President Trump shared a video on Truth Social showing Nicolás Maduro saying: “Come get me. I’m waiting for you. Don’t delay.”
Trump, while speaking about the capture of Maduro, said Mexico is being run by drug cartels rather than President Sheinbaum, adding that "something’s going to have to be done with Mexico."
To understand the scale and reasons behind Nicolás Maduro’s arrest, many say it is enough to listen to the voices of the Venezuelan people themselves.
When Spain began blocking Israeli products imported from the West Bank, Golan Heights and East Jerusalem this week, it officially kicked off what may be the largest state-level embargo of products and services from the Jewish state since the Arab League boycott launched around the time of Israel’s inception.
While the ban on those products, and other measures that took effect on December 30, are not expected to significantly impact Israel’s economy or its $850 million in annual exports to Spain, they give a “symbolic message” that may encourage other countries to pursue similar trade boycotts with the Jewish state in the future, according to Maya Sion-Tzidkiyahu, director of the Israel – Europe Relations Program at the Mitvim Institute and a lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s European Forum.
“When a country of considerable size like Spain advances a move like this, it gives backing to smaller states to follow,” she said.
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| Colombian President Gustavo Petro speaks through a megaphone at an anti-Israel rally in New York, September 26, 2025 |
US President Donald Trump says that his Colombian counterpart Gustavo Petro — with whom he has sparred in recent months — should “watch his ass” after the US military operation to seize Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.
“He’s making cocaine and they’re sending it into the United States, so he does have to watch his ass,” Trump tells a press conference.
Petro described Washington’s actions as an “assault on the sovereignty” of Latin America and said they would result in a humanitarian crisis.
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| Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro onboard the USS Iwo Jima after the US military captured him on January 3, 2026 |
“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump tells a press conference, adding that US forces were ready to conduct a second, “much bigger” wave of strikes if necessary.
Trump adds that the US military caused a blackout in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, so it could carry out the operation.
“It was dark. The lights of Caracas were largely turned off due to a certain expertise that we have,” Trump says.
He also says he will now allow American oil companies to head into Venezuela to tap its massive crude reserves.
“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country,” Trump says.
This was how they succeeded in crushing the 2009 Green Revolution, which resulted in thousands of Iranian demonstrators being killed and tortured; this ended the most serious popular revolt the Islamic Republic had faced since the 1979 Iranian revolution
.More recently similar tactics were applied after nationwide protests erupted in 2022, after a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman died in police custody after she was arrested for the relatively innocuous offence of not wearing a hijab. Hundreds of people lost their lives – including a number of children – as the Iranian authorities moved quickly to end the dissent.
And, judging by the regime’s response to the latest outbreak of anti-government protests, the ayatollahs are attempting to use the same tactics to reassert their authority, with reports already emerging of several fatalities across the country.
The crucial difference is that, this time, the regime’s ability to defend itself has been seriously compromised by the inherent weakness of the position it finds itself in.
“Why is it that whenever I speak with you about any topic in Torah, the conversation always seems to circle back to something connected to the holiness of the Land of Israel? It seems that you are always speaking about the Land of Israel!”
Rav Kook replied:
“Whenever I open a Chumash to study Torah, I see that Hashem is speaking about the Land. The Torah begins with the promise of the Land to the forefathers. It continues by assigning Moshe the task of bringing the Jewish people to the Land. It lays out a multitude of laws—agriculture, Temple service, and more—that are all dependent on the Land. Moshe ends his life praying to enter the Land. If Hashem is always speaking about the Land, it seems only proper that I should do the same."
This story comes vividly to life in Rav Kook’s teachings on character development.
When addressing the trait of ga’ava (arrogance) in Midot HaRa’aya, Rav Kook teaches, in a striking and perhaps surprising way, that overcoming arrogance is directly related to a Jew’s relationship with the Land of Israel.
He writes: “Whoever bestirs himself to purge his heart of pride will make himself worthy of loving Eretz Yisrael.” (Midot HaRa’aya, Ga’ava, piska 12)
All week, Iranians have been mounting massive and widespread street protests. Triggered by ruinous increases in the cost of living and acute water shortages, they quickly became an insurrection against the Tehran regime, with protesters chanting for the return of the Shah.
These demonstrations have been far more consequential than previous such revolts. They started among the businessmen of the bazaars-the same kind of people who had helped depose the Shah and brought the Islamic revolutionary regime to power in 1979.
