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The US indictment of Nicolas Maduro accuses the deposed Venezuelan leader, his wife, son and senior aides of conspiring with Mexican drug cartels and Colombian rebel groups to import tons of cocaine into the United States.Maduro and his five co-defendants are facing four felony charges and could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted by the federal jury in New York that will eventually hear the case.The 63-year-old Maduro is expected to fight the allegations on the grounds that he has presidential immunity and his lawyer, at Monday’s arraignment, questioned the “legality of his abduction” by US forces.The specific charges in the indictment are narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.The charge of narco-terrorism conspiracy stems from accusations that Maduro partnered with Colombian rebel groups FARC and ELN, Mexican cartels Sinaloa and Los Zetas and the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to move vast quantities of cocaine.The US State Department has designated the Sinaloa Cartel, Los Zetas and Tren de Aragua as “foreign terrorist organizations.”The now defunct Marxist rebel group FARC was removed from the list in 2021. ELN, the National Liberation Army, which controls key drug-producing regions of Colombia, remains on the list.”Maduro and his co-conspirators have, for decades, partnered with some of the most violent and prolific drug traffickers and narco-terrorists in the world, and relied on corrupt officials throughout the region, to distribute tons of cocaine to the United States,” according to the indictment.A previous US indictment of Maduro, from 2020, repeatedly described him as the leader of a drug trafficking group known as Cartel de los Soles, or Cartel of the Suns.The superseding indictment unsealed on Saturday after Maduro’s capture, however, barely mentions Cartel de los Soles, which was designated a “foreign terrorist organization” by the State Department in November.According to a number of Venezuela experts, Cartel de los Soles has never existed as a formal organization. The latest indictment refers to it as a “patronage system” to channel illegal drug profits to “corrupt rank-and-file civilian, military, and intelligence officials.”According to the InSight Crime think tank, the name was ironically coined by Venezuelan media in 1993 after two generals were nabbed for drug trafficking. The sun is an insignia on the military uniforms of Venezuelan generals.- ‘Kidnappings, beatings, and murders’ -Indicted along with Maduro are his wife, Cilia Flores, his son Nicolas Ernesto Maduro Guerra, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello Rondon, former interior minister Ramon Rodriguez Chacin and the alleged leader of Tren de Aragua, Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores.The United States has declined to recognize the results of recent Venezuelan presidential elections, and the indictment describes Maduro as the “de facto but illegitimate ruler” of Venezuela.The 25-page complaint traces his alleged involvement in drug trafficking back to at least 1999.Maduro and the other defendants “partnered with narcotics traffickers and narco-terrorist groups, who dispatched processed cocaine from Venezuela to the United States via transshipment points in the Caribbean and Central America, such as Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico,” it says.Maduro and “other corrupt officials” provided “law enforcement cover and logistical support” for the transport of cocaine produced in Colombia to the United States, the indictment alleges.While he was foreign minister between 2006 and 2008, Maduro allegedly provided Venezuelan diplomatic passports to known drug traffickers allowing them to move illicit drug proceeds from Mexico to Venezuela under diplomatic cover, it says.The indictment alleges that between 2004 and 2015, Maduro and Flores, his wife, “worked together to traffic cocaine, much of which had been previously seized by Venezuelan law enforcement.”They ordered “kidnappings, beatings, and murders against those who owed them drug money or otherwise undermined their drug trafficking operation,” it says.Maduro and Flores pleaded not guilty at Monday’s arraignment. The next hearing has been set for March 17.

