Republican strategist Adolfo Franco talks about the threat of US military action against Venezuela and what he thinks is the Trump administration’s desired outcome.
Published On 30 Nov 202530 Nov 2025
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THE bodyguard who inspired the Minder TV character Terry McCann has died aged 75, it was revealed last night.
Michael “Danny” Francis was a former boxer and one-time drug dealer.
The Londoner guarded stars including Paul McCartney, Cher and members of Led Zeppelin and Kiss.
McCann — played by the late Dennis Waterman in the 1980s — was based on his combination of brawn and charm.
Millions of ITV viewers loved the fictional bodyguard and his wheeler-dealer boss Arthur Daley — the late George Cole.
Gary Webster, 61, and Lex Shrapnel, 46, later played other minders in reboots of the hit show.
Waterman wrote of Francis in his autobiography: “If push came to shove, boy could he sort things out.”
Francis is survived by his wife June — who he married in 1970 — and their three children.
The show was set in working-class west London and was largely responsible for introducing the word “minder” into British slang.
Minder brought London’s criminal underworld to millions.
Waterman left the role in 1989 after his seventh series
He even sang the theme tune for the iconic telly show.
Joaquin Guzman Lopez, one of four sons of the Sinaloa cartel’s ‘El Chapo’, changes his plea to guilty, court documents show.
Published On 29 Nov 202529 Nov 2025
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A son of notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman will plead guilty next week in the United States to narcotics trafficking charges, according to federal court documents.
Joaquin Guzman Lopez, one of four sons of the jailed Sinaloa cartel leader “El Chapo”, originally pleaded not guilty after his arrest in July 2024 in Texas.
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But federal documents released on Friday show that Guzman Lopez is to change his plea at a hearing set for Monday at the US District Court in Chicago.
Another of his three brothers, Ovidio Guzman, as part of a plea deal struck in exchange for a reduced sentence, pleaded guilty in July 2025 to conspiracy related to drug trafficking and two counts of participating in the activities of a criminal enterprise.
Ovidio Guzman also admitted that he and his brothers, known collectively as “Los Chapitos” (Little Chapos), had taken over their father’s operations within the cartel following his arrest in 2016.
Mexican broadcaster MVS Noticias said Guzman Lopez’s guilty plea could mean “a new chapter in the history of drug trafficking is about to be written”.
“This move has raised numerous questions about the possible ongoing negotiations between him and US authorities,” the news outlet said.
The ABC 7 Chicago news channel said federal prosecutors have said they will not now seek the death sentence for Guzman Lopez, and that there “is talk of a plea deal now in the works”.
He is due to appear in court in Chicago at 1:30pm (19:30 GMT) on Monday.
Two other “Chapitos” brothers, Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar and Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, have also been indicted on drug trafficking charges in the US but remain at large.
Their 68-year-old father, “El Chapo”, is serving a life sentence at a supermax federal prison in Colorado following his arrest and conviction in 2019.
Guzman Lopez was taken into custody last year when he arrived in Texas on board a small private plane, along with the cofounder of the Sinaloa cartel, Ismael “Mayo” Zambada.
Zambada claimed to have been misled about the destination and that he was abducted by Guzman Lopez to be handed over against his will to authorities in the US.
Following the arrest, clashes intensified between two factions of the Sinaloa cartel, headed, respectively, by the “Los Chapitos” brothers and Zambada. The infighting led to approximately 1,200 deaths in Mexico and about 1,400 disappearances, according to official figures.
Officials in the US accuse the Sinaloa cartel of trafficking fentanyl to the country, where the synthetic drug has caused tens of thousands of overdose deaths in recent years, straining relations with Mexico.
The cartel is also one of six Mexican drug-trafficking groups that US President Donald Trump has designated as global terrorist organisations.
Additional sanctions against the two fugitive “Los Chapitos” brothers were announced by Washington in June for fentanyl trafficking, and the reward for their capture was increased to $10m each.
Venezuela has revoked operating permits for six international airlines after they suspended flights to the country following a United States warning of airspace risk, in the latest point of tension between the two countries.
Last week, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) warned of a “potentially hazardous situation” in Venezuelan airspace due to a “worsening security situation and heightened military activity”.
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While Caracas said the FAA had no jurisdiction over its airspace, the decision led some airlines to indefinitely suspend flights to the South American country from November 24 to 28, Marisela de Loaiza, president of the Airlines Association in Venezuela, said.
The action comes amid worsening tensions between the US and Venezuela over President Donald Trump’s battle against what he calls ‘narco-terrorism’ in the Caribbean.
Since September, the US has carried out at least 21 strikes on vessels it accuses of trafficking drugs, killing at least 83 people. Venezuela has said the strikes amount to murder.
On Wednesday night, Venezuela’s civil aviation authority announced that Spain’s Iberia, Portugal’s TAP, Colombia’s Avianca, Chile’s and Brazil’s LATAM, Brazil’s Gol and Turkish Airlines would have their permits revoked.
The authority said the decision was taken against the carriers for joining “the actions of state terrorism promoted by the United States government”.
