The oil “mega-deal” signed between the US and Venezuela has caused major repercussions on plenty of themes: from the legality and timeframe of the agreement to the economic and political implications and, last but not least, the controversial role of Alejandro Betancourt.
A couple of issues are also missing from recent discussions: the effects of these new deals on Venezuela’s environment and its implications for the global climate crisis.
One exception was the coverage made by the NPR’s “All Things Considered” program, where energy and climate correspondent Julia Simon interviewed Paasha Mahdavi, a political science professor at University of California, Santa Barbara, who has this to say about what the new Orinoco Belt developments by major oil company Chevron could do.
“This expansion is effectively a carbon bomb. And so if Chevron does produce this field, that’s roughly 52 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year additional. That is a huge number.”
On September 2nd, the same day those deals were signed in Miraflores Palace, the United Nations Environmental Program released the report “Limiting Overshoot,” which indicates that the 1.5° threshold to limit global warming established in 2015 by the Paris Climate Accords was already crossed and therefore the world must prepare for the fallout.
But in the last few days, several Venezuelan environmental NGOs and other civil society groups are sounding the alarm about the negative consequences that those agreements could produce here. Mongabay published this map about the areas that are impacted by oil extraction in Venezuela.
Venezuelan NGOs Clima 21 and Provea made public a joint statement in which they say that “the economic recovery cannot be made at the expense of environmental human rights. No economic interest can prevail over the constitutional and international right to a healthy, safe and sustainable environment…”
They proposed five points of commitment for all involved, which include transparency and public information, effective enforcement of environmental obligations, urgent management of oil spills, protection of vulnerable communities and a transition to a sustainable model for the country.
Local NGO Azul Ambientalistas claimed that in recent months there have been visible signs of spills and gas leaks in the Lake Maracaibo area, which increased after the reactivation of activities there earlier this year.
Alejandro Alvarez, director of NGO Clima 21 told Caracas Chronicles about what this overall commitment could entail: “It must take into a medium-to-long term strategic plan of reducing the fiscal dependence of the oil rent through investment in areas not related to the extraction and use of fossil fuels. There are already forecasts that could define alternative economic areas to generate currency without the extraction of petroleum.”
In similar terms, Transparencia Venezuela mentioned the need to adjust any oil investment and development to what’s established in Article 129 of the Constitution, including “environmental and socio-cultural impact studies” and “the obligation to preserve the balance…”
But some went further and openly denounced the US-Nabep deal as the surrender of our national sovereignty and civic rights, as Venezuelan sociologist Emilianio Teran-Mantovani wrote in an article for the Venezuelan Observatory of Political Ecology, an organization that he co-founded.
“The new Oil Agreement is the result of this process of political decomposition that has been unfolding in Venezuela for years; and it is the crowning achievement of the capitulation and dismantling of oil nationalism, which had already begun under Maduro and is now being fully unleashed through U.S. intervention…
“Ultimately, this means that Venezuelans themselves have no place. They hardly matter. Their decisions, expressed, for example, in the July 28, 2024 elections, do not matter. Neither do their social and labor rights. And the environment is even less relevant, an area that has been rendered completely invisible in this conflict.”
“There is no National Policy, National Strategy, nor a National Plan of Adaptation and Mitigation to Climate Change. There’s neither a Climate National Budget nor a National System for an Inventory of Greenhouse Gases…”
Besides these statements, the issue of how this oil deal will affect our surroundings has taken a backseat to other concerns while clouded by a lack of details and overall uncertainty around it, despite the promises of a prosperous recovery made by government officials in Caracas and Washington.
In the meantime, the problem of incidents like oil spills continues to be present to this day, with the most recent one occurring on the coast of Lake Maracaibo near Cabimas, as local NGO Azul Ambientalistas claimed that in recent months there have been visible signs of spills and gas leaks in the lake, which increased after the reactivation of activities in the area earlier this year.
Oil spills have sadly become commonplace over time, but reliable data on the matter is hard to come by, with NGOs like Clima 21 and the Venezuelan Observatory of Political Ecology filling the gap that the State is not providing.
“This possible impact (of the pollution produced by the projects of the oil deals) would add to the systemic chronic environmental crisis of the Venezuelan oil industry, which has a very high accident rate because of the abandonment of safety protocols and protections to the communities and ecosystems in the most affected areas. Our concern is the absence of guarantees in those agreements that these problems will be attended to and solved.”
And then there’s the concern of climate change and its already visible effects around the world. At the moment, the ongoing El Super Niño climate event is exacerbating temperatures, causing historical heatwaves like the recent one in Europe and creating serious worries about food crops and other essential natural resources in many nations, including here in Venezuela.
Evidence of how climate change has directly affected Venezuela can be found in the second academic report on climate change (DRACC), which was formally presented last December by the Venezuelan Academy of Physics, Mathematics and Natural Sciences. In its findings is the acknowledgment that the average temperature in the country has risen 0,22 °C per decade between 1980 and 2015, while global warming is responsible for anomalies in rainfall.
But the most damning conclusion is the complete disregard coming from the Venezuelan State.
“This is an important theme in which the government has made failed or incomplete advances” Alvárez, mentioning two failed projects: wind farms in Paraguaná and solar panels for an indigenous community in Amazonas state, which ended up abandoned.
“There is no National Policy, National Strategy, nor a National Plan of Adaptation and Mitigation to Climate Change. There’s neither a Climate National Budget nor a National System for an Inventory of Greenhouse Gases… …the climate institutional weakness accentuates the vulnerabilities of the national territory to the physical threats of the current climate change…”
“The climate change issue has completely disappeared from the Venezuelan political agenda. We have no information on the position of the government in the next international meetings on the matter,” Alvarez told us. He added that “in any case, we need a commitment of the State to fulfill the obligations of the Paris accords and the COP30 (the most recent UN’s climate change conference held in Brazil in November 2025) that promote an energy transition outside of fossil fuels.”
Given this assessment and the Trump administration’s doubling-down on the exploitation of fossil sources of energy, this oil deal could simply make those physical effects even worse.
Parallel to this is the inclusion of how clean energy sources like solar or wind could not only assist in alleviating the electricity shortage but create new opportunities for our economy. Now, it seems like the only one considered is the hydroelectric power that we largely depend on.
“This is an important theme in which the government has made failed or incomplete advances” Alvárez, mentioning two failed projects: wind farms in Paraguaná and solar panels for an indigenous community in Amazonas state, which ended up abandoned.
Overall, any discussion about the environmental consequences that this controversial oil deal could have for all Venezuelans is not at the forefront. It is not entirely erased from view, however.
The short-term argument also brings a long-term one that our society has been dodging for many years: finding a suitable compromise between the needs of our economic apparatus that require immediate attention and that our hydrocarbon industry can provide, while keeping safe basic things like the air we breathe or the water we use and even trying to preserve the natural wonders that this beautiful country of ours offers.
Gulf foreign ministers plan to meet their Iranian counterpart in a push by Oman and Iran to secure buy-in for a temporary deal to manage shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the Financial Times reported on Friday. The gathering is scheduled to be held on Monday in the Omani coastal city of Salalah, the report said, citing two people briefed on the matter.
Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
SHE’S in her eighth decade but Chaka Khan has no intention of slowing down.
In fact, the legendary singer, 73, is about to release her 13th studio album, a record she describes as “ageless music”.
Called Chakzilla, she believes it can connect with “everybody, every age”.
And after 50-plus years of making music, when asked about her proudest achievements, the Grammy-winning star says: “My legacy is that I stayed alive and that I’m still here. That’s a big deal.”
She is chatting from her home in Georgia where she is resting on her 80-acre farm before she heads back to the UK.
Tomorrow she headlines Radio 2 In The Park in Stirling, a week before the release of her new album, her first in seven years.
“I didn’t plan it, or anything like that,” she says. “It just happened. I was just working — you know, working hard with my band.
“We were doing a lot of gigs, and that’s always fun. Everybody’s happy because they’re getting paid. And in that time, it just so happened that I met Sia.”
Sia is the Australian singer-songwriter behind huge hits such as Titanium and Unstoppable, who Khan met through her sister and manager Tammy McCrary. McCrary is a huge fan of Sia, who became central to the album’s creation.
“I didn’t have to work hard at all,” says Khan. “It was just easy for me and for her. She loves to write poetry and she’s a brilliant lyricist.
“I haven’t met anyone like her ever. I’m just happy that she’s my goddaughter now.”
The pair clicked so well creatively, they became family after Sia asked her to be her godmother and Khan agreed.
“I’m just happy that we’re together and that we’re part of each other’s life,” says Khan. “I’m really, really blessed.”
And it was this close relationship that started Chakzilla, with Sia bringing in celebrated producer Greg Kurstin to shape the album’s sound.
Khan says: “Greg did some writing with Sia and when she played these songs to me, it was just the most beautiful thing. I mean, she gets me. She knows me.
“And Tammy and I listened to the album a lot in the car. We keep playing it over and over again. We don’t get tired of it.
“When I am not tired of listening to my own music, that says a great deal because I often get tired quickly. That’s deep. That’s a beautiful thing.
“It’s fun for me to sing. All the songs are so good. My background singers and my band feel the same way. Everybody loves it. We’re feeling really special about this.
“So, I think people are going to feel the same way and they’re going to discover songs they like.
“They’re very sincere songs and very true about me. Heart Of Gold is the sweetest song and Dreamy Stuff is really true about me too. Curious Subject is another good one — because I am. That’s what my family is always saying about me.”
That sense of fun also runs through the album’s title, Chakzilla, inspired by Khan’s lifelong love of monster movies.
“I’ve loved horror and monster films my whole life,” she says. “I’ve been watching Godzilla and Mothra (the giant moth-like creature from the Japanese Godzilla films) since I was a little girl and I never got tired of them.
“I loved the fact there were good monsters and bad ones — the ones that tore things up and the ones that fixed things.
“So, I thought, ‘OK, I could be the Zilla that comes and fixes everything up. A positive monster, because I’m not a curlicue, I’m not a sweetie pie, so it works for me.
“Chakzilla is something I really love.”
The new record is packed with collaborations. The sultry Cool U Down sees Sia guest, while the joyous Boogie’s In My Soul has Snoop Dogg. The funky Bring The Party features Lenny Kravitz on guitars and vocals.
“Sia told me she wanted to write a song called Boogie’s In My Soul and I thought, ‘Oh that sounds horrible’,” Khan says honestly.
“Then I heard what she had in mind and thought, ‘This is brilliant’. She said, ‘All we need is a good rapper’. And I thought, ‘Oh yeah, I know just the guy’.
“I really admire Snoop. He’s so smart and such a great guy, so it was perfect. And the words are brilliant. She says, ‘Show the world your light. Show the world of joy’.
“I thought, ‘Yes, right on, sis’. It’s beautiful. It’s like old school.”
Snoop opens the track with a playful nod to Khan’s 1984 Prince-penned hit I Feel For You, echoing Grandmaster Melle Mel’s famous “Chaka Khan” chant.
Khan says: “Yeah, it sounds great, even though I’m so sick of that song. But it fits. It fits.
“I’m just glad he’s not saying ‘Chaka, Chaka, Chaka, Chaka Khan, Chaka Khan’, like the start of that record.”
Straight-talking with a larger-than-life personality, Khan is refreshingly honest when asked whether it was fun making the video with the rapper.
“No, I worked my ass off. Let me tell you that thing went on until the night.”
