In Jafar Panahi’s acclaimed thriller “It Was Just an Accident,” it’s a distinct sound that alerts Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), a mechanic, that the man who tortured him in prison might be dangerously close.
After hearing it, he embarks on a rage-fueled mission to kidnap and kill the interrogator. But Vahid is not certain he has the right man, so he enlists a group of other victims to help identify him. What ensues is a brilliantly taut ensemble piece.
The latest from the Iranian master earned the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and is now a major contender this awards season, representing France at the Oscars in the international feature category. Iran would not submit the politically charged film.
“Because the auditory sense of prisoners is usually strongest above all the other senses, I thought that I would begin the film with a sound,” a stoic Panahi says via an interpreter in a hotel room in Santa Monica. “In prison, you keep trying to guess if this voice that you hear belongs to an older person, a younger person, what he looks like and what he does in life.”
A scene from “It Was Just an Accident.”
(Neon)
Panahi is no stranger to being deprived of his freedom. Arrested in 2022 for his outspokenness against the regime’s practices, he spent seven months in prison. It wasn’t until he went on a hunger strike that his right to legal representation was granted.
Without an attorney present, Panahi explains, interrogators blindfold detainees and stand behind them, either asking questions directly or writing them on a piece of paper and handing it to the detained, who lifts their blindfold just enough to read it. An interrogation nearly identical to that description plays out in last year’s Oscar-nominated film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” by Mohammad Rasoulof, one of Panahi’s longtime collaborators.
“I had not actually seen Rasoulof’s film because when we make films clandestinely, we don’t talk about them, even with our close friends,” he explains. “I didn’t even know what his film was about. Only when I got to France to mix [‘It Was Just an Accident’], and Rasoulof’s film was out in theaters there, that’s when I saw it.”
Making films on the outskirts of legality under an authoritarian regime entails high-stakes discretion. The script for “It Was Just an Accident” never left Panahi’s sight when casting.
“To all of the actors, I gave the script in my own apartment,” he recalls. “I told them, ‘Read it here, don’t take it with you. Go and think about it for 24 hours, and then tell me whether you want to be a part of it.’” Everyone in the stellar cast, composed of dissident artists with varying degrees of experience in front of the camera, was aware of the risks it entailed.
Jafar Panahi.
(Kate Dockeray / For The Times)
Mobasseri had appeared in Panahi’s previous effort, “No Bears,” while Majid Panahi, who plays a groom swept up in the scheme by his vengeful bride, is the director’s nephew. Mariam Afshari, as a photographer who also joins the plot, had minimal acting experience, but had been involved in other productions in below-the-line roles. Panahi says he casts actors based on how their physical traits resemble the character he has in mind.
That was the case with the tall and lean Ebrahim Azizi, who appears as Eghbal, the man the group believes was their ruthless captor. For a scene near the end where Eghbal breaks down, thinking he’s about to be killed, Panahi placed his trust in Azizi — who only acts in underground films, not state-approved projects — to convey the tempestuous humanity of a presumed villain.
“I felt a huge burden on my shoulders when I left prison that made me feel I owed something to my fellow prisoners who were left behind,” Panahi says. “I said this to Ebrahim Azizi, ‘Now the entire burden of this film is on your shoulders with your acting, and you have to put that burden down with utmost commitment.’”
The first time Panahi shot that searing scene, he sensed it wasn’t coming together. After all, his only experience with real-life interrogators was from the receiving end of their questioning. “I went to one of my friends, Mehdi Mahmoudian, who has spent one-fourth of his life in prison,” he says. “I told him, ‘Because you know these personality types very well, come and tell this actor what to do.’ He guided [Azizi] and we took two or three more takes and it was done.”
Amid the hard-hitting moral drama of “It Was Just an Accident,” moments that warrant a chuckle for their realistic absurdity might surprise some viewers. However, a touch of sardonic levity has always been part of Panahi’s storytelling.
“Humor just flows through life. You cannot stop it,” he says.