Before the revocation, Venezuela’s government had issued a 48-hour deadline on Monday for airlines to resume their cancelled flights or risk losing their permits.
Airline carrier Iberia had said it plans to restart flights to Venezuela as soon as full safety conditions are met.
At the same time, Avianca announced in a statement on Wednesday its intention to reschedule cancelled flights to the Venezuelan capital by December 5.
But Portuguese Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel called the decision to revoke permits “disproportionate”.
“What we have to do is, through our embassy, make the Venezuelan authorities aware that this measure is disproportionate, that we have no intention of cancelling our routes to Venezuela, and that we only did this for security reasons,” he said.
Spain’s Air Europa and Plus Ultra have also suspended flights to Venezuela, but their permits have not been revoked, with no reason given for the exemption.
Panama’s Copa and its low-cost airline, Wingo, are continuing to operate to Venezuela. Domestic airlines, including the flag-carrier, Conviasa, flying from Venezuela to Colombia, Panama and Cuba are also still in operation.
Since US President Donald Trump’s return to office in January, tensions between his administration and Venezuela’s government have ramped up.
The US has built up a large military presence off the coast of Venezuela – its most significant military deployment to the Caribbean in decades – to combat what it claims is the trafficking of drugs.
The Trump administration has frequently claimed that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is behind the drug trade, without providing any evidence to support this.
In August, the US government raised its reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest from $25m to $50m.
Maduro denies that he is involved in the drug trade.
This week, the US designated the Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns) a foreign “terrorist” organisation. It also claims the group is headed by Maduro and a senior figure in his government.
Venezuela’s foreign ministry said it “categorically, firmly and absolutely rejected” the designation, describing it as a “new and ridiculous lie”.
Moreover, the US has long rejected Maduro’s government, calling his election win last year “rigged”. In November 2024, the US recognised Venezuela’s opposition leader, Edmundo Gonzalez, as the country’s rightful president.
The Venezuelan government has suggested that the drug operation in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific is a cover for the US’s real aim of deposing Maduro from government – something some observers also believe.
Since September, the US has conducted at least 21 strikes on Venezuelan vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, claiming they are drug boats. More than 80 people have been killed, but the Trump administration has provided no evidence for its claims.
Last month, the US military conducted bomber flights up to the coast of Venezuela as part of a training exercise to simulate an attack, and sent the world’s largest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R Ford, into the region.
However, in recent days, Trump has shown a willingness to hold direct talks.
On Wednesday, Trump told reporters on board his presidential plane, Air Force One, that he “might talk” to Maduro but warned “we can do things the easy way, that’s fine, and if we have to do it the hard way, that’s fine, too”.
On Thursday, Trump warned that land operations to combat drug trafficking by land could begin “very soon”.
“You probably noticed that people aren’t wanting to be delivering by sea, and we’ll be starting to stop them by land also,” Trump said in remarks to troops stationed around the globe to mark the US holiday, Thanksgiving.
“The land is easier, but that’s going to start very soon.”
“We warned them to stop sending poison to our country,” he added.
AMERICAN Pie star Tara Reid was taken to hospital after allegedly being drugged in a Chicago bar.
Footage obtained by TMZ showed the actress, 50, slumped in a wheelchair in a hotel lobby before being put onto a stretcher by paramedics and taken to hospital.
Reid called the night a “big blur” but insisted she had only had one drink before being taken ill.
The 90s film pin-up spoke to TMZ Live yesterday and revealed how she left her drink in the hotel bar to go and have a smoke, and when she returned there was a napkin covering it, which wasn’t how she had left it.
She said: “And then I drank my drink, and without even finishing my drink, I just passed out. And before I knew it, I was in the hospital eight hours later.”
The person who filmed the incident told the publication that Reid was yelling, “You don’t know who I am. I am famous. I’m an actress,” before medics arrived.
Tara was allegedly told by hospital doctors that she had been drugged, though said no tests were undertaken to determine what the drug was or her blood alcohol level.
She continued: “It was all kind of vague. It was all like very blurry, do you know what I mean? I can’t even explain it because I don’t even know what happened.”
When she came around, Tara left hospital with her agent and went straight to a signing before heading home.
A representative for the star said, “Tara Reid has filed a police report after an incident in which she believes her drink was tampered with.
“She is cooperating fully with the investigation. Tara is recovering and asks for privacy during this traumatic time.
“She also urges everyone to be careful, watch your drinks and never leave them unattended, as this can happen to anyone. She will not be making further comments at this stage.”
Tara’s screen career began in the 90s with small roles on the soap opera Days of Our Lives and teen sitcom Saved by the Bell: The New Class.
In 1998 she appeared in slasher flick Urban Legend, teen drama Cruel Intentions and cult hit crime comedy The Big Lebowski.
But it was as sexy virgin Vicky in American Pie and its sequels that really made her famous.
Tara’s career stalled in the mid-2000s with a string of critical and commercial flops including Jose and the Pussycat, Van Wilder and Alone in the Dark, for which she received a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Actress.
