CARACAS: The latest developments in Venezuela’s political crisis have dealt a severe blow to President Nicolas Maduro — severe, but not fatal, for one key reason: the military still backs him.
The National Bolivarian Armed Forces of Venezuela pointedly reiterated their loyalty to Maduro on Thursday, a day after opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself the country’s acting president.
In a statement read out to the press by Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, the military top brass called the leftist leader the “legitimate president” and Guaido’s move a “coup.”
Following Padrino’s lead, eight other top generals declared their “absolute loyalty and subordination” to Maduro, live on state television.
Guaido, the 35-year-old speaker of Venezuela’s opposition-controlled legislature, was “inaugurated” as acting president Wednesday before thousands of demonstrators, declaring that Maduro’s re-election in a widely-condemned vote was illegitimate.
The United States and a string of Latin American countries quickly backed Guaido.
But his move did little to change the calculus of power on the ground. Maduro, who has presided over a spiraling political and economic crisis, still controls both the army and the Supreme Court.
Guaido has offered an amnesty to soldiers who break ranks with Maduro, in an effort to win over potential defectors, including both officers and rank-and-file troops who may be weary of cracking down on their own people.
He may stand a chance of getting a critical mass of soldiers to break ranks, some experts say.
“When you take the kind of step that he’s taken, you have to know what kind of support you have, especially within the military,” political scientist Luis Salamanca told AFP.
But it will not be easy to break the military monolith.
“Maduro relies on the military, and they rely on him, to enrich themselves and avoid facing trial if the regime ultimately falls,” said Salamanca.
Chavez's legacy
Doubling down on one of the strategies of his late mentor, the leftist firebrand Hugo Chavez, Maduro has given the military vast power.
Chavez gave 25 percent of the posts in the executive branch to the military. Under Maduro, that figure rose to as high as 44 percent — though it has recently fallen again, to 26 percent, according to the watchdog group Control Ciudadano.
“Being a minister isn’t the source of wealth it once was,” said the group’s director, Rocio San Miguel, adding that generals today would rather get rich presiding over things like subsidized food imports — which are rife with corruption, amid a devastating crisis that has left supermarket shelves practically bare.
Still, nine of Maduro’s 32 ministers are from the military, which also controls powerful institutions including state oil company PDVSA and the intelligence services. The list also includes a TV network, a bank, an auto manufacturer, and a mining, oil and gas company.
The more unpopular Maduro gets, the more the military’s power grows, according to many analysts.
The president has called the army the “backbone” of the country. He also relies heavily on the National Guard and the country’s 1.6 million civilian militia members.
Anti-Maduro plots
But as even the defense minister admits, the “devil” has crept into Venezuela’s barracks — his word for anti-Maduro plots.
On Monday, 27 soldiers stole a cache of weapons and staged a brief mutiny before being arrested at the Caracas barracks where they were entrenched.
Two generals are also among those jailed for an alleged assassination attempt on August 4, when a pair of drones exploded near Maduro at a military procession.
Last year, another 180 troops were arrested on conspiracy charges, according to San Miguel. Many of them were tortured, says Human Rights Watch.
The New York Times reported in September that US officials had met with Venezuelan military officers about a coup plot that was ultimately aborted.
Maduro’s claims the United States has a $120-million fund for “buying” Venezuelan officers.
And there are signs of cracks in what was once the security forces’ steadfast loyalty. More than 4,300 National Guards members deserted in 2018, according to San Miguel.
Most military top brass are torn between “following Maduro at the risk of going down with him” and “saving their own skins,” said Salamanca.
Venezuelan military: the muscle behind Maduro
Venezuelan military: the muscle behind Maduro
- The National Bolivarian Armed Forces of Venezuela pointedly reiterated their loyalty to Maduro on Thursda
- Doubling down on the strategies of his leftist mentor Hugo Chavez, Maduro has given the military vast power
Elon Musk’s AI company says Grok chatbot focus on South Africa’s racial politics was ‘unauthorized’
- xAI blames employee at xAI made a change that “directed Grok to provide a specific response on a political topic”
- Grok kept posting publicly about “white genocide” in South Africa in response to users of Musk’s social media platform X
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company said an “unauthorized modification” to its chatbot Grok was the reason why it kept talking about South African racial politics and the subject of “white genocide” on social media this week.
An employee at xAI made a change that “directed Grok to provide a specific response on a political topic,” which “violated xAI’s internal policies and core values,” the company said in an explanation posted late Thursday that promised reforms.
A day earlier, Grok kept posting publicly about “white genocide” in South Africa in response to users of Musk’s social media platform X who asked it a variety of questions, most having nothing to do with South Africa.