Working with old friend Lenny Kravitz on Bring The Party was long overdue, she says, as he is someone who shares much of her outlook on life.
“I’ve known Lenny for many years,” says Khan. “I have friends, but I don’t really have friendships in the way I’d like to because of the life I lead.
“He pulled up some songs from an album he did over 20 years ago. It was some old rock and it was brilliant, and I sang on some of that old stuff with him. I guess he’s going to bring some of it into the future now.
“So, he then played guitar and sang with me on this cut. It was great to bring in some friends that I love and do good work.
“And Lenny lives a lot like I do. If I wanted to go and hang out with him, it would be easy and vice versa. We live in similar ways.
“He’s living on an island (Kravitz, lives part of the year on the Bahamian island of Eleuthera), growing beautiful plants and food, with a great studio in the middle of it all.
“He’s moved, like I am, by being in the real world and loving what God has put here for us.” Around four years ago, Khan left California for Georgia, where her grandma was from and where she lives a very different life.
She says: “I came back to Earth, to the trees and lakes and plants, to real living, with no sirens and craziness around me. It’s brilliant.
“I can look at the sky every morning when I wake up. I look at my lake every day, my animals, and I’m eating right.
“My sister and I are in the middle of opening a plant-based restaurant, and I’m growing my own food. I’ve got greenhouses and I’m learning how to live on the planet and from the planet, rather than having to go to stores and buy crap.”
Georgia has given Khan space, peace and proper time with her family.
“I really am enjoying it,” she tells me. “I’ve never felt so happy to come home off the road before.
“Touring is hard work. It always has been. But now I come home, close the gate and it’s really nice. My family can come and stay for a week or two and we get proper quality time together.
“I just spent a whole month with all my grandchildren and great-grands. They wore me the hell out but I had the best time ever.”
Last year Khan joined soul legends Patti LaBelle, Gladys Knight and Stephanie Mills for the historic Queens tour, which had extra dates in May this year.
“It was an amazing feat that we finished it,” says Khan. “I took it on because I thought, ‘This is a one-time thing — Gladys, Patti, Stephanie and myself. A one-off.
“It was an amazing show. It was tough because we were working like back in the day.
“Stevie Wonder came to the opening night and sang with me, which was lovely.
“We were really cool. Nobody was tripping, there was no drama. It was beautiful. And between the four of us, you could imagine how diverse the audience was. I saw families, I saw men bringing their sons. It was really special.”
Earlier this year, I’m Every Woman — The Chaka Khan Musical opened in London starring Alexandra Burke as Khan.
Did Burke nail the role?
“What could Alexandra do wrong? She’s amazing. She’s really something. I didn’t realise she was already such a big star. She’s no joke.
“I was amazed by her staying power. She and the whole cast had stamina like you’ve never seen.
“Nia Hill, who wrote the book for the show, is an old friend. She knows me inside out. We’ve had very deep conversations, and she’s been there for me through some really hard knocks.
“She would ask me which songs we should use, and I suggested songs that people don’t often get to hear.
“That’s what I’m trying to do now, bring back songs I did years and years ago that I still love.
“I’m going to do a show with that old stuff. Young kids today are so savvy, they know a good song when they hear one.”
Khan’s admiration for younger generations also connects back to her own political awakening.
As a teenager in Chicago, she was involved with the Black Panther Party and says the battles facing young people today feel both familiar and far broader.
She says: “It was crazy then too, but in a different way. With the Panthers, the focus was mostly on fundamental racism. Today, it’s that and so much more that these kids are dealing with. My heart goes out to them because they’re not afraid. They’re fearless, beautiful beings and they get it. They understand what’s right and what’s wrong.
“I’m really happy about young people today. I love that they’re not afraid, because fear will tear it all down.”
With our time up, Khan says how much she is ready to return to the UK this weekend.
“I love Scotland and love the big shows, I can’t wait. I’m going to play the favourites. Absolutely.
“It’s important to keep the music going. I’m still here. Yeah, in every way.
“We lost Prince, and the big stars like Aretha and Whitney.
“There are not a lot of those musicians and artists like that any more. So, I’m enjoying that I’m still making new music and playing shows.
“I’m up for the challenge. Absolutely, that’s how I live. That’s me.
“I love that line, ‘I may be small, but I’ve got this’.
“It doesn’t matter what size you are, it’s what you’ve got.”
Acting President Rodríguez has pursued trade opportunities with the Modi government and associated business groups. (Presidential Press)
Caracas, September 10, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez presided over the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Ministry of Ecosocialism and India’s Greens Zoological Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre (GZRRC) to “modernize and strengthen” Venezuela’s network of zoos, bioparks, and wildlife conservation centers.
GZRRC is the operating entity of the global conservation initiative Vantara, based in the Indian state of Gujarat.
According to the Venezuelan leader, Greens will provide “technical assistance, training, and technology to raise the standards for the management and protection of Venezuela’s biodiversity.”
“Our professionals will be able to attend courses in India,” she added during the televised event on Saturday, September 5.
Rodríguez noted that Venezuela has 16 zoos and aquariums, 12 breeding centers, and four rescue centers. She also announced that the agreement involves “incorporating an aquarium, a wildlife conservation center, a veterinary center, and a wildlife hospital into the master plan for the recovery of La Guaira State” in the wake of the June 24 double earthquake.
The initiative with Vantara, which has a five-year time frame, also includes exchange programs for veterinarians, biologists, and other professionals involved in wildlife management and conservation.
Days earlier, Venezuela enacted the Law Approving the Framework Agreement for the Establishment of the International Big Cat Alliance (IBCA), which will focus on protecting seven feline species considered among the planet’s most representative. Venezuela is home to six of the world’s most important feline species, accounting for 14 percent of global feline biodiversity.
The legislation stems from a proposal put forward by India in 2023, which currently has the backing of 13 member states and applications for membership from more than 25 others.
During the recent ceremony, Rodríguez thanked Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Ambassador P.K. Ashok Babu, Vantara, and the wealthy Ambani family for “all their support.”
Venezuela’s Acting President held a four-day visit to India in June to offer investment and trade opportunities to major Indian companies, including the Tata Group, Amul, and Reliance. The latter has been a major importer of Venezuelan crude in recent months.
Vantara is backed by Reliance Industries, a major conglomerate owned by the Ambani family, with a major presence in multiple economic sectors, including energy, telecommunications, financial services, and retail. Its wildlife rescue center is located within the Jamnagar refining complex in Gujarat, the largest in the world. The facility, which covers approximately 3,500 acres, is managed by businessman Anant Ambani, the youngest son of India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani.
Despite Vantara’s declared wildlife conservation mission and philanthropic endeavors, the company has faced controversy in recent years.
Various environmental groups and international organizations have accused it of operating as “a large-scale private zoo,” managing wildlife as commodities around the world, and taking advantage of loopholes in international regulations that seek to ensure that the trade in wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival.
In 2024, India’s Supreme Court appointed a panel of retired judges to investigate the alleged illegal acquisition of animals by Vantara, particularly elephants, as well as possible violations of wildlife regulations and money laundering allegations. The court ultimately dismissed the complaint filed by the Karanartham Viramah Foundation.
However, criticism that Vantara is breeding exotic animals for trade, as well as environmental concerns over setting up a wildlife sanctuary in the vicinity of an oil refinery, have persisted.
Venezuela had dealings with the Indian group before the latest memorandum of understanding. A joint investigation by Süddeutsche Zeitung and Venezuelan outlet Armando.info claimed that at least 39,000 wild animals from all over the world had been transferred to Vantara’s facilities by the end of 2024.
The identified transfers included over 5,000 animals from Venezuela, among them members of protected species such as the Orinoco crocodile, harpy eagle, lowland tapir, giant anteater, jaguars, and spider monkeys.
Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.
Tanzanian striker Clara Luvanga has joined the Washington Spirit from Saudi Arabian club Al-Nassr in a deal believed to be one of the most costly in the history of women’s football.
The fee paid by the National Women’s Soccer League side has not been officially disclosed.
Some are reporting it to be $2.3m, external (about £1.7m), which would make Luvanga the most expensive female footballer in history.
BBC Sport has not been able to verify this figure, although a well-placed source said they believed it ranked in the top five most expensive signings in the women’s game.
The Spirit declined to comment on the fee involved when contacted by BBC Sport.
Luvanga, 21, has signed a contract running to the end of the 2029 NWSL season.
If the reported record figure is correct, it would mean the fee passes the £1.4m that London City Lionesses are said to have paid to Paris St-Germain for Grace Geyoro last year.
However, the Geyoro fee has been disputed, further illustrating how transfer figures in the women’s game are often kept private.
With her move, Luvanga becomes the first Tanzanian player in NWSL history.
Luvanga won the Saudi Women’s Premier League in all three of her seasons with Al-Nassr, as well as the Saudi Women’s Cup, Saudi Women’s Super Cup and West Asian Football Federation (WAFF) Women’s Clubs Championship.
She also claimed the league’s golden boot last season after scoring 24 goals in 14 appearances.
The Washington Spirit are owned by Michele Kang, who also owns London City Lionesses.
London City made a series of high-profile signings during the summer transfer window, including two-time Ballon d’Or winner Alexia Putellas who arrived from Barcelona on a three-year deal.
Luvanga made her senior international debut for Tanzania in 2024. Before joining Al-Nassr in 2023, she played for DUX Logrono in Spain, having developed through the youth system at Tanzanian club Yanga Princess.
When discussing her new club, Luvanga said: “I am very excited to join the Washington Spirit and to take on this new challenge in the NWSL.
“I know I am arriving with the season already under way, but I’m really excited to play in a new league and a new country.”
Spirit sporting director James Hocken said: “Clara adds an exciting new dimension to our attack as we head toward the play-offs.
“Despite her young age, she has demonstrated the ability to score goals in different ways and has the profile to be very successful in this league.”
Fox Corp.’s $22-billion acquisition of San José-based Roku, operator of streaming services and seller of hardware devices, seemed like a straightforward deal when it was announced in June: A growing media company was looking to bolster its presence in the fast-growing streaming industry.
But, on Wednesday, the Trump administration weighed in.
Fox Corp. and Roku said that the companies received requests from the Justice Department on Tuesday for additional information in connection with its review of the merger.
While Fox and Roku downplayed the requests, saying that they had expected the outreach, the timing of the move raised eyebrows among some analysts, who said it could signal further scrutiny of the transaction by the Justice Department.
“The president has been outspoken on the fact that he will take retaliatory action against networks that say things that he doesn’t agree with, or they do things that he doesn’t agree with,” said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at advisory services firm Enderle Group.
The action follows President Trump’s surprise over Fox’s ouster of anchor Maria Bartiromo. She was pushed out after she had shared internal company texts with the White House, which sources told The Times may have been the breaking point.
Trump said on social media that he couldn’t believe that Bartiromo will no longer have her shows on Fox. “Her fans, of which there are many, will not be happy,” he wrote on Truth Social on Sept. 3.
Associate Atty. Gen. Stanley Woodward said the Justice Department could not comment on pending matters but said in a statement: “We can affirm that this DOJ under President Trump’s leadership will continue to prioritize affordability for all Americans across our economy.”
Fox announced in June its plans to acquire Roku for $22 billion, which would give the company access to Roku’s 100 million households that use its platform to connect to different streaming services. The deal would benefit Fox’s advertising business, as well as make it less reliant on traditional pay TV platforms.
