Venezuelan National Constituent Assembly president Delcy Rodriguez's press conference on Monday.  James Tweedie poses the question on the BRICS New Development Bank at 30:30. Venezuela will join the BRICS development bank to break the US economic stranglehold, the new constitutional body’s chair said on Monday. National Constituent Assembly president Delcy Rodriguez — a former foreign minister — revealed Venezuela’s plan to join the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) in a wide-ranging press conference in Caracas. Responding to a question from the Morning Star via video, she said the government was awaiting the NDB’s response to its application which the assembly would support. BRICS comprises powerhouse developing nations Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, representing 42 per cent of the world’s population and 27 per cent of the global economy. Ms Rodriguez said financial sanctions announced by Washington last week would only strengthen Venezuela’s resolve t...

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says the new constitutional body will move this week to end the economic war on the country. In a wide-ranging TV interview with veteran journalist Jose Vicente Rangel on Sunday, Mr Maduro said the three-week-old National Constituent Assembly would take steps to end black-market speculation that has led to soaring inflation. He said he assembly’s economic commission, made up of representatives from the labour and business sectors, would announce measures to ensure the government price cap on foodstuffs and other goods is respected. The commission would also unveil legal moves “to shake up society.” The president blamed shortages and inflation on price-fixing based on a speculative dollar exchange rate set by anti-Venezuelan interests in the US. “We are now confronted with a demonic and stifling system of criminal price fixing of a war dollar and this battle being waged openly, but we are going to win,” he said. Mr Maduro added that the g...

US Defence Secretary James Mattis was tight-lipped yesterday as speculation raged over the US strategy on Afghanistan. Speaking to reporters travelling with him to the Middle East, Mr Mattis would say only that Friday’s top-level strategy meeting at the Camp David presidential retreat was “rigorous and inclusive.” Sources said Mr Mattis, Vice-President Mike Pence and National Security Adviser HR McMaster all pushed for sending thousands more troops — with the Taliban stronger than ever after 16 years of war. No announcement was made after the meeting. On Saturday US President Donald Trump tweeted only that there were “Many decisions made, including on Afghanistan.” Last week the Taliban wrote an open letter to Mr Trump urging him to end the war he long opposed. Mr Trump’s special adviser Steve Bannon dramatically left his White House job on Friday, days after insisting that any military option against North Korea would be disastrous. Mr Bannon was also reportedly in favou...

Venezuela rejected the latest US attacks on its constitutional reform body on Saturday as Western diplomats backed the opposition-held parliament. In a communique, the Foreign Ministry hit back at a US State Department statement on Friday attacking the newly-elected National Constituent Assembly’s assumption of legislative powers. Washington said: “This power grab is designed to supplant the democratically-elected National Assembly with an authoritarian committee operating above the law.” It claimed the support of Venezuela’s neighbours in condemning the  “illegitimate Constituent Assembly and its authoritarian directives.” “We are prepared to bring the full weight of American economic and diplomatic power to bear” in support of the opposition, the statement said. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is a former CEO of transnational oil giant ExxonMobil, which has had a series of disputes with the venezuelan government over the past 10 years. The Foreign M...

Venezuelans packed the streets of Caracas on Monday to oppose US threats of military intervention in support of the putschist opposition. The Anti-Imperialist March against US President Donald Trump’s mooting of a “military option” on Friday wound its way through the capital. Video footage from RT’s Spanish service and other sites showed the precession apparently stretching for over a mile. A large contingent of the volunteer Bolivarian National Guard marched in a bloc. National Guard officer Nelson Rafael Pineda said: “We will defend our country if at any moment the American empire wants to tread on the sacred soil of Bolivar and Chavez” — referring to Venezuela’s 18th-century national liberation hero and Mr Maduro’s late predecessor. “We are here, ready to fight, ready to defend it with the blood of our patriots if necessary.” The marched ended in a rally at the Miraflores presidential palace, where President Nicolas Maduro struck a typically defiant note. “I have give...