To make matters worse, she suffered two botched plastic surgery procedures in 2004, including breast implants and a body contouring procedure meant to give her a six-pack.
She later said she’d asked the surgeon for B cups, but he gave her Cs, and told US Weekly: “My stomach became the most ripply, bulgy thing. I had a hernia, this huge bump next to my belly button.
“As a result, I couldn’t wear a bikini. I lost a lot of work.”
She swapped the big screen for reality TV appearing in travel show Taradise and Celebrity Big Brother in the UK.
In 2023 she appeared in Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test and was cruelly body-shamed over her slim figure.
She hit back in the Los Angeles Inquisitor, “So stop it. Leave me alone. Pick on me again on something else, but not on those two things. It’s not right.”
Drug cartels in Mexico are recruiting children and forcing them to become professional killers. Rights groups warn hundreds of thousands of minors are at risk. Al Jazeera’s John Holman gained rare access to speak to child hitmen committing murder for money.
Published On 24 Nov 202524 Nov 2025
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LIAM Payne’s sister has paid an emotional tribute on the anniversary of the late star’s funeral.
Pop star Liam tragically died after falling from a third-floor hotel balcony in Buenos Aires in October last year.
Ruth posted an emotional tribute to her brother, one year on from his funeral – with an early image of the siblings together.
Alongside the post, Ruth wrote: “A year ago today, the hardest goodbye I’ll ever have, a funeral I should never have had to plan and every day since, I should have never had to live without him.
“Missing him now is part of breathing, it doesn’t get easier, that’s just a lie to make it feel better: Infinite love, infinite loss.”
Ruth’s post comes after she shared another tribute on the one year anniversary of Liam’s death.
In an open letter to him, a devastated Ruth wrote: “I underestimated grief, woah, did I underestimate it. I am paralysed by it daily.
“I thought I had felt it before but I know the losses before you were just intense sadness, you are the loss of my life, the one person who l will miss at every single occasion in my life.
“I’d taken for granted that my little brother would be there through life.
“You shouldn’t have died.”
Ruth also revealed she’s been having a recurring nightmare that places her in Liam’s hotel room moments before his death on that fateful night.
She said, in it, Liam “can’t hear me screaming for you, my brain is locked on your last minutes on this earth, the unaccounted minutes, the minutes I will never have the answers to, the minutes that changed everything.”
Such is the loss, Ruth said that the life of the Payne family has been “extinguished” and is “impossible to mend”.
She continued: “You died which is something that happened, but your absence is something that happens to me everyday before I even open my eyes.”
In gut-wrenching paragraphs she details how she’d love to spend just five more minutes with him and the things she would tell him, from catching up on plans, to listening to the birds and swapping jokes.
By Scarlet Howes
SEPTEMBER 20: Liam and his girlfriend, Kate Cassidy, arrive in Argentina for a five-day holiday.
OCTOBER 2: The star goes to see ex-bandmate Niall Horan while he is on tour, telling fans on Snapchat: “It’s been a while since me and Niall have spoken. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
OCTOBER 12: Kate flies back home to Florida after two weeks away, leaving Liam in Argentina.
She tells her followers on TikTok: “Love South America, but I hate staying in one place for too long and we were supposed to be there for five days, turned into two weeks and I was just like, ‘I need to go home’.”
OCTOBER 13: Liam checks into the CasaSur Palermo Hotel alone three days before he died. He was reportedly asked to leave his previous hotel.
OCTOBER 15: Hours before his death, he spends some time with Aldana Serrano, 31, and Lucila Goitea, 27, who arrived at the hotel at about 11.30am local time and left at 4pm, just one hour before he died.
At about 5pm, Liam is said to have been arguing over money with a mystery woman in the lobby, before falling 45ft and landing in the inner courtyard of the hotel.
Ending her letter to Liam, she asks people to remember that there is a family at the heart of the story who have lost someone very dear to them.
She says: “Whilst I am still on my knees struggling to regain balance since my world burned down and every time I try to take a step, something comes and sets fire to all the progress I thought I had made in my mind, in trying to understand where or why Liam isn’t here helping me through this.
“Everyone only seems interested in the public side of this, some sadly seem more interested in the fame they can gain off this, but on the human side people need to remember when they speak, there is a son without his Dad, parents without their child and I am lost without my brother.
“Love always Liam, in every lifetime.”
Liam died shortly after 5pm on October 16, 2024 when he fell from his hotel balcony.
Liam, who was the dad of seven-year-old Bear, shared a post on Snapchat only minutes before his death and showed him and his girlfriend Kate Cassidy looking into a mirror.
The singer-songwriter was staying at Hotel CasaSur in the neighbourhood of Palermo.
Liam had flown to Argentina with girlfriend Kate Cassidy for a five-day holiday, to see his ex-1D bandmate Niall Horan in concert.
Liam extended the trip but Kate returned home to the US.
It is claimed Liam then turned to drink and drugs.
An autopsy confirmed he died from multiple trauma and internal and external bleeding.
A toxicology report revealed alcohol, cocaine and an antidepressant, which would have left him severely impaired.
Ezequiel David Pereyra — who is awaiting trial for allegedly selling the singer cocaine — recently spoke out for the first time from jail.
Pereyra, 22 — locked up in Marcos Paz jail two hours from the capital — claims hotel bosses turned a blind eye to all of Liam’s drug use in October 2024.
He said: “They had him in an isolated bunker and let him do anything he wanted including drugs in the room, and in public areas of the hotel.
“Bosses said he was making them too much money — triple the money.
“But I think the biggest mistake was not calling an ambulance when Payne passed out in the lobby.
“If the hotel had acted differently Liam could have been saved.
“They lifted him by his arms and legs and carried him to the room via the elevator. He should have been kept where he was and an ambulance called.
“But because that day they had many foreign guests checking in they decided to take him to the room in the condition he was in.
“After that they called police instead of an ambulance. They made the call only after leaving him in the room alone. By the time they were making the call it was already too late.
“What happened was very sad. Liam’s death was truly tragic and could have been prevented.”
Noah Zaitar allegedly ran a drug empire, producing and exporting narcotics, including the synthetic stimulant captagon.
The Lebanese army has detained the country’s most infamous drug lord, two years after he was sanctioned by the United States over suspected links to narcotics rings in Syria.
In a post on X on Thursday, the Lebanese army confirmed they had arrested a citizen with the initials “NZ”, and three security sources confirmed to the Reuters news agency that the individual in question was the fugitive Noah Zaitar.
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Following a “series of precise security surveillance and monitoring operations”, security forces arrested Zaitar in an ambush in the city of Baalbek in Lebanon’s eastern Baalbek-Hermel governorate, the Lebanese military said.
“The detainee is one of the most dangerous wanted individuals, pursuant to a large number of arrest warrants, for crimes of forming gangs operating across numerous Lebanese regions in drug and arms trafficking, manufacturing narcotic substances, and robbery and theft by force of arms,” the military said.
“He had also previously opened fire on army elements and facilities, as well as citizens’ homes, and kidnapped individuals for financial ransom. The investigation has commenced with the detainee under the supervision of the competent judiciary,” it added.
Zaitar allegedly ran a drug empire in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley area near the Syrian border, producing and exporting drugs including the synthetic stimulant captagon.
A military tribunal sentenced Zaitar – who had evaded arrest for years while living in his home village of Kneisseh surrounded by armed supporters – to death in 2024 for killing a Lebanese soldier.
He was also named in US Department of State sanctions in 2023 against the regime of ousted Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad and individuals connected to his lucrative captagon trafficking network.
The State Department said Zaitar was a “known arms dealer and drug smuggler”, with close ties to the Fourth Division of the Syrian Arab Army – an elite unit once central to the captagon trade.
It also said Zaitar was wanted for having “materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services” to the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.
The arrest of Zaitar comes amid an ongoing crackdown by Lebanese authorities against drug traffickers in the country.
In a separate post on X on Wednesday, the Lebanese military said two soldiers, named as Bilal al-Baradi and Ali Haidar, were killed in clashes in Baalbek on Tuesday as they pursued fugitive narcotics suspects.
تنعى قيادة الجيش ـــ مديرية التوجيه، المعاون الأول الشهيد بلال البرادعي والعريف الشهيد علي حيدر اللذين استشهدا بتاریخ ١٨ /١١ /٢٠٢٥ نتيجة اشتباكات مع مطلوبين أثناء تنفيذ مديرية المخابرات سلسلة عمليات دهم بمؤازرة وحدة من الجيش في منطقة الشراونة – بعلبك.
وفي ما يلي نبذة عن حياة كل… pic.twitter.com/aIw9IjiuYi— الجيش اللبناني (@LebarmyOfficial) November 18, 2025
Translation: The Army Command – Directorate of Orientation, mourns the First Assistant Martyr Bilal al-Baradi and Corporal Martyr Ali Haidar, who were martyred on 18/11/2025 as a result of clashes with wanted individuals during the execution by the Intelligence Directorate of a series of raids backed by an Army unit in the al-Sharawna area – Baalbek.
The military said that another Lebanese citizen, referred to by the initials HAJ – and named by the local news outlet Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation International as Hassouneh Jaafar – was shot and killed after opening fire on Lebanese security forces during that raid.
The fugitive was wanted in connection with the murder of four soldiers, as well as kidnapping, robbery, armed robbery and drug trafficking.
Lebanese authorities also arrested two other men – referred to only as FM and GQ – for “promoting drugs” and “possessing a quantity of weapons and military ammunition” in the Akkar governorate, north of Baalbek, close to the Syrian border.
Ecuadoreans are voting on whether to lift a constitutional ban on foreign military bases as right-wing President Daniel Noboa pushes for help from the United States in confronting spiralling drug-fuelled violence.
Nearly 14 million people cast ballots on Sunday in a referendum that also asks whether to reduce the number of lawmakers.
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The vote comes as Ecuador grapples with unprecedented bloodshed, with the country’s homicide rate projected to hit 50 per 100,000 people this year, the highest in Latin America.
