Category World News

In a tense London derby, Mike Merino saved Arsenal as the Premier League leaders fought to a 1-1 draw against Chelsea.

Late in the first half, Chelsea midfielder Moises Caicedo was shown a crude foul on Merino at Stamford Bridge on Sunday.

Chelsea took a second half lead after Caicedo’s dismissal, but Merino’s equalizing goal earned Arsenal a point after the title rivals had fought back.

Arsenal is five points clear of Manchester City, who defeated Leeds United on Saturday, and is six points ahead of Chelsea, who is in third place.

Arsenal were relieved to avoid a damaging defeat after the dust had settled on a game of relentless intensity, and Chelsea were left to rue a missed chance to win the title.

Arsenal are still the favorites to win the Premier League title, but Chelsea’s aggressive display suggested they might pose the greatest threat to the Gunners’ title ambitions.

Chelsea have won their first seven games without losing in all competitions, while Arsenal have won all 17 of those games, winning 14 of those.

Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca had slashed his young team’s chances of winning the title, but Arsenal did so without injured centre-back William Saliba.

Both teams tried to impose themselves in a tumultuous first half that included a slew of bookings.

Reece James was cynically pulled down by Gunners midfielder Martin Zubimendi, Chelsea left-back Marc Cucurella crunched into Bukayo Saka, Mosquera pole-axed Joao Pedro, and Riccardo Calafiori.

With a stinging strike that Robert Sanchez saved at his near post, Saka almost exacted immediate retribution against Cucurella.

Estevao Willian, a teenager sensation, made his Chelsea debut following their 3-0 win over Barcelona in midweek.

The 18-year-old was unable to match his stunning goal against Barca when he lashed over from 9 meters (10 yards) to miss Chelsea’s opening real chance.

As Chelsea began to put pressure on the visitors’ reorganized defense, Enzo Fernandez tested Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya from the edge of the area.

When Caicedo caught Merino in the 38th minute with a foul that was upgraded from a booking to a dismissal following a VAR review, the attrition war turned ugly.

This was the Blues’ sixth red card of the season across all competitions.

A dangerous Hincapie elbow on Chalobah, which caused Chelsea to lash out for a red card, did not come after the Ecuador midfielder’s premature exit.

On the cue of half-time, Gabriel Martinelli nearly heightened Chelsea’s anxiety with a powerful blast that forced a fine save from Sanchez.

With ten goals in 12 games, Arsenal became the league’s best set-piece team.

Chelsea finished with eight, but in the 48th minute Chalobah won with nine.

As James curled a corner to the near post before reaching Chalobah’s highest point inside the six-yard box, Chalobah headed his header into the far corner.

On his way back to his former club, Arteta sent on Noni Madueke and Martin Odegaard, who were jeered and chanted “Chelsea reject.”

Merino’s 59th-minute equalizer earned the Arsenal changes instant reward.

A stunning run and cross from Saka past Cucurella led to a powerful close-range header that flew past Sanchez.

Merino scored his fourth goal of the season when Arteta used him as a substitute.

Arsenal were unable to deliver the decisive blow in a furious finale, which featured Sanchez making superb stops to deny Saka and Merino.

Reece James, Chelsea’s captain, expressed regret after receiving the three points and how the sending off limited his team.

“Over the past few years, Arsenal have been at the top. We were aware that it would not be simple. Their midfield is formidable. He claimed that we had already done everything we could to play our game and caused them harm.

He continued, “Maresca] slightly altered the formation, and he was aware that they were going to attack us.” So we attempted to catch them on the counter by attempting to soak up the pressure.

I’m proud of the boys, they say. Today at the Bridge, it was riotous. We’re content to accept the message.

Arsenal were disappointed not to win, according to Merino.

You want to win every game when you sport this shirt. he informed Sky Sports. To enter and take a point at this stadium is a real challenge. The team displayed good mentality, but we could have done better.

Alexander Isak, the underdogs’ record signing, scored his first Premier League goal for Liverpool on Sunday to give them a much-needed 2-0 victory over West Ham United.

Prior to US special envoy Steve Witkoff’s crucial trip to Moscow, American and Ukrainian officials are engaged in discussions aimed at developing “reliable security guarantees” for Ukraine as part of a US-backed peace plan.

A Ukrainian delegation led by Rustem Umerov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, sat down with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Witkoff, who stated that the discussions are meant to “create a path” for a sovereign Ukraine.

On the basis of the progress made in Geneva, Umerov wrote on X, “We have clear directives and priorities: safeguarding Ukrainian interests, ensuring substantive dialogue, and advancing.”

