While affirming that the right to present a defense is “paramount,” the judge refused to dismiss the case — for now. U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein refused to dismiss drug trafficking charges against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores on March 26, even though the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control… Read more »
The Supreme Court struck down Trump’s threatened tariffs on countries that send oil to Cuba, but the crisis persists. In accordance with Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s long-standing vendetta against Cuba, Donald Trump issued an executive order on January 29 aimed at tightening the U.S. noose around Cuba’s neck. Trump’s order preposterously declared Cuba “an unusual and extraordinary threat,”… Read more »
Forcible regime change and US occupation of Venezuela are also unlawful under the UN Charter. The Trump administration’s massive military attack on Venezuela, launched with 150 aircraft, reportedly killed upwards of 80 people, including civilians. In utter defiance of the mandates of the United Nations Charter, U.S. forces launched the attack as they kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolás… Read more »
US armed forces’ seizure of the oil tanker constituted an unlawful use of force in violation of the UN Charter. “We have just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela — a large tanker, very large, the largest one ever seized actually,” Donald Trump told reporters on December 10, describing the escalation of his apparently impending illegal… Read more »
Former Philippine President Duterte awaits trial in the ICC for using the pretext of a drug war for his murder campaign. Trump should also be charged with a crime against humanity. Public outrage is mounting over the Trump administration’s September 2 “double tap” strike, in which the U.S. military bombed a small boat for a… Read more »
The Trump administration’s murderous strikes on small boats at sea constitute unlawful extrajudicial killings. As the Trump administration continues to murder people in small boats on the high seas and mounts the largest U.S. military buildup in decades in the Caribbean, it is moving inexorably toward an all-out, illegal attack and forcible regime change in… Read more »
As the entire world grapples with the most devastating pandemic of the modern era, the United States is pouring kerosene on the fire in Iran and Venezuela. The U.S. government has maintained punishing sanctions against the people of Iran and Venezuela to engineer regime change. But instead of ending the sanctions to help Iranians and… Read more »
On February 28, federal prosecutors will announce whether they plan to retry four people who spent 37 days in the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, D.C., in the spring of 2019 to protect it from an illegal invasion by the U.S. government. The first trial of Adrienne Pine, Margaret Flowers, Kevin Zeese and David Paul, who were charged with “interfering… Read more »
Escalating his policy to economically strangle Cuba, Donald Trump has imposed new restrictions on travel to Cuba by U.S. persons. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) will no longer allow the popular “people-to-people” educational travel and they will deny licenses to cruise ships, the most common way people visit Cuba.
On May 16, law enforcement agents broke into the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, D.C., and arrested the four remaining members of the Embassy Protection Collective. “We denounce these arrests, as the people inside were there with our permission, and we consider it a violation of the Vienna Conventions,” Venezuelan Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Ron said. For 36 days,… Read more »