Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro pleaded Thursday against a “crazy war” as an escalating US military campaign sent tensions soaring.Maduro’s comment came after US President Donald Trump said he had authorized covert action against the South American nation amid a military campaign targeting what Washington says are drug traffickers in the Caribbean and Pacific.”Yes peace, yes peace forever, peace forever. No crazy war, please!” Maduro said in English in a meeting with unions aligned with the leftist leader.The United States has deployed stealth warplanes and navy ships as part of what it calls anti-narcotics efforts, but has yet to release evidence that its targets — eight boats and a semi-submersible — were smuggling drugs.Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Trump again denied that he had sent B-1B bombers to Venezuela, but said “we’re not happy with them. They’ve emptied their prisons into our country.”The president said “we’re not going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war” from Congress, which has the constitutional power to do so.”We’re just going to kill people who come into our country.”The US strikes, which began on September 2, have killed at least 37 people, according to an AFP tally based on US figures.Regional tensions have flared as a result of the campaign, with Maduro accusing Washington of seeking regime change.Late Thursday, the government in Trinidad and Tobago — located just off Venezuela’s coast — announced that a US warship would dock in its capital from October 26-30.The Trinidadian foreign ministry said a unit of US Marines would conduct joint exercises with its defense forces.Two of those killed in the US strikes were from Trinidad and Tobago.Last week, Trump said he had authorized covert CIA action against Venezuela and was considering strikes against alleged drug cartels on land.The Republican billionaire president accuses Maduro of heading a drug cartel, a charge the Venezuelan leader denies.”We know the CIA is present” in Venezuela, the country’s defense minister Vladimir Padrino said Thursday. “They may deploy — I don’t know how many — CIA-affiliated units in covert operations… and any attempt will fail.”Padrino was overseeing military exercises along Venezuela’s coast in response to the US military deployment in the Caribbean. Experts have questioned the legality of using lethal force in foreign or international waters against suspects who have not been intercepted or questioned.

Major US and Japanese animation studios including HBO Max and Amazon unknowingly hired North Korean IT workers, a joint government report has found.Pyongyang has ramped up cyber operations in recent years, turning hacking into a key source of foreign currency in the face of biting sanctions over its nuclear and weapons programmes.A report released Wednesday by the multi-government Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team (MSMT) found that North Korean IT workers had concealed their nationality “in order to fraudulently gain contracts to work on animation projects for many companies”.Those companies included “HBO Max, Amazon, and several Japanese animation studios”, the report found.AFP has reached out to HBO Max and Amazon for comment.Many of them worked for companies such as Pyongyang’s state-owned animation studio SEK studios — previously reported to have assisted in Western projects such as the 2007 “Simpsons Movie”.Almost 200 workers from the isolated country also “continued to perform animation work from China in 2024 and 2025”, the report said.Under UN sanctions, North Korean workers are prohibited from earning money abroad.The MSMT comprises Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Korea, the UK and the United States.They found that cryptocurrency thefts — along with arms sales to Russia — made up the bulk of North Korea’s foreign earnings in 2024.North Korea has secured crucial backing from Russia in recent years, after sending weapons and thousands of North Korean troops to fight alongside Moscow’s forces against Ukraine.Pyongyang’s hackers looted at least $1.19 billion from companies worldwide — roughly 50 percent more than a year earlier, according to the report.Seoul’s intelligence agency last year said North Korean operatives had used LinkedIn to pose as recruiters and approach South Koreans working at defense firms to obtain information on their technologies.Although the overwhelming majority of North Korea’s overseas IT workers were based in China, the participating states of the report said they found Pyongyang “planned to dispatch a new deployment of 40,000 laborers to Russia, including several delegations of IT workers”.Between January and September this year, North Korean hackers have already taken at least $1.65 billion through large-scale crypto heists, “surpassing estimates of its 2024 total”, it added.And from January 2024 to September 2025, North Korea stole at least $2.8 billion in cryptocurrency, it said.

Alaska Airlines said Thursday it had temporarily suspended all flights due to a tech outage, three months after a similar incident.”Alaska Airlines is experiencing an IT outage affecting operations. A temporary ground stop is in place. We apologize for the inconvenience,” the Seattle-based company said on X.”If you’re scheduled to fly tonight, please check your flight status before heading to the airport.”The ground stop also affects its subsidiary Horizon Air, according to the US Federal Aviation Administration.Three hours after the announcement was made, some passengers complained about a lack of information.”Everyone everywhere at SeaTac. No boarding no firm updates,” said one X user, Jeff Lawrence, posting a picture of a jam-packed airport waiting room.Alaska Airlines, the fifth-largest US carrier, experienced a similar outage on July 20, which lasted about three hours.Alaska Airlines attributed the July problem to the failure of “a critical piece of multi-redundant hardware at our data centers.”Alaska last year also experienced an IT outage that caused disruption and delayed flights.In January 2024, a door plug section of a new Boeing 737 Max 9 blew out during an Alaska Airlines flight between Portland, Oregon and Ontario, California.The 171 passengers and six crew members survived the rapid decompression, but the FAA temporarily grounded many Boeing 737-9 aircraft operated by US airlines.