To make his point, Panahi recalls a morbid memory from when he was around 10 years old. One of his friends had lost his father. Disturbed, the boy threatened to take his own life. Panahi and his other friends followed him to try to stop him if he did in fact attempt to hurt himself.
Determined, the boy announced he would stand in the middle of the road and throw himself in front of a large vehicle. “We were lucky because we were in a very isolated part of town and there were no real big cars passing by,” he says. “Two hours later we were all sitting in a movie theater. Humor is always there. It’s not really in my hands.”
HomeExecutive InterviewsAfter Maduro: Why Regime Change Doesn’t Mean Stability For Venezuela—Or Investors
Economist Abigail Hall explains what Maduro’s removal means for Venezuela, global markets, and the risks of US-led regime change.
The sudden ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro following a US-led operation has shaken global markets, energy circles, and Latin America’s political landscape.
As Washington signals plans to temporarily oversee Venezuela’s government and reopen access to the world’s largest proven oil reserves, questions are mounting over legality, economic fallout, and what comes next.
To unpack the implications, Global Finance spoke with Abigail Hall, associate professor of economics at the University of Tampa and a senior fellow at the Independent Institute, whose research focuses on US intervention, political economy, and Latin America.
Global Finance: How does this episode affect investment banks operating in Venezuela, like J.P. Morgan, Banesco Banco, Mercantil Banco and BBVA Provincial?
Hall: One of the things that has been happening with the US buildup to this point is regime uncertainty. We cannot predict which government policies will be in place in the near or intermediate future. Having some predictability about the regulatory or other government policy environment is essential for planning. This is relevant whenever we discuss domestic planning, such as with tariffs in the US. But it is also important when we’re talking about international business.
Abigail Hall, senior fellow at the Independent Institute
In this case, an external actor is imposing changes on a foreign country. I would not be surprised if international companies adopt a wait-and-see approach regarding Venezuela. No one will want to invest resources without knowing what comes next. We don’t know who’s in power or how the transition will occur. From an economic development perspective, that approach is detrimental and necessitates that the US government expend resources to prop up or stimulate Venezuela’s economy. The obvious way is oil, but there’s a lot that goes into that, too.
GF:Should business leaders focus on who controls Venezuelan oil, or on whether institutional incentives will actually change now that Maduro faces an arraignment in New York?
Hall: It’s both. Who is in power and who controls Venezuela’s primary asset—oil—certainly matters. But it’s equally important to understand the institutional structures surrounding the Venezuelan government. If, as the Trump administration has suggested, the US moves to temporarily run the country and impose new institutions, a key question is whether those institutions would “stick” after a potential US withdrawal. At this point, it’s simply too early to tell what Venezuela’s political and economic landscape will look like, even weeks or months from now.
GF: Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, was sworn in as acting president and denounced his capture as an “illegal kidnapping.” Meanwhile, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize, has called for Edmundo González, to be recognized as the rightful leader of the nation, considering he won the country’s 2024 presidential election. Will conditions get worse before they get better, given the confusion about who will be running the country and its resources?
Hall: Certainly things could get worse before they get better—if they get better. Whether we liked the regime in power and whether this is an effective way to transition away from it are two separate questions. Thinking broadly, we mustn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Maduro has been absolutely detrimental to Venezuela’s economy and its people. He’s guilty of numerous crimes. I don’t think he’s guilty of the crimes that he’s being charged with by the US government, but he certainly has run the Venezuelan economy into a ditch, as did his predecessor, Hugo Chavez. We could now wind up with a situation as we had in Iraq or Afghanistan, where the US has a military presence and they work to hold elections or try to help install a US-friendly “democratic” regime. You could also have a situation like Libya in 2012, where the US takes out the head of a regime and a subsequent power struggle follows. We’re still seeing geopolitical instability across northern Africa as a result of the Libyan conflict. I would not be surprised if we observe a similar scenario in Latin America, particularly in northern South America.