Polls suggest more than 61 percent of voters back allowing foreign bases, which would likely see the US return to the Manta airbase on the Pacific coast.
US forces operated from Manta between 1999 and 2009 as part of anti-narcotics efforts, until leftist President Rafael Correa held a referendum on foreign troops, resulting in their constitutional ban.
Ecuador, once considered one of the more stable countries in the region, has in recent years faced a sharp rise in violence, with drug cartels, including powerful ones from Mexico, exploiting porous borders and weak institutions to expand their influence.
Noboa, a 37-year-old heir to a prominent banana-exporting fortune, who took office in November 2023, has responded with militarised crackdowns, deployed soldiers to the streets and prisons, launched raids on gang strongholds, declared states of emergency and tightened security at key infrastructure hubs.
The first half of this year saw 4,619 murders, the highest on record, according to Ecuador’s Organized Crime Observatory.
As voting opened, Noboa announced the capture in Spain of Wilmer Geovanny Chavarria Barre, known as Pipo, leader of the notorious Los Lobos gang, who had faked his death and fled to Europe.
He was arrested in the Spanish city of Malaga after Ecuadorean authorities worked with their Spanish counterparts to track him down.
Interior Minister John Reimberg linked Chavarria to more than 400 killings and said he had run criminal networks from behind bars for eight years until 2019.
Noboa said the Los Lobos chief had overseen illicit mining schemes and maintained trafficking connections with Mexico’s Jalisco New Generation Cartel, all whilst hiding in Europe under a false identity.
The US designated Los Lobos and Los Choneros, another Ecuadorian crime syndicate, as “terrorist” organisations in September.
Critics question whether military force alone can address the crisis.
Former President Correa has described the return of foreign forces as “an insult to our public forces and an assault to our sovereignty”, adding: “We do not need foreign soldiers. We need government.”
The referendum also includes questions on a constituent assembly that opposition groups fear could allow Noboa to consolidate power.
In August, Noboa led a demonstration against Constitutional Court justices, with officials calling them “enemies of the people” after they limited expansive security laws.
Critics of the president also argue that a constitutional rewrite will not solve problems like insecurity and poor access to health and education services.
Ecuador became a major cocaine transit hub after the 2016 peace deal in Colombia demobilised guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), with international trafficking organisations quickly filling the void.
The country’s Pacific ports, proximity to coca-producing Peru and Colombia, and weak institutions have made it central to the global cocaine supply chain.
Noboa, who survived an attack in October when his car was surrounded by protesters and struck by bullets, has compared his security approach to that of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, posting images of shaven-headed inmates in orange uniforms at a new mega-prison.
President Gustavo Petro says purchase of warplanes is a ‘deterrent weapon to achieve peace’ amid ‘messy’ geopolitics.
Published On 15 Nov 202515 Nov 2025
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Colombian President Gustavo Petro has announced a $4.3bn deal to buy Swedish warplanes at a time when his country is locked in tension with the United States.
Speaking on Friday, Petro confirmed an agreement was reached with Sweden’s Saab aircraft manufacturer to buy 17 Gripen fighter jets, giving the first confirmation of the size and cost of the military acquisition that was initially announced in April.
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“This is a deterrent weapon to achieve peace,” Petro said in a post on social media.
The purchase of warplanes comes as Colombia and much of remaining Latin America are on edge due to a US military build-up in the region, and as US forces carry out a campaign of deadly attacks on vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
Washington claims – but has provided no evidence – that it has targeted drug smuggling vessels in its 20 confirmed attacks that have killed about 80 people so far in international waters.
Latin American leaders, legal scholars and rights groups have accused the US of carrying out extrajudicial killings of people who should face the courts if suspected of breaking laws related to drug smuggling.
US President Donald Trump has also accused both Petro and his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolas Maduro, of being involved in the regional drug trade, a claim that both leaders have strenuously denied.
Petro said the new warplanes will be used to dissuade “aggression against Colombia, wherever it may come from”.
“In a world that is geopolitically messy,” he said, such aggression “can come from anywhere”.
The Colombian leader has for weeks traded insults with Donald Trump and said the ultimate goal of the US deployment in the region is to seize Venezuela’s oil wealth and destabilise Latin America.
Trump has long accused Venezuela’s Maduro of trafficking drugs and more recently branded Petro “an illegal drug leader” because of Colombia’s high level of cocaine production. Trump has also withdrawn US financial aid from Colombia and taken it off its list of countries seen as allies in fighting drug trafficking internationally.
Amid the war of words rumbling on between Washington and Bogota, Petro said last week that Colombia would suspend intelligence sharing with the US on combating drug trafficking, but officials in his government quickly rolled back that threat.
The AFP news agency reports that US and French firms had also tried to sell warplanes to Colombia, but, in the end, Bogota went with Sweden’s Saab.
Swedish Defence Minister Pal Jonson said Colombia was joining Sweden, Brazil and Thailand in choosing the Gripen fighter jet, and defence relations between Bogota and Stockholm would “deepen significantly” as a result.
