Category World News

Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, was eerily quiet on Monday, two days after the country bombed and kidnapped Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro.

However, many “caraquenos” made the decision to shop for groceries and other necessities, though at inflated prices.

As Venezuelans prepare to face the looming threat of additional US intervention, the tense atmosphere on the streets of Caracas was yet another indication of the uncertainty that daily people face.

Local authorities have demanded that Venezuela’s regular economic activity be continued. However, some stores remained closed while households stocked up on essential goods in case of a shortage.

Many shopkeepers in Caracas’s central market, Quinta Crespo, were afraid of looting and unrest.

Despite the midday sun, lines of 10 or more people frequently spanned the stores that remained open. Bolivarian National Police officers patrolled the area to maintain order during the long lines.

In case the security situation in the capital deteriorated, customers informed Al Jazeera that they were purchasing non-perishable items like corn flour, rice, and canned goods.

Given the circumstances the nation is currently facing, Carlos Godoy, 45, a resident of Caracas’ western Caricuao, said, “I’m looking for basic necessities.” We are anticipating what transpires. We are all tethered to uncertainty.

Powdered milk, which Godoy claimed is priced at $16 per kilogram, was one of the priciest items he saw while shopping.

Despite the early-morning attack on Saturday, another shopper, Betzerpa Ramrez, claimed she felt calm. She noted that some goods have had higher prices despite not needing to hoard them.

She claimed that “hygiene items are more expensive than food.”

Some of the recent price increases caused anger for Alexandra Arismendi, who works in a mobile phone shop at the Sambil mall in one of Caracas’s busiest shopping districts.

She claimed that the egg price was “exaggerated.”

She said, “The prices are high.” Beyond the norm, an egg carton is available for $10.

Mara Gabriela, 23, her coworker, complained about the declining sales as customers stayed indoors out of fear of unrest.

The mall’s previously bustling crowds had mostly vanished. Gabiela herself resisted showing up for work. To avoid using public transportation, she took a taxi.

“We assumed that people would be looking for chargers or power banks] for potential power failures,” Gabriela said.

“No usual activity has occurred. One of the most bizarre days in recent memory is now.

Over the past ten years, Venezuelans have grown used to price increases and supply shortages. Venezuela’s economy is being destabilized by government corruption, mismanagement, and US sanctions, according to experts.

Oil prices dropped during Maduro’s presidency, causing a slump in Venezuela’s oil-heavy economy.

According to the national central bank, inflation had reached more than 130, 000 percent by 2018. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a sluggish economy, which led to food and health supplies shortages.

Since winning the disputed presidential election in 2024, Maduro’s government has not released inflation figures.

After the US attack on Saturday, it is still unclear how much normalcy will return to Venezuela.

The administration of US President Donald Trump launched munitions against military installations in the states of Caracas, Aragua, Miranda, and La Guaira at dawn.

According to an unidentified Venezuelan official cited in The New York Times, at least 80 people died in the attack.

In a matter of hours, the US military offensive was over. Trump has, however, warned that if his demands for Venezuela are not met, he might grant authorization for a “second wave” of attacks.

Additionally, the Venezuelan government has declared a state of emergency to “immediately begin the national search and capture of everyone who participated in or supported the armed attack by the United States.”

Despite his being kidnapped into the US, Maduro continues to be Venezuela’s leader.

According to Arismendi, Venezuela’s tension has not yet reached the level it did following the protests in 2024.

In response to Nicolas Maduro’s abduction by American military forces, Venezuela’s interim leader, Delcy Rodriguez, has claimed that “no foreign agent” is operating in Venezuela.

Rodriguez, who had previously served as Maduro’s vice president prior to his abduction, made the remarks at a televised event on Tuesday, one day after Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, entered pleas not guilty to conspiracy to traffic in New York.

No one else is in charge in our nation but the Venezuelan government. No foreign agent is in charge of Venezuela, Rodriguez claimed.

Meanwhile, Maduro and his wife were requested by Venezuela’s prosecutor general for their immediate release.

Without a declaration of war or a resolution from the UN Security Council, the military operation is a deemed an unlawful act of armed terrorism, according to Tarek William Saab.

The statements come as a result of the military operation that left dozens of people dead in Venezuela on Saturday. The offensive has been widely dissented as a global law violation.

