Amid mass arrests, Maduro won’t touch rival Guaido
CARACAS, Venezuela — More than 700 opponents of President Nicolas Maduro have been arrested during the latest push by Venezuela’s opposition to oust the socialist leader.
But there’s one anti-government activist security forces notably haven’t touched: Juan Guaido, the lawmaker who declared himself interim president in a direct challenge to Maduro’s rule.
Maduro’s refusal, at least so far, to order Guaido’s arrest reflects mistrust in his own security forces as well as the Trump administration’s warning that any harm to the man the U.S. recognizes as Venezuela’s legitimate leader would be crossing a dangerous red line.
The U.S. administration reiterated that threat Monday in announcing sweeping sanctions against Venezuela’s state oil company.
Any actions taken against U.S. diplomats, Guaido or the National Assembly he presides over would be considered a “grave assault” that “will be met with a significant response,” U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton said.
US hits Venezuela with oil sanctions to press Maduro exit
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration imposed sanctions Monday on the state-owned oil company of Venezuela, a potentially critical economic move aimed at increasing pressure on President Nicolas Maduro to cede power to the opposition in the South American nation.
Maduro’s increasingly isolated government would lose access to one of its most important sources of income and foreign currency along with around $7 billion in assets of Petroleos De Venezuela S.A. under the sanctions announced by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and national security adviser John Bolton.
The move follows the unusual decision by the U.S. and other nations last week to recognize the opposition leader of the National Assembly, Juan Guaido, as the interim president of Venezuela instead of Maduro, who was re-elected last year in an election widely seen as fraudulent. The once prosperous nation has been in an economic collapse, with several million citizens fleeing to neighboring countries.
“We have continued to expose the corruption of Maduro and his cronies, and today’s action ensures they can no longer loot the assets of the Venezuelan people,” Bolton said at a White House news conference.
Bolton said he expects Monday’s actions against PDVSA — the acronym for the state-owned oil company —will result in more than $11 billion in lost export proceeds over the next year.
US charges Chinese tech giant Huawei, top executive
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department unsealed criminal charges Monday against Chinese tech giant Huawei, two of its subsidiaries and a top executive, who are accused of misleading banks about the company’s business and violating U.S. sanctions.
The company is also charged in a separate case with stealing trade secrets from T-Mobile, according to federal prosecutors.
Prosecutors are seeking to extradite the company’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, and allege she committed fraud by misleading banks about Huawei’s business dealings in Iran. She was arrested on Dec. 1 in Canada.
The criminal charges in Brooklyn and Seattle come as trade talks between China and the U.S. are scheduled for this week.
“As I told high-level Chinese law enforcement officials in August_we need more law enforcement cooperation with China,” acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker said at a news conference with other Cabinet officials, including Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. “China should be concerned about criminal activities by Chinese companies_and China should take action.”
Rescuers search in deep mud after Brazil dam breach, at least 65 dead
BRUMADINHO, Brazil — Brazilian firefighters and Israeli rescue workers carefully moved Monday over treacherous mud — sometimes walking, sometimes crawling — during their search for survivors or bodies following a dam collapse that buried buildings for an iron ore mining complex and inundated nearby neighborhoods with ore waste.
The death toll rose to at least 65, with 279 people still missing, said. Lt. Col. Flavio Godinho of the civil defense department in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais, where the dam is located.
Officials said earlier that death toll was expected to grow “exponentially” after no one was found alive Sunday. That stood in contrast to the first two days of the disaster, when helicopters whisked people out of the mud.
Search efforts were extremely slow because of the treacherous sea of reddish-brown mud that surged out when the mine tailings dam breached Friday afternoon. The mud was up 24 feet (8 meters) deep in some places, forcing searchers to carefully walk around the edges of the muck or slowly crawl onto it so they would not sink and drown.
Rescue teams Monday morning focused their searches on areas where a bus was immersed and the cafeteria of mining company Vale, where many workers were eating lunch when the dam ruptured. Vale SA is the world’s largest producer of iron ore, the raw ingredient for making steel. The Brazilian company’s American depository shares plunged 18 percent Monday on the New York Stock exchange.
Insurance claims from deadly California wildfires top $11.4B
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Insurance claims from California’s deadly November 2018 wildfires have topped $11.4 billion, making the series of fires one of the most expensive in state history, officials said Monday.
More than $8 billion of those losses are from the fire that leveled the town of Paradise, killing 86 people and destroying roughly 15,000 homes, state Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said. Roughly $3 billion worth of damage is related to two Southern California wildfires that ignited during the same week.
“We have a long way to go before we can feel whole again,” Lara said after announcing the numbers.
The $11.4 billion total is slightly below the losses claimed from 2017 wildfires that ripped through Northern California wine country in October and Southern California in December.
While far more houses were destroyed in last year’s wildfires, home values are much lower in rural California communities, officials said last year.
Heavy snow hitting parts of Midwest; dangerous cold coming
MILWAUKEE — Heavy snow and powerful wind created blizzard-like conditions Monday across parts of the Midwest, prompting officials to cancel about 1,000 flights at Chicago’s airports and close hundreds of schools. But forecasters warned the most dangerous weather is yet to come: frigidly low temperatures that the region hasn’t seen in a quarter century.
Snowplow drivers had trouble keeping up with the snow in Minnesota and Wisconsin, where some areas got as much as 15 inches (38 centimeters). Chicago-area commuters woke up to heavy snowfall, with more than 5 inches (12.7 centimeters) already on the ground. In Michigan, non-essential government offices were closed, including the Capitol.
But the snow is only “part one, and maybe even the easier part” because temperatures will plummet over the next three days, said Brian Hurley, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center.
Wednesday is expected to be the worst. Wind chills in northern Illinois could fall to negative 55 degrees (negative 48 degrees Celsius), which the National Weather Service called “possibly life threatening.” Minnesota temperatures could hit minus 30 degrees (negative 34 degrees Celsius) with a wind chill of negative 60 (negative 51 degrees Celsius).
“You’re talking about frostbite and hypothermia issues very quickly, like in a matter of minutes, maybe seconds,” Hurley said.
Book says Trump adviser spoke dismissively about refugees
WASHINGTON — The author of a new tell-all book about the White House under President Donald Trump says one of Trump’s top policy advisers spoke dismissively about refugees.
Stephen Miller, who has pushed Trump to adopt stricter immigration policies, is quoted as saying, “I would be happy if not a single refugee foot ever again touched American soil,” according to Cliff Sims, a former White House communications aide and author of “Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House,” due in stores Tuesday.
The Associated Press obtained a copy Monday.
Miller did not respond to an emailed request for comment. White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said during a rare televised briefing Monday, “I’m not aware of any statement like that that Stephen Miller has ever made.”
The White House has reviewed Sims’ book but has tried to avoid being drawn into public discussion to avoid bringing more attention to Sims’ accounts.