GF: The US alleges that Maduro participated in so-called “narco terrorism,” and that he used Venezuelan government power to facilitate shipments of drugs to the US. But data shows that Venezuela accounts for less than 1% of the US drug market, while Trump explicitly called on American companies to rebuild Venezuela’s oil industry. How do we reconcile that?
Hall: I don’t know that you can effectively reconcile them. In terms of narco trafficking, Venezuela has not been a significant power player in the illicit drug market in the US, or really anywhere. It’s not a key power player. It doesn’t manufacture or transport a lot of illicit drugs. If you look at other places, such as Mexico, you might actually see a significant amount of drugs that enter the US coming through. However, you have diplomatic ties with Mexico, and if you’re trying to negotiate a trade agreement, bombing Mexico would likely not go over well. You have no love lost between Washington and Caracas by going after Venezuela.
But when we start talking about oil, Venezuela is sitting on the largest repository of crude oil. They have vast amounts of resources that should make Venezuela a very wealthy country. A friendlier regime in Caracas could benefit the US by enabling imports of that crude oil. Beyond that, another important consideration regarding Venezuelan oil at this point is to whom it has been sold. The Venezuelan government has deep ties with both the Chinese and Russian governments, allowing them to conduct oil drilling in the Orinoco River basin and Lake Maracaibo. From a geopolitical perspective, this is really poking both of the US’s main geopolitical rivals square in the eye.
For Russia, which is fighting a war with Ukraine, having access to relatively cheap resources like oil is essential. A lot is going on here close to the surface. And I think you have a very difficult case making an argument that this would actually be about drugs and narco terrorism, when it has everything to do with Venezuelan oil, but also, more fundamentally, a friendlier regime to the US and Caracas compared to a friendly regime to China and Russia.
GF: At a January 3 press conference, Trump hinted at military action against Cuba, Mexico, and Colombia next. Considering that the US is effectively “poking” Russia and China, did Washington just light a powder keg?
Hall: Geopolitically, the US has engaged in a variety of interventions throughout Latin America, specifically from the 1950s onwards. Look at Guatemala in the 1950s, or El Salvador and Nicaragua in the 1980s. At this point, people have likely heard of the Monroe Doctrine or the Roosevelt Corollary, which essentially states that the US government will prohibit foreign entities, meaning those in the other half of the world, from intervening in the Western Hemisphere. People now point out that this is kind of a return to that more aggressive type of US intervention.
President Obama explicitly signaled that the Monroe Doctrine was dead. Now it’s roaring back. While we don’t have a crystal ball to predict how this will play out, there are broader implications to consider—particularly regarding how other powers, such as China, might interpret these actions in light of its relationship with Taiwan. If the US justifies intervention on grounds like drugs or criminal activity, it may open the door for similar rationales elsewhere. The potential spillover effects are significant.
GF:Is the US involving itself in something that’s unlikely to be economically beneficial?
Hall: History suggests this is unlikely to be economically beneficial for the US. Even setting China and Russia aside and focusing solely on intervention, the US has a poor track record when it comes to regime change and externally imposed democracy. A cursory glance at history makes that clear.
What we can say with certainty is that any form of intervention—whether airstrikes, boots on the ground, or, as suggested in recent statements, running a foreign government—requires enormous resources. History also shows that once external pressure is removed, these efforts tend not to hold, often dragging the US into prolonged, costly engagements. That’s why some are already asking whether Venezuela risks becoming another Afghanistan.
There are also broader consequences to consider, including migration. Venezuela has lost roughly a quarter of its population over the past decade, which is staggering. Further instability could exacerbate migration pressures, not just from Venezuela but across the region. These are costs we rarely account for upfront. While monetary costs are easier to tally, the non-monetary costs—political, social, and human—are harder to predict and often emerge gradually over time.
GF: In the last year, the Trump administration conducted 626 airstrikes against Somalia, Iraq, Yemen, Iran, the Caribbean, Syria, Nigeria, and now Venezuela. Is this a pattern better understood as a strategic necessity, or is it merely political signaling to a domestic audience in the US?
Hall: Utilizing airstrikes is very much a continuation of the policy that we’ve seen for several decades at this point.
