US authorities have seized a plane belonging to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
The United States claims that the aircraft was illegally purchased for approximately $13 million and then smuggled out of the United States in violation of current sanctions, which is why it has now been confiscated.
The plane is a Falcon 900EX and has been described as Venezuela’s version of Air Force One. The plane was reportedly seized in the Dominican Republic and then transferred to the US state of Florida. How the plane ended up in the Dominican Republic in the first place is not entirely clear, the BBC reports.
The Venezuelan government has condemned the US action as an act of “piracy”, with Foreign Minister Yván Gil commenting that the US has justified its actions “with the coercive measures that they unilaterally and illegally impose around the world” It also said it “reserves the right to take any legal action to repair this damage to the nation”.
According to US officials, the plane was seized for alleged violations of US export control and sanctions laws, and Maduro used a Caribbean shell company to conceal his involvement in the purchase of the plane from a Florida company in late 2022.
A Biden spokesman explained that the hijacking of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s plane was a “consequence” of his “misgovernance”
Of course, it is the exceptional governance of the United States which entitles it to engage in piracy abroad pic.twitter.com/iPdAweTI6I
A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council also said the action was “an important step to ensure that Maduro continues to feel the consequences from his misgovernance of Venezuela”.
– It doesn’t matter how fancy the private jet or how powerful the officials – we will work relentlessly with our partners here and across the globe to identify and return any aircraft illegally smuggled outside of the United States, said Matthew S Axelrod of the Department of Commerce – one of the federal agencies involved in the seizure of the plane.
In addition, the United States supports the opposition in Venezuela and has recognized its candidate, Edmundo González, as the winner of the July re-election, while calling on Maduro to resign immediately.
Back in 2020, the US Department of Justice also accused the president of involvement in narco-terrorism, corruption and drug trafficking, among other things, and anyone who can provide information leading to his conviction can be rewarded with $15 million (€13,6 million).
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During a meeting at the White House on Wednesday, President Donald Trump confronted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa with accusations that genocide is currently being committed against white farmers in the country.
To emphasize the seriousness of the situation, Trump ordered the lights in the Oval Office to be dimmed and showed a five-minute film detailing how South African politicians are inciting murder and systematic violence against the country’s white minority.
Trump said he had not yet “made up his mind” whether it was appropriate to use the term “genocide” in this context, but stated that “thousands” of white South Africans had so far sought refugee status in the US and that he wanted to “save lives”.
The film included clips in which Julius Malema, leader of the left-wing populist party Economic Freedom Fighters, can be clearly heard calling for murder and violence.
– Revolution demands at some point there must be killing, the notorious politician claims in the film.
Several sequences showed Malema dancing in front of tens of thousands of spectators while he and his comrades chanted “kill the Boer, the farmer!” and declared that “we are cutting the throat of whiteness!”
HOLY CRAP! President Trump just DIRECTLY confronted the President of South Africa with videos of his government calling for WHITE GENOCIDE
“Turn the lights down and roll the video!”
“These are burial sites — crosses marking murdered White farmers”
In another clip, former president Jacob Zuma (2009–2018) was seen singing a well-known black protest song that includes the same chorus with “kill the Boers”. According to critics, this song has contributed to increased tensions and more attacks on white farmers. The film also showed roadside memorials dedicated to what were said to be dozens of murdered white farmers.
Trump also criticized a new South African law that allows the South African state to confiscate unused land – land that is often owned by the white minority. Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa and is now a close advisor to Trump, was also present at the meeting and listened as the president recounted what an acquaintance had told him:
– They take your land and they kill you if you’re white.
– I will say, apartheid, terrible. That was the biggest story – that was reported all the time. This is sort of the opposite of apartheid. What’s happening now is never reported, the president continued, wondering why Malema was not imprisoned when he called for genocide in front of television cameras and tens of thousands of spectators.
“Not government policy”
Ramaphosa remained very calm during the hour-long conversation held before the assembled press and firmly denied that Malema’s calls for genocide reflect the South African government’s position:
– What you saw, the speeches that were being made, one that is not government policy. Our government policy is completely, completely against what (Malema) was saying, he asserted.
Vi vet vad massmedia hade kallat det här om det hade varit vita sydafrikaner som hade skanderat detta om svarta.pic.twitter.com/Q43H3kAzMV
In an attempt to appease the Trump administration, Ramaphosa chose to highlight the South African golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, who are popular in the US and accompanied him on the trip, and to thank Trump for the US’s delivery of ventilators during the COVID-19 crisis in 2020.
