Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodríguez has announced a commission to seek the release of Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. Rodríguez tapped her brother Jorge, president of the National Assembly, and Foreign Minister Yvan Gil to co-chair the commission. Information Minister Freddy Nanez will also be on the commission, according to the announcement.
Russia’s defence ministry claimed that Ukraine has targeted Moscow with drones every day of 2026 so far, in what would mark an escalation from earlier, more sporadic attacks on the Russian capital. By midnight on Sunday alone, Russian air defence systems had destroyed 57 drones over the Moscow region out of 437 downed over Russia, the ministry said. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine, but Kyiv has increasingly used long range drones to strike targets deep inside Russia. Ukraine says such attacks aim to disrupt military logistics and energy infrastructure, raise costs for Moscow’s war effort and respond to repeated Russian missile and drone attacks in the war that Russia launched nearly four years ago. Three out of four of Moscow’s airports shut to air traffic on Sunday after Ukraine launched dozens of drones, authorities said. The attacks led to multiple flight delays, including at Moscow’s second-busiest airport of Vnukovo, Russian media reported. The disruption comes during Russia’s extended New Year and Orthodox Christmas break, when many Russians take vacations and travel domestically and abroad, making it one of the country’s busiest periods for transport and tourism. Two people were killed in Ukrainian drone strikes in Russian border regions, local officials said on Sunday. Belgorod’s governor said one person died and two others, including a young child, were wounded when a Ukrainian drone struck a car. Another person was killed in a drone strike on a village in the Kursk region, the region’s governor said. Russia launched overnight strikes on Kyiv province killed two people, Ukrainian authorities said Monday, after a countrywide air alert was issued. One person was killed in the capital, according to Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the city’s military administration. And in the neighbouring city of Fastiv, a man in his 70s also died, Mykola Kalashnyk, the Kyiv regional governor, said. In Ukraine, three people were wounded in the Kharkiv region in drone strikes from Saturday into Sunday, the country’s state emergency service said. Meanwhile, the death toll from a Russian missile attack on the city of Kharkiv on Friday increased to five when body parts were found under the rubble of a building, Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov said. A Ukrainian drone attack sparked a fire in an industrial zone in the town of Yelets in Russia’s Lipetsk region, the regional governor said. There were no casualties reported. Yelets is home to the Energiya battery plant, a major producer of batteries and accumulators for Russia’s defence industry, which Ukraine said it has hit in the past.
There was a whirlwind of emotions on the streets of Caracas on Sunday, 24 hours after the first-ever large-scale US attack on South American soil and the extraordinary snaring of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro. “Uncertainty,” said Griselda Guzmán, a 68-year-old pensioner, fighting back tears as she lined up outside a grocery store with her husband to stock up on supplies in case the coming days brought yet more drama. “Anger,” said Sauriany, a 23-year-old administrative worker from Venezuela’s state-owned electricity company as she queued outside a supermarket on the other side of town with her 24-year-old partner, Leandro. Leandro voiced shock as the couple waited in a 100-person queue to buy flour, milk and butter alongside a quartet of nuns. “Who could have imagined that his would happen? That right at the start of the year they’d bomb our country while everyone was asleep?” he asked. “If I thought it would improve the country I’d welcome it,” Leandro added, as shoppers were allowed into the overcrowded supermarket in small groups. “But I don’t believe this will happen. If they wanted peace, this isn’t the way to achieve it.” Similarly confused sentiments could be heard all over Caracas on Sunday as its 3 million citizens came to terms with the traumatic nocturnal blitz on their city – a move the governments of Spain, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay warned set “an extremely dangerous precedent for peace and regional security”. “It’s all so distressing,” said Gabriel Vásquez, a 29-year-old video-maker, recalling