Latin American leaders have condemned US President Donald Trump’s threat of a “military option” against Venezuela. Venezuela’s allies and enemies alike reacted over the weekend to Mr Trump’s comments at an press conference on Friday. Flanked by bellicose Vice-President Mike Pence and UN ambassador Nikki Haley along with his cooler-headed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Mr Trump called his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro a “dictator.” “The people are suffering and they are dying,” he said. “We have many options for Venezuela including a possible military option if necessary.” At least 124 people have died in four months of opposition regime-change riots since the start of April, fuelled by chronic shortages of food, medicine and other goods the government blames on a US-directed economic war. Six died on July 30 during elections to the new assembly to amend the constitution — over which Washington threatened Caracas with sanctions — but only one death has been reporte...

Cracks showed openly in Venezuela’s opposition alliance on Thursday as President Nicolas Maduro reached out to the US. Come Venezuela (VV) leader Maria Corina Machado attacked the  the decision by the majority of parties in the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) coalition to stand in December’s regional elections. The Mud boycotted the July 30 elections to the new National Constituent Assembly called by Mr Maduro in may, but 8.1 million voters turned out despite opposition riots and attacks on polling stations that left six dead. But last week the second-largest MUD party, Democratic Action, announced it would stand candidates separately. Ms Machado wrote on Twitter: “Today VV deviates from the route chosen by the Mud,” calling it “surrender.” “While the Mud follows this route, VV will not be part of the coalition,” she said, demanding it press on with the four moths of regime-change riots that have left 124 dead. “For Maduro to stay until December? No. we cannot accept...

Latin America’s anti-imperialist bloc backed Venezuela against regional opponents on Tuesday as support for the divided opposition ebbed. Foreign ministers of the 11-nation Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) gathered in Caracas for an extraordinary meeting. In a statement they hailed the July 30 elections to the new National Constituent Assembly — called to amend the constitution and chart a path out of the national crisis — as “an authentic act of sovereignty.” They called retaliatory US sanctions on President Nicolas Maduro and others “arbitrary and illegal”, a “flagrant violation of international law” and an “unacceptable interventionist implementation” intended to “change the regime.” But the same day a summit of 17 regional opponents in Peru’s capital Lima agreed sixteen measures against Venezuela, including rejecting the new assembly and labelling Mr Maduro’s elected government a “dictatorship.” Meanwhile the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry condemned...

Cracks showed in Venezuela’s putschist opposition alliance ahead of the latest street barricade shutdown on Tuesday. Far-right Popular Will (VP) party acting leader Freddy Guevara accused the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD ) on Monday night of misrepresenting him in posts on its Twitter account. It quoted Mr Guevara — also deputy speaker of the Mud-dominated National Assembly — saying earlier that day: “The way to solve this crisis is the electoral way.” But he also claimed United Socialist Party (PSUV) President Nicolas Maduro was “the only one responsible” for Sunday’s attack by 20 mercenaries — led by an expelled army officer based in Miami — on an army base in Carabobo state. He said if some Venezuelans “think armed conflict is needed, it’s the responsibility of the dictatorship.” On his Twitter account Mr Guevara called the message an “error” and an attempt to “simplify” his comments to reporters. “I understand it created confusion and hopelessness, but it was out o...

Afghanistan’s Taliban killed a Georgian soldier and injured three on Thursday night amid a nationwide offensive. Two Afghan civilians were also killed when a suicide bomber disguised beneath a woman’s in a burqa rammed his motorcycle into a NATO convoy near the town of Qarabagh, north of Kabul. The former Soviet republic of Georgia is not a NATO member but has some 900 troops in Afghanistan as part of the US-led occupation. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid took responsibility for the attack on Friday — claiming 11 US troops were killed. Another Taliban suicide attack on a NATO convoy on Wednesday killed two US soldiers. The top US commander in Afghanistan general John Nicholson said: "The commitment of Georgia as our largest non-NATO contributor is vital to our mission." But on Thursday anonymous US government officials claimed Mr Trump repeatedly suggested Defence Secretary James Mattis and Joint Chiefs of Staff chair General Joseph Dunford should sack Gen N...