He added that “reliable, long-term security guarantees” are what negotiators want for Ukraine to achieve.

The negotiations come a week after Rubio and Ukrainian negotiators met in Geneva, Switzerland to review the initial Russian-wish list-based peace plan. Vladimir Putin’s scheduled meeting with Witkoff, which Trump earlier hinted would take place this week, is set to take place with the sit-down.

Putin said the unpublished US draft could serve as a “basis for future agreements,” and that Witkoff should be the first priority in his discussions with Witkoff.

Jared Kushner, the son of Donald Trump, may also be present in Moscow.

Rubio said it’s important to end a war in a way that allows them to become independent and sovereign, never have another war, and create tremendous prosperity for its citizens so they can not just rebuild the nation but also enter an era of extraordinary economic progress.

According to Ukraine’s first deputy foreign minister Sergiy Kyslytsya on X, talks between US and Ukrainian officials “start off well” and are “going to a warm atmosphere conducing to potential progress.”

“Eminent days”

Ukraine’s response to the negotiations comes at a sensitive time as it fights back against Russian forces that invaded in 2022, with the resignation of his top official, Andriy Yermak, this week.

Last week, Yermak and Rubio met in Geneva to discuss changes to Trump’s original 28-point plan, which initially included limiting Russia’s military size, restricting its size, and giving up on joining NATO.

In response to criticism from Kyiv and Europe, the US reduced the original draft to 19 points, but the current content is still a mystery.

Zelenskyy claimed on X that America is “showing a constructive approach.”

It is possible to “fine-tune the steps” to bring the war to an honorable conclusion, he said.

The Ukrainian president stated on Sunday that “many things can change” when he spoke with NATO’s Mark Rutte.

We will continue speaking in the coming days when I spoke with Mark Rutte @SecGenNATO. There are significant changes to be made in these times. Our joint measures and shared positions are what we are coordinating closely, and our efforts are coordinated by all of our partners…

Zelenskyy will be a guest of French President Emmanuel Macron’s meeting in Paris on Monday, according to the French presidency.

Prior to the US summit, Russia’s forces have been focusing on Ukraine’s capital and the region for two nights straight as it advances on the front line.

Six people were killed and dozens of others were hurt in the country as a result of Russian attacks on Ukraine on Saturday night. 400, 000 Kyiv homes were cut off from power.

One person was killed and eleven were hurt in a drone attack near Kyiv, according to the regional governor.

In response to months of military expansion in the Caribbean, President Trump declared on Saturday that Venezuelan airspace had been “closed” without providing any further information. This caused tensions between Washington and Caracas.

Venezuela has accused the US of a “colonialist threat” in Latin America, as millions of people in the country remain on edge. Prior to this, President Nicolas Maduro had warned that Washington was using false information to justify military intervention in Venezuela.

Venezuela has been conducting regular drills over the past few weeks and has announced a large-scale mobilisation in preparation for any possible attack.

Since launching a number of strikes on alleged drug boats in early September, the Trump administration has massive naval assets deployed in the Southern Caribbean. Washington has not provided any proof that the targeted boats were involved in drug trafficking. In those attacks, at least 83 people have died.

Ramping up pressure on Maduro last week, Washington designated what is known among Venezuelans as the Cartel de los Soles, or Cartel of the Suns in English, as a “foreign terrorist organization”.

In a bid to combat drug trafficking, the Trump administration claims to be targeting Venezuela. However, political analysts and human rights observers warn Washington against laying the groundwork to unlawfully remove Maduro from power.

Will Trump then launch an offensive against Venezuela after it announces the end of its airspace? Can the US military action be legally justified? What is the cause of Trump’s hostile attitude toward Maduro?

Will the US go to war against Venezuela?

Trump has increased his rhetoric against Maduro, blaming Caracas for drug trafficking and the flow of Venezuelan immigrants, since taking office in January.

Within a few weeks into his second term, Trump nixed Venezuelan oil concessions granted by his predecessor, Joe Biden, imposed 25 percent tariffs on countries buying oil from Venezuela, and doubled the reward for the arrest of Maduro to $50m, designating him a “global terrorist leader”.

Trump’s administration deployed the world’s largest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R Ford, other warships, thousands of troops, and F-35 stealth jets to the Caribbean in recent weeks, as confirmation that he has authorized the CIA to conduct secret operations there.

Last Thursday, Trump said land strikes inside the country could come imminently.

