 2, 000 people have been freed since then, according to rights organizations.

According to Foro Penal, an NGO that monitors detentions, Venezuela still has at least 902 political prisoners despite recent releases.

According to relatives, Tocoron prison, a maximum-security facility in Aragua state, is located about 134 kilometers (83 miles) from the state’s capital Caracas, where many of the freed people are residing. The conditions under which detainees were released have not been made clear by officials.

According to Baduel, “we must bear in mind that there are more than 1, 000 families with political prisoners.” In 2021, her father, former defense minister Raul Isaias Baduel, a friend of the late president Hugo Chavez, passed away in custody.

As fighting continues to ravage Sudan, a senior official in the Transitional Sovereignty Council (TSC) has ruled out any talks with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The deputy chairman of TSC, Malik Agar Ayyir, said in a statement released by the Ministry of Culture, Media and Tourism on Thursday that there is no truce and no negotiations with an occupier.

He refuted the claim that the war aims to achieve “democracy” when speaking to ministers and state officials in Port Sudan, the city where the government is based. He instead referred to the conflict as a “conflict over resources and a desire to change Sudan’s demographics” and cited an opportunity to foster national cohesion.

The UN Security Council heard from Sudan’s Prime Minister Kamil Idris shortly after his country’s nearly three-year war was proposed.

The plan mandates that RSF fighters must leave vast tracts of land that they have taken into force in Sudan’s western and central regions in accordance with the army and the government’s positions.

Before those who are not charged with war crimes can be reintegrated into society, they would then need to be interned and disarmed.

Al-Basha Tibiq, a top adviser to commander Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, has repeatedly criticized the RSF for calling it “closer to fantasy than politics.”

RSF reports increases

As the RSF consolidates its hold over captured territory and intensifies attacks, the conflict, which has forced 14 million people to flee for good.

International aid organizations working on the ground claim that RSF fighters have continued to carry out mass killings, systematic sexual assault, and body burying and burning in Darfur as a cover-up for the evidence of war crimes over the past few months.

El-Fasher, the state capital of North Darfur, was captured in October, only to become worse for the humanitarian situation there.

The RSF announced on Thursday that its forces had taken control of North Darfur’s Abu Qumra region.

According to the group’s statement, they “have continued their successful advancement to the Um Buru area, where they have completely liberated these areas.”

The RSF claimed that its fighters’ main priority is to “protect civilians and put an end to the presence of remnants of armed pockets and mercenary movements” in spite of mounting evidence of widespread atrocities committed in western Sudan.

Mohammed Shahadeh, also known as Abu Omar Shaddad, was named one of ISIL’s senior commanders in Syria and a direct threat to local security in a statement released on Thursday, according to the Ministry of Interior.

Officials claimed that the operation was conducted in accordance with verified intelligence and extensive surveillance and that it was carried out by specialized units operating in the countryside of Damascus that targeted raided the town of al-Buweida near Qatana, southwest of the capital.

The General Intelligence Directorate was also involved in the operation, according to the ministry, and it cooperated with international coalition forces.

“Crupling blow”

According to the state-run SANA news agency, the announcement came a day after another senior ISIL figure was detained by Syrian internal security forces in a separate operation close to Damascus.

SANA reported that Taha al-Zoubi was detained in a “tightly executed security operation” in the countryside of Damascus. During the arrest, according to the police, officers “seize a suicide belt and a military weapon.”

The raid targeted an ISIL hideout in Maadamiya, southwest of the capital, according to Brigadier General Ahmad al-Dalati, the head of internal security in Damascus countryside.

ISIL has largely focused its remaining operations on Kurdish-led forces in northern Syria, which it views as illegitimate.

Raqqa became the armed group’s capital when it gained the most power in vast regions of Syria and Iraq.

Mariela Gomez would not have imagined Christmas this year.

Or the one that thousands of other American Venezuelan immigrants would have assumed. However, Donald Trump quickly ended their US dream by making a second appearance in January.

