Archiv: (zivile) Schifffahrt / (civil) sea traffic


18.12.2025 - 08:05 [ Trinidad and Tobago Guardian ]

Not in that: PM says T&T not involved in US blockade against Venezuela

“They have asked for no as­sis­tance about blockad­ing in Venezuela, no, they have not,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said af­ter at­tend­ing the fu­ner­al for for­mer col­league Daphne Phillips.

(,,,)

When asked about Trinidad and To­ba­go’s po­si­tion should any US mil­i­tary strikes oc­cur, Per­sad-Bisses­sar stressed that the Gov­ern­ment’s pri­or­i­ty is to keep the coun­try safe. She made it clear that T&T has no ag­gres­sive in­tent to­wards Venezuela.

“T and T first, that will al­ways be our po­si­tion. We have no in­ten­tion of en­gag­ing in any war with Venezuela. I’ve al­ways said we stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Venezuela and we will con­tin­ue so to do.”

17.12.2025 - 04:42 [ Trinidad Express ]

US gets green light …Military aircraft to use local airports

“In keeping with established bilateral cooperation, the ministry has granted approvals for United States military aircraft to transit Trinidad and Tobago’s airports in the coming weeks,” Monday’s release stated.

17.12.2025 - 04:35 [ ABC News ]

Hegseth says Pentagon won’t release video of strike on drug boat survivors to public

At issue is whether the Sept. 2 military strike on the alleged drug boat amounted to a war crime, as some lawmakers have suggested. Officials have confirmed there were four military strikes against the boat — the first strike killing nine of the 11 people aboard. Some 40 minutes later, a second strike was ordered to kill the remaining two survivors. Two more strikes were ordered to sink the boat, officials say.

Trump initially said he would release the video, telling reporters on Dec. 3 “whatever they have, we’d certainly release, no problem.” Trump later backtracked, saying he would defer to Hegseth.

17.12.2025 - 03:55 [ Fox News ]

Trump declares ‚Venezuelan regime‘ a foreign terrorist organization, orders oil tanker blockade

President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered a total blockade of oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela, declaring the Nicolás Maduro regime a foreign terrorist organization and accusing it of using stolen U.S. assets to finance terrorism, trafficking and other criminal activity.

„Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America,“ Trump said on Truth Social. „It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before – Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.

17.12.2025 - 03:48 [ NPR.org ]

U.S. military says strikes on 3 boats in the eastern Pacific Ocean kill 8 people

(December 16, 2025)

The military said in a statement on social media that the strikes targeted „designated terrorist organizations,“ killing three people in the first vessel, two in the second boat and three in the third boat. It didn‘t provide evidence of their alleged drug trafficking but posted a video of a boat moving through water before exploding.

11.12.2025 - 09:40 [ CNC3.co.tt ]

Security experts reject PM’s claim that unflagged vessels can be attacked

(December 10, 2025)

Former director of the National Coastal Surveillance Radar Centre and National Transformation Alliance (NTA) political leader, retired Coast Guard commander Norman Dindial, said that the Prime Minister’s claim is legally unsound. He said flagless vessels are classified as stateless, not pirates, and cannot be considered lawful targets.

His comments follow renewed questions about the September 2 strike near Trinidad and Tobago’s waters, now under scrutiny for allegedly killing two survivors in a second hit. Speaking outside Parliament on Tuesday, Persad-Bissessar said the incident “had little to do with Trinidad and Tobago” and suggested the unregistered vessel may have been viewed as carrying pirates. Dindial dismissed that interpretation.

11.12.2025 - 09:35 [ Guardian Trinidad and Tobago ]

PM on US ‘double tap’ strike: Unflagged vessel treated as pirate ship

(December 10, 2025)

Asked Sun­day about the “dou­ble tap” strike, Per­sad-Bisses­sar had asked for more time to re­search the mat­ter.