An officer in Minneapolis shot dead a woman Wednesday who US officials accused of trying to ram federal immigration agents with her vehicle, a claim forcefully rejected by the city’s mayor.Jacob Frey, the mayor, called the federal government’s claim that agents were acting in self-defense “bullshit” and called on ICE officers conducting raids to get out of Minneapolis.A video of the incident, which has not been verified by AFP, shows a Honda SUV apparently blocking unmarked law enforcement vehicles as they attempt to drive down a snow-covered street.  The driver, who the mayor said was a 37-year-old woman, attempted to drive off as officers walked over and tried to open the door, with one agent firing three times with a handgun as the vehicle pulled away from him.The incident occurred during protest action against an apparent immigration enforcement activity in the south of the city in Minnesota, local media reported.”Attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them — an act of domestic terrorism,” the Department of Homeland Security, which runs ICE, said on X.”An ICE officer, fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots.”The alleged perpetrator was hit and is deceased. The ICE officers who were hurt are expected to make full recoveries.”Minneapolis Mayor Frey said “we’ve dreaded this moment since the early stages of this ICE presence in Minneapolis.”The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension would be involved in the investigation into the shooting, as would the FBI, officials said.Large crowds chanting anti-ICE slogans formed near the scene of the shooting, local news outlets showed.- Anti-ICE protests -There have been passionate protests in some cities against the immigration enforcement operations of the Trump administration, which has vowed to arrest and deport what it says are “millions” of undocumented migrants.The DHS called the violence a “direct consequence of constant attacks and demonization of our officers.”The shooting reportedly occurred at 34th Street and Portland Avenue in Minneapolis.Nearby, ICE officers were seen pepper-spraying and shoving protesters during immigration enforcement operations in South Minneapolis, footage broadcast by local CBS affiliate WCCO showed.Dozens of protesters and bystanders were seen on the scene after the incident.”There’s no way whatever this person did that they deserved to be killed for it,” one bystander told the broadcaster.Trump has made preventing unlawful immigration and expelling undocumented migrants top priorities during his second term, and has tightened conditions for entering the United States and obtaining visas.During his campaign, Trump likened undocumented migrants to “animals,” frequently linking them, without evidence, to criminal behavior.ICE — which critics accuse of transforming into a paramilitary force under Trump — has been tasked with deporting an unprecedented number of undocumented migrants during the Republican’s second term.Minnesota Governor Tim Walz urged for the public to “remain calm” as his team gathered information on the shooting.Trump’s White House called Minneapolis Mayor Frey a “scumbag” for comments after the shooting in which he accused ICE of “causing chaos and distrust.”

The United States on Wednesday seized a Russia-linked oil tanker in the North Atlantic after pursuing it from off the coast of Venezuela, in an operation condemned by Moscow.Washington says the tanker is part of a shadow fleet that carries oil for countries such as Venezuela, Russia and Iran in violation of US sanctions, and seized it despite the ship being escorted by the Russian navy.The vessel had thwarted an earlier attempt to board it last month near oil-rich Venezuela, where a US raid on Saturday toppled the country’s authoritarian president, Nicolas Maduro — a close ally of Moscow.”The vessel was seized in the North Atlantic pursuant to a warrant issued by a US federal court,” US European Command said in a statement on X, while Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth posted that the American blockade on Venezuelan oil was in full effect “anywhere in the world.”Russia’s transport ministry criticized the seizure, saying “freedom of navigation applies in waters on the high seas.”Its foreign ministry urged Washington to allow the swift return of Russian crew members from the ship, but White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told journalists that they may be taken to the United States for prosecution.The vessel, formerly known as the Bella-1, in recent weeks switched its registration to Russia, changed its name to the Marinera and the tanker’s crew reportedly painted a Russian flag on the tanker.Leavitt said Washington deemed the ship to be stateless.- US says will run Venezuela -The US military also announced a second sanctioned tanker had been seized in the Caribbean Sea, bringing the total number of ships Washington has taken control of since last month to four.Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem posted on X that both vessels “were either last docked in Venezuela or en route to it,” and included a video of armed US forces roping down from a helicopter onto an unidentified ship.The North Atlantic operation came despite Russia reportedly sending a submarine and other naval assets to escort the tanker.It had been heading to Venezuela before it evaded the US blockade, and has been under US sanctions since 2024 over alleged ties to Iran and Hezbollah.Last weekend, US special forces snatched Maduro and his wife from Caracas and flew them to New York to face trial on drug charges.Since then, Trump has said that the United States will run Venezuela and US companies will control its critical oil industry.Brian Finucane, of the International Crisis Group, said the seizure of ships fitted the “overarching theme, both with respect to Venezuela and how this president approaches foreign policy in general, of taking the oil, quite literally in this case.”After criticism from lawmakers, Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted the United States had a plan for Venezuela, saying the White House was “not just winging it.”In Caracas, after several days of shuttered shops and intermittent public transport, the capital’s streets were again busy Wednesday with pedestrians, street vendors, cars and motorbikes.Trump said Tuesday that 30-50 million barrels of Venezuelan crude will be shipped to US ports, with the revenue — perhaps more than $2 billion at current market prices — placed under his personal control.US Energy Secretary Chris Wright added Wednesday that Washington will control sales of Venezuelan oil indefinitely, while state oil company PDVSA said negotiations for the sale of crude to the United States were underway.Leavitt said proceeds from the sale of Venezuelan crude will go to US-controlled accounts and then “will be dispersed for the benefit of the American people and the Venezuelan people.”Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodriguez — a long-time member of Maduro’s inner circle — has vowed cooperation with the United States amid fears that Trump could pursue wider regime change, and Leavitt said the country’s decisions would now be “dictated” by Washington.

