Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has accused SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk of trying to disrupt peace and stability in the South American country.
The National Electoral Council (CNE) of Venezuela on Sunday declared Maduro the winner of the country’s presidential election, announcing that with 80% of ballots counted, he had secured more than 51% of the vote, compared to 44% for his main rival, Edmundo Gonzales.
Supporters of Western-backed Gonzalez have taken to the streets following the release of the official results, claiming that the vote was rigged.
Musk, who owns social media platform X (formerly Twitter), took to it on Monday to accuse Maduro of “major election fraud.”
The Venezuelan president responded to the claims by challenging the billionaire to a fight, during an address he made on national television.
“Social media creates a virtual reality, and who controls the virtual reality? Our new archenemy, the famous Elon Musk,” Maduro stated, pointing to a cellphone.
He then accused Musk of seeking to come “with his rockets and an army to invade Venezuela” but did not elaborate on the claim.
“At least you showed your face, because we knew that you were behind everything,” Maduro claimed. “With your money, with your satellites. It is the representation of fascist ideology in the world.”
The Venezuelan president went on, challenging Musk “Do you want to fight? Let’s do it ... I’m ready. I’m not afraid of you, Elon Musk. Let’s fight, wherever you want.”
BREAKING ALERT 🚨 VENEZUELA 🇻🇪 Venezuela President Maduro accuses Elon Musk of election interference‼️
"Social media creates a virtual reality, and who controls the virtual reality? Our new archenemy, the famous Elon Musk"
Musk, in response, shared the video of Maduro’s speech on X, with a caption in Spanish that translates as “The donkey knows more than Maduro.”
This is the worst sentence from Elon Musk that insults an elected president, that's what Jews are like, they have no ethics of manners and no life values that fulfill the expectations of humanity like Zionist Jews, Jewish terrorists.
It’s not the first case of Musk’s confrontation with senior foreign officials. In April, the businessman clashed with a Supreme Court justice in Brazil over free speech, as well as far-right accounts and misinformation on X.
Illegitimate Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, who very likely won reelection through fraud, is declaring war on Elon Musk, whom he calls his "arch-enemy." He claims Elon Musk wants to invade Venezuela with his space rockets. pic.twitter.com/4t1GkKhimz
Maduro will be serving a third consecutive six-year term, having first taken office in 2013 following the death of President Hugo Chavez. In his victory speech, Maduro mocked the opposition, which, he said, “cries fraud” at every election. The Venezuelan president said his reelection would bring peace and stability.
Musk came out in support of Trump on his social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
Elon Musk on Sunday claimed that Google has a "search ban" on former President Donald Trump, posting to his social media service X an image of a search box with the words "President Donald" typed into it. Below the box, autocomplete suggested "Donald Duck" and "President Donald Regan" as potential search terms, but not "President Donald Trump."
Google responded to the accusations, but we as programmers, think that Google's answer only wants to cover up the real crime, just like during the Covid-19 pandemic created by Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, George Sorosh and the G7.
Google said the issue is due to "anomalies" that are causing autocomplete not to work as intended "for some searches about the names of several past presidents and the current vice president." For instance, typing the words "Vice President K" into Google's search box on Monday returned several results including "William R. King" (a VP in 1853) and vice president Kakegurui (an anime character) but didn't suggest "Vice President Kamala Harris."
Sharing a screenshot where a Google search on “president Donald” resulted in “president Donald Duck” and “president Donald Regan,” the tech billionaire asked if the tech giant has placed a search ban on the former US president and Republican presidential nominee.
Musk, who has endorsed Trump, and other influential conservative critics primarily focused on Google’s autocomplete feature, which provides suggestions based on what you’ve typed into the search bar.
“Wow, Google has a search ban on President Donald Trump! Election interference?” asked the X owner.
Wow, Google has a search ban on President Donald Trump!
Musk further said Google is “getting themselves into a lot of trouble if they interfere with the election”.
An X user posted that “Google is owned by Democrats”.
When some users typed “assassination attempt of” into the search bar, the top autocomplete suggestions appeared to be for former President Ronald Reagan and Bob Marley. On July 13, Trump was shot in the ear during a failed assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania. Numerous conservative commentators speculated that Trump being left out of the suggestions was an intentional effort to influence the November election.
