#dictator-remark

#dictator-remark

Official data reveals a significant discrepancy: while intelligence reports identified 58,270 gang members and collaborators at large, authorities have arrested 91,628 people, meaning over 33,000 were not previously listed as gang members.

Guterres stressed that this assault is not coming from the shadows or by surprise. It is happening in plain sight and often led by those who hold the greatest power. He did not mention specific situations although he did voice outrage at Russia's war in Ukraine, where he said more than 15,000 civilians had been killed in four years of violence. It is more than past time to end the bloodshed, he said.

More than 600 people may be in custody for political reasons, one Venezuelan rights group estimates. Venezuela's acting president has signed into law an amnesty bill that could see hundreds of politicians, activists and lawyers released soon, while tacitly acknowledging what the country has denied for years that it has political detainees in jail. The law, signed on Thursday, in effect reverses decades of denials.

The superseding indictment alleges that Maduro and other top Venezuelan public officials have, for the past two decades, worked closely with international drug trafficking organizations to ship illicit drugs into the US while enriching themselves. The validity of the US complaint against Maduro and wife Cilia Flores is likely to be challenged in federal court in the New York on Monday over whether, as a foreign head of state, he can be put on trial in the US.

Nicolás Maduro wasn't due to arrive at his arraignment yesterday in downtown Manhattan until noon, but a large crowd had already formed outside the federal courthouse by 9 a.m. Actually, two crowds. One had come to tell Donald Trump to keep his hands off Venezuela. The other, which seemed largely Venezuelan, had come to celebrate. Maduro was, until Saturday, a widely hated ruler. His last election campaign consisted of threatening his people with a "bloodbath" if he lost.