Fox and Roku said they expect the merger to be done by the first half of 2027, subject to regulatory and shareholder approval, according to a Sept 9 filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
“FOX and Roku will continue to work cooperatively with the DOJ in its review of the Mergers,” Fox said in its filing.
Some legal experts said it is fairly standard for the Justice Department to make an additional request for information.
“It doesn’t mean that their review is going to be more extensive than usual,” said Ray Seilie, an entertainment attorney at law firm Kinsella Holley Iser Kump Steinsapir.
For example, the Justice Department made a second request for information when it reviewed Paramount Skydance’s deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, he said. The merging companies typically send information that helps the government figure out what the market impact will be of a merger, he added.
The Justice Department ultimately approved Paramount’s planned acquisition, despite opposition from some industry stakeholders. State attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America have sued Paramount over the deal, raising antitrust concerns. Others have pointed out close ties between Trump and Larry Ellison, a financial backer of the deal, who has also donated money to a group that supports Trump. Ellison’s son, David, is chief executive of Paramount Skydance.
Legal experts and analysts said they don’t think the combination of Fox and Roku raises antitrust issues because they are not dominant players in streaming and have businesses that complement each other.
But one wild card is Trump.
“You never know what Trump is going to seize on and decide he wants to do,” said Bryan Sullivan, a partner with law firm Early Sullivan Wright Gizer & McRae on whether Trump will take retaliatory action through the Justice Department in the Fox-Roku deal. “It’s chaos in the federal government and it could very well happen because of that reason, but it could also just be a blip and not a big deal.”
Times staff writer Stephen Battaglio contributed to this report.
Rodríguez and Obregón have praised the oil agreement with Trump and NABEP. (PDVSA)
Caracas, September 9, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The president of Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA, Héctor Obregón, backed the recent agreement with the Trump administration as a “win-win relationship” on Monday.
“We signed Productive Participation Contracts where we put forward crude reserves and qualified personnel. What were we missing? Foreign capital,” he said in an interview with Unión Radio.
Productive Participation Contracts (CPP) are concession-type agreements whereby energy projects are turned over to private corporations which run operations and commercialization while paying a negotiated portion of proceeds to the Venezuelan state.
The recent oil deal, hailed by Trump as “the biggest in history,” will see Venezuela transfer 17 prime oilfields, containing 65 billion in proven crude reserves, to private operator NABEP. The projects are split between extra-heavy crude fields in the Orinoco Oil Belt and mature light- and medium-crude ones in the Lake Maracaibo basin.
Obregón insisted on the mutual benefits, explaining that Venezuela will collect taxes and royalties while the US will be able to supply its domestic demand. Regarding the agreement’s timeline, which the White House has claimed to span 100 years, Obregón stated that the concession is for 25 years but may be renewed for similar periods “as many times as necessary.”
After initially vowing that NABEP would invest US $100 billion in the oilfields, a figure repeated by Venezuelan officials, the Trump administration changed the pledge to “more than $10 billion.”
According to a White House “fact sheet” on the deal, the US State Department will be able to secure 20 percent of the NABEP’s output at cost and have a right of first refusal over the remaining 80 percent.
Obregón suggested that Washington could secure additional benefits, indicating that a reference $65 barrel would have a $15 “sales discount.” The oil official likewise estimated capital and operational expenditures at $12-15 and stated that NABEP would never secure a smaller portion of proceeds than the Venezuelan state, with the percentage increasing for greenfield projects.
The $19 revenue estimate offered by Venezuelan officials as the government’s take for a reference $65 barrel is significantly lower than the benchmarks established under the 2001 Hydrocarbon Law approved by former President Hugo Chávez and subsequent reforms. Under the previous framework, only PDVSA or PDVSA-majority joint ventures were allowed to operate oilfields, with the Venezuelan state securing as much as $0.80 for every $1 of oil proceeds in the latter case.
NABEP, owned by Venezuelan oil mogul Alejandro Betancourt, will grant a 35 percent stake at no cost to the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital (OSC). Washington will likewise have veto power over NABEP’s board of directors. Betancourt has faced corruption accusations in Venezuela, with authorities issuing an arrest warrant in 2022 that was later dropped. For its part, the Trump administration has sought to halt money laundering investigations against the Venezuelan businessman both in the US and in Switzerland.
Obregón went on to acknowledge that Venezuelan export revenues are currently deposited in a US Treasury account before US officials decide on the disbursement amounts and timings back to Caracas.
“There is a state-to-state agreement to receive Venezuelan funds in Treasury accounts,” he disclosed, echoing Washington’s assertion that its seizure of Venezuelan export proceeds aims to protect them from potential creditor claims.
“The channeling of revenues through the US Treasury could be considered a protection measure, since there are debt claims against PDVSA and creditors could target our accounts,” he argued.
Neither US nor Venezuelan authorities have disclosed the amount of revenue collected and disbursed back to Caracas. Luigi Pisella, an advisor to Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, claimed that the Trump administration is deducting the costs of its January 3 military operation against Venezuela from the country’s funds.
The costs of goods and services supplied by US-based exporters to Venezuela are also being directly deducted from the funds held in the Treasury accounts.
Apart from controlling export earnings, US officials have publicly participated in a pro-business overhaul of the Caribbean nation’s hydrocarbon law and regulations, including reviewing drafts of the legislation.
The Trump administration has maintained sanctions on the Venezuelan oil industry while issuing licenses for select Western corporations. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright oversaw the signing of agreements with Chevron, Eni, and smaller US-backed energy firms during a visit to Caracas earlier this month.
Edited by Lucas Koerner in Philadelphia, USA.
WASHINGTON — President Trump has locked in a deal to develop Venezuela’s vast oil resources, an arrangement the White House says will bring a country battered by years of economic collapse to a “place where elections are possible.”
But the agreement — backed by acting President Delcy Rodríguez, a holdover from the Nicolás Maduro government that Washington deems “illegitimate” — is raising new uncertainty about how entrenched the unelected government may become.
In January, when the U.S. military captured Maduro, Trump did not say how long a democratic transition would take but said Rodríguez was “gracious” and “essentially willing to do what we think is necessary.”
Asked by The Times on Wednesday what was stopping him from demanding Venezuela set a firm election date, Trump was blunt: “I just don’t think they are ready yet.”
“It’s very new. We took them out of a dictatorship and we’re getting along great with the government,” Trump said. But he said an election would happen “soon.”
U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright walks alongside Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, after a news conference on the deal to develop 17 oil fields in the country.
(Jesus Vargas / Getty Images)
Under the deal, the U.S. government is partnering with an oil producer to create a new company, North American Blue Energy Partners, to develop 17 fields with a proven potential of 65 billion barrels. NABEP will have rights to the fields for 100 years.
For many Venezuelans, the lack of urgency around elections — set against a deal that gives the United States majority control over roughly a third of the country’s oil reserves — is starting to feel like a broken promise.
“They tell us we have to wait two years, maybe more, while in the meantime they do business with a government that wasn’t elected, that was imposed on us, and that we don’t want,” Carlos Pérez, a 23-year-old automotive mechanics student, told The Times.
Antonio Marchetti, a 45-year-old plumber and electrician, said that while he sees the removal of Maduro as a “good thing,” the oil deal makes it seem as though Trump’s plans were those of a “cowboy, the invader John Wayne,” all along.
“We were expecting elections,” Marchetti said. “This pact with Trump entrenched the dictatorship that he himself declared war on. But to get rid of Maduro, he left the rest and did business with them. It disgusts me.”
A man holds a sign that reads in Spanish, “Yankee out, murderers” during a protest in Caracas on Aug. 29 against President Trump’s deal giving the United States a stake in Venezuela’s oil reserves.
(Pedro Mattey / Associated Press)
The frustrations go beyond Venezuela. In Washington, Republican lawmakers have praised the oil deal, while calling Rodríguez an “interim dictator” who cannot be trusted.
María Corina Machado, the exiled leader of the Venezuelan opposition and a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, on Thursday raised her own worries about what the oil deal means for the future of Venezuela.
In a video message, Machado stopped short of criticizing Trump’s oil deal, but acknowledged concerns about a pact negotiated with an “illegitimate” government.
“Venezuelans know that there can be no development without strong institutions and a government elected by popular vote,” she said. “That is the only real guarantee of success and stability for any large-scale investment.”
Trump administration officials have characterized the deal as an economic lifeline that will eventually stabilize a country and prepare it for free and fair elections.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week that the United States is facilitating talks between Venezuela’s interim government and Dinorah Figuera, an opposition figure leading Venezuela’s 2015 National Assembly, the last democratically elected legislature recognized by the United States.
Machado has been left out of those talks. They are expected to resume in mid-September.
Rubio says that for any election to be “credible,” the voting system will require an overhaul and political parties will need time to organize. Steps also must be taken to ensure the country has a free press.
Echoing Rubio’s comments, the White House said Friday that Trump wants elections held at the “right time,” but that his top priority is to bring Venezuela “back from the dead and rebuild the country after it was incompetently ruled by a nasty dictatorship.”
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright meets with Venezuelan acting President Delcy Rodríguez at Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas on Sept. 2.
(Pedro Mattey / Ap Photo/pedro Mattey)
On Wednesday, while Energy Secretary Chris Wright visited Caracas, Rodríguez declined to set a firm date for an election, but added, “I have worked tirelessly to ensure that Venezuela is ready and prepared when the time comes for its electoral process, which will take place — have no doubt about that: There will be an electoral process.”
The open-ended approach to holding an election, however, has drawn criticism from former Trump administration officials, who argue the lack of a timeline essentially lets Rodríguez govern indefinitely.
“Here’s my fear: It makes us Delcy’s partner, and gives the president a reason to want her to remain in power,” Elliott Abrams, who served as U.S. special envoy to Venezuela during Trump’s first term, told The Times.
He contended that the White House so far appears to prefer a pliant interlocutor, and Rodríguez, he says, will do “whatever Trump tells her to do.”
If an election is to take place in Venezuela, a nine-month runway for preparation is likely to be expected, Abrams said.
People shop for produce at a market in Maracaibo, the heart of Venezuela’s oil industry. .
(Ariana Cubillos / Associated Press)
In Washington, some Republican lawmakers have continued to call for elections in Venezuela, arguing that Rodríguez cannot be trusted.
“The only way we will have a prosperous Venezuela is with the end of the murderous regime and the return of democracy,” Rep. Carlos A. Gimenez (R-Fla.) wrote on social media. He also called Rodríguez an “interim dictator.”
In an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said he does not necessarily think elections should happen before the oil agreement is finalized, but he said they “need to proceed rapidly.”
“I believe they should proceed no later than midway through next year,” he said.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said he is working with Trump and Rubio to ensure “free, fair and transparent elections as soon as possible.” He did not, however, say what would constitute “soon.”
In the Lake Maracaibo region, an area that would see renewed investments under the oil agreement, Junior Araujo — a 47-year-old oil worker — sees a “wonderful opportunity to be reborn.”
Araujo, the father of three, is in desperate need of a better economic outlook. He works 120 hours a week and earns only $20. For his family, food alone usually costs about $150 a week.
“We have to get creative and find new ways to make ends meet through side jobs like selling clothes and making yogurt,” he said. “That’s our real financial situation.”
Venezuelans watch oil tankers anchored in Lake Maracaibo on Sept. 4. Much of the country’s oil industry is centered in the Maracaibo region.