The 24 soldiers killed in the predawn assault were released on Tuesday in Venezuela. Cuba also announced the passing of 32 military personnel. In honor of the fallen military personnel, Rodriguez established a seven-day period of mourning.

US President Donald Trump’s administration hasn’t provided much information about its plans for Venezuela since seizing Maduro from his residence.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio responded to Trump’s statement on Saturday that the US would “run” Venezuela.

Instead, the top diplomat claimed that US officials would set the country’s “direction” and use sanctions and an ongoing embargo to impose more restrictions on Venezuela’s oil industry.

On Monday, Rubio, the US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the House Judiciary gave a group of Congress members a report on the Venezuela operation.

However, some lawmakers claimed that the administration had not disclosed its plans for Venezuela’s future or its justification for holding the strike without first obtaining congressional approval.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said afterwards, “This briefing, while very extensive and lengthy, posed far more questions than it ever answered.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican Party ally, said on Tuesday that Venezuela’s “government structure and how willing they are to work with the US” would be revealed over the coming days.

Rodriguez was described as a “practical person, pragmatic person” who “will understand the importance of figuring out a way forward so that Venezuela can prioritize its national security priorities.”

Trump, in addition lauding the abduction as an “amazing military feat” and “brilliant tactically,” provided few additional details about the operation during a retreat with Republicans on Tuesday.

Former Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido said the nation had a “wonderful and incredible opportunity” while speaking from exile in Miami, Florida.

Guaido, who fled Venezuela in 2023, claimed that restoring the country’s democracy would lead to the return of millions of Venezuelans, as well as “bring back to life the oil fields” and “restore prosperity.

Rodriguez was described as a “acting dictator” and said the current era would only end “once the rule of law is reinstated”

Uncomfortable in Caracas

On Tuesday, crowds gathered in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, for a state-organized demonstration of government support.

Some marchers flashed “V” victory signs. Diosdado Cabello, the US Department of Justice indictment, was seen wading through the crowd. He is the country’s traditional minister of interior. The phrase “to doubt is to betray” was emblazoned on a blue cap on him.

However, Venezuelan journalist Noris Argotte Soto claimed that most people in Caracas remain tense and that most people remain inside their homes.

Everyone stays at home in the city’s “peripheral areas.” People are irate, the tension is rising. And people are extremely reluctant to leave the city and enter it, she said, primarily because of the security forces present at the city’s main squares.

Soto added that paramilitaries affiliated with the government have recently been working with the military to protect national security and avert potential dissention.

She claimed that they collaborated with the security forces yesterday.

They essentially targeted people, intimidated them, ran their cars, and even demanded that they use their cell phones to check their messages and social media accounts.

Regional uncertainty

The Trump administration’s increased threats to Colombia and the island of Greenland in the northern Atlantic have also caused anxiety in the region.

Trump said in response to the attack on Saturday that he had not considered starting an attack on Colombia because he had allegedly failed to tamp down the illegal drug trade.

He called Gustavo Petro, the nation’s president, a “sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States,” a vocal critic of US operations in Venezuela.

Rosa Yolanda Villavicencio, Colombia’s foreign affairs minister, announced on Tuesday that she would meet with the Colombian consular office in Bogota to file a formal complaint about the recent “threats” emanating from the US.

Villavicencio expressed her hope that the Trump administration will be informed of “all that we are doing in the fight against drug trafficking.”

Vivian Motzfeldt, the country’s foreign minister, posted a request on social media for an urgent meeting with Rubio on Tuesday to “discus the significant statement made by the United States.”

Trump once more floated a plan to retake control of Greenland, a Danish autonomous territory.

Later, Stephen Miller, a Trump aide, asserted that if it believes such actions are in line with its national interest, Washington has the right to seize sovereign territories.

The statement was consistent with a December White House national security strategy that stated the goal of restoring the United States’ “preeminence” in the Western Hemisphere.

The White House once more stated on Tuesday that it was looking into options for capturing Greenland, adding that “using the US military is always an option.”

Numerous European nations, as well as Canada, have reacted in support of Greenland, noting that Denmark is a NATO member. Therefore, an island attack would be considered an island attack on the entire bloc.

The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom joined with Denmark on Tuesday to release a joint statement denouncing Trump’s remarks.

Tehran, Iran – As the government’s efforts to contain the country’s deteriorating economic situation fail, louder protests are being recorded all over Iran as a result of the government’s growing deployment of armed security personnel.