how he had been woken by the sound of a “gigantic” explosion at about 2am on Saturday and how his community in central Caracas was plunged into darkness as aircraft circled overhead. “I thought that any time my house could get bombed too,” said Vásquez, whose neighbourhood was still in the dark on Sunday. “We have no water, no electricity, no phone reception – nothing,” he complained. Julio Pimentel, a 33-year-old designer, said his electricity and water supplies had also been cut but admitted he had been surprised by the number of people out on the streets “considering the situation we’re in”. “Supermarkets and pharmacies are very, very crowded,” Pimentel said. There was scant sign of citizens celebrating Maduro’s downfall, something locals attributed to fear that his regime – which remains in power despite his arrest – might crack down and a deep-rooted sense that little had actually changed as a result of the US intervention. On Sunday, the head of the armed forces, Vladimir Padrino López, announced that military chiefs had recognised the vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez, as Venezuela’s acting president after the “cowardly kidnapping” of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Trump has also indicated he is prepared to deal with Rodríguez. “She’s essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again,” he said after Saturday’s assault. “They’ve taken Maduro but the [Bolivarian] revolution isn’t over,” said Griselda Guzmán’s 71-year-old husband, Antonio, who like his wife, asked not to be identified with their real names. “We’re still in the same situation – they’ve just removed a pawn from the game of chess.” But many locals were quietly rejoicing at the demise of a politician who many loathe for leading their oil-rich country into years of ruin and repression since he took power in 2013 and is widely believed to have stolen the 2024 presidential election. “We all get what we deserve. Maduro is a man who never put his hand on his heart to see the hardships of his country, to see his people going hungry,” said Griselda Guzmán, recalling the satisfying moment she had seen images of the dethroned dictator languishing in US custody. “When I saw him like that – handcuffed – I saw him for what he was: the biggest fool on Earth.” Guzmán said she believed Maduro had had “the opportunity of a lifetime” to leave power voluntarily after the 2024 vote, which independently verified voting data showed he had lost to the political movement led by the Nobel laureate María Corina Machado. “He could have handed over the presidency because he knew he hadn’t won,” she said. But instead Maduro chose to cling to power – and now he was behind bars in New York facing decades in a US jail. Her husband attributed the lack of public commemorations within Venezuela to a widespread belief that Saturday’s bombardment was merely the beginning of the latest rollercoaster chapter in Venezuela’s turbulent recent history. “Nothing has happened yet … this only started yesterday,” he predicted. Others were outraged by their president’s abduction and Trump’s decision to invade, a move many experts believe represents a flagrant violation of international law. “OK, there are problems – but they are Venezuelan problems and Venezuelans need to solve them,” said Sauriany. “They [the US] aren’t Venezuela’s owners. He [Trump] can’t just come along and say … he’s going to rule Venezuela because he’s removed Maduro.” Sauriany believed Rodríguez should be allowed to “carry on Maduro’s legacy” for the remainder of his six-year term, a prospect that appalls Venezuela’s opposition but seemed to become more likely after Trump’s comments on Saturday. In the weeks before Trump’s invasion, diplomats and experts warned that such an attack could plunge Venezuela and the surrounding region into chaos or conflict. But on Sunday there was no immediate sign of violence erupting in the wake of Maduro’s toppling, or of a dangerous split in the military, but regional governments are on edge. Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, ordered 30,000 troops to its border with Venezuela to guard against possible turmoil. Armoured personnel carriers took up position at the border crossing between the two countries in the city of Cúcuta. The Colombo-Venezuelan rebel army, the National Liberation Army, condemned what it called Trump’s “imperial” onslaught, vowing to “confront” the attack on Venezuelan sovereignty. As he waited to stockpile food on Sunday, Antonio Guzmán said there was little caraqueños could now do but wait: “We still don’t know what is really going on.”
