Venezuela | Pakistan

US President Donald Trump confirmed on Wednesday that he authorised the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to conduct covert operations in Venezuela, marking a sharp escalation in US efforts to pressure President Nicolas Maduro’s government. The New York Times first reported the classified directive, citing US officials familiar with the decision, saying the Trump administration’s Venezuela strategy aims to remove Maduro from power. The administration has offered $50 million for information leading to Maduro’s arrest and conviction on drug trafficking charges. The new authority would allow the CIA to carry out lethal operations in Venezuela and conduct a range of operations in the Caribbean, the Times reported. Asked why he authorised the CIA to operate in Venezuela, Trump told reporters his reasons were migration of Venezuelans to the United States and drug trafficking. “I authorised for two reasons really,” Trump said. “Number one, they have emptied their prisons into the United States of America…they came i...

Venezuela opposition leader Maria Corina Machado received the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. The committee chose to focus on Venezuela at this time, in a year dominated by US President Donald Trump’s repeated public statements that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Machado was on this year’s TIME Magazine “100 most influential People” list, where current US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said she was the “personification of resilience, tenacity, and patriotism”. “She is receiving the prize for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy,” said Jorgen Watne Frydnes, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo. “As the leader of the democratic forces in the Venezuela, she is one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent times,” he said. He said that Machado had been a “key unifying figure in a political opposition that was once deeply divided; ...