Category World News

As tensions escalate over potential military action by the United States, Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has called for peace and pledged “absolute loyalty” to his people at a rally in Caracas.

According to media reports, the rally took place as US President Donald Trump and his national security team discussed Venezuela’s “next steps.”

Maduro told a crowd of Venezuelans outside the presidential palace in Caracas that they only desired peace “with sovereignty, equality, and freedom” and that they wanted peace instead.

We oppose peace in colonies and between slaves and people! Never, ever, Colonia! Never, ever, “slaves”! he stated.

In what it calls an anti-drug trafficking campaign, the Trump administration has been mounting pressure on Venezuela as a military expansion continues in the Caribbean. According to Caracas, the actions are intended to overthrow Maduro’s administration.

The US has deployed the largest aircraft carrier in the area, which is the largest carrier in the world, and it has designated the Cartel de los Soles, which Maduro leads as a drug trafficking cartel, as a “terrorist” organization.

At least 83 people have been killed by at least 21 strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific since September, according to it.

According to experts, the US’s combined force far exceeds what is required for a drug-trafficking operation, while Caracas asserts that the US is attempting to overthrow Venezuela’s numerous natural resources, including oil.

Maduro claimed on Monday that the US was conducting a “psychological terrorism campaign.”

He claimed that “we have endured 22 weeks of aggression that can only be described as psychological terrorism.” The Venezuelan people have shown their love for their country, he continued, adding, “These 22 weeks have put us to the test.”

Calls from Trump and Maduro

Trump, by contrast, confirmed on Sunday that he had spoken with Maduro on the phone, but he said the conversation had not gone “well or poorly.”

According to a Reuters news release on Monday, Trump reportedly offered Maduro a safe exit from Venezuela during the brief call on November 21 citing four reputable sources.

According to three of the sources, Maduro told Trump he was willing to leave Venezuela if he and his family received full legal amnesty, including the end of a significant case he faces before the International Criminal Court (ICC), Reuters reported.

He also requested that more than 100 Venezuelan government officials be free of sanctions, many of whom the US has accused of alleged human rights violations, drug trafficking, or corruption, according to Reuters.

Trump told Maduro he had a week to travel to the place of his choosing alongside his family members, rejecting the majority of his requests during the call.

Two of the sources told Reuters that Trump declared Saturday that Venezuela’s airspace was closed as a result of that safe passage on Friday.

The US or Venezuela did not respond to the report right away.

Maduro, who has been in power since 2013, is not recognized as Venezuela’s legitimate president, according to the Trump administration. In a national election that independent observers claimed the opposition won overwhelmingly, Maduro claimed a re-election victory last year.

Maduro’s appearance at the Caracas rally came amid rumors that he had left the country in response to Trump’s announcement to close Venezuela’s airspace, according to Al Jazeera’s Teresa Bo, who is a reporter from Cucuta on the Colombia-Venezuela border.

Bo claimed that Venezuelans who pass through the Simon Bolivar bridge between the two nations were “extremely concerned about the possibility of a military strike” by the US.

Venezuela continues to deploy military vehicles throughout the nation in the interim. They are guarding Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, and particularly the main highway that runs between the airport and the coastal regions. Vladimir Padrino Lopez, the minister of defense, has shown off some military equipment, including fighter jets and aerial defenses, she claimed.

Sources in Venezuela told Al Jazeera that they are aware that the US cannot compete with the country’s military, she claimed.

“That’s why they’re concentrating on a different strategy. And this might include arbitrary attacks, sabotage, using criminal organizations, supporters of the government, and possibly guerrillas, among others,” Bo said.

Joaquin Guzman Lopez, the son of notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, has pleaded guilty to two counts of drug trafficking and organized crime in a Chicago court, replacing his earlier not guilty verdict after his arrest last year.

Guzman Lopez sparingly in court on Monday while sporting an orange jumpsuit and matching pair of shoes. Sharon Coleman, the judge of the Northern District of Illinois, questioned him about his work-related activities early in the hearing.

Guzman Lopez responded, “Drug trafficking.”

Coleman chuckled back, “Oh, that’s your job.”

According to reports, Guzman Lopez is expected to avoid life in prison if he accepts a guilty plea as part of a deal that allows him to cooperate with US prosecutors and pay an $80 million fine for his crimes.

He still faces a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison, according to federal government attorney Andrew Erskine.

According to reports, Guzman Lopez will be sentenced by a judge at a later time and won’t be able to file an appeal as part of the plea deal.

After the hearing, Guzman Lopez’s defense attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, stated that the government has treated Joaquin fairly so far.

According to Lichtman, “I do appreciate the fact that the Mexican government did not interfere.”

In the 35-page plea deal, Guzman Lopez and his brothers admitted to supporting the cartel’s activities by paying off officials and using weapons and other weapons to execute threats against law enforcement, rival traffickers, and even members of their own organization, according to a report from the Chicago Tribune.

The “Chapitos”

In the US, Guzman Lopez and his brother Ovidio are accused of leading a powerful Sinaloa cartel faction after their father allegedly inherited their father from El Chapo and are one of the four sons known as the “Chapitos” or “little Chapos” in the country.