Denmark’s prime minister has urged Donald Trump to stop threatening to take over Greenland after the president said the US “absolutely” needs the territory. Mette Frederiksen said on Sunday: “It makes absolutely no sense to talk about the US needing to take over Greenland. The US has no right to annex any of the three countries in the Danish kingdom.” The US bombardment of Venezuela and the capture of its president, Nicolás Maduro, has renewed fears of an American takeover of Greenland, as members of Trump’s Maga movement gleefully set their sights on the Danish territory after the attack in South America. Speaking aboard Air Force One on Sunday hours after Frederiksen’s remarks, Trump doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the United States. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” Trump told reporters said when asked about the issue. Hours after the US military operation in Venezuela, the rightwing podcaster Katie Miller – the wife of Stephen Miller, Donald Trump’s powerful deputy chief of staff for policy – posted on X a map of Greenland draped in the stars and stripes with the caption: “SOON.” Miller’s threat to annex the mineral-rich territory, which is part of the Nato alliance, drew outrage from Denmark and Greenland. Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, called the post “disrespectful”. “Relations between nations and peoples are built on mutual respect and international law – not on symbolic gestures that disregard our status and our rights,” he wrote on X. But he also said: “There is neither reason for panic nor for concern. Our country is not for sale, and our future is not decided by social media posts.” Copenhagen’s ambassador to the US, Jesper Møller Sørensen, reposted Miller’s provocation with a “friendly reminder” of the longstanding defence ties between the two countries. “We are close allies and should continue to work together as such. US security is also Greenland’s and Denmark’s security,” he said. “The Kingdom of Denmark and the United States work together to ensure security in the Arctic.” He said Denmark had increased defence spending in 2025, committing $13.7bn (£10.2bn) “that can be used in the Arctic and North Atlantic. Because we take our joint security seriously.” He added: “And yes, we expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark.” Trump recently named Jeff Landry, the governor of Louisiana, as a special envoy to Greenland. Landry, a former state attorney general, thanked Trump for his appointment in December, saying it was “an honour to serve you in this volunteer position to make Greenland a part of the US”. On Saturday, Landry welcomed Trump’s toppling of Maduro by force. “Having served as a sheriff’s deputy and AG, I have seen the devastating effects of illegal drugs on American families. With over 100k opioid-related deaths annually, I am grateful to see a President finally take real action in the war on drugs,” he posted on X. “Thank you @realDonaldTrump for holding individuals like Maduro accountable.” Since taking office a year ago, Trump has rattled European allies with his stated designs on Greenland, which is seen as strategically important for defence and as a future source of mineral wealth. It is home to the US’s most northerly military base, at Pituffik, which Trump’s vice-president, JD Vance, visited in March. The US president has refused to rule out military action to gain control of the territory at a time when the US, China and Russia are jockeying for power in the Arctic, a prospect that has triggered widespread condemnation and disquiet on the island itself. “I don’t rule it out. I don’t say I’m going to do it but I don’t rule out anything. No, not there. We need Greenland very badly,” Trump told the US broadcaster NBC in May when asked about a potential takeover by force. “Greenland is a very small amount of people, which we’ll take care of, and we’ll cherish them, and all of that. But we need that for international security.” In response to a constant drumbeat of threats against the territory, the Danish defence intelligence service last month labelled the US a security risk in a dramatic change in transatlantic relations. The prime ministers of Denmark and Greenland, Mette Frederiksen and Nielsen, said at the time: “We have said it very clearly before. Now we say it again. National borders and the sovereignty of states are rooted in international law … You cannot annex other countries.” The vast majority of Greenland’s 57,000 inhabitants want to become independent from Denmark but have no wish to become part of the US, according to a poll in January. The territory has had the right to declare independence since 2009. Jennifer Kavanagh, the director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, a thinktank that advocates restraint in US foreign policy, said she had long dismissed Trump’s sabre-rattling toward Greenland. “Now I’m not so sure,” she said. “It wouldn’t be that hard for the US to put a couple hundred or a couple thousand troops inside of Greenland, and it’s not clear to me who could do anything about it.” Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.
