Venezuelan fishermen in the south Caribbean keep a nervous eye on the horizon as they ply their trade in the same waters where US forces have recently blown up small, alleged drug boats, occupants and all.Feeling exposed, they have started heading out in groups, limiting their range and traveling with emergency beacons issued by the government.”It’s very upsetting because our country is peaceful, our fishermen are peaceful,” Joan Diaz, a 46-year-old angler told AFP in the northern town of Caraballeda.”Fishermen go out to work, and they have taken these measures to come to our… workplace to intimidate us, to attack us,” he said.US President Donald Trump has deployed eight warships and a nuclear-powered submarine off Venezuela’s coast as part of a stated plan to combat drug trafficking. President Nicolas Maduro, whom Trump accuses of leading a narco cartel, suspects Washington of pursuing regime change.US forces have blown up at least three suspected drug boats in the Caribbean in recent weeks, killing over a dozen people in a move that UN experts called “extrajudicial execution.”No evidence was publicly presented that the occupants were drug traffickers and they were killed without arrest, let alone trial.Caracas said US forces also detained a fishing boat and crew for eight hours earlier this month within the country’s exclusive economic zone.”They (the military) bomb without knowing if they really had drugs… and without knowing who these people were,” said Diaz.”Since all this is happening, it’s better to stay together and not go too far” from the coast, he added.- ‘The madness, my God!’ – Fearing a US invasion, Venezuela is on high alert and thousands of citizens have signed up to join a civilian militia force and undergo weapons training.But at sea, not much stands between small-boat artisanal fishermen and a naval colossus.The US actions constitute “a real threat,” said 51-year-old Luis Garcia, who leads a grouping of some 4,000 fishermen and women in the La Guaira region, which includes Caraballeda.”We have nine-, 10-, 12-meter fishing boats against vessels that have missiles. Imagine the madness. The madness, my God!” he exclaimed.Garcia’s wife and other workers keep an eye on the returning boats as they process fish with a mix of aromatic herbs and colorful peppers for a special dish that is then vacuum-packed for sale.The boats are covered with tarps to shield their occupants from the sun. Most are equipped with a gas cylinder for cooking as they often head out for at least four days at a time.Accompanied by seabirds, the boats tend to venture no further than 40 nautical miles from the shore. But “to fish for tuna, you have to go very far, and that’s where they (the Americans) are,” said Diaz.Sporting a T-shirt with the phrase: “Fishing is winning,” Garcia said the anglers have started taking precautions that were never needed in the past.”We keep contact with everyone… especially those who are going a little further,” he said.”We report to the authorities where we are going, where we are, and how long our fishing operations will last, and we also report to our fishermen’s councils,” added Garcia.The fishing crews are fearful, but defiant.”We say to him: ‘Mr Donald Trump, we the fishermen of Venezuela… will continue to carry out our fishing activities. We will continue to go out to the Caribbean Sea that belongs to us’,” vowed Garcia. 

One of the companies that began boycotting comedian Jimmy Kimmel after US government pressure said Friday it would start broadcasting his show again.Disney-owned ABC took the late-night host off the air when Sinclair and another firm said they would no longer show his program on the dozens of stations they own, purportedly over remarks the comedian made in the wake of the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.But after a public outcry over freedom of speech, ABC reversed course, with Kimmel’s return proving a huge ratings hit, even as the blackout meant a quarter of the country could not watch.Sinclair — which had previously demanded Kimmel make a personal donation to Kirk’s activist group — said Friday it would carry the show again with immediate effect.”Our objective throughout this process has been to ensure that programming remains accurate and engaging for the widest possible audience,” the company said.”We take seriously our responsibility as local broadcasters to provide programming that serves the interests of our communities, while also honoring our obligations to air national network programming.”There was no immediate word from Nexstar, the other firm that acted after Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr appeared to threaten the licenses of stations broadcasting the show unless they demanded Kimmel’s removal.In a lengthy statement Sinclair said it had proposed a network-wide ombudsman who could referee complaints about content, but “ABC and Disney have not yet adopted these measures.””Our decision to pre-empt this program was independent of any government interaction or influence,” the company said.”Free speech provides broadcasters with the right to exercise judgment as to the content on their local stations. While we understand that not everyone will agree with our decisions about programming, it is simply inconsistent to champion free speech while demanding that broadcasters air specific content.”President Donald Trump, who has long chafed at the mockery he receives from Kimmel and his fellow late night talk show hosts, has repeatedly demanded they be taken off air, and has called other criticism of him “illegal.”On his Tuesday night return, Kimmel took aim at the “anti-American” attempt to silence a comedian.”The president of the United States made it very clear he wants to see me and the hundreds of people who work here fired from our jobs,” he said.”Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he can’t take a joke.”

