Orinoco Tribune: US Strike Kills 4 in Caribbean, Escalating Tensions With Venezuela US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth reported that Southern Command forces in the Caribbean Sea struck a “drug trafficking vessel” in international waters off the coast of Venezuela, not providing details about the location and the victims. The new strike follows an incident the day before, when Venezuelan Defense Minister Padrino condemned an incursion by US F-35 fighter jets off the Venezuelan coast, describing it as an act of provocation.
ALBA-TCP Statement Denouncing US Warplane Incursion Near Venezuela’s Coastline
Al Mayadeen: Maduro vows Venezuela will resist US pressure and imperialism President Maduro vowed his country will never yield to Western powers or become a pawn of foreign empires, reaffirming Venezuela’s defiance against what he described as ongoing imperialist ambitions. Maduro declared that Venezuela “will never humiliate itself before any empire, regardless of its power or name.” He added that those seeking to dominate his country “will be taught, in proper measure, a moral, ethical, and political lesson in the years to come.” Maduro accused the US of plotting an armed intervention to impose a “puppet government” in Caracas and seize Venezuela’s natural resources.
Orinoco Tribune: Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua Excluded From US Empire-Led ‘Summit of the Americas’ in Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic, under what many describe as pressure from the US empire, has excluded Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua from the 10th Summit of the Americas. The summit is scheduled for December 4-5 in Punta Cana, barring any regional uproar that prevents it from going ahead. The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America–People’s Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP) condemned the Dominican Republic’s political capitulation to the US. “ALBA-TCP takes note of the statement issued by the Government of the Dominican Republic, which demonstrates its decision to subordinate the organization of the Summit to instructions from Washington,” the regional organization said. “This act is a public confession of a political capitulation that degrades the status of the host.”
Venezuelanalysis: Venezuela Condemns Israeli Interception of Gaza Aid Flotilla as ‘Cowardly Act of Piracy’ “This military boarding in international waters once again exposes the criminal nature of the Zionist regime, which attacks a civil and peaceful mission whose sole purpose was to deliver 5,500 tons of humanitarian aid to a Palestinian people subjected to hunger and extermination,” read the Venezuela government communique. Venezuela labeled Israel’s blockade as a “tool of deliberate warfare, the continuation of genocide by other means, seeking to annihilate the population through starvation in addition to indiscriminate bombardments. Our unbreakable solidarity is with the heroic Palestinian people and with the brave men and women who, risking their own safety, keep alive the flame of humanity in the face of Nazi-fascist darkness.”
Carlos Ron: ‘We Will Blow You Out of Existence’: Trump’s Caribbean Spectacle The study Addicted to Imperialism argues that for over 50 years, the War on Drugs has been a mechanism to promote US military expansion. Despite massive military spending, US drug consumption has not declined; conversely, the US remains both the main consumer of drugs and the main provider of weapons to the drug cartels.
Minister Diosdado Cabello denounced a DEA-coordinated false flag operation seeking to provoke the Venezuelan armed forces into direct confrontation with the US military. But the Venezuelan government has established a National Council for Sovereignty and Peace where the unlikely combination of pro-government and opposition forces have joined in rejecting foreign intervention. Many Venezuelans even enlisted in the national militias and are ready to act in defense of the nation in the case of US invasion or a targeted attack such as those carried out months earlier against Iran. What is being carried out against Venezuela, is not an operation against drug trafficking but rather, a regime change operation. Yet Venezuelan morale is high.
Mision Verdad: When CIA and DEA drug traffickers operated in Venezuela Before the Chavista revolution in 1999, Venezuela was used as a platform for international drug trafficking, led by the CIA and the DEA. The so-called “anti-drug operations” in Latin America served as an excuse for the CIA to penetrate state security forces, influencing their decisions and controlling their operations, their senior leadership, promotions, and operations on the ground. In one example, two CIA agents in Venezuela shipped 2,000 pounds of cocaine to the US. The beneficiary of the operation was the Medellín Cartel, led by Pablo Escobar.
Peoples World (Tom Whitney): New Cuban Report Confirms US Blockade is War Cuba’s foreign ministry on September 17 released the nation’s annual report on the adverse effects of the lengthy U.S. economic blockade of Cuba. The 55-page Report—accessible here—is remarkable for its detailed and far-ranging description of disarray and distress caused by the blockade. It exposes the cruelty and lawlessness of U.S. intrusion in the lives of a sovereign people. The Report records monetary data relating to shortages, which are listed for various sectors, amounting to $7.6 billion for the year. The worsening blockade has caused Cuba’s infant mortality rate to rise from 4.2 deaths per 1,000 births (2014) to 8.2 today.