(Humberto Matheus/Sipa USA via Associated Press)
For Araujo, the hope for a better economy does not take away his frustrations with the government.
“We’re neither happy nor dancing here, all our benefits have been taken away from us,” he said. “Our main problem is the current government; we need to restore our institutions.”
Nazareth Lezama, a 35-year-old teacher, also sees the oil deal as an economic opportunity but remains concerned that the current government may not have negotiated the best price or conditions for Venezuela. She added this has happened in the past.
“We must be clear that this regime destroyed the oil industry,” she said, adding that Venezuelans “need elections to choose leaders based on merit.”
Marchetti, the plumber from Caracas, says the oil deal is a “100-year chain” on Venezuelans imposed by Trump. He said it has become the “last straw” for him, and he has decided to leave Venezuela and emigrate to Europe.
“With all the pain in my heart, I will leave everything behind. I have a European passport; it won’t be easy to start a life from scratch, but there is no hope left here,” he said.
He does not know where he will land yet. But he knows he needs to leave Venezuela.
“This ship is sinking,” he said.
Times staff writer Ceballos reported from Washington. Special correspondent Mogollón reported from Caracas.
REBEKAH Vardy is to swap the dolce vita of Italy for Burnley FC after hubby Jamie joined the Clarets yesterday.
The Wag, 44, will have to pack up her glam dresses to make the move from their £2million villa in Salò, Lake Garda, where former England striker Jamie played for Cremonese last season.
He is returning to England on a deal to the end of the season.
It means he is likely to relocate to the Lancashire town — 137 miles north of the family home in Grantham, Lincs.
It is hoped he will revive the Clarets after a bad start to the season.
Jamie, 39, said: “This club has a proper footballing history and passionate fans who deserve a team that represents them and their town. I can’t wait to get going on the pitch and help the team move in the right direction.”
Rather than move full-time to Burnley, it is expected Becky will remain at their Grantham home near to where their children, Sofia and Ella, go to school.
She faces a two-and-a-half-hour drive to Turf Moor to see Jamie in action.
Becky is a regular at his games and previously spoke about getting more nervous than he does during matches.
She said: “Jamie is so laid back about football, he doesn’t get nervous.
“The only time I get nervous is when he has to take a penalty.
“It’s anxiety-inducing and I’m always so relieved when he hits the back of the net.”
Becky faced a public backlash after losing her 2022 “Wagatha Christie” High Court libel case with Coleen Rooney, over leaked Instagram stories.
Germany, Austria, Greece, Denmark and the Netherlands did not outline where the centres would be located.
Published On 4 Sep 20264 Sep 2026
Five European nations have agreed on concrete steps towards a deal with an unspecified non-European Union country to host migrant return facilities, senior officials said, in a sign of mounting determination to counter immigration.
Germany, Austria, Greece, Denmark and the Netherlands, known as the Group of Five, aim to sign deals this year to send migrants without legal residency to countries outside the European Union. The nations expected to host return centres have not been named.
list of 3 itemsend of list
“Around New Year, we expect to have a common understanding with a partner country outside of the European Union,” Danish Immigration and Integration Minister Morten Bodskov told reporters on Friday at a news conference in Copenhagen, without elaborating.
“It’s a new chance to have a life in a partner country,” he said, adding that the five nations would be in dialogue with the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) on their next steps.
A spokesperson for UNHCR said the agency had not been approached with details of the proposal and therefore could not comment.
The Group of Five is set to reconvene in Munich, Germany, at the end of September to advance the plan.
German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt confirmed that the group wants “to reach an agreement with third countries this year that will enable the establishment of return hubs”.
The European Parliament in June approved an overhaul of migration policy aimed at speeding up deportations and allowing member states to set up centres abroad, in what some critics of the policy say could weaken safeguards for asylum seekers.
The Council of Europe, a non-EU body that promotes human rights, democracy and the rule of law, said in July that the proposed return hubs posed “considerable human rights risks”.
Danish Refugee Council Secretary-General Charlotte Slente said a better policy would be to implement the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, which focuses on stricter border screening, faster return procedures and expanded digital systems for managing asylum claims.
“Return hubs focus on a small number of returns; they will not stop people from taking even more dangerous routes, and they could violate basic human rights,” she said.
Wright visited Caracas for a second time since the January 3 US strikes and Maduro kidnapping. (AFP)
Caracas, September 3, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez and US Energy Secretary Chris Wright celebrated an oil agreement between the two countries and North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP) and a flurry of additional energy deals signed on Wednesday.
“This is a historic day in the transformation of Venezuela,” Wright said in a joint press conference at Miraflores Palace. “President [Donald] Trump has a clear mission in Venezuela: to bring peace, freedom, and prosperity to everyone.”
The US official went on to praise the “enormous deal” announced last Friday that will see NABEP, a company owned by Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt, receive long-term concessions for 17 prime oilfields in the Caribbean nation that hold 65 billion barrels of reserves.
According to the White House, the US Department of War’s Office of Strategic Capital (OSC) will acquire a 35 percent stake in NABEP through penny warrants. The US State Department will be able to purchase 20 percent of NABEP’s production at cost and hold a right of first refusal for the remaining 80 percent.
Washington will likewise control the company’s board of directors. Wright stated that the NABEP deal is “ambitious” and predicted that Venezuelan oil production would surpass 2 million barrels per day (bpd) by the end of the decade, nearly doubling the current output of 1.1 million bpd.
For her part, Rodríguez urged Wright to convey her gratitude to Trump, the US State Department, and the Department of Energy for helping secure “a mutually beneficial, win-win agreement.”
“I trust that the binational agreement will also prove beneficial for the people of the United States,” the acting president told reporters. “Venezuela is ready to welcome these investments that will boost the country’s development.”
Rodríguez had previously stated that Venezuela is estimating US $19 of revenue per barrel extracted in the project, significantly below the government take under the 2001 Hydrocarbon Law enacted by former President Hugo Chávez. The law was overhauled with US support in January to expand benefits for foreign corporations.
Both Rodríguez and Wright faced questions about Betancourt, who has faced embezzlement and money laundering investigations in Spain and Switzerland stemming from alleged corruption in dealings with state oil company PDVSA.
NABEP has operated in the country since 2024 and was awarded the project without a prior bidding process. It is currently Venezuela’s second-largest crude producer after Chevron. Wright said the US government had negotiated the agreement carefully and would exercise strict control over the flow of funds associated with the NABEP deal.
Rodríguez, for her part, said that Betancourt is not facing any judicial proceedings in Venezuela, with a 2022 arrest warrant for corruption having been dropped one year later. Similarly, Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued in an interview that the Venezuelan mogul is not the subject of any investigation in the US.
Before the afternoon press conference, Wright attended a ceremony at the presidential palace that saw the Venezuelan government sign a number of agreements with foreign corporations.
Chevron, the largest foreign corporation operating in Venezuela, saw its joint venture with PDVSA awarded two additional extra-heavy crude fields, Carabobo-1 and Carabobo-2 South, in the Orinoco Oil Belt.
The Texas-based company announced plans to invest $7 billion in its Venezuela projects over the next five years with the goal of more than doubling the current 250,000 bpd output. Chevron CEO Mike Wirth affirmed in an interview that the “strong legal protections” and “improved terms” under the reformed Hydrocarbon Law granted the company “attractive low-cost oil growth” prospects.
Italian company Eni also signed a contract to develop the Junín-5 block, one of the largest in the Orinoco Oil Belt. The project will migrate from a joint venture with PDVSA majority to a concession-type deal, called a Productive Participation Contract, which offers increased benefits for the private operator.
Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi was likewise present in Miraflores Palace and thanked US and Venezuelan authorities for backing foreign investments in the South American country.
Wednesday’s ceremony also saw Primavera secure a concession to exploit the medium- and heavy-crude Budare-Elotes block in eastern Venezuela. Primavera is an energy-investment vehicle created by billionaire Fred Ehrsam, a Trump supporter and co-founder of Coinbase, to enter the Venezuelan oil industry.
Additionally, Colorado-based wildcatter Aspect Energy received rights to study potential new oilfields in eastern Venezuela.
Finally, PDVSA and state electricity company CORPOELEC signed “strategic alliance” agreements with GE Vernova, an offshoot of General Electric, to upgrade and repair electrical infrastructure supporting Venezuela’s oil industry.
Following the pro-business overhaul of its energy sector, Caracas has signed new or updated agreements with multiple Western multinational corporations, including BP, Shell, and Repsol.
Since the January 3 military strikes and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration has wielded significant control over the Venezuelan oil and gas industry. The Caribbean nation’s export revenues are currently deposited in a US Treasury account before the White House decides the disbursement timings and amounts.
Washington has also kept wide-reaching sanctions in place while issuing licenses for select corporations and banning dealings with companies from Russia, China, and Iran. With NABEP set to take over five oilfields previously operated by joint ventures with Chinese firms, Beijing demanded that its “rights and interests” in Venezuela be respected.
Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.
peterschreiber.media/iStock via Getty Images
Shareholders of Dominion Energy (D) and NextEra Energy (NEE) overwhelmingly approved the companies’ proposed $67B merger deal, according to 8-K filings on Thursday (I, II).
The deal, which is pending regulatory approvals, would create one of the world’s largest electric utilities with an
The exterior of the two-story, beige-colored building looks like any other drab office space near the Hollywood Burbank Airport. But on a recent weekday afternoon, the inside was bustling with activity: hairstylists carried brightly colored wigs between soundstages, a prop artist was building a fake leg for an upcoming video and YouTube stars gathered in a lobby, fidgeting with their phones while they waited to film their next scene.
They were among more than 100 employees of Smosh Productions, which this spring moved into the 32,000-square-foot facility, from a much smaller location in the city, to accommodate their programming needs.
It’s the latest creator-run company deepening its roots in Burbank, a neighborhood long defined by such iconic studios as Disney, Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures.
Other influencer-led companies that have expanded production footprints in the city include Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal’s Mythical Entertainment and Alan Chikin Chow.
Internet content production is one of the few growth categories left in a Los Angeles production landscape that keeps shrinking.
“Being ‘Media City’ is a part of Burbank’s tagline. And it’s still true; we are just a different kind of media,” said Katelyn Hempstead, Smosh’s executive coordinator, on a tour of the new facility.
The company, owned by pioneering YouTubers Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla, produces up to 10 hours of internet content weekly across five channels. Its programming ranges from sketch comedy to games and challenges for their fans.
Shoot days for digital productions rose 47% in the second quarter to 661 compared with the same period a year ago — even as the overall number of on-location shoot days dropped 13% during that period, according to FilmLA, the nonprofit group that tracks local filming.
“When people have an opportunity to work for a few days on a vertical series or [when] they make an income out of being an influencer and producing regular content for their various social channels, that does help the economy,” said Philip Sokoloski, a spokesman for FilmLA. “They still purchase things. They still utilize equipment. They may rent things from local supply houses.”
Cameras inside the “Who Meme’d It?” studio at Smosh Studios in Burbank.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
Burbank has more than 1,000 media and entertainment companies that generate about 66,000 jobs.
Although the city does not give a breakdown of jobs by category, the creator economy has fueled some of the growth in the city’s entertainment employment over the last six years, said Patrick Prescott, Burbank’s community development director.
Most occupy flexible industrial space in the Airport district, leasing space for $1.65 to $2.81 a square foot, he said.