US President Donald Trump’s administration said Wednesday it intends to dictate the decisions of Venezuela’s interim leaders and control the country’s oil sales “indefinitely” after toppling Nicolas Maduro.Washington said it had also seized a Russian-linked oil tanker after pursuing it from Venezuela, stepping up Trump’s assertion of US dominance over its neighborhood following Saturday’s capture of Maduro.Trump has said that the United States will “run” Venezuela, but it has no boots on the ground and appears to be relying on a naval blockade and the threat of further force to ensure the cooperation of interim president Delcy Rodriguez.”We obviously have maximum leverage over the interim authorities in Venezuela right now” following the US operation that captured Maduro on Saturday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told a briefing.”We’re continuing to be in close coordination with the interim authorities, and their decisions are going to continue to be dictated by the United States of America.”US special forces snatched president Maduro and his wife from Caracas on Saturday in a lightning operation, and whisked them to New York to face trial on drug charges.Interim president Rodriguez — a long-time member of Maduro’s inner circle as vice president and energy minister — has vowed cooperation with the United States amid fears that Trump could pursue wider regime change.But Rodriguez insisted on Tuesday that there was “no foreign agent” governing the South American country, which has the world’s largest proven oil reserves.Washington — which has so far indicated it intends to stick with Rodriguez and sideline opposition figures, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado — has meanwhile given few details about its plans.Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted on Wednesday, after meeting lawmakers on Capitol Hill who have been critical about the post-Maduro planning, that the United States was “not just winging it.”Democratic congressman Shri Thanedar told AFP he was “very impressed” with the US military but criticized Trump’s administration for not informing lawmakers about the operation.- ‘Immense opportunity’ -So far, the US plan relies heavily on what Trump said on Tuesday was an agreement for Venezuela to hand over between 30 and 50 million of barrels of oil to the United States for it to then sell.Venezuela’s state oil firm said on Wednesday that it was discussing oil sales with the United States for the “sale of volumes of oil” under existing commercial frameworks.But US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said earlier Wednesday that Washington was looking at longer term control over Venezuela’s oil.”We’re going to market the crude coming out of Venezuela, first this backed-up stored oil, and then indefinitely, going forward, we will sell the production that comes out of Venezuela,” Wright said at a Goldman Sachs energy event.Trump will on Friday meet executives from US oil companies, whom he has said will invest in Venezuela’s crumbling facilities, despite no firm having yet made such pledges amid the turmoil in the country.”It’s just a meeting to discuss, obviously, the immense opportunity that is before these oil companies right now,” Leavitt told reporters.The White House added that sanctions on some parts of the Venezuela’s oil sector would be waived to facilitate exports of Venezuela’s extra-heavy crude.Washington is meanwhile also relying on its naval blockade to stop Venezuela selling what the US says is sanctioned oil to allies Russia, China and Iran.US forces on Wednesday seized an oil tanker in the North Atlantic after pursuing it from off the coast of Venezuela. The tanker, formerly known as the Bella-1, in recent weeks switched its registration to Russia.But Leavitt insisted the oil tanker had been “deemed stateless after flying a false flag.”Moscow condemned the operation.