🇸🇪🇨🇴I’m proud that Colombia today joins the Gripen E family, alongside Sweden, Brazil and Thailand. With the Colombian purchase of 17 Gripen E/F, our defence relations will deepen significantly & Colombia will receive one of the world’s greatest fighter jets. (1/4) pic.twitter.com/g0rESq69nD
— Pål Jonson (@PlJonson) November 14, 2025
The British street artist has created several versions of the iconic painting across London, as well as in Palestine.
Published On 15 Nov 202515 Nov 2025
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A man has been sentenced to 13 months in prison by a British court for stealing a print of street artist Banksy’s iconic Girl with Balloon from a London gallery in September last year.
Larry Fraser, 49, was jailed on Friday by a judge in southwest London after he pleaded guilty to the smash-and-grab burglary of the elusive artist’s painting, valued at 270,000 pounds ($355,200).
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Despite trying to conceal his identity with a mask, Fraser was caught on camera, and police tracked him down two days after the theft. The artwork was recovered shortly afterwards, according to London’s Metropolitan Police.
“This is a brazen and serious non-domestic burglary,” said Judge Anne Brown, passing the sentence at Kingston Crown Court.
The Girl with Balloon first appeared on the streets of London’s Shoreditch neighbourhood in 2002, with Banksy creating versions of the painting on London’s South Bank in 2004 and in the occupied West Bank in 2005.
One version of the painting shredded itself into pieces the moment after it was sold for more than one million British pounds ($1.3m) by London auction house Sotheby’s in 2018.
Detective Chief Inspector Scott Mather said: “Banksy’s ‘Girl with Balloon’ is known across the world – and we reacted immediately to not just bring Fraser to justice but also reunite the artwork with the gallery.”
The secretive British street artist has returned to Palestine on multiple occasions to create artworks, including a version of the girl with the red balloon.
In 2005, he sprayed nine stencilled images at different locations along the illegal, eight-metre-high (26-foot) separation wall that Israel has constructed in the occupied West Bank.
They included a ladder reaching over the wall, a young girl being carried over it by balloons and a window on the grey concrete showing beautiful mountains in the background.
In 2007, he painted a number of artworks in Bethlehem, including a young girl frisking an Israeli soldier pinned up against a wall.
In February 2015, he allegedly sneaked into the Gaza Strip through a smuggling tunnel and painted three works on the walls of Gaza homes destroyed in Israeli air strikes during the previous year’s conflict.
In 2017, he opened the Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem, just four metres from Israel’s separation wall.
Earlier this year, authorities attempted to scrub a Banksy painting on a London court wall that depicted a judge hitting a protester and was believed to refer to the country’s crackdown on the Palestine Action protest group.
Banksy rose to fame for sharply ironic outdoor graffiti with political themes. Once a small-time graffiti artist from the English city of Bristol, his artwork has become hugely popular worldwide and valuable.
Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth says attacks take place in international waters amid mounting criticism against US campaign.
Published On 10 Nov 202510 Nov 2025
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The United States has carried out another set of military strikes against what it says are drug boats in international waters headed to the country.
Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said on Monday that the US military targeted two vessels in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Sunday, killing six people.
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“These vessels were known by our intelligence to be associated with illicit narcotics smuggling, were carrying narcotics, and were transiting along a known narco-trafficking transit route in the Eastern Pacific,” he wrote in a social media post.
“Both strikes were conducted in international waters, and three male narco-terrorists were aboard each vessel. All six were killed. No US forces were harmed.”
The administration of President Donald Trump has faced mounting criticism over such attacks, including accusations of violating domestic and international law.
But Washington appears to be stepping up the campaign. Sunday’s deadly double attack was the fourth this month. Previous strikes in the Pacific and Caribbean Sea killed at least eight people, according to US authorities.
The Trump administration started targeting boats in the Caribbean in September and later expanded its military push to the Pacific Ocean.
The US has carried out 18 strikes on vessels so far, killing dozens of people.
Last month, United Nations rights chief Volker Turk said the US attacks have no justification under international law.
“These attacks – and their mounting human cost – are unacceptable,” Turk said. “The US must halt such attacks and take all measures necessary to prevent the extrajudicial killing of people aboard these boats, whatever the criminal conduct alleged against them.”
The US has described the attacks as “counterterrorism” operations after having designated drug cartels as “terrorists”.
“Under President Trump, we are protecting the homeland and killing these cartel terrorists who wish to harm our country and its people,” Hegseth said on Monday.
Other than grainy footage showing the strikes, the Trump administration has not provided concrete proof that the vessels targeted were carrying drugs.
Trump himself has previously joked that fishermen are now afraid to operate in the Caribbean off the coast of Venezuela.
Critics have questioned why US authorities would not monitor the boats and intercept them when they enter the country’s territorial waters instead of extrajudicially executing the suspects.
The strikes have sparked regional tensions, particularly with Venezuela, with Trump accusing its president, Nicolas Maduro, of links to “narcoterrorists”.
The ramped-up US military campaign near Venezuela has raised speculation that Washington may be preparing for conflict in the oil-rich South American country.
