International Glance
The world's largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, will arrive in the northern Caribbean on Sunday as tensions with Venezuela grow, according to a U.S. military official. The carrier will join 15,000 service members, including 2,000 Marines aboard an amphibious assault ship.
The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, told NPR the "table is being set" for possible military action. Administration officials are continuing to hold high-level meetings with members of Congress and foreign leaders amid ongoing military exercises.
It remains unclear, however, if President Trump will use military force against Venezuela. The U.S. has conducted 20 strikes on boats in the region so far, saying they were ferrying drugs trafficked from the country. In August, the U.S. government set a $50 million reward for the arrest of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
But officials told NPR that the arrival of the USS Gerald Ford, which was pulled from the Mediterranean Sea, could be just another pressure tactic on Maduro, who has put his own forces on high alert.
On Friday, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, "I sort of made up my mind" about whether to launch an attack.
"I can't tell you what it is," he said, "but we made a lot of progress with Venezuela in terms of stopping drugs from pouring in."
A U.S. proposal to provide a United Nations mandate for an international stabilization force in Gaza is facing opposition from Russia, China and some Arab countries, which have expressed unease about a yet-to-be established board that would temporarily govern the territory and the lack of any transitional role for the Palestinian Authority.
Heavy rain across the Gaza Strip on Friday has drenched many tents where displaced Palestinians are sheltering.
A “massive” Russian attack on Kyiv has killed at least six people with more than 30 others injured, according to the head of the Kyiv city military administration, Tymur Tkachenko.
An Israeli settler arson attack on a mosque in the occupied West Bank has drawn international condemnation, as a wave of intensified violence against Palestinians continues unabated across the area.
The US state department has announced that it will designate four European self-described anti-fascist groups as Foreign Terrorist Organisations, as the Trump administration broadens its campaign against what it portrays as an international wave of leftist violence.