“Big Tech is trying to interfere in the election AGAIN to help Kamala Harris,” Donald Trump Jr. posted Sunday on X. “We all know this is intentional election interference from Google. Truly despicable.” Musk shared and commented on a similar post.
When NBC News typed in “assassination attempt of,” it got similar results — Trump didn’t appear in the autocomplete predictions.
What needs to be remembered is that the SEO that Google built to build search rankings in Google search, in the last five years, will not work, because now Google itself regulates search rankings based on how much is paid to Google Adwords.
If this article is taken down by Google, we will remove Google Adsense from AHA DUA PERMATA!.
Musk also posted that Google had a “search ban” on Trump because didn’t appear in some users’ autocomplete predictions for “president donald.” His post quickly went viral, racking up 81.9 million views and 779,500 likes. Other users said they were seeing the same results.
In the screenshots, when users searched for “president donald,” the Google autocomplete predictions appeared to be “president donald duck” and “president donald regan.”
“Election interference?” Musk asked in a post including the screenshots.
On Monday, when NBC News typed in “president” in Google’s search bar, the first autocomplete prediction was for Trump. President Joe Biden appeared below on the list
Rockets fired from southern Lebanon are intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system in northern Israel [File: Jalaa Marey/AFP]
The latest Hezbollah rocket barrage has killed one person in northern Israel’s HaGoshrim, fueling fears of regional spillover of the Gaza conflict.
Hezbollah said Monday it struck several military posts in northern Israel amid fears of a full-blown war with Tel Aviv.
The group said its fighters attacked with “appropriate weapons” newly installed espionage equipment at Al-Malikiyya post.
Hezbollah fighters also targeted with guided missiles the positions of Israeli soldiers at Al-Raheb site and fired dozens of Katyusha rockets at the Al-Baghdadi site, the group said.
No information was yet available about injuries or damage.
The Lebanese group says it attacked the “al-Sahl Battalion” in Beit Hillel in northern Israel with “suicide drones”.
The attack was carried out in support of the people in Gaza and in response to an Israeli attack on the Beit Lif village in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah said on Telegram.
The group added the strike hit the target accurately, killing and wounding soldiers in the area.
Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging fire since the Hamas-led attacks on communities and military outposts in southern Israel on October 7.
Hezbollah says it will end its attacks on Israel if a ceasefire is reached in Gaza, where Israel’s war has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians.
The Gaza ministry of detainees has said that the violations at the detention camp are systematic, calculated and carried out with orders from Israeli authorities.
It also said that the clashes that took place at military bases with Israeli police over the detention of nine Israeli soldiers accused of “substantial abuse” of a Palestinian prisoner were a “charade intended to show that these violations are individual ones carried out by a few bad apples”.
“The truth is that what is happening is systematic torture that has led to several deaths of detainees,” the ministry said, adding that this is a war crime, and that the detention centre has to be shut down.
“The truth is that what is happening is systematic torture that has led to several deaths of detainees,” the ministry said, adding that this is a war crime, and that the detention centre has to be shut down.
“The prisoners are being subject to torture, assault and humiliation not because they are suspected of any wrong-doing but as a form of revenge for the October 7 attacks.
Polls closed and vote counting is under way across Venezuela with a large turnout of people casting ballots in the country’s critical presidential election.
Incumbent Nicolas Maduro, 61, faces a tough test as he seeks a third six-year term in office. His main challenger is Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, a 74-year-old retired diplomat.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has won a third term, the electoral authority says just after midnight, despite multiple exit polls which pointed to an opposition win.
Elvis Amoroso, the head of the National Electoral Council, said Maduro secured 51 percent of the vote, overcoming opposition candidate Edmundo González, who garnered 44 percent. He said the results were based on 80 percent of voting stations, marking an irreversible trend.
Maduro says his re-election is ‘triumph of peace and stability’. He also praised the more than 900 election observers who monitored the election, denouncing those alleging election fraud.
