Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Thursday stood defiant in the face of a US$15 million bounty issued by the US for him to face drug trafficking charges, calling US President Donald Trump a “racist cowboy,” and warning that he is ready to fight by whatever means necessary should the US and Colombia dare to invade.
Maduro’s bellicose remarks came hours after the US announced sweeping indictments against him and several members of his inner circle, for allegedly converting Venezuela into a criminal enterprise at the service of drug traffickers and terrorist groups.
One indictment by prosecutors in New York accused Maduro and Venezuela Constituent Assembly President Diosdado Cabello of conspiring with Colombian rebels and members of the military “to flood the United States with cocaine,” and use the drug trade as a “weapon against America.”
Photo: AFP / Venezuelan Presidency / Jhonn Zerpa
The charges are politically motivated, Maduro said, adding that they ignore Colombia’s role as the main source of the world’s cocaine, and his own role in facilitating peace talks between the Colombian government and that nation’s rebels over the past decade.
“Donald Trump, you are a miserable human being,” Maduro said during a televised address. “You manage international relations like the New York mafia extortion artist you once were as a real-estate boss.”
What was some of Maduro’s most venomous rhetoric against Trump also came with a threat of military force.
“If one day the imperialists and Colombian oligarchy dare to touch even a single hair, they will face the Bolivarian fury of an entire nation that will wipe them all out,” he said.
Earlier, Venezuela’s head prosecutor opened an investigation into opposition leader and National Assembly President Juan Guaido for allegedly plotting a coup with retired army general Cliver Alcala, who after being named in the US indictments said that he had stockpiled assault weapons in Colombia for a cross-border incursion.
Without offering evidence, Maduro said that the US Drug Enforcement Administration was behind a plan by Alcala to assassinate him and other political leaders.
The indictment of a functioning head of state is highly unusual and is likely to ratchet up tensions with Washington as the spread of COVID-19 threatens to collapse Venezuela’s shortage-plagued healthcare system.
Maduro has ordered people to stay home in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus, which officials say has infected 107 people and claimed its first death on Thursday.
Criminal acts to advance a drug and weapons conspiracy that date back to the start of former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez’s revolution in 1999 occurred as far afield as Syria, Mexico, Honduras and Iran, the indictment alleges.
US Attorney General William Barr estimated that the conspiracy helped smuggle as much as 250 tonnes of cocaine a year out of South America.
“The Maduro regime is awash in corruption and criminality,” Barr said at an online news conference in Washington. “While the Venezuelan people suffer, this cabal lines their pockets with drug money, and the proceeds of their corruption, and this has to come to an end.”
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique