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Secretary of State Marco Rubio was said to have listed the Trump administration’s demands to Venezuela’s new leader, Delcy Rodríguez, in a classified meeting Monday with senior congressional leaders.

The U.S. assault on Venezuela points to a world where big powers seek to call the shots in their regions, an idea Beijing knows well.

Military experts and diplomats agree new strategies and tactics – drone-based or otherwise – playing out in Ukraine’s theatre of war may be replicated closer to home

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It’s early morning at the sprawling 32nd Tactical airbase in Łask, a couple of hours outside the Polish capital of Warsaw, and the late autumn wind is sharp. Nearby, a crew of Australians are wrapping up the deployment of an E-7 Wedgetail surveillance plane, sent to the country to help Nato’s response to .
“You’ll feel it here,” our chaperone says, tapping his chest as a cluster of F16 fighter planes prepare to take off. Their roar reverberates through the atmosphere, each charging into the low-hanging clouds.

The US president has been quite clear that Cuba, Mexico, Colombia and Greenland are in his sights. We must believe him
As Venezuela’s skyline lit up under , we were watching the morbid symptoms of a declining empire. That may sound counterintuitive. After all, the US has kidnapped a foreign leader, and Donald Trump has announced that he will “run” Venezuela. Surely this looks less like decay than intoxication: a superpower high on its own force.
But Trump’s great virtue, if it can be called that, is candour. Previous US presidents draped naked self-interest in the language of “democracy” and “human rights”. Trump dispenses with the costume. , he boasted: “When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken it over, we would have gotten all that oil, it would have been right next door.” And this was no off-the-cuff remark. The logic of an oil grab, and much more besides, is laid out plainly in Trump’s recently published .

Every year a Chinese-dominated flotilla big enough to be seen from space pillages the rich marine life on Mile 201, a largely ungoverned part of the South Atlantic off Argentina
In a monitoring room in Buenos Aires, a dozen members of the Argentinian coast guard watch giant industrial-fishing ships moving in real time across a set of screens. “Every year, for five or six months, the foreign fleet comes from across the Indian Ocean, from Asian countries, and from the North Atlantic,” says Cdr Mauricio López, of the monitoring department. “It’s creating a serious environmental problem.”
Just beyond Argentina’s maritime frontier, hundreds of foreign vessels – known as the – are descending on Mile 201, a largely ungoverned strip of the high seas in the South Atlantic, to plunder its rich marine life. The fleet regularly becomes so big it can be seen from space, looking like a city floating on the sea.

While both countries were allied with Nicolás Maduro, the U.S. attack could give them justification to use force in other spheres, analysts said.

South Korea's Lee Jae Myung snapped selfies with China's Xi Jinping as he pursues better ties with China in a four-day visit.

Perception that Chinese-made weapons could not stop a ‘decapitation strike’ may give Beijing pause for thought
The sight of a hostile regional superpower launching an overnight raid to depose the leader of a smaller neighbouring country could easily have sent pulses in Taiwan racing.
The US on Saturday revealed the details of a surprise raid to capture Venezuela’s leader, , who was whisked away to the US, where he was frogmarched into .

US ambassador defends attack as ‘law enforcement’ action against an ‘illegitimate’ leader, not an act of war

The US has faced widespread condemnation for a “crime of aggression” in Venezuela at an emergency meeting of the United Nations security council.
Brazil, China, Colombia, Cuba, Eritrea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and Spain were among the countries on Monday that denounced Donald Trump’s decision to , Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, to stand trial in the US.

Maduro had just affirmed ‘strong bonds of brotherhood’ with Beijing when US made its shocking intervention

Hours before his life and the fate of his country was changed dramatically, Venezuela’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, was with a Chinese delegation in the presidential palace in Caracas.
On Friday evening, shortly before he was , Maduro wrote on Telegram of his meeting with China’s special envoy for Latin American affairs, Qiu Xiaoqi: “A fraternal meeting that reaffirms the strong bonds of brotherhood and friendship between China and Venezuela. Through thick and thin!”

Enhe was once home to thousands of ethnic Russians. Under Xi Jinping’s push for ethnic unity, little remains beyond nostalgia and props for tourists.

The plushies bring "emotional value" to Chinese youth navigating economic uncertainty.