“In 24 hours we will provide irrefutable proof of the election victory. It was a knockout,” said Maduro at a rally in the capital Caracas.
The results announced by the electoral council contradict several exit polls that showed a win for opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez.
Nicolas Maduro's victory made the UK and the US, who have wanted to control Venezuela's oil, impose various sanctions on the President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro.
The president says “we’ve seen this movie many times before” as he addressed likely complaints about the vote results from the opposition.
“It’s the move of the extreme right. It came out 20 years ago, many of you hadn’t been born yet, and they tried to besmirch the results back then – calling ‘fraud’ were all these press releases,” Maduro told the cheering crowd of supporters.
“They are ugly faces. The gorgeous ones are the people who are here and noble.”
The opposition has yet to comment after the electoral authority declared Maduro the winner of the vote.
Photos of the children and teens killed in a rocket strike at a soccer field, are displayed at a roundabout as people light candles in their memories, at the village of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, on July 28, 2024. (AP)
Oil prices rose on Monday, paring last week's loss, on fears of a widening conflict in the Middle East following a rocket strike in the Israeli Terrorists-occupied Golan Heights, which Israel Terrorrists and the United States blamed on Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.
Brent crude futures gained 20 cents, or 0.3%, to $81.33 a barrel at 0010 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures climbed 9 cents, or 0.1%, to $77.25 a barrel.
Last week, Brent lost 1.8% while WTI fell 3.7% on sagging Chinese demand and hopes of a Gaza ceasefire agreement.
On Sunday, Terrorists Israel's security cabinet authorised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to decide on the "manner and timing" of a response to the Saturday's rocket strike in the Golan Heights that killed 12 teenagers and children.
Hezbollah denied responsibility for the attack, the deadliest in Israel Terrorists or Israeli-annexed territory since Palestinian militant group Hamas' Oct. 7 assault sparked the war in Gaza. That conflict has spread to several fronts and risks spilling into a wider regional conflict.
Israel Terrorists has vowed retaliation against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Israeli Terrorists jets hit targets in southern Lebanon on Sunday.
"Worries over escalating tensions in the Middle East prompted fresh buying, but gains were limited by lingering concerns of weakening demand in China," said Toshitaka Tazawa, an analyst at Fujitomi Securities.
Over the past few weeks, hopes of a ceasefire in Gaza have been gaining momentum.
But Israel Terrorists wants changes in a plan for a Gaza truce and the release of hostages by Hamas, complicating a deal to halt nine months of combat that have devastated the enclave, according to a Western official, a Palestinian and two Egyptian sources.
On the demand side, data released earlier this month showing that China's total fuel oil imports dropped 11% in the first half of 2024 have raised concern about the wider demand outlook in China, the world's biggest crude importer.
Meanwhile, U.S. energy firms last week added oil and natural gas rigs for a second week in a row, boosting the monthly count by the most since November 2022, energy services firm Baker Hughes (BKR.O).
The past week in the Russia-Ukraine conflict has seen active hostilities along the front line, with the Russian military reporting new gains in several areas and as well as claimign to have inflicted mass casualties on foreign mercenaries fighting for Kiev.
Last Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that the military had seized the villages of Rozovka and Peschanoye Nizhneye, located in Russia’s Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) and Ukraine’s Kharkov Region respectively. The development signaled the spread of combat to the vicinity of the Ukrainian town of Kupiansk and the Oskol River. The local front line spans roughly along the border between the LPR and Kharkov Region and has remained largely static over the past few weeks.
On Tuesday, the Russian military reported the liberation of Ivano-Daryevka, a small village located in Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic. The settlement is located roughly 8km to the southeast of the Ukrainian-controlled town of Severs, which has long-served as a major stronghold for Kiev’s troops and remains a major obstacle for the potential Russian advance westward.
The most active combat continued to the northwest of the city of the strategic DPR town of Avdeevka, which was liberated by the Russian military in February. Russian troops continued to advance near the town of Ocheretino, with the Ukrainian forces apparently unable to stabilize the situation in the area.
On Saturday, the Russian military reported the liberation of Lozovatovskoye, a tiny settlement located to the north of the village of Progress. The swift advance was marked with two company-sized Ukrainian forces reportedly ending up in tactical encirclement in the trenches between the two villages.