Prior to the start of sanctions against Cartel de los Soles, Trump reportedly spoke with Maduro last week, according to reports from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

On November 25, Trump, on board Air Force One, was asked by reporters if he planned on speaking with Maduro. I might speak with him, I say. We’ll see. However, we’re talking about that with the various staffs. We might talk”, Trump told reporters.

When asked why he wanted to speak with a member of the “foreign terrorist organization,” he answered with a moral compass.

“If we can save lives, we can do things the easy way, that’s fine. And if we have to do it the hard way, that’s okay, too,” he said.

Can the US military action be legally justified?

The Trump administration’s military actions, in addition to international law, are in conflict with the US Constitution, according to critics. Rights observers and legal scholars have said the deadly boat strikes amount to “extrajudicial killing” and violation of human rights.

According to a report in The Washington Post, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had ordered the military to kill every passenger on board a ship suspected of having drugs.

Hegseth has rejected allegations, calling the report “fake news”. He claimed that the “fabricated and inflammatory” report was intended to “discredit our incredible warriors fighting the homeland.”

The defence secretary has said the strikes in the Caribbean are “lawful”.

Meanwhile, the US Congress set forth an investigation into the incident on Saturday. “At this point, I would call them extrajudicial killings”, Republican Senator Rand Paul told Fox News Sunday in October.

Expert on US constitutional law, Bruce Fein, backed Paul.

“Trump is acting extra-constitutionally and committing murder”, said Fein, who served as associate deputy attorney general under Republican President Ronald Reagan.

Fein argued that only Congress has the authority to impose offensive military use, not to mention that Trump’s executive orders in this regard do not have legal authority. “The victims are engaged in warfare against the United States, except in Trump’s fantasyland – a page from George Orwell’s 1984”.

The Trump administration claims that this isn’t a war between two countries that necessitates congressional declaration, but rather a counterterrorism operation against a non-state actor by designating the Cartel de los Soles, which Washington now refers to as the Venezuelan state.

Cartel de los Soles emerged in the 1990s when Venezuelan generals and senior officers were investigated for drug trafficking and related crimes. It is not a cartel in Venezuela, but rather a frequent reference to military personnel engaged in corruption and other illegal activities.

What has the president of Venezuela said?

Caracas has denounced Trump’s announcement that effectively closed the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela.

Trump’s statement, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, sought to “affect the sovereignty of]Venezuelan airspace, creating yet another extravagant, illegal, and unjustified aggression against the Venezuelan people.”

Meanwhile, Maduro, whose win in July’s election was not recognised by Washington, has called for peace, rejecting war, and advocated for harmony as he continues to appear frequently on state television broadcasts. No war, yes peace, forever, as Maduro put it in a mix of Spanish and English.

On November 15, Maduro invoked singer John Lennon’s peace anthem “Imagine” during a rally of supporters. As John Lennon once said, “Do everything for peace.” Imagine all the people”, he said.

Maduro later retorted the use of force or military threats and said, “Dialogue, call, yes. Peace, yes. No, not war. Never, never war”.

However, Maduro pledged to protect the nation from any “imperialist threat” last week as tensions continue to rise. He addressed a crowd at the Fuerte Tiuna military academy, in full martial dress, waving a sword that belonged to Simon Bolivar, Venezuela’s national hero.

What’s driving Trump’s hostile policy against Maduro?

According to foreign policy analysts, Trump’s aggressive actions toward the Venezuelan government are rooted in Caracas’s oil holdings, which are the largest proven reserves in the world, and establish US dominance in the Western Hemisphere.

Salvador Santino Regilme, a political scientist who leads the international relations programme at Leiden University, said Washington wants Venezuela to align firmly with US strategic preferences instead of China, Russia, or Iran.

In the 1970s, Venezuela was viewed as a trustworthy US ally during the Cold War. But when the founder of the governing United Socialist Party and former president, Hugo Chavez, was elected in 1998, relations with Washington began to sour.

Following a failed coup attempt in 2002, Chavez resigned from his position as president of the United States and fired US military advisers. He also pushed out US oil majors ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips after nationalising the oil sector, further straining the ties. Another US oil tycoon, Chevron, is still based in Venezuela.

Chavez was critical of the US involvement in Latin America and cultivated ties with regional left-leaning countries such as Cuba and Bolivia under former socialist President Evo Morales. Additionally, he improved communication between Russia and China regarding the economy.

After Maduro took over from Chavez in 2013, relations worsened. Trump supported Maduro’s political rivals during his first term, recognizing Juan Guaido as the interim president in 2019.

The US’s so-called “war on drugs” here functions as a political technology that strips alleged traffickers and small-boat crews of their humanity, argued Regilme, “so that lethal force and regime change look like law enforcement rather than war”.