An immigration officer in Minneapolis shot dead a woman who allegedly sought to ram ICE officers with a vehicle, US authorities said Wednesday, calling it an act of “domestic terrorism.”The incident happened during protest action against an apparent immigration enforcement activity in the Minnesota city, local media reported.”Attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them — an act of domestic terrorism,” the Department of Homeland Security, which runs ICE, said on X.”An ICE officer, fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots.”The alleged perpetrator was hit and is deceased. The ICE officers who were hurt are expected to make full recoveries.”There have been passionate protests in some cities against the immigration enforcement operations of the Trump administration, which has vowed to arrest and deport undocumented migrants.The shooting reportedly happened at 34th Street and Portland Avenue, Minneapolis.ICE officers were seen pepper spraying and shoving protesters during immigration enforcement operations in South Minneapolis, the WCCO CBS affiliate showed.WCCO reported that a video of the incident was circulating among local people and that one of its reporters had seen the clip.”There’s no way whatever this person did that they deserved to be killed for it,” one bystander told the broadcaster.

US President Donald Trump is considering making an offer to buy Greenland, the White House said Wednesday, despite the island’s people and controlling power Denmark making clear they are not interested.Trump has repeatedly refused to rule out force to seize the strategic Arctic island, prompting shock and anger from Denmark and other longstanding European allies of the United States.After a request from Copenhagen, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he would soon hold discussions with Danish representatives.”I’ll be meeting with them next week. We’ll have those conversations with them then,” Rubio told reporters.White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump and his national security team have “actively discussed” the option of buying Greenland.”His team is currently talking about what a potential purchase would look like,” she told reporters.Leavitt reiterated that Trump believed it was in the US interest to acquire sparsely populated Greenland, whose size is around that of the largest US state of Alaska.”He views it in the best interest of the United States to deter Russian and Chinese aggression in the Arctic region. And so that’s why his team is currently talking about what a potential purchase would look like,” Leavitt said.Neither Leavitt nor Rubio ruled out the use of force. But Leavitt said, “The president’s first option, always, has been diplomacy.”House Speaker Mike Johnson, speaking as Rubio and Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth briefed lawmakers, also downplayed the potential for a US attack.”I don’t think anybody’s talking about using military force in Greenland. They’re looking at diplomatic channels,” Johnson said.Johnson, however, has acknowledged he had no prior notice when Trump on Saturday ordered a deadly attack on Venezuela, in which US forces removed the president, Nicolas Maduro.The at least tactical success of the operation has appeared to embolden Trump, who has since mused publicly about US intervention in Greenland, Cuba, Iran, Mexico and Colombia.- ‘Stay focused on real threats’ -Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican who is retiring, criticized Trump’s threats in a joint statement with Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”When Denmark and Greenland make it clear that Greenland is not for sale, the United States must honor its treaty obligations and respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” they said in a joint statement.”We must stay focused on the real threats before us and work with our allies, not against them, to advance our shared security.”Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen has repeatedly insisted that the island is not for sale and that only its 57,000 people should decide its future.Denmark holds sovereignty over Greenland, which has semi-autonomous status.Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned Monday: “If the United States decides to military attack another NATO country, then everything would stop — that includes NATO and therefore post-World War II security.”Denmark is a founding member of NATO and has been a steadfast US ally, including controversially sending troops to support the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.Trump, in sharp contrast to previous US presidents, has criticized NATO, seeing it not as an instrument of US power but as smaller countries freeloading off US security.”We will always be there for NATO, even if they won’t be there for us,” Trump wrote Wednesday on his Truth Social platform.German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul put a brave face on Trump’s language on NATO and Greenland.”I have no doubt whatsoever that we will remain closely united and that this alliance will remain exactly what it has always been — the most effective defense alliance,” he said.