At the Simón Bolívar International Bridge, which spans the Táchira River, foot and vehicle traffic flowed as normal through the main border crossing between Venezuela and Colombia. But a day after the extraordinary US capture and rendition of Venezuela’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, there was an air of uncertainty over what comes next. On the Venezuelan side of the bridge, a member of the Bolivarian national guard said that his instructions from the military top brass had not changed. “It’s a bit tense but we have been given no new orders,” he said. Donald Trump said on Saturday that the US would now “run” the country for an indeterminate period of transition, but such claims seemed not to have filtered down to this corner of the country, 640km (400 miles) from Caracas. “Whoever governs us has to be a Venezuelan,” said the man. In a sign that Venezuelan authorities are also on edge, his commanding officer angrily cut short the conversation and tore a page from a reporter’s notebook before suggesting that she return to the Colombian side. “Things are complicated,” he said. That sentiment applies in Colombia too, where the leftwing president, Gustavo Petro, called the US action an “assault on the sovereignty” of Latin America, which would lead to a humanitarian crisis. Over the past 15 years, more than 2 million Venezuelans have fled hunger, political repression and economic crisis at home to seek refuge in the neighbouring country, and the prospect of further destabilisation has worried Colombian leaders. Petro’s criticism of the US campaign against Venezuela, and its targeting of small boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, has infuriated Trump who on Saturday said that the Colombian leader should “watch his ass”. On Sunday, Colombia’s defence minister, Pedro Sánchez, said at a security meeting that the president’s security detail had been reinforced. “Security has been increased around him,” he said, adding that the military is “intent on protecting not just our sovereignty but also the democratic structure that voters have elected”. He said that the main threat along the more than 2,200km-long border with Venezuela were organised crime factions and rebel groups such as Tren de Aragua and the National Liberation Army (ELN), which are present in both countries. In a statement on Sunday, the ELN sharply criticised the detention of Maduro, saying that “once again, American imperialism attacks the national sovereignty of countries in Our America and the world”. The 6,000-strong guerrilla army, one of Latin America’s most heavily armed groups, straddles the border and has a strong presence inside Venezuela where it is active in eight of the country’s 24 states, expanding its finances, territorial control and political influence. While nominally a leftwing insurgency, analysts describe its presence in Venezuela as more a paramilitary force that acts in support of the Maduro government. At the security meeting, Sánchez said contingency plans had been put in place in case of a humanitarian emergency. As part of that plan, early on Sunday a team of volunteers with the Colombian Red Cross set up a tarpaulin under some trees at the border, with an ambulance parked to the side. Pedro Casanova, one of the team, said it was a preventive measure in case of a large outflow of Venezuelans if violence breaks out, though he was quick to add that they have had no indication of any large-scale movements. “The worst case scenario is that 120,000 people could cross,” he said. Reporting inside Venezuela is severely restricted. Authorities have declined visas for foreign journalists to enter the country, and at least 21 Venezuelan reporters were arrested in the first 11 months of 2025 and face charges of treason or terrorism for their work, according to the National Association of Journalists. Nubiola Fanco, 60, who crossed into Colombia early on Sunday morning to restock her general store said there was a tense calm on the Venezuelan side. “People cleaned out the whole store yesterday,” after Maduro’s arrest, she said as she piled her shopping cart high with cans of tuna, packs of beans and lentils, cat food and cleaning supplies. “No one knows what could happen next.” Behind her at the register at a discount supermarket, construction worker Oxiel Pérez, 57, was shopping for his extended family in San Antonio where he said many shops were closed after Venezuelans rushed to buy essential goods after the US military action. “Just in case,” he said. Amid lingering uncertainty over the future, many exiles held muted celebrations. At a rally at the riverfront in central Cúcuta in Colombia on Saturday evening, Venezuelans forced to leave their homes chanted “Freedom, freedom!” and sang their national anthem, their shoulders wrapped in their country’s yellow, blue and red flag. When a compere asked who had already packed their bags to return to Venezuela, Rynna Mora, 41, energetically raised her hands and shouted. In reality, however, she says she’s not quite ready to do that. “I would love to go back tomorrow but I’ll have to wait and see how things settle.”
