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    Trump news at a glance: Maduro appears in US court as nations condemn president’s attack on Venezuela

    Trump’s moves spark global wave of revulsion and fears that similar actions could happen in other countries – key US politics stories from Monday 5 January at a glanceThe deposed Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro pleaded not guilty to drugs, weapons and narco-terrorism charges on Monday, two days after his capture by US special forces in an operation ordered by Donald Trump that sent shockwaves around the world.As Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores addressed the court in lower Manhattan, the UN security council held an emergency meeting just a few miles to the north, where a dozen countries condemned the US “crime of aggression” and secretary general António Guterres suggested the operation constituted a breach of international law. Continue reading… More

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    Corporation For Public Broadcasting formally dissolves after federal funding cuts

    Board of directors vote to dissolve organization after nearly 60 years in operation after funding cuts under TrumpThe nonprofit charged by Congress with allocating funds to NPR, PBS and other US public radio and television stations announced is dissolving after massive federal funding cuts under Donald Trump.The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced on Monday that its board of directors had voted to dissolve the organization after nearly 60 years in operation. Continue reading… More

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    ‘Soy inocente’: Maduro defiant in surreal New York courtroom spectacle

    The Venezuelan leader entered a heartfelt not guilty plea – and told a member of the gallery he was a prisoner of warVenezuela crisis – latest updatesAt noon on Monday, Nicolás Maduro was escorted into a Manhattan federal courtroom following his capture early on Saturday in Caracas, completing the seized Venezuelan leader’s stunning journey from his capital city to a US courtroom.It was a surreal display amid the fallout of a brazen US military operation to grab Maduro that has roiled global politics and stunned observers in the US and overseas. Continue reading… More

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    With Trump’s military action in Venezuela, the US has made every other country less safe | Volker Türk

    This weakens the only mechanism we have to prevent world conflict, namely the UN. The international community must stand up for the rule of lawVolker Türk is UN high commissioner for human rightsThe US military operation in Venezuela undermines a fundamental principle of international law, agreed after the horrors of two world wars and the Holocaust: states must not use force to pursue their territorial claims or political demands.I am deeply disturbed by these events – and by some of the reactions I have seen. A narrative is emerging that seeks to justify the US military intervention as a response to the Nicolás Maduro government’s appalling human rights record.Volker Türk has been the UN high commissioner for human rights since 2022 Continue reading… More

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    For Americans, 2026 started with two starkly different visions for the country | Moira Donegan

    Zohran Mamdani’s optimistic inauguration contrasted in every single way with Trump’s brazen invasion of VenezuelaThe new year opened with a pair of scenes that illustrated the great divide within the US and the stakes of the ongoing contest over its future. On 1 January, in a star-studded inauguration ceremony of uncommon pomp and optimism, Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist, was sworn in as the new mayor of New York and delivered a speech that declared the era of small government and centrist inhibition to be over, and a new dawn of ambitious social welfare programs to begin.The new mayor’s inauguration is the culmination of a decade of growth from the Democratic party’s insurgent left wing, and results from a feat of organizing within the country’s largest city that relied upon mass mobilization from downwardly mobile and economically disenfranchised millennial and gen Z voters. It was hailed as a generational shift in US politics, inaugurating a new, 21st-century vision for the party. Continue reading… More