South Africa’s Minister of Agriculture Jan Steenhuisen, who is himself white, also attended the conference and argued that the security situation in rural areas is indeed very poor. However, he did not want to call it genocide or even suggest that white farmers were particularly vulnerable.
– It requires a lot of effort to get on top of it. It’s going to require more policing resources, it’s gonna require a different strategy to be able to deal with it. But certainly, the majority of South Africa’s commercial and smallholder farmers really do want to stay in South Africa and make it work, he claimed.
Steenhuisen claimed that his party, the liberal Democratic Alliance, which won 21 percent of the vote in the last election, entered into a coalition with Ramaphosa’s ANC (approximately 40 percent of the vote) precisely to keep people like Malema out of power.
Malema’s EFF and Zuma’s MK, which are significantly more openly hostile and disapproving of the white minority than Ramaphosa’s ANC, together have around 25 percent of the vote.
A “violent country”
Zingiswa Losi, president of the country’s largest trade union, COSATU, had also been flown in and tried to convince Trump that South Africa is a “violent country” – and that people are killed regardless of their ethnic background.
– If you go into the rural areas where the black majority are, you will see women, elderly, being raped, being killed, being murdered. The problem in South Africa, it is not necessarily about race, but it is about crime, she claimed.
Ramaphosa himself could not deny that senseless violence and murder continue to be part of everyday life in South Africa – but he claims that this is due to “inequality and unemployment” – and that the problems can be solved by improving South Africa’s economy.
– Our main, main, real reason for being here is to foster trade and investment, so that we are able to grow our economy, with your support, and so that we are also able to address all these societal problems.
When Ramaphosa left the White House after three hours, he told reporters that the meeting “went very well”.
Mocked white refugees
However, not everyone is impressed by the South African leader’s defense, and several have pointed out how he recently mocked white South Africans who fled to the US to escape persecution and oppression.
GENOCIDE: South African President Ramaphosa insists that the whites facing genocide do so as men and not flee to America like cowards. White farmers must pay for the sins of their ancestors with their lives. pic.twitter.com/fYAMlEfpVX
In a speech, he claimed before a laughing audience that Afrikaners are fleeing for “fictitious reasons” – and asserted that South Africa is “united in diversity”.
– None of us should ever feel that they have lost courage and now become cowards and want to run, the president said, mocking the white refugees.
Earlier this year, The Nordic Times highlighted the Afrikaners’ uncertain future and their centuries-long history in the country in a lengthy cultural article.
Photo: AUR Alliance for the Union of Romanians/CC0 1.0
Simion states, among other things, that the electoral register contained 1.7 million fictitious names and that illegal voters were bussed in from Moldova.
Right-wing nationalist and EU-skeptic presidential candidate George Simion is demanding that Romania’s presidential election be declared invalid. He accuses France and Moldova of trying to influence the outcome of the election – claims that are also supported by Telegram founder Pavel Durov.
Simion, leader of the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR) party, claims that the election was compromised by “foreign interference” and says he has formally requested that Romania’s Supreme Court invalidate the results.
In a post on the X platform on Tuesday, Simion, who was leading in the polls ahead of the election, wrote that there is evidence of undue influence from “external state and non-state actors” – and specifically named two countries as responsible:
“Neither France nor Moldavia , nor anyone else has the right to interfere in the elections of another state”.
“To all Romanians: ask urgently the Constitutional Court to annul this farce. We will not give up and we will not betray! This is only the beginning of a great victory!” he continued.
I officially ask Constitutional Court TO ANNUL Romanian presidential elections (May 2025).
For the very reasons December elections were annulled: EXTERNAL INTERFERENCES by state and non-state actors.
This time proven with evidence! Neither , nor , nor anyone else has…
Simion also claims that the electoral register contained 1.7 million fictitious names and that the government had transported voters from neighboring Moldova. His party accuses Moldova’s pro-European government, the Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS), of urging the country’s million-strong diaspora in Romania to vote for his opponent Nicusor Dan.
Dan, mayor of Bucharest, won Sunday’s second round of voting with 54 percent of the vote. He is widely seen as pro-EU, pro-NATO, and pro-US. The election was held after the Constitutional Court invalidated the November results, in which the NATO-critical independent candidate Calin Georgescu won with 23 percent of the vote. The court cited “irregularities” and reports of Russian interference, which Moscow has denied.
It is noteworthy that Simion’s accusations have received unexpected support from Pavel Durov, founder of the messaging app Telegram. Durov has previously claimed that French intelligence services tried to pressure him to censor conservative Romanian channels ahead of the election.
“I am ready to come and testify if it helps Romanian democracy”, he wrote in a post shared alongside Simion’s statement.
France has denied Durov’s allegations and claims that they are disinformation and smear tactics.
