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Hello I'm Chris Barrow with the BBC News.
President Trump has said his administration intends to run Venezuela until a transition can be achieved. The shock statement came in a news conference hours after U.S. troops attacked the capital Caracas, detained the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and transported him to New York to face drugs charges. Donald Trump said the U.S. military would prevent resistance. Tom Bateman is in Washington. He didn't make any secret of the fact that he sees one of the major objectives here as access to Venezuela's oil resources. I think that will concern many in the opposition in Venezuela who are going to see this is less about a democratic future for the country and more about a decapitation in which you potentially have the Americans now working with remnants of the Maduro regime and also the criticisms from Democrats in Congress here have been saying this is simply illegal and done without congressional authorization and risks destabilizing the region. Donald Trump appears to have sidelined the Venezuelan opposition which was widely believed to have won the last election in 2024 including the Nobel Peace Prize winner María Carina Machado. She'd earlier hailed the U.S. military action as the hour of Venezuela's freedom. But Mr. Trump said he doubted her ability to govern. One resident of Caracas who's a supporter of President Maduro said Mr. Trump did not care about Venezuelan lives. "The United States doesn't care if you're left or right. They do business with Russia. They do business with China. If they were so radical why they're not radical with the big guys. They wanna be radical with the little guys. They wanna take over and they don't care if a million Venezuelans die whether they're left or they're right. They just want the oil." A U.N. Security Council meeting has been called for Monday to address the U.S. attack on Venezuela. The U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said it set a dangerous precedent. International opinion has been split over the action with several leaders welcoming Mr. Maduro's downfall while raising concerns about contraventions of international law. France has been among the U.S. allies to appear to distance themselves from Mr. Trump's pledge to take control of Venezuela. Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores arrived at an airbase north of New York City after their capture by U.S. forces in Caracas. Live television pictures showed Mr. Maduro being disembarked from the aircraft and led away in a hooded jacket in handcuffs by a large number of U.S. agents. Nada Tawfik was watching. There were actually news copters circling above but it was simply too dark to see much and now the second part of his journey in New York begins to Manhattan itself to begin that process of being booked as any other criminal defendant of high-profile would be to be fingerprinted to have his mug shot taken along with his wife Cilia Flores and from there they will go to the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center. This is the world news from the BBC. British and French forces have carried out a joint airstrike against a facility they say was previously used by the Islamic State group in Syria. The British Defense Ministry said the operation targeted access tunnels to a suspected underground arms dump north of the ancient city of Palmyra. It said action was intended to stamp out any resurgence of the IS group. The president of Equatorial Guinea has signed a decree officially changing the country's capital city from Malabo to Ciudad de la Paz. It's expected to take around a year to fully transfer all administrative services to the new capital though the decree does not state where the embassies will also relocate. Jonathan Frewin reports. President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo said the decision to move the capital which has been in the pipeline for almost two decades was taken for strategic reasons and to address logistical and security issues. Malabo is located on an island off the west coast of the Central African nation whilst Ciudad de la Paz is in the heart of the mainland. The presidential palace has previously come under attack from maritime routes. Britain's Luke Littler has for the second time won the World Darts Championship. The 18-year-old retained his title after beating the Dutchman Gian van Veen 7-1 at Alexandra Palace in London. Speaking about the win, Littler said the first time was so nice, he had to do it twice. He'll take home more than $1.3 million in prize money. In football at the men's Africa Cup of Nations, Mali have progressed to the quarterfinals after beating Tunisia 3-2 on penalties. The match saw Mali go down to 10 men in the first half before scoring a penalty in extra time to equalize. Mali will now face Senegal who became the first team to reach the quarterfinals after beating Sudan 3-1 in their last 16 clash. And that's the latest world news from the BBC. |