Documentary on Assata Shakur and Assata Shakur Reads Her 1998 Letter to Pope On May 2 1973, activist Assata Shakur was pulled over by the New Jersey State Police, shot twice and then charged with murder of a police officer. Assata spent six and a half years in prison under brutal circumstances before escaping out of the maximum security in 1979 and moving to Cuba. Assata: “I am an ex political prisoner, and I have been living in exile in Cuba since 1984. I have been a political activist most of my life, and although the US government has done everything in its power to criminalize me, I am not a criminal, nor have I ever been one. In the 1960s, I participated in various struggles: the black liberation movement, the student rights movement, and the movement to end the war in Vietnam. I joined the Black Panther Party. By 1969 the Black Panther Party had become the number one organization targeted by the FBI’s COINTELPRO program. Because the Black Panther Party demanded the total liberation of black people, J. Edgar Hoover called it “greatest threat to the internal security of the country” and vowed to destroy it and its leaders and activists.”
Nicaragua Co-President Daniel Ortega: We are all united to defend the Sovereignty of Venezuela, which is to defend the Sovereignty of all the Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean The US rulers “who have such intelligence power, such gigantic military power, where is that power” when it combats drugs inside the US borders? “If they can’t control their ports, if they can’t control their cities, the United States is where the world’s greatest drug consumption takes place and where thousands and thousands of young Americans die as a result of drugs. Nor do they not want to assume the responsibility of controlling their Banks; since drug traffickers stealthily open accounts in the Banks, and there is no law there that requires strict checking of those accounts. In other words, there is complicity there.”
“But there is racial hatred, they have rulers who are racists and those rulers have promoted wars around the world ever since the United States of America existed; they are the ones who have promoted most wars in the world, who have occupied countries, bombing countries, destroying cities, the ones who feel that they own the Planet, simply because they have military power and great wealth.”
Juventud Rebelde: October 6, 1976 CIA bombing of Cuban civilian airliner: A silence that speaks from the depths Fifty-seven Cubans, 11 Guyanese, and five Koreans unwittingly were blown up that day; among them were the 24 members of the Cuban youth fencing team that had triumphed in the Central American Championship. The masterminds, terrorists Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, worked with the CIA.
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Upcoming Events
October 13, 2:30 pm ET: Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition monthly meeting on zoom. Email NicaraguaSolidarityCoalition@gmail.com for zoom access
October 18, 9am ET: Resistance, resilience and internationalism: Nicaragua’s path out of povertyValdrack Jaentschke, Nicaraguan Foreign Minister, Felix Plasencia, Venezuelan Ambassador to the UK; Geraldine Cawthorne, NSCAG The event is in person and online
October 19, 3pm ET: webinar Miami Coalition to End the US Blockade Book Club will be studying Helen Yaffe’s “We Are Cuba!” pdf of book here contact endblockade305@gmail.com
October 28-29: 24-hour Global Online Picket to End the U.S. Blockade on Cuba!
November 7-9 (Charleton, SC): National Network on Cuba meeting
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Delegations to Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela:
Venezuela
December delegation to Venezuela for the World Summit for Mother Earth-Global ecosocialists
Cuba
Witness for Peace delegations to Cuba
November 15-23: Cooperatives & 10 Best Practices in Cuba
November 23- December 5: Brigade to Eastern Cuba
December 20- January 3: ICAP hosted International Solidarity Brigade to Cuba
Friendly Planet delegations to Cuba
Nicaragua
Casa Ben Linder Email casabenjaminlinder@gmail.com to apply:
November 2025: Salud & Solidaridad: Hands-On Healthcare in Nicaragua
22-31 January 2026: The Bird Brigade: Birding in Solentiname Arquipelago
7-15 March 2026: Power & Protagonism: Women in Nicaragua
June 2026: Global Health: Family and Community Health in Nicaragua
July 2026: Solidarity in Action: Nicaragua’s Popular Revolution
October 2026: Salud & Solidaridad: Hands-On Healthcare in Nicaragua
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This is also available at ChicagoALBASolidarity.org. If you have events to publicize, send them to venezuelaweekly@afgj.org or stansfieldsmith100@gmail.com
Chicago ALBA Solidarity 