The US Congress special counsel Robert Mueller has called a grand jury over claims President Donald Trump conspired with Russia to win last year’s election. Anonymous sources close to the investigation revealed the move to the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press on Thursday. A grand jury would hear evidence and potentially decide whether to lay charges. On Friday morning White House senior counselor Kellyanne Conway told Fox News the investigation was a “fishing expedition” that Mr Trump had dubbed a “witch-hunt.” On Wednesday Mr Trump grudgingly signed into law a new sanctions bill against Russia — passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in both houses — calling it "seriously flawed.” Backing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s criticism of the bill on Tuesday over Vice-President Mike Pence’s support for it, he said: "As president, I can make far better deals with foreign countries than Congress." On Tuesday Mr Tillerson told a press conference: ...

Syrian insurgents attacked army positions in the southern desert on Tuesday night — after their US backers withdrew support. The Ahmad al-Abdu and Osoud al-Sharqia factions of the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA) claimed they had seized Bir Mahroutha and Umm Rumam. The villages lie in the southern Badia or desert region, to the west of al-Tanf on the Iraqi border where occupying US and British special forces have declared a 35-mile exclusion zone to Syrian troops. On Monday another FSA group, the Shohadaa al-Qraiteen Brigade, said US forces threatened to bomb its positions and headquarters near al-Tanf if they refused to return arms and vehicles provided by the US-led “coalition.” Spokesman Abu Omar al-Homsi said the demand came after they attacked Syrian troops and their Lebanese Hezbollah allies on July 17 and took control of al-Ghorab and al-Halba mountains. He said the Jihadis would not return "Toyota cars, medium weapons, light weapons and a number of lorries to th...

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson offered peace talks with North Korea on Tuesday — saying Washington did not seek “regime change” in Pyongyang. "We do not seek a regime change, we do not seek a collapse of the regime, we do not seek an accelerated reunification of the peninsula, we do not seek an excuse to send our military north of the 38th Parallel," he told a press conference. "We are not your enemy ... but you are presenting an unacceptable threat to us, and we have to respond,” Mr Tillerson said. The Secretary of State also contradicted Mr Trump’s recent tweets accusing China of failing to stop North Korea developing nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the mainland US. While relations with Beijing were "at a bit of a pivot point", Washington had "sought to partner" with China. Yesterday the US Air Force launched its fourth Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile test this year over the Pacific Ocean.

The US Vice-President urged confrontation with Russia yesterday just hours after the Secretary of State condemned Congress for imposing sanctions. The gulf between hawks and doves in President Donald Trump’s government opened up when Vice-President Mike Pence contradicted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s comments on Tuesday. In a remarkable Press conference on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said: “The action by the Congress to put these sanctions in place and the way they did, neither the President nor I are very happy about that.” He acknowledged the “overwhelming” vote — 98 per cent of members of both houses — meant Mr Trump could not use his veto without being overridden. “we’ll just work with it,” he said, but: “We can’t let it take us off track of trying to restore the relationship.” “The American people want the two most powerful nuclear nations in the world to have a better relationship,” Mr Tillerson added, but were “frustrated” at lack of progress. ...

Venezuela’s newly-elected constitutional reform body was set to convene “within hours” after Washington mooted President Nicolas Maduro’s exit on Tuesday. National TV carried the announcement by Vice-President Tareck El Aissami, who chairs the counter-terrorism task force against opposition regime-change violence that has left more han 120 dead in four months. Mr Aissami said the results of Sunday’s election to the National Constituent Assembly (ANC) — boycotted by the Democratic Unity Roundtable (Mud) coalition — had been validated and the 545 delegates would soon meet. And he rejected personal sanctions on President Nicolas Maduro announced by the US on Monday — with the threat of the same on the ANC delegates if they take their seets. “We are not in colonial times, we are in the times of free and sovereign peoples,” Mr Aissami said. “The ANC, elected by more than eight million Venezuelans, is the stating point for the recognition and gathering of the country’s sectors.” ...