One exchange was about streaming service Max reviving the HBO name. Others were about video games or baseball but quickly veered into unrelated commentary on alleged calls to violence against South Africa’s white farmers. It was echoing views shared by Musk, who was born in South Africa and frequently opines on the same topics from his own X account.
Computer scientist Jen Golbeck was curious about Grok’s unusual behavior so she tried it herself before the fixes were made Wednesday, sharing a photo she had taken at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show and asking, “is this true?”
“The claim of white genocide is highly controversial,” began Grok’s response to Golbeck. “Some argue white farmers face targeted violence, pointing to farm attacks and rhetoric like the ‘Kill the Boer’ song, which they see as incitement.”
The episode was the latest window into the complicated mix of automation and human engineering that leads generative AI chatbots trained on huge troves of data to say what they say.
“It doesn’t even really matter what you were saying to Grok,” said Golbeck, a professor at the University of Maryland, in an interview Thursday. “It would still give that white genocide answer. So it seemed pretty clear that someone had hard-coded it to give that response or variations on that response, and made a mistake so it was coming up a lot more often than it was supposed to.”
Grok’s responses were deleted and appeared to have stopped proliferating by Thursday. Neither xAI nor X returned emailed requests for comment but on Thursday, xAI said it had “conducted a thorough investigation” and was implementing new measures to improve Grok’s transparency and reliability.
Musk has spent years criticizing the “woke AI” outputs he says come out of rival chatbots, like Google’s Gemini or OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and has pitched Grok as their “maximally truth-seeking” alternative.
Musk has also criticized his rivals’ lack of transparency about their AI systems, fueling criticism in the hours between the unauthorized change — at 3:15 a.m. Pacific time Wednesday — and the company’s explanation nearly two days later.
“Grok randomly blurting out opinions about white genocide in South Africa smells to me like the sort of buggy behavior you get from a recently applied patch. I sure hope it isn’t. It would be really bad if widely used AIs got editorialized on the fly by those who controlled them,” prominent technology investor Paul Graham wrote on X.
Musk, an adviser to President Donald Trump, has regularly accused South Africa’s Black-led government of being anti-white and has repeated a claim that some of the country’s political figures are “actively promoting white genocide.”
Musk’s commentary — and Grok’s — escalated this week after the Trump administration brought a small number of white South Africans to the United States as refugees, the start of a larger relocation effort for members of the minority Afrikaner group that came after Trump suspended refugee programs and halted arrivals from other parts of the world. Trump says the Afrikaners are facing a “genocide” in their homeland, an allegation strongly denied by the South African government.
In many of its responses, Grok brought up the lyrics of an old anti-apartheid song that was a call for Black people to stand up against oppression by the Afrikaner-led apartheid government that ruled South Africa until 1994. The song’s central lyrics are “kill the Boer” — a word that refers to a white farmer.
Golbeck said it was clear the answers were “hard-coded” because, while chatbot outputs are typically random, Grok’s responses consistently brought up nearly identical points. That’s concerning, she said, in a world where people increasingly go to Grok and competing AI chatbots for answers to their questions.
“We’re in a space where it’s awfully easy for the people who are in charge of these algorithms to manipulate the version of truth that they’re giving,” she said. “And that’s really problematic when people — I think incorrectly — believe that these algorithms can be sources of adjudication about what’s true and what isn’t.”
Musk’s company said it is now making a number of changes, starting with publishing Grok system prompts openly on the software development site GitHub so that “the public will be able to review them and give feedback to every prompt change that we make to Grok. We hope this can help strengthen your trust in Grok as a truth-seeking AI.”
Among the instructions to Grok shown on GitHub on Thursday were: “You are extremely skeptical. You do not blindly defer to mainstream authority or media.”
Noting that some had “circumvented” its existing code review process, xAI also said it will “put in place additional checks and measures to ensure that xAI employees can’t modify the prompt without review.” The company said it is also putting in place a “24/7 monitoring team to respond to incidents with Grok’s answers that are not caught by automated systems,” for when other measures fail.
Moody’s strips US government of top credit rating, citing failure to rein in debt
- Moody’s is the last of the three major rating agencies to lower the federal government’s credit
- White House dismisses downgrade as the work of a political opponent of Trump
WASHINGTON: Moody’s Ratings stripped the US government of its top credit rating Friday, citing successive governments’ failure to stop a rising tide of debt.
Moody’s lowered the rating from a gold-standard Aaa to Aa1 but said the United States “retains exceptional credit strengths such as the size, resilience and dynamism of its economy and the role of the US dollar as global reserve currency.”
Moody’s is the last of the three major rating agencies to lower the federal government’s credit. Standard & Poor’s downgraded federal debt in 2011 and Fitch Ratings followed in 2023.
In a statement, Moody’s said: “We expect federal deficits to widen, reaching nearly 9 percent of (the US economy) by 2035, up from 6.4 percent in 2024, driven mainly by increased interest payments on debt, rising entitlement spending, and relatively low revenue generation.”
Extending President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, a priority of the Republican-controlled Congress, Moody’s said, would add $4 trillion over the next decade to the federal primary deficit (which does not include interest payments).
White House communications director Steven Cheung reacted to the downgrade via a social media post, singling out Moody’s economist, Mark Zandi, for criticism. He called Zandi a political opponent of US President Donald Trump.
“Nobody takes his ‘analysis’ seriously. He has been proven wrong time and time again,” said Cheung.
A gridlocked political system has been unable to tackle America’s huge deficits. Republicans reject tax increases, and Democrats are reluctant to cut spending.
On Friday, House Republicans failed to push a big package of tax breaks and spending cuts through the Budget Committee. A small group of hard-right Republican lawmakers, insisting on steeper cuts to Medicaid and President Joe Biden’s green energy tax breaks, joined all Democrats in opposing it.
Trump livid as Supreme Court rejects his bid to resume quick deportations under 18th-century law
- High court action latest in string of judicial setbacks for Trump administration’s effort to speed deportations of people from the US illegally
- “The Supreme court won’t allow us to get criminals out of our country!” Trump lashes out on his Truth Social platform
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump lashed out Friday at the Supreme Court after it blocked his bid to resume deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members, saying the justices are “not allowing me to do what I was elected to do.”
Trump’s berating of the high court, in a post on social media, came after it dealt another setback to his attempt to swiftly expel alleged Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang members using an obscure wartime law, the 1798 Alien Enemies Act (AEA).
Trump has been at loggerheads with the judiciary ever since he returned to the White House, venting his fury at numerous court rulings at various levels that have frozen his executive orders on multiple issues.
In a 7-2 decision, the conservative-majority Supreme Court, which includes three justices nominated by Trump, blocked his bid to use the AEA to carry out further deportations of TdA members, saying they were not being given enough time to legally contest their removal.
Trump, who campaigned for the White House on a pledge to deport millions of undocumented migrants, said the Supreme Court decision means the government will have to go through a “long, protracted, and expensive Legal Process” to expel “murderers, drug dealers (and) gang members.”
“THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES IS NOT ALLOWING ME TO DO WHAT I WAS ELECTED TO DO,” he said. “THIS IS A BAD AND DANGEROUS DAY FOR AMERICA!“
On Elon Musk’s X platform, Trump also accused the nation’s highest court of “being played by radical left losers.”
Trump invoked the AEA, which was last used to round up Japanese-Americans during World War II, in March to deport a first group of alleged TdA members to a notorious prison in El Salvador without due process.
Attorneys for several of the deported Venezuelans have said their clients were not gang members, had committed no crimes and were targeted largely on the basis of their tattoos.
The Supreme Court intervened on April 19 to temporarily block further deportations of undocumented Venezuelan migrants, saying they must be afforded due process.
In Friday’s unsigned order, the court paused plans to deport another group of detainees held in Texas, saying they were not being given enough time to mount a meaningful legal challenge to their expulsion.
“Notice roughly 24 hours before removal, devoid of information about how to exercise due process rights to contest that removal, surely does not pass muster,” the justices said.
Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented, with Alito complaining that his colleagues had departed from their usual practices and seemingly decided issues without an appeals court weighing in. “But if it has done so, today’s order is doubly extraordinary,” Alito wrote.
Trump thanked them in his Truth Social post for “attempting to protect our Country.”
In a separate opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said he agreed with the majority but would have preferred the nation’s highest court to jump in now definitively, rather than return the case to an appeals court. “The circumstances,” Kavanaugh wrote, “call for a prompt and final resolution.”
The justices also noted that a Salvadoran man had been deported to El Salvador “in error” along with the alleged TdA members in March and the Trump administration has claimed “it is unable to provide for (his) return.”
The justices stressed they were not deciding whether Trump could legally use the AEA to deport undocumented migrants, and they ordered a lower court to “expeditiously” examine the question.
“To be clear, we decide today only that the detainees are entitled to more notice than was given,” they said.
“We did not on April 19 — and do not now — address the underlying merits of the parties’ claims regarding the legality of removals under the AEA.
“We recognize the significance of the Government’s national security interests as well as the necessity that such interests be pursued in a manner consistent with the Constitution,” they said.
Three federal district court judges have ruled that Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to carry out deportations was unconstitutional while one, a Trump appointee, said it was permissible.
In invoking the AEA, Trump said TdA was engaged in “hostile actions” and “threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States.”
Since taking office, Trump has sent troops to the Mexican border, imposed tariffs on Mexico and Canada for allegedly not doing enough to stop illegal crossings, and designated gangs like TdA and MS-13 as terrorist groups.