Asked again yes­ter­day out­side the Par­lia­ment, the Prime Min­is­ter said, “I don’t see how it ap­plies to me or what it has to do with me or Trinidad and To­ba­go. The Unit­ed States is a sov­er­eign na­tion and they are free to ex­er­cise their sov­er­eign­ty in man­ners that they see or deem fit. I can­not be judge and ju­ry here to de­ter­mine whether they are right or whether they are wrong. Those are not with­in our ju­ris­dic­tion or my re­mit.”

But Per­sad-Bisses­sar main­tained that any ves­sel sail­ing with­out a na­tion­al flag risks be­ing clas­si­fied as a pi­rate ship and, as such, would not be en­ti­tled to the same pro­tec­tions af­ford­ed to le­git­i­mate mar­itime ves­sels.

11.12.2025 - 09:11 [ CNN ]

US seizes oil tanker off Venezuelan coast

President Trump did not offer any detailed explanation for the move, saying only that the vessel was seized “for very good reason.” Asked what would happen to the oil the tanker was transporting, Trump said, “We keep it, I guess.”

The seizure occurred in international waters, a senior US official said, and proceeded without incident or casualties either among the US personnel or the tanker’s crew.

The ship, which was headed to Cuba, was ultimately destined for Asia after being brokered through Cuban sellers, the senior official said, adding that additional seizures are possible in the coming weeks as the US applies pressure on Maduro.

10.12.2025 - 07:19 [ KomoNews.com ]

Hegseth won‘t commit to letting Congress see video of deadly boat strike, Schumer says

WASHINGTON (TND) — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth would not commit to showing all members of Congress the full video of a deadly double strike on an alleged drug boat on September 2.

He shared the news after he attended a closed-door meeting with Hegseth, along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as well as fellow top lawmakers known as the „Gang of Eight“ on Tuesday afternoon.

10.12.2025 - 07:16 [ CBS News ]

Sen. Warner says „Gang of Eight“ wasn‘t shown Sept. 2 boat strikes video in Hegseth-Rubio briefing

(8 hours ago)

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio briefed the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees on Tuesday about the Sept. 2 strikes on a suspected drug boat in the Caribbean. CBS News congressional correspondent Caitlin Huey-Burns has the details.

07.12.2025 - 21:19 [ Amnesty International ]

Shipwrecked or Not, All These Bombings are Murder

(December 5, 2025)

“Intercepting purported drug boats is a law enforcement operation, subject to policing standards derived from international human rights law, which holds that all people have the rights to life and a fair trial and only allows states to use lethal force when an imminent threat to life exists and less extreme means, like capture, are insufficient.

“A state intentionally killing someone outside those circumstances is committing an extrajudicial execution, a form of murder, no matter what crime the person is alleged to have committed.”

07.12.2025 - 21:18 [ Common Dreams ]

‘All of Them Constitute Murder,’ Amnesty Says of Trump Boat Bombings

Human rights organization Amnesty International is cautioning critics of the Trump administration’s boat-bombing spree against getting bogged down in the precise details of each individual strike if it means losing sight of the bigger picture.

Daphne Eviatar, director for security and human rights for Amnesty International USA, said on Friday that it would be a mistake to merely condemn the Trump administration for launching a double-tap strike aimed at killing shipwrecked survivors of an initial attack, because the entire campaign of bombing vessels based on the suspicion that they are carrying illegal narcotics is unlawful.

05.12.2025 - 03:34 [ CNN ]

Exclusive: Survivors clinging to capsized boat didn’t radio for backup, admiral overseeing double-tap strike tells lawmakers

For a little under an hour — 41 minutes, according to a separate US official — Bradley and the rest of the US military command center discussed what to do as they watched the men struggle to overturn what was left of their boat, the sources said.

Ultimately, Bradley told lawmakers, he ordered a second strike to destroy the remains of the vessel, killing the two survivors, on the grounds that it appeared that part of the vessel remained afloat because it still held cocaine, according to one of the sources. The survivors could hypothetically have floated to safety, been rescued, and carried on with trafficking the drugs, the logic went.