GF: It’s already well over what the Biden administration conducted during its entire four years.
Hall: It’s an escalation of what we’ve seen historically, but it’s a difference of degree as opposed to a difference of kind. Many people don’t know that the last time the United States formally declared war through Congress was in the 1940s. Since then, the US has not formally declared war. If you look at the war-on-terror period forward, specifically, we’ve seen the supposed permissions for engaging in this type of activity stem from Authorizations for Use of Military Force, or AUMFs, which came out when we were looking at Iraq and Afghanistan. Even though those have since both been repealed, it’s largely seen as a nominal type of repeal.
Administrations following President George W. Bush have used the AUMFs as a way to effectively engage in all kinds of intervention, if you can link it to terrorism. And this is important in the Venezuelan case, and part of the reason that I imagine you have narco terrorism within the charges. That’s a way to couch this as part of the broader global war on terror. Much of what we’ve seen from the administration is clearly an attempt to flex its muscle and assert what it is capable of: using military force to achieve political objectives. And as you alluded to earlier, I think some of Trump’s statements to Cuba and to Colombia in the January 3 press conference are indicative of that.
GF: Many Venezuelans are happy that Maduro is gone.Is that the biggest upside here?
Hall: It depends on perspective. Anyone who understands Venezuela knows that Maduro is a tin-pot dictator. But being anti-Maduro and anti-US intervention are not mutually exclusive positions. Whether this ultimately benefits the people of Venezuela is to be determined. The country has been in such dire economic straits for so long—it’s the kind of poverty and policy where they hit bottom and kept digging.
To the extent that this pivots Venezuela away from the types of economic policies that have been so detrimental to its population, this could be beneficial to your average Venezuelan—those are the people who are at the direct receiving end of these interventions, regardless of what flavor they come in, whether they’re sanctions, air strikes or boots on the ground, but have largely been ignored in a lot of conversations.
But the thing that I would caution people against is that we’ve been sold these benefits to intervention before. We’ve seen this movie, and yet we are continuously convinced that this time is going to be different. If history is an indicator, we should be highly skeptical of such arguments.
WASHINGTON — Top officials in the Trump administration clarified their position on “running” Venezuela after seizing its president, Nicolás Maduro, over the weekend, pressuring the regime that remains in power there Sunday to acquiesce to U.S. demands on oil access and drug enforcement, or else face further military action.
Their goal appears to be the establishment of a pliant vassal state in Caracas that keeps the current government — led by Maduro for more than a decade — largely in place, but finally defers to the whims of Washington after turning away from the United States for a quarter century.
It leaves little room for the ascendance of Venezuela’s democratic opposition, which won the country’s last national election, according to the State Department, European capitals and international monitoring bodies.
Trump and his top aides said they would try to work with Maduro’s handpicked vice president and current interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, to run the country and its oil sector “until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” offering no time frame for proposed elections.
Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem underscored the strategy in a series of interviews Sunday morning.
“If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump told the Atlantic, referring to Rodríguez. “Rebuilding there and regime change, anything you want to call it, is better than what you have right now. Can’t get any worse.”
Rubio said that a U.S. naval quarantine of Venezuelan oil tankers would continue unless and until Rodríguez begins cooperating with the U.S. administration, referring to the blockade — and the lingering threat of additional military action from the fleet off Venezuela’s coast — as “leverage” over the remnants of Maduro’s regime.
“That’s the sort of control the president is pointing to when he says that,” Rubio told CBS News. “We continue with that quarantine, and we expect to see that there will be changes — not just in the way the oil industry is run for the benefit of the people, but also so that they stop the drug trafficking.”
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told CNN that he had been in touch with the administration since the Saturday night operation that snatched Maduro and his wife from their bedroom, whisking them away to New York to face criminal charges.
Trump’s vow to “run” the country, Cotton said, “means the new leaders of Venezuela need to meet our demands.”