Protests bubbled up in several US cities over the weekend as people demonstrated against the Trump administration’s unilateral military intervention in Venezuela – even as many in the diaspora publicly celebrated the forced removal of president Nicolás Maduro. Gatherings took place as crowds expressed opposition to a potential war with Venezuela and to declare illegal the US operation to snatch Maduro early on Saturday and bring him to the US to face drug-trafficking charges in court. Maduro is due to appear in federal court in New York at noon local time on Monday. Hundreds of people came out to protest in large cities coast to coast, including Chicago, Dallas, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Seattle. “Whether it’s Saddam Hussein’s Iraq or the Taliban in Afghanistan, Panama, Libya, you name it. Whenever the United States attacks another country like this, it’s the peoples of those countries who suffer the most,” Andy Thayer of the Chicago Committee Against War and Racism said to a local ABC affiliate at a protest that drew several hundred. Others argued that Donald Trump did not have authority to launch such a strike on Venezuela, at least without approval from Congress. Senior Democrats on Sunday decried the US president’s bypassing his constitutional obligation to involve the congressional branch of government, as international leaders said the US had breached the United Nations charter. At a protest in Seattle organized by a group called Answer (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), crowds held signs with statements such as “No Blood for Oil” and “Stop Bombing Venezuela Now!” “We’re out here to show solidarity with a country whose sovereignty and self determination has been violated by our government using our tax dollars,” Taylor Young, an organizer with Answer, which staged protests in several other cities, too, told a Fox News affiliate. “So the very least we can do is come out in Seattle and across the country to say we won’t allow you to do this while we just stand by,” Young added. Republican lawmakers broadly continued to support Trump and praised his actions even as senior figures walked back the president’s assertions on Saturday that the US “will run” Venezuela during a transition to a new regime. Congressman Tom Emmer, a Republican from Minnesota, said Sunday morning on Fox News: “God bless this president of peace, Donald J Trump.” But protesters also spoke out against the deportations of Venezuelans living in the country. “We’re creating wars, we’re creating chaos and then simultaneously abducting our neighbors and sending them back to the very countries that we’re destabilizing,” Olivia DiNucci, an anti-war organizer with activist group Code Pink, told WHYY, a public radio station in Philadelphia. Despite bipartisan condemnation of Maduro as a dictator, some activists also called for his release. Protesters gathered outside the detention center in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, where the captured president is being held and chanted: “Free Maduro right now.”
The prospect of the United States seizing direct control of Venezuela appeared to recede on Sunday after the shocking ousting of president Nicolás Maduro – but US officials warned they might make a fresh military intervention if interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, did not accommodate their demands. Speaking to reporters late Sunday, Donald Trump also raised the possibility of military action in Colombia. In the aftermath of Maduro’s abduction on Saturday, Trump said the US would “run” the South American country of 30 million people. On Sunday, he warned the US might launch a second strike if remaining members of the administration do not cooperate with his efforts to get the country “fixed.” Rodríguez, 56, had on Saturday pledged fealty to Maduro and condemned his capture as an “atrocity”, but on Sunday called for a “balanced and respectful” relationship with the US. “We extend an invitation to the US government to work together on an agenda for cooperation that is aimed toward shared development,” Rodríguez said after holding her first cabinet meeting since Maduro’s ouster. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, spoke to Rodríguez, who told him “‘we’ll do whatever you need’”, Trump told reporters. “She, I think, was quite gracious, but she really doesn’t have a choice.” The New York Times reported that Trump officials several weeks ago identified the technocrat as a potential successor and business partner partly on the basis of her relationship with Wall Street and oil companies. In the capital, Caracas, senior government and military figures demanded the return of Maduro but pledged support for Rodríguez as a stand-in leader and called for a return to normality. “I call on the people of Venezuela to resume their activities of all kinds, economic, work and education, in the coming days,” Vladimir Padrino López, the defence minister, said in a televised address. Maduro’s son, Nicolás Ernesto Maduro Guerra, said his father’s supporters are more resolved than ever to support the ousted president, according to an audio shared on social media. “They will not see us weak,” Maduro Guerra said. “The president, Nicolás Maduro, will return … we will take to the streets, we will convene the people, we will unite.” In comments to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump raised the possibility of further US interventions in Latin America, and suggested Colombia and Mexico could also face military action if they do not reduce the flow of illicit drugs to the United States. “Operation Colombia sounds good to me,” Trump said. He also said that Cuba, a close ally of Venezuela, “looks like it’s ready to fall” on its own without US military action. Earlier on Sunday, Trump said the US may intervene in other countries as well. “We do need Greenland, absolutely.” Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, posted a social media picture of Greenland painted in the colours of the US flag, and the word “soon”, prompting a protest from Greenland’s prime minister. In a round of TV interviews Rubio downplayed the possibility of invasion or occupation of Venezuela, but confirmed that the US was keeping a 15,000-strong force in the Caribbean. “There’s not a war. I mean, we are at war against drug trafficking organisations, not a war against Venezuela. We don’t have US forces on the ground,” he told NBC. Troops were in Caracas for two hours in a “law enforcement function” that did not require congressional approval, he said. “This was not an invasion. This was not an extended military operation.” The US will keep a “quarantine” around Venezuela to block the entry and exit of oil tankers under American sanctions to sustain “leverage” over Maduro’s successor, said Rubio. “We are going to make our assessment on the basis of what they do, not what they say publicly.” He said the Cuban government – Venezuela’s main ally – was a “huge problem” and in a “lot of trouble” but declined to elaborate. The Cuban government confirmed on Sunday that the US operation in Venezuela killed 32 Cuban military and police officers were who were there at the request of the government in Caracas. The governments of Spain, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Uruguay said in a joint statement that US actions “constitute an extremely dangerous precedent for peace and regional security and endanger the civilian population”. Keir Starmer said Britain was not involved in the attack but refused to condemn it. All EU countries except Hungary issued a statement calling for restraint by “all actors” and respect for the will of the Venezuelan people in order to “restore democracy”. In Caracas some shops and cafes reopened in a semblance of normality while authorities counted the cost of Saturday’s raid. Large queues formed outside stores in Venezuela’s capital as anxious residents stocked up on basic supplies, apprehensive about what the future might bring and the possibility – suggested by Trump – that there could be a “second wave” of attacks. “It’s the same everywhere, there are queues in the supermarkets, there are queues in the bakeries, queues at the pharmacy,” said one 71-year-old pensioner who was one of 20 people lined up outside a small family grocery market in north-east Caracas on Sunday morning. “There’s so much uncertainty because people don’t know what might happen in the coming days and nobody wants to see another situation like the early hours of Saturday or to be caught with their pants down and an empty fridge,” added the man, who asked not to be named. Outside one of Venezuela’s largest supermarket chains in Petare, on the east side of Caracas, a young couple waited in a 100-person-long line outside a supermarket in order to stock up on milk, butter and flour. So many people had flocked there that supermarket workers were letting in shoppers in groups. “[I feel] angry,” said the 23-year-old woman, who gave only her first name, Sauriany. “They don’t have the right to meddle like this in another country and to do whatever they like,” she said of the US raid. In neighbouring Colombia there was deep unease too, with its president, Gustavo Petro, ordering 30,000 troops to its eastern border with Venezuela in case there was violence or a sudden influx of refugees. On Sunday, Trump said Colombia was “very sick” and run by a “sick man”. He accused Petro of producing and selling cocaine to the US, adding: “He’s not going to be doing it very long.” Asked directly whether the US would pursue a military operation against the country, Trump answered, “It sounds good to me.” Petro has previously said his government has been seizing cocaine at unprecedented rates and last month he invited Trump to visit and see government efforts to destroy drug-producing labs. Over the weekend, US authorities unsealed a four-count indictment that charges Maduro with narco-terrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine. It also charges Flores, their son and two Venezuelan officials and an alleged leader of Tren de Aragua, a gang the Trump administration has designed a terrorist organisation. Maduro is due to appear in a Manhattan federal court on Monday for arraignment. The White House shared footage of the deposed dictator handcuffed and doing a “perp walk” to Drug Enforcement Administration offices in New York before being taken to the Metropolitan Detention Center, a federal facility in Brooklyn. The prosecution will deepen the humiliation felt by Maduro loyalists and complicate the balancing act faced by his successor. Rodríguez, who served as vice-president and oil minister until her boss’s removal, must juggle Washington’s demands for oil and security guarantees with a regime that retains vestiges of the socialism and anti-imperialism of its late founder, Hugo Chávez. The Trump administration’s apparent satisfaction with regime tweak, rather than regime change, has dismayed those Venezuelans who hoped Maduro’s downfall would usher in democracy. Trump was dismissive about the opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, the Nobel peace prize winner who mobilised Edmundo González’s winning presidential campaign last year, and said she lacked “support” in Venezuela. Millions of Venezuelans revere Machado but she is loathed by the military hierarchy that props up the regime. Rubio said the US wanted a transition to democracy but ruled out elections in the short term and said those in charge of Venezuela’s military and police apparatus needed to decide in which direction they go. “We hope they will chose a different direction than the one Nicolás Maduro picked. Ultimately we hope this leads to a holistic transition.” In Caracas joggers and cyclists reappeared on streets but residents expressed nervousness and uncertainty about the future.
