Venezuela’s National Assembly leader sets deadline for prisoner release
Jorge Rodriguez told family members of Venezuelan political prisoners that they would be freed on February 13.
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Trump says that he will allow reopening of Venezuelan airspace
US has asserted control over Venezuela on key issues of sovereignty and made threats of further military attacks.
Venezuela’s police, military pledge loyalty to interim President Rodriguez
Delcy Rodriguez receives loyalty pledge weeks after dozens killed in US military operation to abduct Nicolas Maduro.
Rubio says Maduro abduction ‘strategic’ necessity, downplays future attacks
Top US diplomat gives scant mention of international law as he explains plan for Venezuela in US Senate testimony.
Lula, Trump discuss ‘Board of Peace’, agree to meet in Washington: Brazil
Lula criticises US actions in Venezuela, calling the capture of Maduro an unacceptable line against regional stability.
From: UpFront
Trump’s second term: ‘Reality has overtaken satire’
Marc Lamont Hill sits down with The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel to unpack the first year of Trump’s second term.
Published On 26 Jan 2026
EXPLAINER
‘Remote coercion’: What has US approach been since abduction of Maduro?
Three weeks since attack, US plans focus on oil, but little clarity emerges, as analysts warn of Venezuela faultlines.
Venezuela’s interim president’s oil law reform to break with Chavez model
Opposition declined to vote for bill to overhaul oil sector that they had only received just before it was tabled.
The US attack on Venezuela and the collapse of international law
The intervention exposes how great-power geopolitics have hollowed out the UN Charter system.
World Wars I and II killed about 100 million people combined. To avoid a third world war, they made some rules. But in recent years, those rules have increasingly been ignored. And United States President Donald Trump just took it to another level, one that many say may help upend the international rules-based order intended to keep us safe.
The rules include the United Nations Charter, signed in 1945. It bans the use of force against any state unless it is in self-defence or approved by the UN Security Council.
The year prior, 44 countries signed the Bretton Woods Economic Order to mitigate destabilising financial crises. It created the IMF and the World Bank. Similarly, humanitarian law and war crimes were laid out in the Nuremberg Charter in 1945 and the Geneva Conventions of 1949.
But a crack in the veneer of the global order appeared in the 1980s, when the US violated international law by militarily supporting the Contras in their fight against the government in Nicaragua. That order took another hit in 2003, when a US-led coalition invaded Iraq without UNSC approval or a clear justification of self-defence.
The US, however, is not alone. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is also seen as contravening rules designed to avoid global conflict.
And the humanitarian horror that is the genocide being perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinians in Gaza simply defies comprehension. In the process, it upended the world order by undermining the UN Genocide Convention.
The Trump administration’s abduction of a head of state, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, has been widely condemned as illegal and unconstitutional, Maduro’s authoritarianism notwithstanding. Despite the condemnation, Trump has similarly threatened Greenland, Colombia, Iran, Mexico and Cuba.
Trump’s flouting of the rules has been called “neo-royalism”, defined as a world dominated by elite billionaires, many of them tech bros, aligned with a king-like political leader. Seemingly in line with that, Trump sees his power limited by one thing only.
In neo-royalism, the state is sidelined, says political scientist Abe Newman. Interviewed by Mother Jones, he warned that these powerful cliques do not “play by the same rules”. Right now, it seems Trump assumes “might makes right”. Unfortunately, we have seen that it often does not end well.
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Nearly 50 Venezuelan soldiers killed in US abduction of President Maduro
Venezuela’s Defence Ministry says 83 people in total killed in US attack to abduct President Nicolas Maduro.
