To the victor belong Venezuela’s spoils: Delcy Rodriguez’s UNGA about-face

 Al Jazeera English

Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez took to the stage yesterday at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York City to deliver a rather bland speech, in which she thanked United States President Donald Trump for resuming “diplomatic relations and cooperation” with Venezuela.

This was a different vibe, to be sure, than the one she opted for at the same venue in September 2019, when, as vice president under Nicolas Maduro, she accused the US of perpetrating “economic terrorism” that did not require the use of bombs “but rather through banks and insurance companies”.

Denouncing the global superpower’s militarisation of international relations and punishment of millions of innocent people “in order to apply regime change doctrines and steal other nations’ resources”, the Rodriguez of 2019 went on to cite Venezuelan economic losses to the tune of $130bn between 2015 and 2018 alone on account of US sanctions.

She additionally offered her opinion that the domination of the US political system by “plutocratic minorities” made the country unqualified to impose its model on other countries.

Seven years later, US plutocracy is going strong with Trump at the helm – the same Trump alongside whom a grinning Rodriguez appeared in a photograph taken in New York on Tuesday, less than nine months after he oversaw regime change in Venezuela by kidnapping Maduro.

The kidnapped president is now also in New York, albeit in jail, and is scheduled to stand trial in June 2027. This despite his attempts to remind everyone that, as a sitting head of state, his prosecution in a foreign court contravenes international law. READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA ENGLISH.

Flock cameras are the latest weapon of America's post-9/11 surveillance state

 Middle East Eye

In December 2021, nearly two years into the coronavirus pandemic, I flew from Mexico, which had become my de facto place of residence, to the United States, my country of birth and the place I had spent nearly two decades avoiding like the plague - the short explanation for which was that I found it incredibly creepy.

Arriving at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, I discovered that things had become even creepier than usual when, in the immigration line for US citizens, I was told to simply look at the camera rather than produce my passport.

A sign on the wall sponsored by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) featured a smiling grey-haired man and the assurance to air travellers that this was all in their best interest: "Our policies on privacy couldn't be more transparent. Biometric Facial Comparison. Faster meets more secure."

Of course, hardly anyone bats an eye anymore at such technology. Last year, the US government's Federal Register cited CBP's calculation that only about 0.13 percent of US citizens arriving in the country by air opted out of biometric processing. . . .

A quarter of a century after 9/11 set the stage for the present moment, it's safe to say that some bipartisan hullabaloo over Flock cameras is not enough to stop the surveillance state.

And as we hurtle down the camera-lined highway to doomsday, it's way too late to put on the brakes. READ MORE AT  MIDDLE EAST EYE.

9/11 at 25: Trump finds new targets for America's endless war on terror

 Middle East Eye

On 11 September 2001, I was driving to work on the freeway in Austin, Texas when I heard the news on the radio that planes had crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

As I went about nearly crashing my own car while trying to phone my best friend in New York City, I remember thinking that we were going to be hearing a lot about this particular date for a long time to come.

Sure enough, a quarter of a century has now passed since 9/11, and the events of that day continue to shape daily existence in the US - as trite as it sounds to say it.

Those of us who are old enough may remember the pre-9/11 panorama, when it was still possible to go through airport security with your water bottle and shampoo and Muslims could go to mosque without being pursued by FBI informants.

And while the US was never exactly all it was cracked up to be in terms of democracy and respect for basic rights, 9/11 definitively obliterated the right to privacy and other civil liberties upon which the country was supposedly founded. READ MORE AT MIDDLE EAST EYE.