World’s biggest poultry exporter Brazil confirms bird flu outbreak
- Brazil exports make up 35 percent of global chicken trade
SAO PAULO: Brazil, the world’s largest poultry exporter, confirmed its first outbreak of bird flu on a commercial farm on Friday, triggering a ban on shipments to China and raising the prospect of restrictions from other trade partners.
Brazil exported $10 billion of chicken meat in 2024, accounting for about 35 percent of global trade. Much of that came from meat processors BRF and JBS, which ship to some 150 countries.
China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the UAE, are among the main destinations for Brazil’s chicken exports.
Brazil’s Agriculture Minister Carlos Favaro said on Friday China had banned poulty imports from the country for 60 days, but that Brazilian chicken in transit to other countries would not face problems.
Chinese customs did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment outside business hours.
The outbreak occurred in the city of Montenegro in Brazil’s southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul, the Agriculture Ministry said. The state accounts for 15 percent of Brazilian poultry production and exports, national pork and poultry group ABPA said in July 2024.
BRF had five processing plants operating in the state as of May 2024. JBS has also invested in chicken processing plants in Rio Grande do Sul under its Seara brand.
The veterinary officials have begun isolating the area of the outbreak in Montenegro and culling the remaining birds, in line with protocol, the state agricultural secretariat said.
“A complementary investigation will be carried out within an initial radius of 10 km (6 miles) from the area where the outbreak occurred, and into possible links with other properties,” the secretariat said.
The ministry also said it was acting to contain and eradicate the outbreak, officially notifying the World Organization for Animal Health, Brazil’s trade partners and other interested parties.
“All necessary measures to control the situation were quickly adopted, and the situation is under control and being monitored by government agencies,” industry group ABPA said in a statement.
Asked for a company response, JBS deferred to ABPA.
Miguel Gularte, CEO of BRF, told a call with analysts he was confident Brazilian health protocols were robust and “this episode” would be quickly overcome.
Since 2022, bird flu has swept through the US poultry industry, killing around 170 million chickens, turkeys and other birds, severely affecting production of meat and eggs.
Bird flu has also infected nearly 70 people in the US, with one death, since 2024. Most of those infections have been among farmworkers exposed to infected poultry or cows.
The further spread of the disease raises the risk that bird flu could become more transmissible to humans.
Brazil, which exported more than 5 million metric tons of chicken products last year, first confirmed outbreaks of the highly pathogenic avian flu among wild birds in May 2023 in at least seven states.
The disease is not transmitted through the consumption of poultry meat or eggs, the Agriculture Ministry said in a statement.
“The Brazilian and world population can rest assured about the safety of inspected products, and there are no restrictions on their consumption,” the ministry said.
UK faith leaders urge PM to tone down migration rhetoric
- Downing Street has strongly rejected the claims but the religious leaders asked him to “reconsider the language the government uses“
- The 25 signatories instead called for a “more compassionate narrative”
LONDON: UK religious leaders on Friday called on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to tone down his language about migration, after comparisons were made to an inflammatory speech in the 1960s.
Labour leader Starmer this week announced tougher new policies to tackle high levels of migration, in an attempt to stem a growing loss of support to the hard right.
In a speech, he said the UK risked becoming “an island of strangers,” prompting comparisons to similar phrasing in the late politician Enoch Powell’s so-called “rivers of blood” speech about the dangers of uncontrolled immigration in 1968.
Downing Street has strongly rejected the claims but the religious leaders, including Church of England bishops, senior Muslim and Jewish clerics, asked him to “reconsider the language the government uses.”
“Our concern is that the current narrative, which presents only one side of the debate, will only drive public anxiety and entrench polarization,” they wrote.
“When you refer to the ‘incalculable’ damage done by uncontrolled migration, you are in danger of harming migrant members of our communities and strengthening those who would divide us,” they added.
Former human rights lawyer Starmer’s hardening tone has shocked some of his parliamentary colleagues and a YouGov poll published Friday indicated that half of Labour voters now have a negative opinion of him.
The 25 signatories instead called for a “more compassionate narrative,” pointing out that many migrants had become “part of our national story and fabric.”
“Our country would be so much poorer without them,” they added.
Starmer’s plans include restrictions on recruiting from abroad for the social care sector, doubling the length of time before migrants can qualify for settlement and new powers to deport foreign criminals.
The religious leaders said people who had come to the UK legitimately under rules set by previous governments, working and paying tax.
“Framing this as somehow unfair only feeds the politics of grievance and division,” they added.
The letter was sent to Starmer after his speech on Monday, The Guardian newspaper reported.
It quoted a Downing Street spokesperson as saying: “We are clear that migrants make a massive contribution to the UK, and would never denigrate that.
“Britain is an inclusive and tolerant country, but the public expect that people who come here should be expected to learn the language and integrate.”