“It’s definitely a transitional period,” Prescott said. “There’s still something really valuable about sitting in a theater with a bunch of other people. But there’s also a lot of scrolling going on. Who’s generating that content? A lot of it’s generated here.”
Filmmakers work in the theater set at Dhar Mann Studios.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Due to anemic production activity, soundstages across L.A. have struggled to fill their studio spaces. That has opened up opportunities for new types of internet productions to fill at least some of the gap, said Sam Glendon, an industrial broker who’s handled several such deals. Creators building out their own space can pick up a discounted soundstage as a result, he said.
“There’s been this big supply-and-demand imbalance,” Glendon said. “It’s still a very niche type of clientele, but I’m certainly searching YouTube much more for who these people are and how many followers they have. Five years ago, I never did that.”
Controlling a studio matters to creators because it lets them move fast without a major studio’s bureaucracy, and platforms such as YouTube reward a steady, frequent posting cadence.
Alan Chikin Chow, behind the scripted YouTube high school drama series “Alan’s Universe,” moved his 13-person operation into a 10,000-square-foot Burbank facility in 2024 after outgrowing his Koreatown apartment.
“YouTube creators are the new trendsetters, and so we wanted to be associated with the big media in Burbank,” said Moris Zingman, the show’s lead producer. Proximity to the Warner Bros. lot helps land celebrity guests, too — Jacob Moncrief, Mythical’s studio president, said it’s an easy sell for shows like “Last Meals” when guests are already a few minutes away.
Filmmakers rehearse a scene in the restaurant set at Dhar Mann Studios.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Traditional media have taken note. Mythical Entertainment and Alan Chikin Chow both struck deals with Netflix in July. “Good Mythical Morning,” “Mythical Kitchen,” “Last Meals” and “Alan’s Universe” are all set to stream there alongside their YouTube releases starting later this year.
Dhar Mann Studios, one of Burbank’s biggest creator-run operations, added a deal with Disney last week for 20 episodes of family-oriented programming — its second major-studio partnership after a 40-title vertical-video deal with Fox Entertainment earlier this year.
Mann, 42, started making YouTube content in 2018 under the Dhar Mann Studios banner, centered around morality and motivational videos. The company now runs a 125,000-square-foot, three-soundstage facility with roughly 220 employees producing rotating sets — restaurants, school hallways, a courtroom, jail visitation rooms — designed to mimic a small town.
But Dhar Mann Studios doesn’t own its Burbank building — it leases the space — and this month the company bought a 108,000-square-foot production campus in Chatsworth for $23 million, with plans to relocate there by 2027, the Real Deal reported.
It’s the same pattern playing out across L.A.’s creator economy.
“The scale that creators have gotten to is ginormous,” said Sean Atkins, Dhar Mann Studios’ chief executive. “Media companies are always looking at what the next thing is. The answer isn’t that they become us or we become them. It’s somewhere in the messy middle, of which nobody knows right now.”
Most internet content work is mostly non-union and typically pays less than traditional film and TV jobs. SAG-AFTRA and the Motion Picture Editors Guild have started drafting new-media-specific contracts in response.
Even so, some workers welcome the opportunity.
Austin Scott, an editor who built a career cutting reality shows like “MasterChef” and “Dancing With the Stars,” recently landed his first big gig after three years of being unable to find post-production work, editing a YouTube series for Kevin Hart’s Hartbeat. Over eight weeks, he’ll work 12-hour days for $3,500 a week — below the $5,000 to $6,000 a typical TV editing job pays.
“My expectations are that it’s going to be harder work, longer hours, more notes, less money,” Scott said. “But there’s no work, so people are kind of forced to take what they can get.”
A NEW theme park deal is letting you buy a 2027 annual pass which includes visiting for the rest of 2026 for free.
Merlin – who operates 20 top UK attractions including all the major theme parks – has launched a mega September deal on their annual passes.
Anyone buying a Gold or Platinum Merlin Annual Pass for 2027 can visit all of the attractions for free for the rest of the year.
This means three extra months free on top of the 12 months of 2027.
It also includes some of the top events including Fright Nights at Thorpe Park and Alton Towers‘ Scarefest, along with Christmas at Legoland.
The Gold Merlin Annual Pass includes 485 days of attraction access as well as additional extras worth £250.
This includes free parking and 20 per cent off food, drink and shops.
There are some exclusions, such as Alton Tower Fireworks, and from November 6-8.
Opt for the Platinum Merlin Annual Pass and it includes all of the above AND even more perks worth more than £500.
This includes a free Fastrack per visit, as well as four Bring a Friend tickets per year and a free Coke Freestyle cup that comes with two refills.
Not only that, but there are no exclusion dates (apart from some paid-for events).
The Gold Merlin Annual Pass currently costs £239 (or £19.99 a month), which works out to just 50p a visit.
The Platinum Merlin Annual Pass costs £299 (or £24.99 per month), which works out to
The deal is on offer until the end of the Month (September 30).
Here are the full list of attractions included in the passes:
The LA Clippers have been fined $30m (£22.2m) by the National Basketball Association (NBA) for violating salary rules over the acquisition of star player Kawhi Leonard.
The Clippers will also have to forfeit five first-round draft picks between 2029 and 2033, while owner Steve Ballmer has been suspended from all league and team activities for 12 months for “knowingly seeking to help Mr Leonard obtain off-court income opportunities”.
Two-time NBA champion Leonard has been fined $700,000 (£518,997) by the league.
The team’s president of business operations, Gillian Zucker, has been suspended for one year without pay for providing “misleading statements to investigators”.
The punishments come after the NBA said its month-long investigation “found a pattern of misconduct and multiple significant rules violations by the Clippers organisation, a prior offender of the salary-cap circumvention rules”.
Following the ruling, Leonard, 35, said he “accepts full responsibility” for his actions and “regrets the distraction this situation has caused the fans and my family”.
“I entered into my contract with the Clippers as well as the agreements in question in good faith, fully committed to fulfilling my obligations and with no knowledge of any intent on anyone’s part to circumvent the salary cap,” he wrote on Instagram.
The two-time NBA Finals MVP joined the Clippers in 2019, spending seven years with the franchise before joining the Toronto Raptors.
The NBA said both the “organisation and personnel” of the Clippers will be subject to a compliance and monitoring programme, overseen by the league for five years.
More to follow.
More to follow.
Late last night, on September 1st, on the day the commercial terminals of Maiquetía airport went back online, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright landed in Caracas for the second time this year. Of course, Wright didn’t fly commercial, and he was swarmed by a flurry of journalists looking for headlines on the “massive” oil deal that has invaded the news both in the US and Venezuela.
“I think very good times are coming,” Wright told reporters upon his arrival. “As large investments flow into this country, that creates more jobs, which pushes wage pressure up, creates opportunity and prosperity for Venezuelans, and it snowballs: when you get business confidence and investment, it creates all sorts of opportunities—not just jobs, but opportunities for entrepreneurs.”
Wright arrived to give this new partnership a bit more ceremony, but also, very likely to join in the festivities of what is to be an important week for the Trump administration’s push for energy supremacy in the region and for the Venezuelan oil industry. Besides the strange deal that we’re going to unpack in this piece, this week will feature Chevron, which according to Bloomberg is about to invest $7 billion looking to double its production in the country. Also, it is expected that deals with Eni, ONCC, and Colombia´s Geopark will be signed as well. And the icing on the cake, it’s been also reported that one of the agreements with GE Verona to tackle Venezuela’s decaying power grid is close to being executed.
The clumsy communications around the announcement of the deal have generated some negative backlash from the Venezuelan public and skepticism from the same oil majors the Trump administration is trying to woo. Just a couple of hours before Secretary Wright touched ground in Venezuela, Marco Rubio had to jump on a livestream with a Venezuelan journalist in a damage control mission.
Those who brokered the US-Venezuela oil agreement are boasting about historical proportions, about leaving a mark for generations to come, but they took their time to explain why it is so important. Information has been coming out in a very fragmented way, heavily determined by propaganda needs from the Trump administration and the chavista regime. After vague rumors related to Mauricio Claver-Carone taking a step back as the Americans’ informal envoy, and the fall of Harry Sargeant III in Venezuela, we saw an old communication trick, which the Trump administration did not invent, setting the stage for the big news. Washington sent out a first version with catastrophic details, waiting for panic to spread, and published a second, corrected version that would make the news look better than initially perceived. Last week, the first Axios “scoop” talked about 90 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil reserves that the US would own. Now, the current version of the official announcement says it’s 65 billion barrels, so people can say “well, it’s just 65 billion barrels, it ain’t so bad.”
The White House finally published a fact sheet on Monday night disclosing more details about the involvement of the State and “War” Departments in buying the oil produced in 17 Venezuelan fields (supposedly containing about 65 billion barrels) by a private Venezuelan company. North American Blue Energy Partners, or Nabep, is the country’s second biggest crude producer led by notorious Venezuelan oligarch Alejandro Betancourt. To execute this deal, the Rodríguez government is granting a 100-year concession to a Nabep-Pentagon joint venture that looks, sounds and smells pretty unconstitutional from a Venezuelan point of view.
Francisco Monaldi: “Instead of generating more credibility and allowing investors to feel confident, the fact that this is allocated without any bidding and to an individual that has issues with justice, that could be a problem in the future.”
These are the known conditions of the deal:
The US government is trying to sell this to the American public as a way to restock US oil reserves and to cut domestic gas prices, which have a negative impact on Trump’s popularity and the prospects of Republican candidates in November’s congressional elections. In an interview in Spanish published Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted that the deal was between the US and a private company, not the chavista regime, and offered this as a model the White House expects can be replicated.
Francisco Monaldi, director of the Latin America Energy Program for the Baker Institute at Rice University, warned on X that Venezuela’s famous oil reserves are inflated by order of Hugo Chávez: in reality, they are about a third of the 300 billion barrels everyone quotes as the total proven reserves. So those 17 fields must have about 25 billion barrels, instead of 65 billion barrels, an unreliable figure no one should take for certain. Besides that, it would be very hard to actually extract those 25 billion barrels in 25 years, given that most fields are undeveloped. Monaldi added before PBS News that “the presence of the US government could make investors more willing to take the risk of going into Venezuela with all the issues, including the fact that this is an illegitimate government in Venezuela, and that the history of the country, of course, is not great in terms of respecting deals… The other issue is that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve typically uses light oil, and Venezuela mostly produces heavy and extra heavy oil.”
Monaldi thinks that “if it’s an opaque deal that doesn’t seem to benefit the country, then there will be a backlash eventually, and we will end up as in other parts of the world and in Venezuela itself with renegotiation at some point.” Even if the agreement with NABEP means that they can run faster than other private companies, Trump’s anxiety to get American investors to Venezuela won’t be helped by this, because “instead of generating more credibility and allowing investors to feel confident, the fact that this is allocated without any bidding and to an individual that has issues with justice, that could be a problem in the future.”
Amid the fall of Tareck El Aissami and the rise of súper ministra Delcy Rodríguez, Betancourt re-entered the Venezuelan oil scene alongside Trump-linked oil magnate Harry Sargeant.
Harvard scholar Ricardo Hausmann, a former planning minister who leads a research center on economic growth, avoided the oil economy dimension of the matter and just trashed Rubio for betraying the idea of democracy transition. On the other hand, some influential economists see opportunities. Asdrúbal Oliveros chose a middle ground between celebration and condemnation and pointed out that benefits will come as long as the country develops not only the oil fields but the institutions to create accountability.