This month, Trump suggested that war with Venezuela is unlikely but said Maduro’s days are numbered.
Conflict Analysis Resource Center Director, Jorge Restrepo, says the US must change its domestic strategy on drugs, after President Donald Trump put sanctions on Colombia’s president.
Published On 9 Nov 20259 Nov 2025
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Polls find large majorities of people in the US oppose military action against Venezuela, where Trump has ramped up military pressure.
Republicans in the United States Senate have voted down legislation that would have required US President Donald Trump to obtain congressional approval for any military attacks on Venezuela.
Two Republicans had crossed the political aisle and joined Democrats to vote in favour of the legislation on Thursday, but their support was not enough to secure passage, and the bill failed to pass by 51 to 49 votes.
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“We should not be going to war without a vote of Congress,” Democratic Senator Tim Kaine said during a speech.
The vote comes amid a US military build-up off South America and a series of military strikes targeting vessels in international waters off Venezuela and Colombia that have killed at least 65 people.
The US has alleged, without presenting evidence, that the boats it bombed were transporting drugs, but Latin American leaders, some members of Congress, international law experts and family members of the deceased have described the US attacks as extrajudicial killings, claiming most of those killed were fishermen.
Fears are now growing that Trump will use the military deployment in the region – which includes thousands of US troops, a nuclear submarine and a group of warships accompanying the USS Gerald R Ford, the US Navy’s most sophisticated aircraft carrier – to launch an attack on Venezuela in a bid to oust President Nicolas Maduro.
Washington has accused Maduro of drug trafficking, and Trump has hinted at carrying out attacks on Venezuelan soil.
Senator Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, referencing Trump’s military posturing towards Venezuela, said on Thursday: “It’s really an open secret that this is much more about potential regime change.”
“If that’s where the administration is headed, if that’s what we’re risking – involvement in a war – then Congress needs to be heard on this,” he said.
Earlier on Thursday, a pair of US B-52 bombers flew over the Caribbean Sea along the coast of Venezuela, flight tracking data showed.
Data from tracking website Flightradar24 showed the two bombers flying parallel to the Venezuelan coast, then circling northeast of Caracas before heading back along the coast and turning north and flying further out to sea.
The presence of the US bombers off Venezuela was at least the fourth time that US military aircraft have flown near the country’s borders since mid-October, with B-52s having done so on one previous occasion, and B-1B bombers on two other occasions.
A recent poll found that only 18 percent of people in the US support even limited use of military force to overthrow Maduro’s government.
Research by YouGov also found that 74 percent of people in the US believe that the president should not be able to carry out military strikes abroad without congressional approval, in line with the requirements of the US Constitution.
Republican lawmakers, however, have embraced the recent strikes on vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific, adopting the Trump administration’s framing of its efforts to cut off the flow of narcotics to the US.
Questions of the legality of such attacks, either under US or international law, do not appear to be of great concern to many Republicans.
“President Trump has taken decisive action to protect thousands of Americans from lethal narcotics,” Senator Jim Risch, the Republican chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in remarks declaring his support for the strikes.
While only two Republicans – Senators Rand Paul and Lisa Murkowski – defected to join Democrats in supporting the legislation to limit Trump’s ability to wage war unilaterally on Thursday, some conservatives have expressed frustration with a possible war on Venezuela.
Trump had campaigned for president on the promise of withdrawing the US from foreign military entanglements.
In recent years, Congress has made occasional efforts to reassert itself and impose restraints on foreign military engagements through the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which reaffirmed that Congress alone has the power to declare war.
IRON Maiden rocker Bruce Dickinson says he took up fencing to help him fend off sex-hungry groupies.
The heavy metal star, 67, turned to the sword-fighting sport to keep a clear mind — but ended up as one of Britain’s best competitors.
Run to the Hills singer Bruce — worth about £100million – was at one point ranked No7 in the UK and an outside contender for the Olympics.
He tried fencing as a teenager and then took it up as a hobby in 1983 to distract himself from the temptations of sex, booze and drugs after finding fame.
He spent months training with Team GB and represented a semi-pro club.
Asked why he picked up the blade, he told Classic Rock mag: “I was busy sh*****g everything that moved and none of it was healthy.
“I remember something that (The Who guitarist) Pete Townshend once said about groupies — ‘The moment you realise you can click your finger and manipulate people into having sex with you, that’s the moment you’re going down the slippery slope’.
“You can’t believe women are throwing themselves at you. You think, ‘Well this is nice’. And it is. It’s f*****g great. But there’s a dark side to this.
“Where do you stop? When does it become a prop, like alcohol or cocaine?
“So that’s when I started doing extracurricular activities like fencing.
“I was thinking, ‘I’ve got to do something to keep my brain clean’.”
Bruce, also a qualified pilot who flies Iron Maiden’s private 747 on tour, still takes part in fencing competitions for his age group.
The band has sold more than 130million albums since forming in London in 1975.
Catatumbo, Colombia – The Catatumbo region, which stretches along the border with Venezuela in the department of Norte de Santander, is Colombia’s most volatile frontier.