“Delcy Rodríguez, and the other ministers in Venezuela, understand now what the U.S. military is capable of,” Cotton said, while adding: “It is a fact that she and other indicted and sanctioned individuals are in Venezuela. They have control of the military and security forces. We have to deal with that fact. But that does not make them the legitimate leaders.”
“What we want is a future Venezuelan government that will be pro-American, that will contribute to stability, order and prosperity, not only in Venezuela but in our own backyard. That probably needs to include new elections,” Cotton added.
Whether Rodríguez will cooperate with the administration is an open question.
Trump said Saturday that she seemed amenable to making “Venezuela great again” in a conversation with Rubio. But the interim president delivered a speech hours later demanding Maduro’s return, and vowing that Venezuela would “never again be a colony of any empire.”
The developments have concerned senior figures in Venezuela’s democratic opposition, led by Maria Corina Machado, last year’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and Edmundo González Urrutia, the opposition candidate who won the 2024 presidential election that was ultimately stolen by Maduro.
In his Saturday news conference, Trump dismissed Machado, saying that the revered opposition leader was “a very nice woman,” but “doesn’t have the respect within the country” to lead.
Elliott Abrams, Trump’s special envoy to Venezuela in his first term, said he was skeptical that Rodríguez — an acolyte of Hugo Chávez and avowed supporter of Chavismo throughout the Maduro era — would betray the cause.
“The insult to Machado was bizarre, unfair — and simply ignorant,” Abrams told The Times. “Who told him that there was no respect for her?”
Maduro was booked in New York and flown by night over the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where he is in federal custody at a notorious facility that has housed other famous inmates, including Sean “Diddy” Combs, Ghislaine Maxwell, Bernie Madoff and Sam Bankman-Fried.
He is expected to be arraigned on federal charges of narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices as soon as Monday.
While few in Washington lamented Maduro’s ouster, Democratic lawmakers criticized the operation as another act of regime change by a Republican president that could have violated international law.
“The invasion of Venezuela has nothing to do with American security. Venezuela is not a security threat to the U.S.,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut. “This is about making Trump’s oil industry and Wall Street friends rich. Trump’s foreign policy — the Middle East, Russia, Venezuela — is fundamentally corrupt.”
In their Saturday news conference, and in subsequent interviews, Trump and Rubio said that targeting Venezuela was in part about reestablishing U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere, reasserting the philosophy of President James Monroe as China and Russia work to enhance their presence in the region. The Trump administration’s national security strategy, published last month, previewed a renewed focus on Latin America after the region faced neglect from Washington over decades.
Trump left unclear whether his military actions in the region would end in Caracas, a longstanding U.S. adversary, or if he is willing to turn the U.S. armed forces on America’s allies.
In his interview with the Atlantic, Trump suggested that “individual countries” would be addressed on a case-by-case basis. On Saturday, he reiterated a threat to the president of Colombia, a major non-NATO ally, to “watch his ass,” over an ongoing dispute about Bogota’s cooperation on drug enforcement.
On Sunday morning, the United Nations Security Council was called for an urgent meeting to discuss the legality of the U.S. operation inside Venezuela.
It was not Russia or China — permanent members of the council and longstanding competitors — who called the session, nor France, whose government has questioned whether the operation violated international law, but Colombia, a non-permanent member who joined the council less than a week ago.
In less than 24 hours, the US bombed Venezuela, brazenly abducted President Nicolas Maduro and his wife from their compound in Caracas and whisked them to a detention centre in New York. Here’s how regime change unfolded overnight.
An Al Jazeera Arabic investigation obtains recordings of Suheil al-Hassan discussing Israeli support, regrouping efforts.
An Al Jazeera Arabic investigation has uncovered a plot by the aides of ousted leader Bashar al-Assad to destabilise Syria, featuring leaked recordings that suggest coordination with Israel.
The revelations, set to be broadcast on the programme Al-Mutahari, or The Investigator, on Wednesday evening, are based on more than 74 hours of leaked audio recordings and hundreds of pages of documents obtained in the investigation.