“The recent accusations against France are merely a diversionary maneuver from the real threats of interference targeting Romania. France calls on all Romanian political actors to exercise responsibility and defend democracy, the statement said.
Romanian authorities have in turn accused Russia of illegal election interference, but so far without publishing any concrete evidence to support this.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the allegations and called the election “strange”. He claimed that the most popular candidate, Calin Georgescu, had been “forcibly removed”, and criticized what he described as the EU’s long history of interfering in other countries’ elections.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova went even further in her criticism, dismissing the Romanian election results as completely illegitimate.
France is planning a new prison in the jungles of French Guiana with the stated aim of isolating dangerous criminals and Islamists. The decision has raised hopes of a reduction in drug trafficking, but also concerns among the local population.
In Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, deep in the rainforest of French Guiana, France is now taking a radical step in the fight against organized crime.
A new prison with 500 places, 60 of which are reserved for high-security prisoners such as drug offenders and radical Islamists, is to be completed in 2028.
Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin is promoting the project as a necessity to deal with criminal networks, particularly those involved in drug trafficking from South America to Europe.
France has been hit by a series of attacks on prisons in recent months, which Darmanin has described as “terrorist acts” in response to the government’s new legislation.
With a price tag of around €400 million, the facility aims to permanently isolate the most dangerous criminals, according to reports by the British state broadcaster BBC and French newspaper Le Figaro.
French Guiana, a French overseas department, serves as a strategic hub for drug trafficking, with smuggling routes from Brazil to Europe. The region’s high crime rate, with 20.6 murders per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023, underscores the need for decisive action.
The prison will also have a special section for 15 Islamist extremists and promises strict security procedures to prevent prisoners from maintaining contact with their criminal circles.
Bravo à Gérald Darmanin qui frappe un grand coup en rouvrant Cayenne, ou plutôt en construisant une nouvelle prison dans la jungle amazonienne ! Ils pourront faire les malins, les p’tits cons la bas, avec leur livraisons par drones ou catapultes, leurs 18 cellulaires et leurs… pic.twitter.com/dU2a9vTO84
The decision has also been met with criticism from the local population. Local leaders, such as Senator Marie-Laure Phinéra-Horth, are calling for investment in schools and roads instead. In an interview with Franceinfo, Jean-Luk Le West, vice president of the regional authority, expressed frustration that the news first reached them via the French media.
Concerns have also been raised that the prison will cement French Guiana’s reputation as a backwater for France’s problems, which could scare away tourists and investors. As historical background, it is worth mentioning that the French Guiana municipality of Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni was once the gateway to France’s notorious penal colonies.
Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan, an outspoken supporter of the EU and NATO, has won the Romanian presidential election after an intense and polarized campaign. With just over 54 percent of the vote, he defeated his national conservative challenger George Simion.
The re-election was held after Romania’s Constitutional Court annulled the original election last fall. The independent candidate Calin Georgescu initially led by a large margin, but the election was later declared invalid due to alleged Russian interference, accusations that have not yet been proven.
The ensuing political crisis has been described as the deepest in Romania in decades. George Simion (AUR), who has spoken out against further military support for Ukraine and suggested appointing Georgescu as prime minister, won the first round of the re-election with a clear lead.
Nicusor Dan, an independent centrist liberal with a strong EU profile and advocate for NATO, has received support from, among others, Moldovan President Maia Sandu and a majority of pro-EU leaders.
According to preliminary official results, Nicusor Dan has won with approximately 54 percent of the vote. George Simion congratulated his opponent and commented that the election “reflects the will of the Romanian people”, even though he had previously questioned the election process.
Nicusor Dan thanked his supporters for their “outstanding mobilization” and promised to work for a “united and honest Romania” with respect for the law and citizens’ rights.
Allegations of interference from both East and West
Allegations of an illegitimate election process and influence campaigns from both the West and the East have characterized the election campaign, contributing to a sense of mistrust and uncertainty among voters.
George Simion has also accused Moldovan authorities and media of conducting an illegal campaign to favor Dan among voters with dual Moldovan and Romanian citizenship, something Moldova has denied. At the same time, Romania’s security services have warned of Russian influence, particularly in connection with the disqualified candidate Georgescu, allegations that Moscow has rejected.
A Western European government (guess which ) approached Telegram asking us to silence conservative voices in Romania ahead of today’s presidential elections. I flatly refused. Telegram will not restrict the freedoms of Romanian users or block their political channels.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov also recently claimed that France had attempted to silence conservative voices in Romania ahead of the re-election by pressuring the platform to block political channels. Durov stated that they had refused and called the attempt a threat to freedom of speech.