Investigators have identified the last 16 people who died in the New Year’s Eve bar fire at the Swiss mountain resort of Crans-Montana, police said on Sunday. Officers in Valais canton said they had managed to identify the last of the 40 bodies from the blaze, one of the worst disasters in recent Swiss history, with forensic work particularly slow-going due to the horrific burns sustained by most of the victims. Charlotte Niddam, 15, a former pupil at Immanuel College in Hertfordshire, was among the last 16 victims to be identified. She was initially reported as missing. Her family said in a social media post on Sunday: “It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beautiful daughter and sister Charlotte.” The post said her funeral is expected to take place in Paris later this week. According to the Crans-Montana resort website, Charlotte had been working as a babysitter in the area. The last 16 victims included two Swiss girls aged 15, a Swiss woman aged 22, a Swiss and French woman aged 24, two Italian girls aged 16 and 15, an Italian boy aged 16, a 22-year-old Portuguese woman, a 17-year-old Belgian girl, two French women aged 33 and 26, two French men aged 23 and 20, two French teenage boys aged 17 and 14, and a 15-year-old girl with French, British, and Israeli nationalities, police said. Those previously identified were 10 Swiss nationals, two Italians, one person with Italian-Emirati citizenship, one Romanian, one person from France and one from Turkey, Valais police said. The mother of Arthur Brodard, a 16-year-old Swiss boy, confirmed that he was among those killed. “Our Arthur has departed to party in heaven,” Laetitia Brodard-Sitre said on her Facebook page. “Now we can start our mourning, knowing he is in peace.” Hundreds of people joined a silent procession through the upmarket resort town on Sunday to honour the victims of the catastrophe. After a service at the Chapelle St-Christophe, the sombre crowd filed silently out of the chapel to organ music. Some exchanged hugs and others applauded before joining the silent march up the hill to Le Constellation bar. People in the dense procession walked in bright sunshine past shuttered stores. A stream of mourners and well-wishers deposited bouquets at a makeshift memorial piled with flowers, cuddly toys and other tributes. Applause began rippling from one end to the other as dozens of police and emergency services workers came up through the middle of the procession to be celebrated as heroes. “Through this tragic event, I believe we must all remember that we are all brothers and sisters in humanity,” said Véronique Barras, a local resident who knows grieving families. “It’s important to support each other, to hug each other and to move forward towards light.” In the crowd, Paola Ponti Greppi, an 80-year-old Italian who has a home in Crans-Montana, called for better safety checks in bars. “We need more safety in these places because it’s not the only place like this. Why didn’t the town do the proper checks? For me that’s terrible,” she said. During the hour-long mass, the bishop Jean-Marie Lovey said condolences had poured in from around the world, including from the pope. “Countless people join us – people whose hearts are broken,” Lovey told the congregation. “Many expressions of sympathy and solidarity reach us. “Pope Leo XIV joins in our sorrow. In a moving message, he expresses his compassion and his care for the victims’ families and strengthens the courage of all who are suffering.” The Rev Gilles Cavin spoke of the “terrible uncertainty” for families unsure if their loved ones were among the dead or still alive among the injured. “There are no words strong enough to express the dismay, anguish and anger of those who are affected in their lives today. And yet we are here, gathered, because silence alone is not enough,” he said. Switzerland will hold a national day of mourning on Friday, with church bells ringing across the country and a minute’s silence planned. “In this moment of reflection, everyone in Switzerland can personally remember the victims of the disaster,” the Swiss president, Guy Parmelin, told the Sonntagsblick newspaper. Investigators believe the fire started when sparkling candles were held too close to the ceiling of the venue’s basement level, the region’s chief prosecutor has said. Two people who ran the bar are under criminal investigation on suspicion of offences including homicide by negligence, involuntary bodily harm and involuntarily causing a fire, prosecutors said on Saturday. The announcement did not name the managers. Authorities planned to look into whether sound-dampening material on the ceiling conformed with regulations and whether the candles were permitted for use in the bar. Officials said they also would look at safety measures on the premises, including fire extinguishers and escape routes. There were 119 people injured, including many with disfiguring wounds, and several were transferred to burns units in hospitals across Europe to assist Switzerland’s overwhelmed clinics. Authorities said the severity of the victims’ burns had required the use of DNA samples and dental records to help identify the bodies. The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report