The leaks implicate al-Assad’s high-ranking officers, specifically Suheil al-Hassan, the brigadier-general who commanded the notorious Quwwat al-Nimr (Tiger Forces), an elite unit in the former regime’s army.
‘Israel will stand with you’
The investigation uncovers attempts by these officers to regroup, gather funding, and secure weapons to undermine stability in the country following the ousting of al-Assad.
In one of the most significant recordings, a source — identified in the leaks as a hacker or intermediary — is heard assuring al-Hassan of Israeli backing.
“The State of Israel, with all its capabilities, will stand with you,” the source tells al-Hassan.
“There is a level higher than me, Mr Rami is the one who coordinates,” al-Hassan is heard saying. “And I have dangerous intelligence information.”
It has been a year since a lightning offensive by allied rebel groups, led by current President Ahmed al-Sharaa, ended the Assad dynasty’s 54-year reign, forcing Bashar al-Assad into Russian exile.
Yet, as the regime collapsed, Israel seized on the instability by significantly escalating its military campaign in Syria, targeting much of its neighbour’s military infrastructure, including main airports, air defence systems, fighter planes, and other strategic facilities, as well as occupying more of Syria’s Golan Heights, and bombing the capital, Damascus, in July.
Over the past year, Israel has launched more than 600 air, drone or artillery attacks across Syria, averaging nearly two a day, according to a tally by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED).
‘The feeling of the coast’
The recordings also feature Ghiath Dalla, a former brigadier-general in al-Assad’s forces, who appears to validate al-Hassan’s position as a representative of the regime’s traditional strongholds.
“My Master, Suheil the Tiger, spoke the feeling of the whole mountain and the whole coast,” Dalla is heard saying, referring to the coastal and mountainous regions that were long considered the heartland of support for the al-Assad family.
The leaked conversations also capture al-Hassan expressing disdain for current developments, referred to as “the flood”.
“Our prayers for you all are that this foolishness, this evil, and this blackness called the flood ends,” al-Hassan says in the recording.
Investigation to air
The full extent of the plot will be detailed in the upcoming episode of The Investigator, hosted by Jamal el-Maliki.
Parts of the leaks are airing on Al Jazeera’s platforms on Wednesday, with the complete investigation scheduled for release in mid-January.
The Bella 1 tanker has reportedly avoided capture. (MarineTraffic)
Caracas, December 23, 2025 (venezuelanalysis.com) – US President Donald Trump made new regime change threats against Venezuela and President Nicolás Maduro.
In a Monday press conference, Trump answered “probably” when asked if Washington intended to oust the Venezuelan leader but said it was up to Maduro to leave power.
“That’s up to him what he wants to do. I think it’d be smart for him to do that. But again, we’re gonna find out,” the US president told reporters in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.
Trump went on to warn the Venezuelan president not to “play tough.” “If he plays tough, it’ll be the last time he’s ever able to play tough,” he said.
The US president also said that land strikes against alleged drug cartels would start soon. He has issued such a threat on repeated occasions since September. He likewise repeated past unfounded claims that Venezuela sent “millions of people” to the US, many of them prisoners and mental patients.
Trump’s escalated rhetoric against Caracas followed ramped-up efforts to enforce a naval blockade and paralyze Venezuelan oil exports. On Saturday, the US Coast Guard boarded and seized the Centuries tanker east of Barbados in the Caribbean Sea.
The Panama-flagged ship had recently loaded a reported 1.8 million barrels of Merey crude at José terminal in eastern Venezuela for delivery in China. According to maritime vessel sources, the tanker is owned by a Hong Kong company and had transported Venezuelan oil several times in recent years.
The takeover operation was led by the US Coast Guard, with White House officials sharing footage of the boarding on social media.
The Centuries’ seizure followed a similar operation targeting the Skipper tanker on December 10. However, unlike the Skipper, the Centuries was not blacklisted by the US Treasury Department.
US officials referred to the tanker as transporting “sanctioned oil.” Analysts argued that the ambiguous definition is meant to allow US authorities to go after any vessel moving Venezuelan crude in an effort to drive shipping companies away from the Caribbean nation’s oil sector.