In July, Ovidio Guzman Lopez admitted guilt on two counts of drug distribution and two counts of engaging in a persistent criminal activity in the US. He might receive a life sentence.

Two more brothers are still at large. El Chapo, their father, was sentenced to life in a maximum security prison in 2017, and was extradited to the US in 2017.

US federal authorities described the Sinaloa cartel’s activities as a “staggering” network that brought “staggering” amounts of fentanyl into the US in 2023.

As prosecutors on Monday outlined the circumstances that led to Guzman Lopez’s dramatic arrest in Chicago in July 2024, along with another long-standing Sinaloa leader, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, the security at the federal court was raised.

After landing in a&nbsp, a small private plane, the pair were detained in Texas. In response to reports of betrayal that led to the arrests in the US, two factions of the Sinaloa cartel clashed, prompting a rise in violence in Mexico’s northern state of Sinaloa.

El Mayo’s kidnapping appears to be an admission made by Guzman Lopez.

Guzman Lopez also admits to kidnapping an unnamed person who is alleged to be Zambada in his plea deal.

The alleged kidnapping was described in court by Erskine, a federal government lawyer, who claimed Guzman Lopez had the glass removed from a floor-to-ceiling window.

Guzman Lopez allegedly arranged for someone else to enter through an open window, seize the person, stuff his head over his head, and take him to a plane while they were having a meeting there. Before the plane touched down at a New Mexico airport close to the Texas border, he was zip-tied and given sedatives.

Erskine claimed that Guzman Lopez’s alleged kidnapping was part of a campaign to show cooperation with the US government, which did not sanction his actions. Because of the kidnapping, he claimed, Guzman Lopez would not be eligible for cooperation credit.

Guzman Lopez’s information accentuates some of the details that Zambada already disclosed in a letter he signed and that his lawyer released shortly after his arrest last year.

Zambada’s attorney claimed that his client had been “forced to kidnapped” onto the US flight. Zambada claimed Guzman Lopez asked him to meet with local politicians on July 25 in the two-page letter. According to Zamboda, El Chapo’s son organized the meeting to “help resolve the political leaders’ differences.”

The document states that “the idea that I gave up or worked for others completely false.”

At a pre-trial hearing on Monday, a prison guard testified that Luigi Mangione, the 27-year-old who is accused of killing the chief executive of the biggest health insurer in the country in December of this year, had a 3D-printed gun in his backpack.

In a court in New York City, prosecutors will be able to use the evidence against Mangione, who is accused of shooting the death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

The guard claimed that Mangione had a 3D-printed pistol in his backpack and that he had a silencer and other allegedly-identifiable journal entries in his bag without question.

A defense lawyer disputed the guard’s claim that Mangione, who was appearing before Justice Gregory Carro at the hearing wearing a grey suit and a white shirt with a red checkered pattern, provided the necessary information on his own.

You “weren’t speaking to him at all,” he says to you “I had a 3D-printed pistol” out of nowhere. Marc Agnifilo, a defense attorney, contacted.

The guard claimed during subsequent questioning by a prosecutor that he did not care about the outcome of the case and that he did not ask Mangione any questions.

Mangione’s attorneys contend that his lawyers’ claims that his lawyers violated his legal rights and that his purported statements to law enforcement and his backpack may be significant pieces of evidence at his trial should be inadmissible.

Mangione’s attorneys refute allegations that she was subjected to unlawful searches and interrogations.

The prosecution would benefit greatly by excluding the gun and notebook from a potential murder weapon and evidence that they claim points to motive, and by doing so would eliminate them.

In court documents, Mangione’s alleged praise for the late “Unabomber” Theodore Kaczynski, who carried out a number of mail bombings between 1978 and 1995 has been extensively quoted in Mangione’s writings.

According to prosecutors, Mangione allegedly mused about rebelling against “the deadly, greed-fueled health insurance cartel” and justified killing business executives.

The wealthy Maryland family’s scion, Mangione, has entered a not-guilty plea to murder and other charges, and is scheduled to go on trial next year.

In a separate federal case where prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty, he has entered a not-guilty plea.

At the hearing on Monday, Mangione stoically watched the prosecution play surveillance videos of Thompson’s murder and, presumably, Mangione’s arrest five days later.

As he ate breakfast at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, which is about 370 kilometers (230 miles) west of Manhattan, Mangione placed a thumb and finger on his lips in response to surveillance footage of two police officers approaching him.

As prosecutors played a 911 call from a McDonald’s manager who had concerns that Mangione might be the suspect in Thompson’s murder, he held a pen in his right hand and made a fist at times.

The employee was reportedly able to say in a recording of the first court hearing that “I have a customer here that some other customers are suspicious of, who looks like the CEO shooter.”

If Mangione is found guilty of second-degree murder, which is defined as an intentional killing, he could face life in prison. Additionally, he faces one count of false identification and seven counts of criminal possession of a weapon.

In September, Judge Carro dropped two terrorism charges against Mangione because prosecutors lacked sufficient evidence to show Mangione intended to stifle health insurance workers or influence government decisions.

Before the hearing, several Mangione supporters showed up outside the court, including a woman wearing a “Free Luigi” sash and a man wearing a Super Mario Bros villain’s outfit with a sign that read, “When patients die, profits rise.”