The head of Defense of Venezuela, Vladimir Padrino López, assured, in a video released this Sunday, that the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) does not break down with sanctions or with reward “blackmail”, after the United States offered 15 million dollars for information that leads to his capture.
“We do not break down with sanctions or reward blackmail, here the brave are in formation (…) with weapons to, according to our Constitution, defend our territory, our independence, our territorial integrity and our national sovereignty,” said the head of Defense of Venezuela.
Padrino López, in office since 2014, made a call to “not fall into the game of psychological war” or “that plan”, as well as to “stand firm” and defend, “serene and bravely”, the people.
He assured that today the Armed Forces are “much more united” and “aware of the historical moment that the homeland is living,” and thanked the “solidarity” of the military institution with him and the leader of Chavismo, Nicolás Maduro, for whose capture the US increased the reward from 15 to 25 million dollars, after his swearing-in for a third term in a row.
On Saturday, the FANB said that a “spurious reward will not make a dent in the physical and spiritual strength” of both, and that this “aggression only further strengthens cohesion and absolute union in the demand for respect” to its “leaders and hierarchical superiors”.
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The US also offers a reward of 25 million dollars for information that leads to the capture of the head of the Interior and Justice, Diosdado Cabello.
In addition, the FF.AA. expressed its “most energetic and categorical rejection” of the sanctions of the United States, the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom announced on Friday, when Maduro was sworn in as president for the period 2025-2031, a fact that the largest anti-Chavista coalition, which claims the electoral victory of Edmundo González Urrutia, denounced as the consummation of a “coup d’état”.
The opposition leader, who claims to be “very close to Venezuela” and “ready for safe entry,” said on Friday that, as “commander-in-chief” and “president-elect,” he orders “the high military command to ignore illegal orders given to them by those who confiscate power” and to prepare “their security conditions to assume office.”
The Sudanese Army takes a Khartum neighborhood in an offensive to recover the capital
The Sudanese Army announced on Sunday the capture of a residential neighborhood located in northwestern Khartum as part of a large-scale offensive to recover the capital of Sudan, in the hands of the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (FAR) since the outbreak of the conflict in April 2023.
“The Sudanese Armed Forces Armored Corps, which operates from the Al Shajara military zone, has successfully taken control of the Al Ruwad residential complex,” the military institution announced in a brief statement published on its official Facebook account.
During the offensive, Army soldiers and fighters of allied armed groups “inflicted great losses” on the FAR, although the Armed Forces indicated that they respected “international law and its rules of intervention to guarantee the security of private and public property.”
The advance of the Army in northern Khartoum comes one day after the military regained control of the strategic city of Wad Madani, the capital of the central state of Al Yazira located south of the capital of Sudan and which had been under the control of the FAR since December 18, 2023.
The recovery of Wad Madani, the second largest city in Sudan in terms of population, was possible after four months of army offensive in the state of Al Yazira and after the withdrawal of the paramilitaries from the city, where hardly any fighting was recorded after the entry of government troops on Saturday.
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This is an important development for the Sudan war and for the Army’s plans to “liberate” Khartum, where it is carrying out an offensive from the north and will now be able to advance to the Sudanese capital from the south after the capture of Wad Madani.
The leader of the Sudanese Army, Abdelfatah al Burhan, said on Sunday that his forces will recover “every inch” of Sudan, while the head of the paramilitaries, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo – alias Hemedti – has promised that his fighters can continue fighting for more than two decades if necessary.
The war in Sudan has caused tens of thousands of deaths and forced more than 14 million to flee their homes, which has made the country the scene of the worst displaced persons crisis on the planet, according to the United Nations.
SpaceX postpones the seventh test of its powerful Starship rocket for Wednesday
SpaceX postponed to Wednesday the next test flight of its powerful Starship rocket, whose launch was initially scheduled for Monday afternoon from its base in southern Texas (USA).
According to Elon Musk’s signature on Saturday night, the Starship will take off at 16:00 local time (22:00 GMT) on Wednesday, from Starbase, the firm’s space center located in the Texas town of Boca Chica.
For this test, the mission will transport ten replicas of the latest generation of Starlinks, which will be put on a suborbital trajectory, which is where the rocket will move.
This operation is crucial, because SpaceX plans to use the Starship in the future to put into orbit the next generation of its popular broadband internet satellites, which will be larger and heavier than the current ones.
On the seventh flight, the mission engineers will again try to catch the powerful first stage of the Starship, called Super Heavy, which in the previous test carried out last November could not be carried out.
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Once separated from the second stage, that is, the Starship as such, if the weather allows it is expected that the Super Heavy will arrive at a Starbase platform, where it will be captured by mechanical arms, as already happened successfully in the fifth test.
In addition, for this operation, improvements have been applied to the capture tower, which include protections to the sensors in the mechanical arms of the tower, which were damaged during the launch of the previous test and forced the diversion of the first stage to the high seas.
The Starship will fly on its own in a suborbital trajectory for about an hour, to end a mooring in the Indian Ocean, in the same way as it has done in the last tests.
Among these innovations is the reduction of the size of the upper wings of the rocket, which are also now closer to the tip of the Starship and this reduces its exposure to heat, in addition to having improved the thermal shield.
Trump describes politicians in charge of the fires in Los Angeles as “incompetent”
The President-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, called this Sunday “incompetent” the politicians and local officials in charge of the fight against the fires in Los Angeles, in Southern California (USA), which have so far left 16 people dead.
“Fires continue to roat Los Angeles. Incompetent politicians have no idea how to turn them off,” Trump said early this Sunday morning on his social network Truth, a comment that continues to fuel the dispute he has with the governor of California, the Democrat Gavin Newsom.
The governor has previously accused the Republican of politicizing the tragedy and has even extended an invitation to Trump to visit the area, devastated after the forest fires that broke out since last Tuesday.
“Thousands of magnificent houses have disappeared and many more will soon be lost. There is death everywhere. This is one of the worst catastrophes in the history of our country. They just can’t put out fires. What’s wrong with them?” Trump questioned himself, who on January 20 will assume his second term as president of the United States.
The number of deaths from the fires that broke out earlier this week in the Los Angeles area, in Southern California (USA), has risen to 16, according to the local forensic doctor’s office.
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According to the latest update made by the forensic doctor of Los Angeles County, 11 of those deaths have occurred due to the Eaton fire, located northeast and near the cities of Pasadena and Altadena.
The other five correspond to the Palisades fire, the largest and largest so far, contained in only 11%.
The fires have devastated at least 15,000 hectares, destroyed about 12,000 structures, including cars, and are responsible for the disappearance of about thirteen people, among which some of those reported as dead could be, according to Los Angeles County sheriff Robert Luna.