The White House’s threats and vessel seizures have already led several tankers to reverse course while en route to Venezuela, with customers reportedly demanding greater oil discounts in Venezuelan crude purchases. The South American oil industry might soon be forced to cut back production if it runs out of storage space.
On Sunday, US forces attempted to board a third tanker, the Guyana-flagged Bella 1 that was headed to Venezuela to load oil. However, the ship’s captain allegedly refused to allow the US Coast Guard’s boarding and turned the vessel back toward the Atlantic Ocean. According to reports, US forces continue to pursue the Bella 1.
Trump announced a naval blockade while demanding that Venezuela return “oil, land and other assets” that were “stolen,” in reference to nationalizations in past decades. Foreign corporations that saw their assets expropriated either agreed to compensation or pursued international arbitration.
The tanker seizures, alongside renewed sanctions targeting the Venezuelan oil industry, came amid a massive US military deployment in the Caribbean on the edge of Venezuelan territory. The build-up was originally declared as an anti-narcotics mission before Washington shifted the discourse toward oil and regime-change.
China and Russia express support
The Venezuelan government has condemned the US military threats and attacks against the oil industry. In a communique issued on Saturday, Caracas decried the second tanker seizure as a “serious act of piracy” and vowed to denounce it before multilateral bodies.
In recent days, the Maduro government received backing from China and Russia, two of its most important allies.
In a Monday press conference, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian criticized the tanker seizures as violations of international law and stated Beijing’s opposition to “unilateral and illegal actions.” The official urged a response from the international community.
Likewise on Monday, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil held a phone call with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. According to Gil, Moscow’s top diplomat reiterated support for Venezuela in the face of “US hostilities.”
The UN Security Council is scheduled to meet on Tuesday afternoon at Venezuela’s request to address the most recent US escalations.
“Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is in good health,” a statement posted on the military-run Myanmar Digital News said on Tuesday, using an honorific for the country’s leader.
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The military, which offered no evidence or details about Aung San Suu Kyi’s condition, issued the statement one day after her son, Kim Aris, told the Reuters news agency that he had received little information about the 80-year-old’s condition and fears she could die without him knowing.
“The military claims she is in good health, yet they refuse to provide any independent proof, no recent photograph, no medical verification, and no access by family, doctors, or international observers,” Aris told Reuters on Wednesday in response to the military’s statement.
“If she is truly well, they can prove it,” he said.
A Myanmar regime spokesman did not respond to calls seeking comment.
Interviewed in October, Aris told the Asia Times news organisation that he believed his mother, who has not been seen for at least two years, was being held in solitary confinement in a prison in the capital Naypyidaw and “not even the other prisoners have seen her”.
Aung San Suu Kyi was detained after the 2021 military coup that toppled her elected civilian government from power, and she is now serving a 27-year prison sentence on charges that are widely believed to be trumped-up, including incitement, corruption and election fraud – all of which she denies.
Aris also said the military was “fond of spreading rumours” about his mother’s health in detention.
“They have said she is being held under house arrest, but there is no evidence of that at all. At other times, they said she has had a stroke and even that she has died,” he told Asia Times.
“It’s obviously hard to deal with all this false information,” he said.
While fighting rages across the country, Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), Myanmar’s largest political party, remains dissolved, and several anti-military political groups are boycotting the polls.
On Wednesday, the military said it was pursuing prosecutions of more than 200 people under a law forbidding “disruption” of the election, legislation that rights monitors have said aims to crush dissent.
“A total of 229 people” are being pursued for prosecution “for attempting to sabotage election processes”, the military regime’s Home Affairs Minister Tun Tun Naung said, according to state media.
Convictions under election laws in Myanmar’s courts can result in up to a decade in prison, and authorities have made arrests for as little as posting a “heart” emoji on Facebook posts criticising the polls.
The legislation also outlaws damaging ballot papers and polling stations – as well as intimidating or harming voters, candidates and election workers, with a maximum punishment of 20 years in prison.