Endowed with oil reserves and coca crops but impoverished and neglected, this border area has historically been a site of violent competition between armed groups fighting for territorial control.
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The National Liberation Army (ELN), Colombia’s largest remaining guerrilla force, maintains a strong and organised presence, operating across the porous border with Venezuela.
It is there that some of their fighters pick up an Al Jazeera reporting team and drive us to meet their commanders.
Tensions remain high in this region. In January, thousands of people were displaced because of the fighting between the ELN and a dissident faction from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) that continues to operate in some parts of the country in spite of peace agreements brokered in 2016.
The fight is over control of the territory and access to the border with Venezuela, which is a crucial way to move drugs out of the country.
Entering the area, it’s immediately apparent that the ELN is in total control here. There is no evidence of the country’s military. ELN flags decorate the sideroads, and the signs give a clear message of the way the group’s members see Colombia right now.
“Total peace is a failure,” they say.
There is also no mobile phone signal. People tell the Al Jazeera team that telephone companies do not want to pay a tax to the armed groups controlling the territory.
When President Gustavo Petro took office, he promised to implement a total peace plan with Colombia’s armed groups. But the negotiations have not been easy, especially with the ELN.
Government offcials suspended the peace talks because of the fighting in Catatumbo, but now say they are ready to reinitiate talks.
Al Jazeera meets with Commander Ricardo and Commander Silvana in a small house in the middle of the mountains. The interview has to be fast, they say, as they are concerned about a potential attack and reconnaissance drones that have been circulating in the area.
The commanders are accompanied by some of their fighters. Asked how many they have in the area, they respond, “We are thousands, and not everyone is wearing their uniforms. Some are urban guerrillas.”
The government estimates the ELN has around 3,000 fighters. But the figure could be much higher.
Commander Ricardo, who is in charge of the region, says he believes there could be a chance for peace.
“The ELN has been battling for a political solution for 30 years with various difficulties,” he says. “We believed that with Petro, we would advance in the process. But that did not happen. There’s never been peace in Colombia. What we have is the peace of the graves.”
The group and the government had been meeting in Mexico prior to the suspension of the talks. “If the accords we had in Mexico are still there, I believe our central command would agree [it] could open up the way for a political solution to this conflict”, Commander Ricardo tells Al Jazeera.
But it’s not just the fight with the Colombian state that has armed groups here on alert. The United States military campaign against alleged drug vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific – and the US’s aggressive posture towards the government of neighbouring Venezuela – have brought an international dimension to what was once an internal Colombian conflict.
The administration of US President Donald Trump refers to these people not as guerrillas but “narco-terrorists”, and has not ruled out the possibility of attacking them on Colombian soil.
The US operation, which began in early September, has killed more than 62 people, including nationals from Venezuela and Colombia, and destroyed 14 boats and a semi-submersible.
Some of the commanders have an extradition request from the US, and the government says they are wanted criminals.
The US strikes against boats allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean and the military build-up in the region to ramp up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro are seen by the ELN as another act of US imperialism.
The US government claims one of those boats belonged to the ELN. “Why don’t they capture them and show the world what they captured and what they are they trafficking?” Commander Ricardo asks. “But no, they erase them with a bomb.”
He also warns about the possibility of the ELN joining in the fight against the US. “In the hypothesis that Trump attacks Venezuela, we will have to see how we respond, but it’s not just us,” he says. “[It’s] all of Latin America because I am sure there are going to be many, many people who will grab a weapon and fight because it’s too much. The fact that the United States can step over people without respecting their self-determination has to end.”
The ELN was inspired by the Cuban revolution. But over the years, it has been involved in kidnappings, killings, extortion, and drug trafficking.
Commander Silvana, who joined the group when she was a teen, says the ELN is not like other armed groups in the country.
“Our principles indicate that we are not involved in drug trafficking,” she says. “We have told this to the international community. What we have is taxes in the territories we have been controlling for over 60 years. And if there is coca, of course, we tax it, too.”
Colombia has been a crucial US ally in the region over the decades in the fight against drug trafficking. But Petro has increasingly questioned the US policy in the Caribbean, arguing that Washington’s approach to security and migration reflects out-of-date Cold War logic rather than the region’s current realities.
He has criticised the US military presence and naval operations near Venezuela, warning that such tactics risk increasing tensions instead of promoting cooperation.
Trump has accused Petro, who is a former guerrilla, of being a drug trafficker himself.
Petro responded angrily, writing on X, “Colombia has never been rude to the United States. To the contrary, it has loved its culture very much. But you are rude and ignorant about Colombia.”
Colombia’s Foreign Ministry also condemned Trump’s remarks as offensive and a direct threat to the country’s sovereignty, and vowed to seek international support in defence of Petro and Colombian autonomy.
The belligerent US approach to Venezuela and Colombia, both led by leftist presidents – and the heightened possibility of a US military intervention – risk turning a local Colombia conflict into a broader regional one.
Everyone on the ground is now assessing how they will respond if the US government gives its military the green light to attack Venezuela.