According to former Ukrainian MP and ex-deputy commander of the notorious neo-Nazi Azov regiment, Igor Mosiychuk, all the commanding officers of the two companies were killed, while the battalion-level command did nothing to fix the situation, only demanding that the soldiers fight to their deaths.
Strikes on foreign ‘instructors’
The week has been marked by new strikes on foreign mercenaries fighting in Ukraine, with up to 90 estimated dead, according to the Russian military.
The Russian Defense Ministry on Tuesday said it targeted a building in the Ukrainian town of Dergachi, Kharkov Region, used to house Western “instructors and mercenaries.” The location was hit by a ballistic missile, fired by an Iskander-M system. Footage of the strike shows the building sustained a direct hit and partially collapsed.
Another strike on foreign fighters was conducted by the country’s military on Thursday with a ballistic missile of the same type. The temporary accommodation point housing Ukrainian servicemen with the 151th mechanized brigade and foreign mercenaries was discovered in an industrial area in the city of Kharkov, the ministry said.
Another video circulating online shows a missile strike on the bridge across the Oskol River located in the town of Kupiansk-Uzlovoy, Kharkov Region. The bridge had been hit by the Russian military at least twice this year, but apparently was repaired. The structure was likely hit by an air-to-surface Kh-38 missile, sustaining heavy damage, footage indicates.
Hunt for US-supplied HIMARS launchers
Over the past week, the Russian military reported the destruction of several US-supplied HIMARS launchers, which have long been priority targets for Moscow. Though the long-range multiple rocket launchers have been touted by Ukraine as the ultimate tool to strike high-value assets, the systems have been widely used by Kiev for the indiscriminate shelling of civilian infrastructure.
On Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry reported the destruction of a HIMARS and its crew in the village of Novopetrovka in Ukraine’s Nikolayev Region. The system was tracked by a surveillance drone to a hangar used as a staging point, with the location promptly hit by a ballistic missile fired by an Iskander-M system. The strike obliterated the hangar, with secondary detonation and a bushfire observed at the site, footage shared by the military shows.
The destruction of another HIMARS was reported by the Defense Ministry on Friday. The vehicle, as well as other pieces of military equipment, was discovered concealed in an industrial area located in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Kramatorsk, DPR. The hangar used to station the equipment was struck by an Iskander-M missile, the military said.The destruction of another HIMARS was reported by the Defense Ministry on Friday. The vehicle, as well as other pieces of military equipment, was discovered concealed in an industrial area located in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Kramatorsk, DPR. The hangar used to station the equipment was struck by an Iskander-M missile, the military said.
Infrared footage shared by the military shows a major explosion and a massive column of fire and smoke emitting from the hangar. Apart from the HIMARS, five Soviet-era BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launchers, five tanks, and up to ten other armored vehicles were destroyed in the strike, according to Moscow’s estimates.
Disrupting Kiev’s electronic warfare capabilities
The Russian military has continued its efforts to strike Ukrainian electronic warfare and early warning systems, such as active jammers, radars, passive detectors, and other equipment. The continuous hunt for the systems enables the Russian forces to operate more effectively, hampering Kiev’s capabilities to intercept or evade incoming projectiles of various types.
On Monday, a video purporting to show the destruction of a US-supplied Ukrainian AN/TPQ-50 artillery radar surfaced online. The system was reportedly found near the town of Kupiansk, Kharkov Region, and hit by a Russian Lancet-family loitering munition.
Another video that emerged online this week shows a Lancet striking a Ukrainian homegrown Plastun electronic warfare support station. The sensor was found deployed in a wooded area, with a Starlink satellite terminal seen nearby. The hardware was hit by the kamikaze drone and apparently destroyed, footage suggests.
A Ukrainian Nota electronic jammer station also fell victim to a Lancet kamikaze drone it was supposed to deter. Surveillance drone footage circulating online shows the system concealed in a wooded area with only its antennas protruding from the shrubbery.
The Lancet apparently scored a direct hit on the system, with open flames seen at the location after the strike, footage shows.