Regilme cited the Trump administration’s use of Maduro’s state as a “criminal syndicate” to “delegitimise not just the regime but the entire political-economic model that resists this kind of restructuring.”

Adolfo Franco, a lawyer and Republican strategist, told Al Jazeera that while Trump has not explicitly laid out the next steps, he clearly wants regime change in Venezuela.

Everything is on the table for President Trump, according to the statement. The desire here, from my experience in government, is forcing Maduro to exit, either peacefully, which I think might be a tall order”, Franco said.

Because of the large number of forces and signals we’ve been sending to the region, he continued, “The negotiation part is challenging.” “I can’t imagine it being business as usual with Maduro running the Venezuelan government. That is not a table,”

Is Venezuela the main source of drugs going to the US, as Trump claims?

The Trump administration has promoted the idea that Venezuela is connected to “narco-terrorist” networks. But the fentanyl crisis that claims the most American lives has hardly any connection to Caracas.

Mexico is consistently cited by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Department of State as the country’s top producer of synthetic opioids using precursors from China, in particular the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels.

Venezuela does not even serve as a significant transit corridor for the drug that overwhelmingly enters the US through legal ports of entry, along the southwest land border rather than via the Caribbean maritime routes currently being targeted by the US Navy.

Venezuela appears to be a transit hub for cocaine, but it is not the main producer or the main trafficker.

Colombia remains the world’s leading cultivator of the drug. The majority of the cocaine that travels through Venezuela is exported to Europe.

In March 2020, the US estimated between 200 and 250 tonnes of cocaine were trafficked through Venezuela each year, representing 13 percent of the estimated global production.

The Trump administration’s attacks on the Caribbean have also been met with resistance from the US allies in Europe.

At a Group of Seven foreign ministers ‘ meeting in Canada’s Niagara region, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the strikes “violate international law” and were concerning France’s territories in the wider region.

Marco Rubio, the US’s top diplomat, was present. Before departing, he told reporters that drugs are also shipped via Venezuela to Europe, so the US should be thanked for killing the alleged smugglers.

Rubio claimed that the European Union does not have the authority to define what international law is. “They certainly don’t get to determine how the United States defends its national security”.

Colombia, which has a 2, 219km (1, 378-mile) border with Venezuela, has vehemently opposed US actions. Bogota already hosts millions of Venezuelan refugees who have fled the country due to a debilitating economic and political crisis.

Gustavo Petro, the president of left-wing Colombia, effectively ended security cooperation with the US following the boat strikes. He refused to recognize Maduro’s re-election in January.

Petro has described Trump as a “barbarian” who “wants to frighten us” in interviews in the US media. He referred to the US military’s expansion in the Caribbean as “unquestionably an aggression against Latin America.”

Brazil’s President Lula da Silva has taken a more diplomatic but equally firm stance, telling reporters in Johannesburg, South Africa, “no president of another country should make assumptions about what Venezuela … will be like”.

In televised remarks, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov criticized the US strikes as “unacceptable” and said, “This is how lawless countries generally act, as well as those who consider themselves above the law.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping, in a late November letter to Maduro, reaffirmed the two nations as “intimate friends, dear brothers, and good partners”, saying “China resolutely opposes the meddling of external forces in Venezuela’s internal affairs under any pretext”.

Are Venezuela’s actions dividing Trump’s MAGA base?

Trump won back to power this year, rising in his campaign pledge to avoid “forever wars,” which appeared to be deeply in line with his Make America Great Again (MAGA) goals.

Many in his camp are sceptical of extended military engagements abroad, viewing them as costly distractions from domestic priorities and a drain on US resources. When the US bombed Iran earlier this year amid tensions between Tehran and Israel, that fear was at the center of the discussion.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the most vocal faces of MAGA, had a public falling-out with Trump over his administration’s focus on foreign conflicts at the expense of the pressing economic issues, including the cost-of-living crisis, facing Americans. She has since decided to leave the Congress.

However, some MAGA-aligned voices have backed pressuring Venezuela’s government by sanctions or low-scale operations amid public opinion against any military intervention in the country.

Rubio, who is also the country’s national security adviser, has pushed for a tough Venezuelan policy, which serves his supporters in Florida, where there are many Cuban and Venezuelan immigrants.

Confronting an “authoritarian socialist narco-regime” plays well domestically for Trump as well, said Regilme, the foreign policy expert, adding that it ties “together anticommunism, border security, and the promise to be tough on crime”.

A kinetic strike on Venezuela is both a real option and a bargaining tool, according to Regilme.