Moored off a Manhattan pier for New York’s annual Climate Week is one of the world’s first ammonia-powered vessels — a green flagship for an Australian tycoon’s drive to decarbonize his mining empire.Even as President Donald Trump’s second term has triggered environmental backtracking among many corporations, iron ore giant Fortescue — founded by Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest — is investing billions to clean up its dirty operations.”We’re a huge polluter right now,” he told AFP in an interview aboard the Green Pioneer, a 75-meter former oil-rig supply ship given a swish makeover. “But we’re changing so fast, and within five years, we’ll stop burning fossil fuels.”The Green Pioneer is meant to be the first in a fleet of ammonia-powered ships. Ammonia contains what Forrest calls the “miracle molecule” — hydrogen. Ammonia burns to produce harmless nitrogen and water, though incomplete combustion of can still generate greenhouse gases.- ‘Real Zero,’ not offsets -The 63-year-old Forrest has become a fixture at global summits, rubbing shoulders with leaders such as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as he evangelizes his climate vision.Where other companies tout green credentials by buying carbon credits — generated through nature protection or carbon-removal projects for example — to claim “net zero,” Forrest dismisses the practice as a scam.”Carbon credits have already been proved by science to be next to worthless,” said Forrest, whose net worth Forbes pegs at more than $16 billion. “That’s why we go ‘Real Zero.'”Achieving genuine decarbonization by 2030 is no small feat, particularly in one of the world’s dirtiest industries. Fortescue’s plan involves replacing diesel-powered mining equipment with electric excavators and drills; building vast wind, solar and battery farms to power operations; and running battery-powered haul trucks.Further along the value chain, the company wants to process its own iron ore — the stage responsible for the lion’s share of emissions — using “green hydrogen” produced by splitting water molecules with renewable electricity, instead of coke or thermal coal.”Fortescue’s climate commitments are certainly different to most other corporations, including its peers in the iron ore mining sector” such as Rio Tinto and BHP, Simon Nicholas, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis’ lead analyst for global steel told AFP. “It has a ‘green iron’ pilot plant under construction in Australia which will use green hydrogen. The company is aiming to eventually process all of its iron ore into iron for export — about 100 million tonnes a year” — and even getting close to those targets would be transformative, said Nicholas.- Technical challenges -But he cautioned that the technological hurdles remain immense: green hydrogen is still expensive, and the pilot plant must prove it can handle lower-grade ore.Then there’s the inherent ecological cost of mining. “If you destroy parts of a forest, including its soils, for your mining operation, even if you don’t use fossil fuels for your operations, you will not be ‘true zero,'” Oscar Soria, co-director of The Common Initiative think tank told AFP.Forrest’s outlook is grounded in his personal journey.Raised in the Australian Outback, where he earned the nickname “Twiggy” for his skinny childhood frame, he got his start in finance before taking over a company and renaming it Fortescue Metals Group in 2003.Forrest said his environmental commitment deepened after a hiking accident in 2014 left him temporarily wheelchair-bound. Encouraged by his children, he returned to university and completed a PhD in marine ecology.”That convinced me I’ve got to put every fiber of my being into arresting this threat so much bigger than any geostrategic issues, so much bigger than politics, so much bigger than anything,” he said.Climate now sits at the heart of his philanthropic Minderoo Foundation.And while the Trump administration derides the “green scam” as economically catastrophic, Forrest insists the opposite is true, pointing to Fortescue’s financial record.”Don’t accuse us of being unbusiness-like. We’re the most business-like in the world.”

Donald Trump recently said that “I hate my opponent.” Now the US president is making them pay.The indictment of former FBI chief and critic James Comey is the starkest and most high-profile confirmation of Trump’s repeated vows to exact revenge on his political enemies.But the Republican has made it clear it’s only the beginning. Trump called on Friday for more prosecutions of his foes as he continues to shatter the norms of American politics.”I hope there will be others,” Trump told reporters at the White House, describing Comey as a “dirty cop.”Trump has long fumed about Comey for the investigation that the FBI conducted into whether Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election.Democrats said Trump’s targeting of his opponents resembled those in authoritarian regimes. Andrew Bates, former senior deputy press secretary in president Joe Biden’s White House, said Trump was already “historically unpopular” because of a failure to tackle “costs, chaos and corruption that he promised to fight.””I don’t see the genius in following that up with ‘watch me spit on George Washington’s memory so I can dress up like Kim Jong Un,'” Bates told AFP.- ‘Witch hunt’ -Trump’s administration insists it is not about weaponizing justice — the exact same thing it has accused Biden of doing.”It’s about justice really, it’s not revenge,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday. “They are sick, radical left people, and they can’t get away with it.”But other recent comments showed how personal it was for the 79-year-old.”James ‘Dirty Cop’ Comey was a destroyer of lives” Trump said on Truth Social just hours earlier.By “lives,” Trump meant his own, from what he calls the Russia “witch-hunt” to the series of criminal and civil charges following his 2020 election defeat and the January 6 2021 Capitol riots. Now critics say it is Trump leading a witch hunt since his return to office. He has made unprecedented use of presidential power to make law firms, universities, federal employees and media outlets have all been forced to bend the knee.He has also loaded the top echelons of US justice with allies, including the conspiracy theory-promoting Kash Patel as the current FBI chief.But his revenge campaign has now entered a new stage in which his opponents now risk time behind bars.The American Civil Liberties Union said Comey’s indictment was “the latest in a series of Trump Administration actions targeting political opponents of the president and exploiting the powers of the federal government to do so.”- ‘There will be others’ -Trump has also given up any pretense of maintaining the firewall between the White House and the Justice Department that US presidents have insisted on since the Watergate scandal toppled Richard Nixon in the 1970s.At the weekend Trump publicly berated Attorney General Pam Bondi for failing to take any action against Comey and others — and got his wish within days.Future targets could include former New York state prosecutor Letitia James, who brought a civil fraud case against Trump, and California Senator Adam Schiff, who led the prosecution at the president’s first impeachment in 2019.The Justice Department is reportedly pushing for charges against John Bolton, Trump’s former national security advisor-turned-critic, whose house was raided by FBI agents recently.”It’s not a list but I think there will be others,” Trump said Friday.When it comes to his attitude to his perceived enemies, Trump said the quiet part out loud earlier this month at the funeral of assassinated right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.Noting that the combative Kirk had still wished his opponents well, Trump said: “That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them.”