Free Republic

Venezuela's new petroleum minister sees her South American home not as a dilapidated former oil giant, but as an emerging energy economy ripe for U.S. and foreign investments in new oil and gas exploration, both onshore and offshore. Paula Henao, who took over as the hydrocarbons minister in March after the forced U.S. removal of former leader Nicolás Maduro, told an overflowing Houston energy audience on Wednesday that Venezuela is much more than just its famed heavy-grade crude oil. There are more than 916 exploration opportunities awaiting foreign investment, she said, including natural gas and other untapped oil basins. She...

The Biden administration is set to give Chevron Corp. a license to pump oil in Venezuela, according to The Wall Street Journal. As part of the deal, Chevron would retain partial control of both production and maintenance for a select set of run-down oil fields it previously had stakes in with Petróleos de Venezuela SA, a state-run oil company in Venezuela, according to the WSJ, citing people familiar with the matter.

Russian soldiers are operating drones over Venezuela as part of a search operation for members of a paramilitary force that led a botched invasion this week, local media reported on Friday, citing deleted tweets from a state military command centre. At least eight Russian special forces members will be “operating drones to run search and patrol operations” near La Guaira, the coastal state just north of Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, according to a report from local news outlet El Nacional. It posted a screenshot of a tweet it said was later deleted on Thursday from the profile of the military command,...

A new complaint requests that the federal government investigate the tax-exempt status of a left-wing nonprofit that has allegedly fomented violent riots. The Center to Advance Security in America (CASA) filed the complaint Tuesday morning with the IRS seeking an investigation into People’s Forum, Inc., a New York-based Nongovernmental Organization (NGO) linked to socialist megadonor Neville Roy Singham. CASA’s complaint alleges that People’s Forum routinely organizes and funds protests that engage in illegal activity. "People's Forum Inc. is the tax-exempt fiscal sponsor of many progressive and radical organizations, including the Venceremos Brigade, which engage in demonstrations often crossing the threshold...

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Macron made the decision earlier this year after American forces carried out a precision strike in Venezuela that led to the arrest of former dictator Nicolas Maduro. The French president reportedly made comments about fighting Americans over Greenland, the desolate Danish island that could prove crucial to keeping non-NATO powers out of the North Atlantic.

French President Emmanuel Macron said his country was willing to engage in a “shooting war” with the U.S. earlier this year, according to a report. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Macron made the decision earlier this year after American forces carried out a precision strike in Venezuela that led to the arrest of former dictator Nicolas Maduro. The French president reportedly made comments about fighting Americans over Greenland, the desolate Danish island that could prove crucial to keeping non-NATO powers out of the North Atlantic. With President Donald Trump expressing his desire to acquire the island as...

The VAR ref that ordered the still shot review of Balogun making contact with the opposition's ankle became a referee in Venezuela in the early 2000s. As The Athletic (NY Times) documented, Chavez had profound, politically driven influence over the Venezuelan Football Federation. The VAR referee that flagged Balogun for a still shot review, a violation of VAR protocol that resulted in a red card, became a ref in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. His name is Juan Ernesto Soto Arévalo.

A sanctioned Russian LNG tanker from the Portovaya project idled near Singapore in May 2026 with no buyer. At the same time, Ukrainian drones had already knocked roughly 700,000 barrels per day of Russian refining capacity offline across 16 major facilities. Europe had locked in a binding legal phase-out of Russian gas. And just four months earlier, U.S. forces had captured Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela.

Alex Saab made his initial court appearance after being deported over the weekend by acting President Delcy Rodríguez as part of a purge of insider businessmen who are believed to have enriched themselves through corrupt dealings with Maduro.A close ally of ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was charged in federal court in Miami on Monday with bribing top officials to profit from lucrative government contracts. Alex Saab made his initial court appearance after being deported over the weekend by acting President Delcy Rodríguez as part of a purge of insider businessmen who are believed to have enriched themselves through corrupt...

In Latin America, in China, in the Middle East, the outline of Donald Trump's plan of action is becoming clear. It is of a scale to take the breath away. It’s obvious to me that during the four-year hiatus from the White House occasioned by a stolen election, President Trump gave thoughtful consideration to what had to be cleaned up domestically and internationally. It’s equally clear that he mapped out how he planned to do that, and despite media, congressional, and judicial intransigence, he plowed ahead. We are at a point now where the blueprint is obvious. It’s a continuing,...

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has technically been banned from visiting China by its communist government, but he accompanied President Donald Trump on his trip to Beijing on Tuesday using a bureaucratic loophole created by the Chinese to let him in. Rubio, the son of Cuban exiles to Florida who was elected to the Senate in 2011, was one of several congressional representatives banned from traveling to China in July 2020 because they spoke out against China’s brutal oppression of the Uyghur Muslims of occupied East Turkistan. The U.S. had previously sanctioned four Chinese officials for herding the Uyghurs into...

Another sterling week for the Trump administration, another interval of agony for his opponents. The attention of those less politically minded is focused on the disappearance of Savannah Guthrie’s mother, Nancy -- always fodder for the would-be Colombos and Miss Marples -- and the Olympics. Yet this week saw some victories for the administration along with some serious unfinished business. The ousted dictator Nicolás Maduro seems isolated, depressed, and devoid of funds sufficient to hire teams of lawyers to defend him. Any claims he might have for immunity seem destined to fail. The evidence establishes he was born in Colombia;...

A U.S. Army soldier was arrested on an indictment accusing him of using classified information to make bets that won him $400,000 on the Polymarket prediction market related to the American military mission that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, the Department of Justice said on Thursday. The soldier, Gannon Ken Van Dyke, “participated in the planning and execution of the” operation to capture Maduro, the DOJ said.

A Glimmer of Justice Amidst Enduring Shadows:Venezuela's Unlikely Strike Against Islamic Fascist Republic of Iran / Hezbollah's Legacy of Jewish BloodIn a stunning turn that defies the toxic alliance between Venezuela's Chavismo regime and the genocidal mullahs of the Islamo-Fascist Iranian Republic, President Nicolás Maduro's forces have apprehended Ali Hage Zaki Jalil—a Lebanese-Arab Hezbollah terrorist long-sought for his role in the barbaric 1994 bombing of Alas Chiricanas Flight 901 over Panama.[0][1] This monstrous act of Jew-hatred claimed 21 innocent lives, including 12 precious Jewish souls en route from Colón to Panama City, their dreams shattered by the same Iranian-backed terror...

Was this illegal part of a Venezuelan or Cuban military intelligence operation? Why, again, was he let in? Joe Biden's open borders may be about more than just replacing the electorate. The New York Post found that one of the most malevolent of the border surgers, a Venezuelan illegal named Leonel Moreno, who famously urged other illegals to squat in Americans' homes and waved hundred-dollar bills around to boast of his public benefits on TikTok, is being investigated by the feds for his military intelligence work for the Marxist dictatorship back home. According to the Post: Joe Biden's open borders...

BETHLEHEM, West Bank: Venezuelan flags and portraits of President Hugo Chavez have been flying high during protests in the West Bank against Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip. The Venezuelan president’s decision on January 6 to expel Israel’s ambassador from Caracas – the only country apart from Mauritania to take such a step – has made the left-wing South American leader a hero to Palestinians. Hamas has welcomed Chavez’s “courageous decision,” while Hassan Nasrallah, head of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, urged Arab states to follow the Venezuelan president’s example. Chavez on Saturday accused Israel of being the “murder arm” of the...

“This isn’t just about Maduro. This is the final nail in the coffin for the CIA-black-budget narco pipeline that’s been running since the 80s.” —The Ghost of Ezra on “X”. CIA Headquarters, Langley, Va. You must wonder: what exactly has CIA Director John Ratcliffe been doing over in Langley, VA, lo these many months since things changed bigly in Swamptopia? Does he wander the hallways of that giant black box howling ineffectually. . . sit barricaded in his office playing sudoku. . . or is he doing what needs to be done: methodically uncovering and disassembling the diabolical racketeering operation...

A report published by the Spanish newspaper ABC on Thursday claimed that Venezuela’s deposed socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro spends his nights in prison yelling “I am the president” and claiming that he was “kidnapped” by the U.S. Maduro, long wanted by U.S. authorities on multiple narco-terrorism charges, led the Venezuelan socialist regime from March 2013 to January 3, 2026, the day the United States executed a law enforcement operation in Caracas to arrest him and his wife, Cilia Flores. The now-deposed dictator clung to power after the end of his first term in 2019 by holding sham presidential elections in...

NPR correspondent Eyder Peralta was amazed during a segment Friday by his recent trip to Venezuela following President Donald Trump's arrest of the country's president Nicolás Maduro. "It is absolutely surreal because you land at the airport and the signs are in Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Chinese, which tells you just where this country was facing a few months ago," Peralta told host Steve Inskeep. "And then you go out on the streets and people here tell you that they feel like a weight has been lifted." He continued, "For the first time in a long time, there are street...

Saab was charged with money laundering in the US One of President Nicolás Maduro's closest aides has been extradited from Cape Verde to the United States, where he's been charged with money laundering. The US Treasury says Alex Saab worked as a front man for Mr Maduro's regime. The Venezuelan government suspended talks soon afterwards with the US-backed opposition. The talks were to resolve a political crisis that has led to violence and the collapse of the economy