Even more remarkably, a number of bases for the fearsome Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij militia reportedly fell into the hands of protesters, with one Basij operative killed after demonstrators threw stones in Kuhdasht, a city in western Iran.
At time of writing, this insurrection is still escalating. Although at least four protesters have been killed, the feared bloodbath by security forces hasn’t yet materialized. Instead there have been unconfirmed reports that some have refused to fire on protesters, forcing the regime to call in Arab reinforcements; that other security forces have run away; and even that the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has fled Tehran.
Maybe this revolt will fizzle out under ferocious reprisals, as all previous ones have done. But maybe, this time it will succeed in toppling the regime; it’s the closest the people have ever come to doing so. If they succeed, this would have a seismic impact far beyond Iran. It would transform and reshape global politics immeasurably for the better by removing a malevolent force devoted to the annihilation of Israel, the destruction of America and the conquest of the West.
The protests are therefore of immense significance. Yet astonishingly, the West has been all but silent. There have been no demonstrations in its streets chanting “Free, free Iran!” or “Death, death to the IRGC!”
For most of the week, the mainstream media simply ignored these tumultuous developments. When some reports were finally cranked out, they were minimal and seriously downplayed what was happening.
The Trump administration and Israeli government have expressed support for the protesters. But from the governments of the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, which have consistently sniped at Israel over its battle to neutralize Iran’s genocidal agenda, there’s been a conspicuous silence.
One might think these governments would be desperate to see the back of the world’s most lethal terrorist regime. Israel has taken another step against it by recognizing the independence of Somaliland. This puts the Jewish state into a far better position to deal with the Houthis in Yemen, through whom Iran launders its war against Israel and the West.
Instead the British government, which rushed to recognize the fantasy state of “Palestine,” has refused to recognize Somaliland and reaffirmed its support for Somalia’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Somaliland was a British Protectorate until June 26, 1960, when it achieved independence and received recognition from 35 countries. Five days later, it merged with Italian Somaliland to form Somalia, which disintegrated into warlordism and chaos. In 1991, Somaliland reclaimed its sovereignty and has governed itself in a peaceful and democratic manner ever since.
So Britain refuses to recognize Somaliland, which meets every criterion set out under the Montevideo Convention for international recognition of a state-a settled population, defined territory, functioning government and capacity to enter foreign relations-but instead recognizes a non-existent Arab state of Palestine that meets none of those criteria and doesn’t exist.
At every juncture, the British government is lining up with the enemies of civilization and the West, centered around its malice towards Israel.
This week, Britain added its voice to a statement on Gaza from the foreign ministers of Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Japan, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland to express “serious concerns about the renewed deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Gaza, which remains catastrophic.”
Although it grudgingly acknowledged “some improvement since the dire reports of famine in August,” it failed to note that there never had been any famine and no prospect of one, and that the constant claim by the United Nations and its agencies that it was imminent had been a lie.
Worse, the statement complained that “many established international NGO partners are at risk of being deregistered because of the government of Israel’s restrictive new requirements” which would have “a severe impact on access to essential services, including health care.”
But COGAT, Israel’s agency overseeing aid in Gaza, has said that only 37 NGOs have been suspended. These had provided less than 1% of total aid in the past and have brought in no aid during the current ceasefire. And the reason for their suspension is that they have had 10 months to comply with checks to show they have no links to Hamas or other terrorist activity, but have refused to do so.
Like the governments of Canada and Australia, Britain has been systematically peddling the lies generated by Iran-backed Hamas that defame and delegitimize Israel.
These blood libels have fueled the murderous hysteria about Israel and the Jews among their own populations, with the terrible consequences of two Jews killed in Britain in the Yom Kippur terrorist attack on a Manchester synagogue, and the Hanukkah pogrom on Bondi Beach, Australia, in which 15 Jews were massacred.
The refusal by the British government to acknowledge the threat posed by the Islamic world has created its latest debacle. It said it was “delighted” to welcome to Britain an Egyptian dissident, Alaa Abd el Fattah, who had been repeatedly jailed in Egypt for opposing its regime and whose release had been a “top priority” for the Starmer government.
Within a few hours of Fattah’s arrival, however, he was revealed to have tweeted, between 2010 and 2012, a torrent of horrific statements including calls to kill all Zionists and the “random shooting of white males,” hatred of white people and Europeans, and a videoed call in Arabic for the mass slaughter of Jews with the Islamic battle cry: Kaybar, kaybar, ya yahud!
