NEWS

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oppled Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro pleaded not guilty on Monday to U.S. narcotics charges following his dramatic capture by American special forces, an operation that has jolted global diplomacy and triggered political turmoil in Caracas.

Appearing in a New York federal court, the 63-year-old former leader denied four criminal counts including narco-terrorism, conspiracy to import cocaine, and possession of machine guns and explosive devices. Dressed in prison attire and speaking through an interpreter, Maduro declared himself innocent and insisted he remained Venezuela's legitimate president before being interrupted by the judge.

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From the smoldering wreckage of two catastrophic world wars in the last century, nations came together to build an edifice of international rules and laws. The goal was to prevent such sprawling conflicts in the future.

Now that world order — centered at the United Nations headquarters in New York, near the courtroom where Nicolás Maduro was arraigned Monday after his removal from power in Venezuela — appears in danger of crumbling as the doctrine of “might makes right” muscles its way back onto the global stage.

U.N. Undersecretary-General Rosemary A. DiCarlo told the body’s Security Council on Monday that the “maintenance of international peace and security depends on the continued commitment of all member states to adhere to all the provisions of the (U.N.) Charter.”

U.S. President Donald Trump insists capturing Maduro was legal. His administration has declared the drug cartels operating from Venezuela to be unlawful combatants and said the U.S. is now in an “armed conflict” with them, according to an administration memo obtained in October by The Associated Press.

The mission to snatch Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores from their home on a military base in the capital Caracas means they face charges of participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, defended the military action as a justified “surgical law enforcement operation.”

The move fits into the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy, published last month, that lays out restoring “American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere” as a key goal of the U.S. president’s second term in the White House.

But could it also serve as a blueprint for further action?

Worry rises about future action

On Sunday evening, Trump also put Venezuela’s neighbor, Colombia, and its leftist president, Gustavo Petro, on notice.

In a back-and-forth with reporters, Trump said Colombia is “run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States.” The Trump administration imposed sanctions in October on Petro, his family and a member of his government over accusations of involvement in the global drug trade. Colombia is considered the epicenter of the world’s cocaine trade.

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Venezuela is open to negotiating an agreement with the United States to combat drug trafficking, the South American country’s President Nicolás Maduro said in a pretaped interview aired Thursday on state television, but he declined to comment on a CIA-led strike last week at a Venezuelan docking area that the Trump administration believed was used by cartels.

Maduro, in an interview with Spanish journalist Ignacio Ramonet, reiterated that the U.S. wants to force a government change in Venezuela and gain access to its vast oil reserves through the monthslong pressure campaign that began with a massive military deployment to the Caribbean Sea in August.

“What are they seeking? It is clear that they seek to impose themselves through threats, intimidation and force,” Maduro said, later adding that it is time for both nations to “start talking seriously, with data in hand.”

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Pope Leo XIV on Tuesday closed out the Vatican’s 2025 Holy Year by denouncing today’s consumerist and anti-foreigner sentiment, capping a Jubilee that saw some 33 million pilgrims flock to Rome and a historic transition from one American pontiff to another.

With cardinals and diplomats looking on, Leo kneeled down in prayer on the stone floor at the threshold of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica. He then stood up and pulled the two doors shut, symbolically concluding the rarest of Jubilees: one that was opened by a feeble Pope Francis in December 2024, continued during his funeral and the conclave, and then was closed by Francis’ successor a year later.

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Zohran Mamdani became mayor of New York City just after midnight Thursday, taking the oath of office at an historic, decommissioned subway station in Manhattan.

Mamdani, a Democrat, was sworn in as the first Muslim leader of America’s biggest city, placing his hand on a Quran as he took his oath.

“This is truly the honor and the privilege of a lifetime,” Mamdani said in a brief speech.

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The Trump administration’s capture of Venezuela’s president and plans to “run” the country are raising stark new questions about the legality of the U.S. moves under a broader campaign against the South American nation.

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President Donald Trump has announced the withdrawal of National Guard troops from multiple US cities, notably Chicago and Los Angeles, following a Supreme Court ruling that limited his executive authority to use military forces for domestic policing. This decision comes after the administration dropped its legal challenge to maintain control over troops in Los Angeles on Tuesday, a move prompted by last week’s Supreme Court verdict involving similar deployments in Chicago.

Trump's statement also mentioned Portland, Oregon, but not Washington DC, where troops remain on patrol.

"We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again," Trump wrote on Truth Social on New Year's Eve.