That Alejandro Betancourt, the CEO of NABEP, is at the center of this deal is bad news in the eyes of observers and Venezuelan journalists familiar with his trajectory.
Over the past two decades, this businessman became a symbol of the bolichico culture, a term apparently coined by investigative journalist Juan Carlos Zapata to define those scions of Venezuelan old-money families who became travel companies of Bolivarian-era corruption. Betancourt and his partners—namely his cousin Pedro Trebbau López and childhood friend Francisco Convit Guruceaga—became synonymous with the vanishing of hundreds of millions of dollars the Chávez government allocated to a newly-formed company, Derwick Associates, to fix the country’s power grid. Both Betancourt and Trebbau were in their late 20s when Derwick first emerged, and had no experience in the electricity sector.
Many things would happen between then and now. Betancourt became famous in Spain for investing in Hawkers, a Spanish sunglasses brand that got him cleaner headlines before local journalists discovered who he was. Prior to the Hawkers move, the three bolichicos created a Bahamas-based company to partner with a Gazprombank subsidiary. The resulting company, called Gazprombank Latin America Ventures, would operate a heavy-crude PDVSA project in the Lake Maracaibo region called Petrozamora. The joint venture did get to hold a steady production, but as with everything Russian, its operations were quite opaque. The Maduro regime eventually raided its offices and forced Betancourt to leave the country.
Betancourt faces probes in Spain and Switzerland. US prosecutors investigated him as an alleged co-conspirator in the $1.2 billion money-laundering scheme that targeted Convit and others, but didn’t charge the former.
Amid the fall of Tareck El Aissami and the rise of súper ministra Delcy Rodríguez, Betancourt re-entered the Venezuelan oil scene alongside Trump-linked oil magnate Harry Sargeant. Through Nabep, Betancourt and Sargeant took control of a number of oil projects (including the Petrozamora fields) under the CPP scheme, in which private companies could hold a larger stake than the State (running counter to the country’s hydrocarbons legislation until it was changed this year).
Betancourt seems to have a hand on both sides of Venezuela’s political conflict. That a close relative of Juan Guaidó was seen visiting Betancourt’s castle in Spain, in the company of Trump ally Rudy Giuliani, helped to cement the bad reputation of the interim government. In fact, Rubio now alleges that Betancourt was a friend of the opposition to deflect the suspicion that the tycoon is a man of the Rodríguez regime, and that the US chose Nabep because it is the biggest private company in the Venezuelan oil sector. Questioned by journalist Sergio Novelli about Betancourt’s past, the Secretary of State said that the businessman faced no charges “in our system.”
Over the past several weeks, Betancourt reemerged as a key operative between the Trumpworld and the Rodríguez government. The Washington Post reported last week that the Trump administration lobbied Switzerland to “resolve” an ongoing money-laundering probe into Betancourt without him facing criminal charges. Despite such a level of external interference, Betancourt remains under investigation in both Spain and Switzerland. He hasn’t been charged in these countries. US prosecutors investigated Betancourt as an alleged co-conspirator in the $1.2 billion PDVSA money-laundering scheme that targeted Francisco Convit and many others, but did not charge the former.
Distrust has grown in the Venezuelan public sphere. Before the oil agreement was announced, Cazadores de Fake News published an investigation about the network of social media accounts defending Betancourt. Hours after the White House published the fact sheet, an Axios piece tells the story of Betancourt as the global, influential businessman that promoted the Trump-backed Guaidó government and, during the events of January 3, persuaded Delcy Rodríguez to cooperate with Rubio. An Axios source even says that Maduro would still be in power had Betancourt not helped to remove him.
As another blackout hit Western Venezuela over the weekend, Delcy Rodríguez released a video statement saying this was about improving the future of the country. She was emphatic in thanking Trump and Rubio, and assured the nation would preserve sovereignty of the oil reserves while turning into a big energy powerhouse. Social media reacted by reproducing pre-2026 footage of her and Diosdado Cabello accusing the opposition of offering all our oil to the US. The most significant detail remains a mystery: what Delcy Rodríguez is demanding in exchange for signing and enforcing this deal.
The most enigmatic reaction in the Venezuelan opposition came from María Corina Machado: she hasn’t said anything, really. A couple of days after Trump’s announcement, the opposition leader remotely attended an international conference held in Slovenia. She did not mention the reported contents of the deal or the role of Betancourt, but insisted on the potential of Venezuela as the energy hub of the Western Hemisphere in light of the Ukraine War and the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz. Machado added that a democratic government could serve as a bridge between the US, Europe and Latin America.
Leopoldo López and Julio Borges, two important opposition figures who held leadership roles in the past, also remain quiet. Their political parties are linked to a US-sponsored working group meant to reform the Venezuelan Supreme Court (TSJ) and electoral authority. López and Borges previously praised the US for its role and welcomed the progress made in August. In the deal’s factsheet, the White House says these talks resulted in significant reforms to the Venezuelan judiciary and the release of hundreds of political prisoners, which are grossly exaggerated claims. The reform to the Organic Law of the TSJ has not been approved yet, though the National Assembly sanctioned it on Tuesday night.
Edmundo González Urrutia said more, but not much against it. He stated that “Venezuela’s recovery cannot be measured only by the barrels it produces again, but by the lives that wealth allows us to rebuild.” He made no mention of Delcy, the deal’s legality, or its conditions, but wondered whether oil will improve the lives of all Venezuelans or only some this time around. He asked what those millions of dollars could mean to a family that lost a home and is still waiting to rebuild it, to someone who arrives at a hospital to find no supplies, to a community that lives waiting to see when the water will come. González did not denounce the agreement, but reflected on the difference between financial resources reaching the country and reaching the families that need it most.
Ruling chavismo has invoked its “loyalty to national sovereignty and the well-being of the people,” offering a list of crises the deal is supposed to solve: economic reactivation, the recovery of public services, care for those affected by the double earthquake, jobs, workers’ wages.
Juan Pablo Guanipa, a popular ally of Machado in Primero Justicia, sort of misread the animus. He called for a “calm reading” of the deal hours after it broke, arguing that Venezuela cannot develop its reserves without massive foreign capital. “If we see new jobs, more investment, more income, and a new economic upturn, this agreement will earn its backing. But if we don’t see it, little by little, popular rejection will follow.” His critique became sharper days later. From a rally in Falcón, Guanipa denounced that no government without an electoral mandate—like Delcy’s— has the standing to enter binding commitments like this.
Henrique Capriles did better, insisting Venezuelans were entitled to defend their oil, their interest and their future: “What is the deal’s scope? Its legal basis? What do Venezuelans receive? What do they give up, and under what conditions? Questions, he noted, no one can begin to answer when the country doesn’t even have clarity on this year’s oil income.” He recognized that, although oil remains the only lever at hand to “push everything” and grow the economy, the triumvirate of the Rodríguez siblings and Diosdado Cabello are not qualified to lead that commitment, and will only coat the process with more opacity and corruption.
Diosdado Cabello is yet to say a peep, though we expect him to put some nice words together for his Con el Mazo Dando TV show tonight. PSUV, Venezuela’s ruling socialist party still under Cabello’s control, fully backed Delcy Rodríguez’s leadership in light of the oil deal. The party recalled its historical loyalty to national sovereignty and the well-being of the people, offering a list of crises the deal is supposed to solve: economic reactivation, the recovery of public services, care for those affected by the double earthquake, jobs, workers’ wages. According to them, Rodríguez was simply using “every tool possible within the constitutional framework to put our immense hydrocarbon reserves at the service of national development.” During last night’s session, the Rodríguez-controlled National Assembly passed a motion supporting the “US-Venezuela Binational Energy Agreement.”
Maduro’s son, “Nicolasito” Maduro Guerra, came out in support of the “historic” deal—as he called it, in English. He quoted an interview where his father said the State was fully open to the return of American capital to the Venezuelan oil industry. Which isn’t exactly false: before the US captured Maduro on January 3, The New York Times reported that the dictator had offered all existing oil and gold projects to US companies in exchange for being allowed to remain in power.
Rafael Ramírez, Venezuela’s oil tsar under Hugo Chávez who oversaw PDVSA’s total collapse and the embezzlement of billions of public funds, called the new deal illegitimate, unconstitutional, and a pillage (saqueo). He considered it a ploy by the Trump administration ahead of midterms, as the “Venezuelan case has become the only success to show their [voter] base,” further criticizing Delcy and US policy in an interview with El Nacional. Among other original chavistas that broke with the Maduro regime, Chávez’s former propagandist Andrés Izarra used a double-edged sword: “Delcy is carrying out Machado’s oil plan.” He also tweeted that the agreement was high treason for which its enforcers should be tried.
Juan Barreto, the former chavista mayor of Caracas who is trying to become a relevant opposition figure, quote-tweeted Alejandro Betancourt’s defense of the agreement (who had said that it would benefit Venezuelans and Americans alike) and took the class war route: “The true head of the transition speaks: from intervention to colony… from the stands, the traditional political class and the elites applaud, begging for a scrap… in the streets, neighborhoods, and factories, the people converse, organize, unite…Workers across the country, begin national dialogue and consultation.” Elías Jaua followed suit. The former chavista vice president and career chavista minister said Venezuela is now under the occupation of a foreign invader, calling for grassroots organizing and the recovery of national independence. In what seems to be an ongoing effort to distance himself from what remains of chavismo in power, Jaua clarified he had not spoken to any government official or PSUV leader.
Dozens of Jewish artists are defending Mark Ruffalo after Paramount Skydance branded the actor’s criticisms about software company Oracle Corp. as “antisemitic tropes.”
Support for the actor comes as Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison has struggled to get its $111-billion Warner Bros. Discovery merger over the finish line amid considerable opposition.
Ruffalo has long been an irritant to Paramount as he is a leading figure in a high-profile Hollywood campaign to block the merger. In an Instagram post late last month, Ruffalo blasted Larry Ellison’s Texas-based software company Oracle for assisting with technology to help Israeli military efforts, including in Gaza — a conflict that Ruffalo and other progressive activists have opposed because of the killing of Palestinians.
In an open letter, signed by more than 150 filmmakers, academics, writers and even a few rabbis, the group denounced “the outrageous smear campaign against our respected colleague Mark Ruffalo.”
“Enough with the false and dangerous weaponization of charges of antisemitism against those who are brave enough to point out the obvious: that the assault on the Palestinian people and the assault on our liberties at home are deeply interconnected, and there is nothing antisemitic about recognizing that fact,” the group wrote.
Tuesday’s letter was signed by several high-profile filmmakers, including Joel Coen, Hannah Einbinder, Tony Kushner, Lisa Cholodenko, Ilana Glazer, Frances Fisher, Todd Haynes and Sarah Kunstler.
The group tied David Ellison’s merger ambitions to his billionaire father’s expansive network of businesses, which now include TikTok. Larry Ellison is personally guaranteeing the equity needed for Paramount to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, and the family will become controlling owners of the merged entity.
However, the Hollywood merger is stalled because of an antitrust lawsuit brought by California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and 11 other Democratic state attorneys general, including from New York, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada and Oregon. Paramount agreed to pause the transaction until the court case can be decided.
A trial is set for March 2 in Oakland, but Paramount has been agitating for industry leaders and politicians to pressure Bonta to force a settlement that would allow the deal to go through.