The other source with direct knowledge of the briefing called that rationale “f**king insane.”

05.12.2025 - 03:26 [ CBS News ]

Lawmakers see video of second strike on boat survivors, say admiral testified there was no kill order

GOP Sen. Tom Cotton, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, spoke with reporters after the briefings. They both said Bradley told them that he had not been ordered to leave no survivors. The initial Post report quoted an anonymous source as saying that, before the first strike, Hegseth verbally ordered that everyone on the boat be taken out. „The order was to kill everybody,“ the Post‘s story quoted the source as saying. Hegseth has denied the Post‘s account.

03.12.2025 - 09:49 [ CNN ]

Trump and Hegseth insist they didn’t know of follow-up strike that killed survivors on suspected drug boat

But Hegseth on Tuesday also denied any direct role in targeting the survivors, saying he’d empowered Adm. Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley to make all of the operational decisions — and had left the room well before it became clear that some of the people on the boat had survived.

“I watched that first strike live,” Hegseth said. “I didn’t stick around for the hour and two hours, whatever, where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs, so I moved on to my next meeting.”

The defense secretary did not learn about the second strike, he added, until hours later.

02.12.2025 - 20:27 [ Time Magazine ]

What to Know About the Admiral Named by Hegseth as Boat Strike Comes Under Scrutiny

During the Sept. 2 strikes, Bradley was leading the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which oversees elite military teams, handles complex and sensitive military missions, and at times works with the CIA. In October, he assumed command of the JSOC’s parent group, the United States Special Operations Command, which oversees the military’s special operations in more than 80 countries.

02.12.2025 - 19:59 [ Brit Hume, Chief Political Analyst, Fox News Channel / X ]

How to point the finger at someone while pretending to support him.

(…)

02.12.2025 - 19:57 [ Yahoo ]

Hegseth Throws Admiral Under the Bus, Says Navy Leader Ordered Boat Survivors Killed

Fox News Chief Political Analyst Brit Hume quote-tweeted Hegseth and wrote, “How to point the finger at someone while pretending to support him.”

Earlier in the day, Hume said on Fox News that the story could be “a big problem” for the Trump administration.

Over on CNN, Ryan Goodman, former general counsel for the Department of Defense, stated that if Hegseth ordered everyone on the boat killed, the secretary is ultimately responsible for the second strike, regardless of Bradley’s involvement.

02.12.2025 - 19:50 [ Politico.com ]

White House says admiral approved second deadly boat strike

Hegseth “authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes,” Leavitt said. “The president has made it quite clear that if narco-terrorists again are trafficking illegal drugs towards the United States, he has the authority to kill them. That is what this administration is doing.”

02.12.2025 - 19:16 [ Time Magazine ]

Boat Strike Revelations Draw Bipartisan Outrage, Spurring Push for Hearings as Soon as ‘Next Week’

Lawmakers from both parties were raising the term “war crime” on Monday, as pressure mounts on the Trump Administration to release military video evidence and explain the legal basis for its escalating campaign in the Caribbean.

In the Senate, the calls for oversight were coalescing around Senator Roger Wicker, the Mississippi Republican who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and has already directed an inquiry to the Pentagon and pledged “vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to these circumstances.” Several Senate Democrats told TIME on Monday that they have confidence in Wicker leading the investigation into the strike, but urged him to move quickly.

02.12.2025 - 19:09 [ Time Magazine ]

White House Confirms Second Strike on Alleged Drug Boat and Defends Move as Legal

(December 1, 2025)

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command acted “within his authority and the law” when striking an alleged drug boat a second time on Sept. 2 after the first strike left survivors.

The White House has scrambled in recent days to respond to reporting that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered an elite military unit to kill everyone on board an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean in early September, leading the commander to send a second strike that killed survivors from the first attack.