In the city of Abdanan in the central province of Ilam, where several significant demonstrations have occurred in the past week, footage that was available online showed massive demonstrations on Tuesday night.

While helicopters flew overhead, footage of countless people chanting and walking through the streets of the small city, from children to the elderly. The security forces working to contain them appeared to be far more powerful than the protesters.

Videos of security forces storming the Imam Khomeini Hospital in Ilam, the capital of the province, showed protesters being arrested and detained, which rights group Amnesty International claimed was in violation of international law. This again demonstrates how far the Iranian authorities are willing to go to thwart dissent.

Following earlier this week’s protests in the county of Malekshahi, where several demonstrators were shot dead while gathering at a military base’s entrance, the hospital was targeted. Some protesters received hospital treatment.

People were reportedly sprayed with live fire and thrown to the ground as they fled from the gate, according to several graphic videos that were available online at the time of the shooting. The shooting is being looked into, according to the local governor.

At least three people were killed, according to state-linked media. A police officer was shot dead following armed clashes following the funeral procession of the dead protesters, according to them on Tuesday.

In Tehran, videos of traders and business owners clashing with security forces while using tear gas and batons at the Grand Bazaar were abundant.

In the bazaar, people could be heard yelling “freedom” and yelling “dishonorable” at police. When confronted by security forces, a man yelled, “Execute me if you want, I’m not a rioter,” to the cheers and clapping of the crowd.

“Have no mercy,”

In his first statement following the protests this week, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei remarked that rioters should be “put in their place.”

Chief Justice Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei continued, “We will show no mercy to rioters this time.”

Similar tense events took place in nearby streets and neighbourhoods, where shopkeepers had initially started the protests on December 28. On Tuesday, protests and strikes in a number of Tehran’s other major shopping centers, including Yaftabad, where police were confronted with the words “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon, my life for Iran” were loud.

The Iranian government is accused of supporting armed groups in Lebanon and Gaza.

The Tehran University of Medical Science confirmed in a statement that the tear gas canisters filmed inside the hospital compound were not thrown by security forces, despite the fact that more clashes were documented around Tehran’s Sina Hospital.

In addition, protests took place in the cities of Hamedan, Kermanshah in the west, Mashhad in the northeast, Qazvin in the south of the capital, Shahrekord in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari in the southwest, and Lorestan and Kermanshah in the west, and Mashhad in the northeast.

At least 35 people have been killed in the protests so far, according to a foreign-based human rights monitor who is opposed to Iran’s theocracy. Al Jazeera was unable to independently verify any of the Iranian state’s casualty reports.

The price of cooking oil triples.

One of the highest inflation rates in the world is still in place, especially given the constant rising costs of essential food items.

The moderate President Masoud Pezeshkian’s government claims to be carrying out plans to control the economic situation while a rapid decline is roiling.

The rial, the nation’s tense currency, was priced at more than 1.47 million US dollars on Tuesday in Tehran’s open market, breaking a new record-breaking low that demonstrated a lack of public and investor confidence.

The Iranian middle class, which has seen its purchasing power decline since 2018, when the US unilaterally renounced a 2015 nuclear deal and reimposed severe sanctions, has seen its price increase by far the sharpest price increase this week. It has more than tripled and fallen further out of reach of the depressed Iranian middle class.

The development comes after Pezeshkian released a budget for the upcoming Iranian calendar year that eliminated a subsidised currency rate for some imports, including food, in late March.

The decision to eliminate the rent-distributing subsidised currency rate in an effort to combat corruption has been praised by some economists, especially given that the less expensive currency has only been used and has failed to lower food prices.

The decision was anticipated to cause prices to rise in the near future and provoke opposition from establishment interest groups that have profited from the low currency for years. However, it is still to be seen whether the market will listen as the government announces official prices of its own because the oil price spike was so abrupt.

The government has offered to allocate 10 million rials ($7 at the current exchange rate) to help people buy food by using the resources that will be freed from the cheaper, subsidised currency.

Homayoun Shajarian and Alireza Ghorbani, two well-known singers, joined the ranks of numerous online celebrities and people who pledged to end their professional responsibilities, including attending scheduled concerts, in a solemn vigilance and show their support for the protests.

How are our officials supposed to sleep? a video interview that went viral on Tuesday, asked Iranian football legend Ali Daei, who is regarded as a revered national figure among the people.