The United States has “maximum leverage” over Venezuela’s interim authorities following the capture of Nicolas Maduro and will dictate decisions they make, the White House said Wednesday.President Donald Trump will meanwhile meet with US oil executives on Friday to discuss plans for Venezuela’s oil sector, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, days after the raid that toppled Maduro.”We obviously have maximum leverage over the interim authorities in Venezuela right now,” Leavitt told a briefing.”We’re continuing to be in close coordination with the interim authorities, and their decisions are going to continue to be dictated by the United States of America.”Trump has repeatedly said that the United States will “run” Venezuela following the capture of Maduro, despite having no forces on the ground there.In reality, Washington appears to be relying on a naval blockade of Venezuelan oil exports, and the threat of potential further force, to ensure the cooperation of interim president Delcy Rodriguez.Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted separately Wednesday, after criticism from lawmakers, that the United States did have a plan after overthrowing Venezuela’s leader.”The bottom line is, we’ve gone into great detail with them about the planning. We’ve described it to them. In fact, it’s not just winging it,” he told reporters after meeting lawmakers on Capitol Hill.The US plan so far includes what Trump said on Tuesday was an agreement — not confirmed by Caracas — for Venezuela to hand over between 30 and 50 million of barrels of oil to the United States.He has also said US oil companies will invest in Venezuela’s crumbling facilities, though no company has yet made such pledges.”The meeting is on Friday, and it’s just a meeting to discuss, obviously, the immense opportunity that is before these oil companies right now,” Leavitt told reporters.US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said earlier that Washington will control sales of Venezuelan oil “indefinitely.” The United States is enforcing what it says is an blockade of Venezuela to stop any unauthorized oil exports, seizing an oil tanker in the North Atlantic on Wednesday after pursuing it from off the coast of Venezuela.Leavitt insisted the oil tanker, which had claimed to be Russian-flagged, had been “deemed stateless after flying a false flag.””This was a Venezuelan shadow fleet vessel that has transported sanctioned oil,” she said, adding that the crew would be “subject to prosecution.”Moscow condemned the operation.

US military strikes on Venezuela that resulted in the ouster of leader Nicolas Maduro damaged civilian buildings including science labs and a medicine warehouse, the government in Caracas said Wednesday.The early-morning weekend attack on Caracas and locations in three other states killed at least one civilian and 56 Venezuelan and Cuban soldiers, according to a variety of sources.Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez had spoken of civilian casualties, but has yet to provide a detailed rundown, while AFP spoke to the family of a 78-year-old woman who died after a strike on her apartment building in the port city of La Guaira.Science and Technology Minister Gabriela Jimenez shared footage Wednesday on social media showing a destroyed building she said had housed the mathematics center of the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research (IVIC) on the outskirts of Caracas. “Two missiles struck the area directly,” she wrote on Telegram and shared images of crumbled walls, twisted steel and fragments of what the post claimed was an AGM-154 American glide bomb.”The attack was total: these areas housed servers and equipment essential to our computer networks that were completely devastated,” Jimenez added.Four other IVIC buildings housing centers for the study of physics, chemistry, ecology and nuclear technology, were damaged, the minister added, lambasting “an unprecedented act of imperial aggression.”The governor of La Guaira state said the strikes also destroyed a medicine warehouse there.”Tons of medicine burned to ash, tons of food,” Alejandro Teran said in a video on social media, without providing evidence that the destroyed goods were indeed medical supplies.

Even if Elon Musk’s dream of robotaxis for everyone is a long way off, sleek electric cars powered by artificial intelligence packed the Consumer Electronics Show, promising to liberate people from the tedium of driving.Letting go of the steering wheel is no longer a fantasy: Waymo’s robotaxis in the United States and China’s Apollo Go, which has been growing rapidly over the past year, have demonstrated the reliability of fully autonomous driving, where responsibility lies with the machine and not the human.Rivals such as Uber are fast emerging. The ride-sharing giant used the CES event in Las Vegas to debut a Lucid robotaxi, aiming to put a fleet of them to work in San Francisco later this year.Offering the fully autonomous experience — known as Level 4 autonomy — to vehicle owners on a mass scale remains the industry’s goal.”I don’t see it happening for years,” said Marc Amblard, of Orsay Consulting. Only Tensor, a Silicon Valley start-up, is present in Vegas with a Level 4 passenger car. A first model is expected to hit the road in the coming months.Touted as the “first personal robot car on Earth,” it is a luxury vehicle equipped with 34 cameras, five lidar lasers, and over a hundred sensors, with analysts estimating its price tag at around $200,000.Its autonomous driving will be limited. The company currently is authorized to conduct tests in California and could benefit from favorable legislation in Texas, Nevada, and Arizona, as well as its partnership in the United Arab Emirates.