“The proposed merger of Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery is no mere combination of two huge multinational companies,” the group wrote in the letter. “Yes, it will destroy thousands upon thousands of livelihoods. Yes, it will further consolidate the oligarchic control of our media (witness the gutting of CBS News). Yes, it will strangle competition and creativity in film and television production and distribution.”
The group painted the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger as “part of a larger project of tech-driven domination, a project Larry Ellison and his partners have never been shy about trumpeting — and one they themselves have explicitly linked to their support for the ongoing depredations being visited on the people of Palestine and their silencing of critics of those horrors,” the group wrote.
Paramount declined to comment.
The merger fight has grown increasingly ugly in recent weeks after Paramount threatened to leave California if Bonta continued his court fight to unravel the deal. Paramount suggested it would pull up stakes from its Melrose Avenue film studio as soon as this fall.
Then, on Aug. 21, the company accused Ruffalo of injecting “antisemitic tropes” into the opposition campaign to thwart the industry-reshaping merger that would bring HBO, CBS News, CNN, TBS and the Warner Bros. and Paramount film and TV studios under the same roof.
Leaders of prominent Jewish organizations, including the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Anti-Defamation League, came to Paramount’s defense, blasting the Emmy-winning actor known for playing the Hulk and roles in productions for HBO.
Ruffalo defended himself, saying he was not being antisemitic. He said he was speaking out against Oracle’s use of technology to assist Israel’s military in the war in Gaza, “what we now have come to see as a genocide, which was built on an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle,” Ruffalo wrote in his post.
Paramount leaders have branded some of the opposition to the deal as “antisemitic.”
“Pointing out the crucial connections between what is happening in Gaza and what is happening in Hollywood is the exact opposite of antisemitism,” the group wrote in the open letter. “It is, for us, the very essence of Jewish ethical duty.”
The letter cited recent polls that reflect a majority of “American Jews now agree that Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza; and four in ten even agree that these crimes amount to genocide,” the group wrote. “Do those attacking Mark Ruffalo as an antisemite seriously believe that all these American Jews are antisemites too?”
Bonta abruptly canceled settlement talks last week, but extended an olive branch to Paramount by saying he would be willing to meet with the company to discuss ways to address his antitrust concerns.
Everton have agreed a deal for Jack Grealish to return to the club on a season-long loan from Manchester City while striker Beto has joined Serie A club Fiorentina in a £14.58m move.
Grealish, 30, is set for a medical at the Toffees, with his switch expected to be completed before Tuesday’s 23:00 BST transfer deadline.
The England international spent a large chunk of last term at Everton under a similar arrangement, scoring twice and providing six assists in 20 appearances, before sustaining a season-ending foot injury in January.
Grealish had been linked with other teams – including his boyhood club Aston Villa – but his preference was to return to Everton, whose chief executive Angus Kinnear told BBC Radio Merseyside had “remained in contact” with the winger.
Everton have also agreed a £3m deal to sign Ainsley Maitland-Niles from French side Lyon.
The 29-year-old former Arsenal player has won five caps for England and can operate as a full-back or in midfield.
Meanwhile, Scotland right-back Nathan Patterson has completed a permanent move to Serie A club Torino.
Patterson, 24, joined Everton from Rangers in January 2022 and made 68 appearances across all competitions.
Guinea-Bissau international Beto, 28, leaves Everton after 25 goals in 113 appearances since joining from Udinese in 2023.
With Toffees winger Iliman Ndiaye, 26, also expected to complete a £65m switch to City, the Merseyside club want to bolster their attacking options before the deadline.
Everton also look to be closing in on the signing of Monaco and USA forward Folarin Balogun in a £40m deal.
However, their bid to re-sign Brazil striker Richarlison from Tottenham appears to have stalled over personal terms.
Grealish, who joined City from Villa for £100m in August 2021, has made two appearances for Enzo Maresca’s side this season.
He came on as a substitute in their Community Shield defeat by Arsenal before coming off the bench in a win against Bournemouth in their Premier League opener.
Grealish did not figure in a 4-1 victory at Crystal Palace on Friday.
Talks are under way between the clubs about a deal for the 24-year-old. It is not yet clear whether any transfer would be on loan or a permanent move.
For the second summer running Everton were also seemingly in the running to sign Dutch full-back Kenny Tete, 30.
However, it appears his proposed £9.4m move from Fulham had been dependent upon the Cottagers finding a suitable replacement.
Everton are next in action on Sunday, when they host Manchester United in the Premier League (14:00 BST).
Trump has boasted that the agreement is a triumph of the Monroe Doctrine. (David Canales / Zuma Press / ContactoPhoto)
In nearly simultaneous social media posts on August 28, Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, and U.S. President Donald Trump announced a historic “Oil Agreement” between the U.S. and Venezuela.
According to Rodríguez, the agreement—the operational and legal details of which remain unknown—covers the development of 17 oil fields containing 65 billion barrels of proven reserves, with a projected investment of US $100 billion that would translate into more than $200 billion in taxes for the state, theoretically aimed at Venezuela’s social and economic recovery.
For his part, Trump presented the energy pact as a major economic and geopolitical victory for his administration, arguing that it was the “largest oil agreement in world history,” with the United States directly securing “majority control” over more than one-fifth of Venezuela’s proven hydrocarbon potential, which would allow it to “more than double U.S. oil reserves.”
Due to the initial lack of transparency and the absence of specifics regarding timelines, the U.S. companies involved, and the operational terms, the announcement drew a largely negative reaction from the public, given that it marks a historic turning point both for the bilateral relationship between Washington and Caracas and for the economic and political future of the Caribbean nation, which has been structurally subject to the dictates and interests of the White House since the January 3 military attack.
The initial confusion was quickly followed by baseless speculation about potential royalties, whether the agreement is positive for national development, and future material benefits—with no clarity as to whether these will be so meager and symbolic as to be humiliating, or whether they will be somewhat acceptable within the context of an openly asymmetrical bilateral relationship that favors Washington’s agenda of plunder and geopolitical control.
But addressing those issues—without the agreement and its clauses in hand, and without knowledge of the initial contracts signed with U.S. companies—would leave us stuck in a labyrinth. In fact, the game of numbers surrounding still-fictitious revenues has mired the discussion in its early days, with statements in the media from the government, Chavismo, and sectors of the opposition defending their own positions based on how close or far they are from what Trump wants.
What the current technical and economic debate leaves out—and does not even consider—is far too important and decisive.
For example, the ambiguity surrounding the structure of the oil pact—rather than being an uncontrolled outcome—represents the very core of its design and is a symptom of close coordination regarding shared political calculations between the White House and Miraflores.
The absence of a treaty or a verifiable legal instrument shows that the announcement is part of a bilateral political agreement, framed as a strategic energy-focused commitment in which the two parties reinforce their narratives and smooth over tensions within their circles of power, influence, and target audiences.
Thanks to this jointly planned ambiguity, Trump and Rodríguez can put forward contradictory and divergent narratives without jeopardizing their alliance, while capitalizing on the momentum to shape narratives and thereby rally their support bases and internal coalitions.
This is the only way to explain why Trump insinuates that he directly controls Venezuelan reserves to soften the blow of the Iranian quagmire from which he cannot extricate himself, while Rodríguez contradicts him in a public address, in which she reaffirmed that her government has not relinquished ownership of its oil and that it has signed an agreement that is broadly beneficial and defining for the country’s economic future, leveraging U.S. capital and technology.
In this way, the White House tenant is trying to kill two birds with one stone: 1) undermine internal pressure within the Republican Party calling for the acting president’s head before the midterms; and 2) to incentivize oil companies to inject capital and invest heavily under the promise of lucrative returns in the medium and long term, using Caracas’s strategic alignment and the Pentagon’s participation as a shareholder in the oil exploration project as a hedge against risk.
On the other hand, Miraflores is also killing its own birds by exploiting the purely rhetorical nature of the bilateral pact. On the one hand, it downplays public criticism accusing it of handing over oil to the U.S. under regressive conditions—which imply a return, in an adapted form, to the humiliating concession model (leasing oil fields in exchange for a tax burden favorable to corporations) that defined the Washington-Caracas energy relationship for a third of the 20th century.
Furthermore, the Venezuelan government reinforces the narrative of economic recovery as its programmatic roadmap, with a structural strategy based on the assumption that the purported material benefits derived from preferential and advantageous trade with the U.S. will translate into political and social legitimacy through improved wages and public services—which could, through the careful management of numbers and expectations (at least that is the intention), eventually dissolve the political contradiction posed in terms of sovereignty.
The current picture is one of extreme uncertainty. The degree of confidence among oil companies remains to be seen in light of the danger that the agreement could be reversed after Trump leaves office in 2028, as well as the complexities that may arise when harmonizing contracts with the new Hydrocarbons Law passed in February of this year.
In short, the agreement is a high-risk joint maneuver in which Trump and Rodríguez definitively tie their political fates together, mutually benefiting from converging on a starkly transactional and profit-driven logic, blessed and endorsed by the otherworldly powers of the postwar God of Money: the US dollar.
From now on, Trump cannot overthrow Rodríguez if he wants to retain a lifeline in the face of the lost battle to control the Strait of Hormuz, which is under Iranian control; nor can the latter break free from the strategic alignment with Washington if she wishes to remain electorally competitive and survive as a political force—one that is currently accelerating a complex process of internal transformation, ideologically and programmatically, toward the orbit of the economy and results-oriented politics.
In the years to come, perhaps August 28, 2026, will be interpreted as the date on which, strangely enough, Venezuela returned to 1908—the year in which a triumphant Juan Vicente Gómez, having defeated Cipriano Castro (public enemy number one under the Roosevelt Corollary), laid the foundations of the modern Venezuelan state by applying a feudal-oil doctrine of “open arms” to Western companies, first British and, after the 1920s, primarily American.
But perhaps it will also be remembered as a turning point marked by elites who replaced politics and the republican vision with the courtship of an emperor obsessed with power.
The oil agreement may be materially beneficial for Venezuela; it may also, in fact, signal a return to the humiliating times of Gómez, whose rise to power, over a dying Castro—who lacked social support and was besieged by the U.S. empire—was encouraged, promoted, and later defended by a US establishment that was ecstatic over the adaptation of the Monroe Doctrine, led by Theodore Roosevelt who loved to quote the proverb: “Speak softly and carry a big stick….”
The agreement can rightly be called historic—a view on which Rodríguez and Trump fully agree. But not because of its technical and fiscal characteristics, but because, politically, it implies the harsh acceptance that Venezuela’s ruling elites have nothing more to offer the Caribbean nation than a lucrative oil deal for the U.S., tempered by the consolation that the revenue from extracted barrels will be enough to lift us out of the devastation caused by sanctions and economic mismanagement.
What this pact reveals is, precisely, the failure of the Venezuelan elites, who are now at such a point of weakness and lack of autonomy that the distinctions between adversaries and enemies across the political spectrum hinge on who is closest to Trump, who gets his backing and who gets to negotiate with him. Within this web—obscured by neutralizing technical language—the future of the Bolivarian Republic is being shaped, amid its bitter journey through an inverted pyramid of legitimacy that has transformed the head of the White House into the guiding force of the national landscape.
In the deep void left by technical narratives, reality operates at its actually existing vertices, with a war of narratives favoring the elites in their goal of reducing politics to administrative discussions of taxes and royalties, while simultaneously concealing the harsh truth of a nation that has lost control of its destiny—a destiny now decided in English and in the metropolis of the Trump empire.