For the first time in eight years, Gomez found herself spending the holiday in northern Venezuela. She had a smile for her in-laws, prepared food, and gave her son a scooter. Despite her best efforts, she was unable to ignore the main problems facing returning immigrants: poverty and unemployment.

Instead of the traditional Christmas dinner of stuffed corn dough hallacas, Gomez said, “We had a modest dinner, not quite what we’d hoped for, but we did have food on the table.” Since we are unemployed, making hallacas here is a bit expensive, and we couldn’t afford to make them.

In response to the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, Gomez, her two sons, and her partner made a second home in Maracay on October 27 after crossing the US-Mexico border to Texas, where they were quickly swept up by US Border Patrol. They were taken to Mexico, where they began the dangerous journey back to Venezuela.

The family was unable to travel by boat across the Caribbean to Colombia after crossing Central America by bus. Instead of traveling the less expensive way along the Pacific’s choppy waters, they spent several hours sitting on top of sloshing gas tanks in a cargo boat before moving quickly to a fast boat until they reached a Colombian jungle region. They arrived at Venezuela’s border after about two weeks of detention before receiving their funds.

More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have left their country since the country’s economy has been damaged by a drop in oil prices, corruption, and mismanagement. Before deciding to move to the US in search of a new life, she spent years living in Colombia and Peru.

Rapid deportations

Many people like Gomez have lost hope as a result of Trump’s second term.

More than 14, 000 people from Venezuela, primarily from Colombia, Panama, and Costa Rica, had already left the country as of September, according to data from Colombia, Panama, and Costa Rica. Venezuelans were repeatedly deported to their home countries this year after President Nicolas Maduro abandoned his longstanding policy of refusing deportees from the US.

On flights operated by a US government contractor or Venezuela’s state-owned airline, immigrants regularly arrived at the airport outside the capital, Caracas. This year, over 13, 000 migrants took to the chartered flights.

Gomez saw her now-female daughter when she fled Venezuela’s complex crisis after returning there. Knowing that this might be their last chance to drink together for a while, Gomez’s daughter will move to Brazil next month, they conversed and drank beer over the holiday.

Gomez wants to work as well as make hallacas for New Year’s Eve. However, her thoughts on the upcoming year are primarily focused on good health.

As forensic investigations and the preparations for the repatriation of the bodies are being conducted, Libyan and Turkiye officials have increased coordination over the investigation into a plane crash near Ankara, which resulted in the deaths of Libya’s army chief and seven other people.

Major General Mahmoud Ashour, the head of Libya’s Criminal Investigation Department, led a delegation to the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office on Thursday as part of the joint inquiry.

Following discussions with the case’s Turkish prosecutor, the visit was made.

Shortly after departing from Ankara Esenboga Airport on Tuesday, a private jet carrying Libya’s army chief of staff, Mohammed Ali Ahmed Al-Haddad, reported an electrical problem.

The aircraft, which was heading for Tripoli, requested an emergency landing 16 minutes after takeoff, according to Burhanettin Duran, Turkiye’s head of communications.

The Dassault Falcon 50 was redirected back to the airport in Ankara by air traffic controllers, but as the aircraft sank, radar contact disappeared.

In the Haymana district of Ankara, the wreckage was discovered close to the village of Kesikkavak. Three members of the crew were among the eight killed.

After Turkiye’s Ministry of Interior launched emergency operations, search and rescue teams arrived at the scene as multiple authorities joined the crash investigation.

Funeral services were sped up

Al Jazeera’s Malik Traina reported from Misrata, Libya, claiming that although the timeline is uncertain, Al-Haddad’s body was still being recovered.

The minister of communications informed us that the funeral prayer will be observed tomorrow. That is beginning to change as government officials call in saying it could be delayed until Saturday, according to Traina on Thursday.

The recovery process, according to Traina, took longer because there were more remains scattered throughout the area and DNA testing was required.

There is a lot of pressure on,” he said. We’ll have to wait and see whether or not that will occur.