- Roadblocks -But regulatory approval and societal acceptance have remained roadblocks to self-driving cars becoming commonplace.”From a technology standpoint, it is there,” said Pier Paolo Porta, marketing director at Ambarella, which specializes in autonomous driving systems.”But from a legal and from a liability standpoint, it is still a gray area.”Given the roadblocks, it is in the area of Level 2 assisted driving — where the driver must be ready to take back control — the industry’s flagship projects are flourishing.And these are going further in terms of automation, largely thanks to advances in AI that make computers more efficient with fewer expensive sensors.Driving where the steering wheel and pedals can be fully operated by a computer, while remaining legally under the driver’s responsibility, is the experience already offered by Musk’s Tesla in the United States with its Full Self-Driving system, and by Xiaomi and BYD in China.- ‘ChatGPT moment’? -It is at this level of autonomy that competition is intensifying.Chip powerhouse Nvidia on Monday unveiled Alpamayo, an AI platform specially designed for autonomous driving, which will be available on electric Mercedes CLA models in the United States this year.”Alpamayo brings reasoning to autonomous vehicles, allowing them to think through rare scenarios, drive safely in complex scenarios and explain their driving decisions,” Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said during a presentation at CES.Huang declared that a “ChatGPT moment for physical AI” was here, essentially enabling cars and robots to interact with the real world independently.During a demonstration for AFP in December, a self-driving Mercedes negotiated congested San Francisco traffic with a human safety driver only intervening to navigate around an ambulance stopped in the middle of the road.Unlike autonomous driving systems that rely on mapping data, the Alpamayo system can handle driving on streets that vehicles have not previously encountered.Nvidia rival Qualcomm was at CES with its own autonomous driving software project involving on-board AI powered by its Snapdragon chip.Nissan announced last month that it will soon integrate AI-enabled autonomous driving software from British startup Wayve in much of its vehicle line.All these innovations have the same goal: to offer the feeling of autonomy while leaving legal responsibility to human beings.

The United States on Wednesday seized a Russian-flagged oil tanker in the North Atlantic after pursuing it from off the coast of Venezuela, in an operation condemned by Moscow.Washington says the tanker is part of a so-called shadow fleet that carries oil for countries such as Venezuela, Russia and Iran in violation of US sanctions, and seized it despite the ship being escorted by the Russian navy.The vessel had thwarted an earlier attempt to board it last month near Venezuela, where a US raid on Saturday toppled the country’s authoritarian president, Nicolas Maduro.”The vessel was seized in the North Atlantic pursuant to a warrant issued by a US federal court,” US European Command, which oversees American forces in the region, said in a statement on X.After the operation, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth posted that the US blockade on Venezuelan oil was in full effect “anywhere in the world.”Russia’s Transport Ministry slammed the seizure, saying “freedom of navigation applies in waters on the high seas, and no state has the right to use force against vessels duly registered under the jurisdiction of other states.”The US military also announced a second sanctioned tanker ship had been seized in the Caribbean Sea.Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem posted on X that both vessels “were either last docked in Venezuela or en route to it,” and included a video of US forces roping down from a helicopter onto an unidentified ship and proceeding toward the bridge with weapons ready.- US to control oil sales ‘indefinitely’ -Last weekend, US special forces snatched Maduro and his wife from Caracas and flew them to New York to face trial on drug charges.Since then, President Donald Trump has said that the United States will “run” Venezuela and US companies will control its critical oil industry.In Caracas, after several days of shuttered shops and intermittent public transport, the capital’s streets were again busy Wednesday with pedestrians, street vendors, cars and motorbikes.The North Atlantic operation came despite Russia reportedly sending a submarine and other naval assets to escort the empty tanker and saying the vessel was sailing under the Russian flag.The vessel, formerly known as the Bella-1, in recent weeks switched its registration to Russia, changed its name to the Marinera and the tanker’s crew reportedly painted a Russian flag on the tanker.It had been en route to Venezuela before it evaded the US blockade, and has been under US sanctions since 2024 over alleged ties to Iran and Hezbollah.Trump said Tuesday that Venezuela said 30-50 million barrels of “high‑quality, sanctioned” Venezuelan crude will be shipped to US ports, with the revenue — perhaps more than $2 billion at current market prices — placed under his personal control.US Energy Secretary Chris Wright added Wednesday that Washington will control sales of Venezuelan oil “indefinitely.”It was not clear whether Venezuela’s new ruler — interim president Delcy Rodriguez — had agreed to hand over the oil, how the plan would work, or what its legal basis would be.Rodriguez — a long-time member of Maduro’s inner circle as vice president and energy minister — has vowed cooperation with the United States amid fears that Trump could pursue wider regime change.