Perhaps accepting the truth as it is may be a first step toward facing a future full of questions and doubts—ones that cannot be resolved through partisan slogans, unfulfilled promises, or narratives that erase history and its lessons.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff.
Translated by Venezuelanalysis.
Source: Diario Red
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Manchester City have agreed a deal worth up to £65m to sign Iliman Ndiaye from Everton.
The clubs reached an agreement on a deal worth a guaranteed £60m plus a further £5m in add-ons for the Senegal winger.
The news comes after Tottenham agreed deals with Everton on Friday night for Ndiaye to join the London club, with Richarlison moving the other way in a separate transfer.
However, sources are indicating Richarlison failed to agree personal terms with former club Everton, who are understood to have made a £35m offer for the Brazil forward.
As a result, Tottenham have been unable to proceed with the Ndiaye transfer.
In an emotional statement on Instagram on Monday, Richarlison said: “After everything I’ve been through in the last few years, I’ve decided that never again will anyone decide my future for me.
“If they reach an agreement between Spurs and Everton, I will return to my beloved club.
“My intention was to go back to the place where I was very happy, yes, but the negotiations happened only in the way certain people wanted, and it will no longer be like that.
“Despite all this turmoil, I am under contract at Spurs and will remain at the club’s disposal.”
Tottenham are now in talks to sign Chelsea winger Mykhailo Mudryk on a season-long loan.
Manchester City’s deal for Ndiaye comes after an £80m move for Liverpool forward Cody Gakpo looked set to collapse on Monday.
City had opened talks with Liverpool over a deal for the Netherlands international, with the Reds willing to sell Gakpo, providing they could sign a replacement.
Liverpool completed the signing of France forward Bradley Barcola from Paris St-Germain for a fee worth up to £123m on Monday, but want another attacking player if Gakpo were to leave.
The Anfield club had targeted moves for Brighton’s Yankuba Minteh and Crystal Palace’s Ismaila Sarr but the valuation of both players has proved problematic.
Liverpool are now expected to keep Gakpo, 27, unless they are able to revive a deal for a new winger before Tuesday’s deadline.
Late on Friday night, Donald Trump announced what he called “the biggest oil deal in world history.” Under the terms described publicly so far, the US would obtain a controlling interest in a new venture involving 17 Venezuelan oil fields containing more than 65 billion barrels of proven reserves, with an effective 55 percent share of production and preferential access to crude at cost. The Trump administration says the arrangement could mobilize around $100 billion in private investment and eventually generate more than $200 billion in Venezuelan tax revenues. Much about the deal, including its precise legal structure, remains unclear.
There is nothing inherently objectionable about American companies making money from Venezuelan oil. Venezuela desperately needs foreign capital, technology and markets. PDVSA cannot rebuild the industry on its own, and reconnecting Venezuela to the American energy system would be preferable to another generation of dependence on Russia, China or Iran.
The problem is not that Washington wants investment. The problem is that it seems determined to make that investment possible without first solving the political and institutional problem that made Venezuela uninvestable in the first place.
The original expectation after Nicolás Maduro’s removal seemed straightforward enough. American oil majors would pour tens of billions of dollars into the country and restore production. Nine days after Maduro was captured, Trump gathered oil executives at the White House and invited them back to Venezuela. ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods responded with an inconvenient assessment: under the existing legal and commercial conditions, the country remained “uninvestable.” ConocoPhillips was interested but similarly cautious. Chevron, which never fully left, has continued expanding and is now preparing another significant restructuring of its Venezuelan operations. So far, the broad stampede of supermajors Washington appeared to expect has not come.
So Washington widened the search. Delcy Rodríguez traveled to India in June to court energy investment and deepen ties with Reliance and other Indian companies, in a trip conducted with remarkably explicit American encouragement. India had once again become a major buyer of Venezuelan crude, and Asian capital offered another potential source of the money Venezuela needed.
Under the conditions we have been apprised of so far, it is difficult to imagine a future democratic Venezuelan government simply accepting an arrangement of this magnitude as a fait accompli.
At the same time came operators with a different tolerance for Venezuelan risk. Hunt Overseas Oil and Crossover Energy signed preliminary agreements to develop projects in the Orinoco Belt. Smaller American firms have explored opportunities that Exxon and Conoco have so far declined to pursue. SLB, an oilfield-services company rather than a producer, has now been brought in to reconstruct and analyze PDVSA’s degraded reservoir data, the sort of basic technical infrastructure that should tell us something about how much of an oil industry still needs to be rebuilt.
And then there are the intermediaries. Bloomberg recently reported that Alejandro Betancourt, who rose spectacularly during the Chávez years, emerged as an important facilitator for Washington’s effort to bring smaller American companies into Venezuela. His usefulness is not difficult to understand. Companies entering a market where formal institutions remain weak need people who know the terrain, the networks, the officials and the informal rules through which business actually gets done.
Betancourt has denied past allegations of wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime, but his return as an influential gatekeeper hardly advertises the arrival of a transparent, rules-based Venezuelan economy.
Now comes the ultimate recalculation. If investors are still reluctant to absorb Venezuelan political risk, the US government may absorb some of it itself.
That is what makes Friday’s announcement so revealing. Washington began the year with the proposition that political change would make Venezuela attractive to capital. Now, the Trump government appears increasingly willing to create more and more elaborate mechanisms to insulate investors from risk rather than address the conditions that make the country risky in the first place. At every stage, it has changed the investor, the financing, the intermediary or the allocation of risk. The one variable it has been remarkably reluctant to change is the Venezuelan government.
There is also the small matter of Venezuelan law.
The Constitution establishes that hydrocarbon deposits belong to the Republic and are inalienable. It also requires National Assembly approval for public-interest contracts involving foreign states, foreign official entities, or companies not domiciled in Venezuela. Delcy’s reform of the hydrocarbons law has undeniably widened the space for private operators, granting companies much greater control over production and commercialization. But nothing disclosed so far explains how an arrangement giving the US government a controlling economic position over 17 fields, reportedly with rights potentially stretching for a quarter of a century, has obtained the constitutional authorization necessary to bind Venezuela over anything resembling that period. Reuters itself notes that the legal and financial structure remains unclear and that the proposal faces constitutional questions.
Delcy’s strategy is to survive Trump himself, so that the next American administration treats her as the person guaranteeing oil production, investment contracts and political stability.
Perhaps those questions will eventually receive convincing answers. Perhaps the current National Assembly will be asked to provide whatever approvals the agreement requires. But under the conditions we have been apprised of so far, it is difficult to imagine a future democratic Venezuelan government simply accepting an arrangement of this magnitude as a fait accompli. At a minimum, it would have every reason to subject the contracts to comprehensive legal review and democratic ratification; significant portions could well have to be renegotiated.
That produces a remarkable contradiction. An agreement supposedly designed to provide investors with certainty may create its own enormous source of political risk.
A future government could inherit century-long commitments negotiated by an unelected predecessor whose authority it contests, with the US itself financially invested in preserving those commitments. Venezuela’s first genuinely democratic administration would then begin its life choosing between endorsing decisions it never authorized or entering an immediate dispute with Washington.
There is a perfectly respectable argument for what the Trump administration is attempting. Venezuela cannot place reconstruction on hold indefinitely while it builds pristine institutions. Oil infrastructure continues to deteriorate. Investment can create jobs, revenue, and constituencies interested in stability. Delcy controls the ministries, PDVSA, much of the security apparatus and the bureaucracy; somebody has to sign the contracts today. Connecting Venezuelan economic interests to American companies could itself help pull the country away from the geopolitical networks that sustained Maduro.
But that argument confuses the need to restart the economy with the need to give an interim government the power to determine its structure for generations.
Washington could have pursued investment while limiting the duration of interim arrangements, requiring future democratic ratification for the largest commitments, creating sunset clauses, tying concessions to institutional milestones or ensuring that Venezuela’s democratic forces had genuine ownership of the framework. Democratic legitimacy is not an obstacle to investment certainty. Properly understood, it is one of its foundations.
The US seems unwilling to own the fact that no amount of financial engineering, political brokerage or well-connected intermediaries can substitute for a democratic government.
Instead, the emerging arrangement gives Delcy Rodríguez an increasingly powerful incentive to make herself indispensable. The more American capital, energy security and political prestige become attached to agreements signed under her government, the more valuable continuity becomes. Delcy’s obvious strategy is no longer merely to survive the transition. It is to survive Trump himself, so that the next American administration treats her not as the temporary caretaker Washington inherited in January but as the person guaranteeing oil production, investment contracts and political stability.
There have been meaningful changes since Maduro’s removal. More than a thousand political prisoners have reportedly been released. The government and representatives of the opposition have reached an agreement to renew the Supreme Court. But if the objective on January 3 was a genuine democratic transition, it is increasingly difficult to argue that Venezuela has moved very far from square one. Delcy still governs without democratic legitimacy. Much of the chavista State remains intact. María Corina Machado remains outside the country and outside the US-backed negotiating mechanism. Even senators from both parties in Washington have begun pressing the administration for a clearer path toward elections.
If anyone in Washington believes that another legally dubious agreement negotiated with the cronies who continue to usurp the Venezuelan State—particularly through figures like Alejandro Betancourt, now being mentioned as a facilitator for oil investment—will inspire substantially more confidence than anything Washington has tried since that glorious January 3 night, then they have learned remarkably little about the problem they inherited. Washington took responsibility for managing Venezuela’s transition that night. Eight months later, it still seems unwilling to own the central fact that no amount of financial engineering, political brokerage or well-connected intermediaries can substitute for a Venezuelan government with democratic and legal legitimacy.
There is a broader cost to that refusal. Machado is not merely another Venezuelan politician Washington happens to dislike. She is one of Latin America’s most recognizable democratic figures, with an audience extending across the region’s Right, democratic center and beyond. The administration’s repeated willingness to sideline her while embracing Rodríguez is therefore being watched outside Venezuela too.
If billions begin flowing through institutions and business networks that have never been subjected to democratic accountability, Washington may discover that it has helped recapitalize the very system it intended to replace.
It is particularly telling to see rightwing figures such as Emmanuel Rincón, Orlando Avendaño and Hermann Tertsch—voices that have spent much of the past eight months looking for the glass-half-full interpretation of Washington’s most questionable decisions—struggling to interpret the latest developments as anything other than the US installing a friendlier face atop the chavista state.
That matters for American power. The Trump administration has never pretended that its diplomacy would be delicate. Allies understand pressure, bargaining and the occasional arm-twist. But there is a difference between being a demanding partner and being an unreliable one. Latin American political leaders who have aligned themselves with Washington against authoritarian movements would be perfectly rational to study Venezuela and conclude that the US remains an excellent partner for a business transaction while being considerably less dependable as the guarantor of a political project.
Oil production can rise without democracy. Private investment can coexist with authoritarianism. Venezuela can become much more capitalist without becoming substantially more free. If billions begin flowing through institutions and business networks that have never been subjected to democratic accountability, Washington may discover that it has helped recapitalize the very system it intended to replace.
Chavismo spent a quarter century destroying the institutional ecosystem in which long-term investment could survive. Changing an oil law does not rebuild it. Removing Maduro did not rebuild it. Finding more adventurous investors will not rebuild it either.
Democratic legitimacy is not the prize Venezuela receives at the end of a successful transition. It is part of the infrastructure required for the transition to succeed.
