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Venezuela\u2019s UN ambassador denounces US military strikes and naval blockade at a meeting of the UN Security Council.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Venezuela has told the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) that the United States has \u201ccontinental ambitions\u201d over much of Latin America as it wages an unofficial war to remove the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not just about Venezuela. The ambition is continental,\u201d Venezuela\u2019s UN ambassador, Samuel Moncada, told a meeting of the 15-member UNSC on Tuesday.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n \u201cThe US government has expressed this in its National Security Strategy, which states that the future of the continent belongs to them,\u201d Moncada said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to alert the world that Venezuela is only the first target of a larger plan. The US government wants us to be divided so it can conquer us piece by piece,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Venezuela, earlier this month, requested that the UNSC meet to address the \u201congoing US aggression\u201d, which began in September when the White House launched air strikes against vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. The White House claimed, without providing any evidence, that the vessels were trafficking drugs to the US.<\/p>\n At least 105 people have been killed so far in the attacks by US forces, which legal experts and Latin American leaders have branded \u201cextrajudicial killings\u201d, but which Washington claims are necessary to stem the flow of drugs to US shores.<\/p>\n At the UNSC meeting, Moncada also accused the administration of US President Donald Trump of violating both international and US domestic law, since the White House has been acting without the approval of the US Congress, whose authority is required to formally declare war on another country.<\/p>\n Moncada said that Trump\u2019s imposition last week of a naval blockade on all Venezuelan oil tankers sanctioned by the US was a \u201cmilitary act aimed at laying siege to the Venezuelan nation\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cToday, the masks have come off,\u201d Moncada said. \u201cIt is not drugs, it is not security, it is not freedom. It is oil, it is mines and it is land.\u201d<\/p>\n US forces have seized at least two Venezuelan oil tankers and confiscated at least 4 million barrels of Venezuelan oil, according to Moncada, in a move he described as \u201ca robbery carried out by military force\u201d.<\/p>\n The US has defended its naval blockade of Venezuela as a \u201claw enforcement\u201d action to be carried out by the US coastguard, which has the authority to board ships under US sanctions. A naval blockade, by contrast, would be considered an act of war under international law.<\/p>\n The US ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, told the UNSC that Latin American drug cartels remain the \u201csingle most serious threat\u201d and that Trump would continue to use the full power of the US to eradicate them. Waltz also said that Venezuelan oil is a critical component in funding the cartels in Venezuela.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reality of the situation is that sanctioned oil tankers operate as the primary economic lifeline for Maduro and his illegitimate regime,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The White House earlier this year designated several international drug cartels, including Venezuela\u2019s Tren de Aragua, as terrorist organisations. Washington also added the \u201cCartel de los Soles,\u201d which it claims is headed by Maduro, to the list in November.<\/p>\n The Venezuelan leader has denied the US allegations and accused the Trump administration of using the drug trafficking claims as a cover to carry out \u201cregime change\u201d in his country.<\/p>\n Russia\u2019s ambassador to the UN separately warned that US \u201cintervention\u201d in Venezuela could \u201cbecome a template for future acts of force against Latin American states\u201d.<\/p>\n China\u2019s ambassador told the UNSC that the US actions \u201cseriously infringe\u201d on the \u201csovereignty, security and legitimate rights\u201d of Venezuela.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Venezuela\u2019s UN ambassador denounces US military strikes and naval blockade at a meeting of the UN Security Council. Venezuela has told the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) that the United States has \u201ccontinental ambitions\u201d over much of Latin America as it wages an unofficial war to remove the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. \u201cIt\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-canada-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
US envoy denounces \u2018Maduro and his illegitimate regime\u2019<\/h2>\n
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