30.11.2025 - 08:13 [ theHill.com ]

House committee seeks ‘full accounting’ of boat strike after WaPo ‘kill everybody’ report

The leaders of the House Armed Services Committee said late Saturday they are seeking “full accounting” of an early September U.S. military attack against an alleged drug-trafficking boat in the Caribbean after a report alleged that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered U.S. troops to “kill everybody” aboard the vessel.

“This committee is committed to providing rigorous oversight of the Department of Defense’s (DOD) military operations in the Caribbean,” Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the chair of the House committee, and Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on the panel, said in a joint statement.

29.11.2025 - 17:46 [ theHill.com ]

Senators vow oversight after report Hegseth told troops to ‘kill everybody’ in boat strike

Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) issued a statement Saturday vowing to conduct “vigorous oversight” on Caribbean strikes after a report surfaced that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the U.S. military to “kill everybody” aboard an alleged drug vessel.

29.11.2025 - 17:38 [ Washington Post ]

Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all

(November 28, 2025)

As two men clung to a stricken, burning ship targeted by SEAL Team 6, the Joint Special Operations commander followed the defense secretary’s order to leave no survivors.

07.11.2025 - 23:30 [ CNC3.co.tt ]

US strikes another boat in Caribbean Sea, killing 3

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday announced another deadly U.S. strike on a boat he said was trafficking narcotics in the Caribbean Sea.

The attack Thursday killed three people aboard the vessel, Hegseth said, bringing the death toll from the Trump administration’s campaign in South American waters up to at least 69 people in at least 17 strikes

02.11.2025 - 21:57 [ TrinidadExpress.com ]

Fisherman officially reported missing: Family believes he died in US strike

Police in the Maracas Bay district are now officially investigating the disappearance of 26-year-old Las Cuevas fisherman Chad Joseph, whose relatives and community members have publicly claimed he was among the men killed in a US military strike at sea two weeks ago.

Joseph, of Salvary Lane, St Michael’s Village, Las Cuevas, was reported missing on Saturday evening by a 37-year-old businesswoman. She told police that the last time she saw him was on the morning of April 25, when he told her he was going fishing. He never returned.

02.11.2025 - 21:56 [ CNC3.co.tt ]

Family of man believed killed in US strike files missing person report

The family of 26-year-old fisherman Chad Joseph, who is believed to have been killed in a US airstrike, has filed a missing person report with the Maracas Bay Police.

Police said a relative reported that Joseph was last seen around 5 am on April 25, when he said he was going out to fish from his home at Salvary Lane, St Michaels Village, Las Cuevas. He was not seen again.

Officers said the relative later chose not to complete a formal statement until speaking with an attorney.

28.10.2025 - 20:50 [ UtimasNoticias.com.ve ]

US kills 14 in new attack on Pacific vessels

Fourteen people were killed and one survived, as a result of another attack by the U.S. War Department against three vessels sailing in the waters of the Eastern Pacific.

The information was confirmed by the Secretary of the US Department of War, Pete Hegseth, who detailed in his X account that “three lethal kinetic attacks were carried out against four vessels operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations (…) A total of 14 narcoterrorists died during the three attacks.”

25.10.2025 - 00:30 [ CNC3.co,tt ]

Another US strike in Caribbean targets alleged drug-running boat, killing 6, Hegseth says

In a 20-second black and white video of the strike that was posted to social media, a small boat can be seen apparently sitting motionless on the water when a long thin projectile descends on it resulting in an explosion. The video ends before the explosion dies down enough for the remains of the boat to become visible again.

In his post, Hegseth said that the strike was conducted in international waters and boasted that it was the first one conducted at night.

21.10.2025 - 13:11 [ New York Times ]

Colombia’s Leader Accuses U.S. of Murder, Prompting Trump to Halt Aid

(October 19, 2025)

President Gustavo Petro said a U.S. strike in the Caribbean had killed a fisherman. President Trump said he would cut aid and impose new tariffs on Colombian imports.