Astoundingly, he had been granted British citizenship in 2021 by the previous Conservative government, even though this was clearly a ruse by his supporters to enlist the British state in pressing Egypt to release him.
The sheep-like Conservatives had gone along with the huge campaign to get him freed from jail in Egypt, mounted by the same kind of people who have been silent about the unimaginably brave people of Iran.
If actions speak louder than words, then Mayor Zohran Mamdani gave New Yorkers an earful by smirkingly revoking nine of his predecessor’s executive orders, a third of them touching on antisemitism.
It sure looks like the other six got nixed simply to camouflage that fact.
Mamdani’s office said that the cancelled orders work “against the interests of working-class people,” and he said he was “proud” to cancel them.
That’s a funny way to describe a condemnation of Jew-hatred: One order tossed in the dustbin was a “working definition” of antisemitism that condemns “hatred toward Jews” directed against Jews, non-Jews and “Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
Lefties don’t like this definition — formulated by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance — because they say it can be interpreted as including anti-Zionist agitation as antisemitic, though it doesn’t even say Israel.
The IHRA definition is good enough for all the European Union nations, 35 US states and the State Department. But Mamdani apparently finds it too restrictive for his brand of tolerance.
The mayor also cancelled an order banning city agencies from boycotting Israel or divesting from Israeli investments for no good reason except discrimination against Israel: This clears the way for Mamdani, a lifelong fanatic about boycotting and sanctioning Israel, to cleanse the city’s supply chain of any Israeli connections.
Most ominously, Mamdani revoked an order instructing the NYPD to “evaluate” conditions for protests outside houses of worship.
Mayor Eric Adams issued this order following an ugly demonstration outside a Manhattan synagogue in November, when screaming protesters were permitted to directly confront worshippers, contrary to established police practice.
Mamdani insisted Tuesday that he will actually fight antisemitism more effectively by “funding hate crime prevention, by celebrating our neighbors, and by practicing a politics of universality.”
The “politics of universality” sound nice, but what does that have to do with people who target Jews for their particularity?
Again, more fine-sounding bloviation that amounts to: “Trust me.”
Trust him even though the new City Hall team also scrubbed multiple past anti-antisemitism posts off the mayoral X account — again with camouflage to make it seem like mere coincidence.
It’s not just Jews who should worry here, but all their neighbors across the city: With this civil-rights rollback and promotion of chaos and hate, Mamdani is winking at the fanatics in his base — the ones who wave Hamas headbands and exult in Hamas rocket attacks — letting them know that his heart is with them.
Mamdani may put a happy face on his despicable moves (that’s his specialty), but the implications of his speech are ugly as sin.
US President Donald Trump on Saturday announced that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who has been in power since 2013, was captured after a largescale US strike on Venezuela's capital city of Caracas.
Sources told CNN that Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were dragged from their bedroom by elite US forces during the raid.
"The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement. Details to follow. There will be a News Conference today at 11 A.M., at Mar-a-Lago. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP."
US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau responded, "A new dawn for Venezuela! 🙏 The tyrant is gone. He will now-finally-face justice for his crimes."
Trump later published a photo of Maduro.
Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, who is now expected to fill Maduro's role, is reportedly in Russia, four sources familiar with her movements told Reuters. The site said that her brother Jorge Rodriguez, who heads Venezuela's national assembly, is in Caracas.
Delcy Rodriguez told state television that the country does not know where Maduro is being held, and demanded that Trump provide proof that he and his wife are still alive.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar praised Trump's actions, saying, "Israel commends the United States’ operation, led by President Trump, which acted as the leader of the free world."
"At this historic moment, Israel stands alongside the freedom-loving Venezuelan people, who have suffered under Maduro’s illegal tyranny.
"Israel welcomes the removal of the dictator who led a network of drugs and terror and hopes for the return of democracy to the country and for friendly relations between the states. The people of Venezuela deserve to exercise their democratic rights. South America deserves a future free from the axis of terror and drugs."
Anti-regime demonstrators in Ardabil, northwest Iran, have torn down a newly unveiled statue of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, only days after it was installed, a fresh sign of escalating public defiance against the regime.
Iran Regime Floods Cities With Missile-Strike Billboards After Rising Lion, Trying to Quiet Public Anger Over War Failures
“If you shoot and kill protesters, America will come to their aid.
We are locked and loaded.”
