Morning Update: BBC Censors Journalists Again, Israel Attacks on Gaza, Venezuela Fallout and More
Happy Monday readers, and what a crazy news weekend it has been. I have to be honest, it does not look like we’re looking at a slow down in the news cycle anytime soon. The fallout from the USA’s attack on Venezuela are ongoing, we’ll likely be dealing with some of them for months and years.
Yesterday, we saw a brutal reprisal by the Israeli military against a Palestinian city, after a resident was involved in a hit and run that injured a child in an incident, and today, the genocidal nation continued their international law violations with further attacks on Gaza and a decision on a large-scale operation on Iran. Also in the news yesterday, was the new Venezuelan leader inviting Trump and the USA to help her tackle destabilisation, following their attack on her country.
Seen as it is Monday, before we move on to today’s updates, we have a happy story coming out of India.
Second year without poaching in Indian rhino reserve
In a rhino stronghold named Assam, India’s largest such stronghold for the greater one-horned rhino, recorded zero poaching deaths in 2025, marking the second time in recent years this has happened, and only the second time to have ever happened.
The state pulled off the same result in 2023. The poacher free years are the result of sustained, aggressive enforcement: constant patrols, expanded ranger presence, better intelligence gathering, and political backing that actually translated into resources on the ground. Poaching networks have felt the full arm of the law in India, as the state is taking a more serious fight to the criminals, and the results are already being seen.
Furthermore, officials have highlighted wider conservation successes, including the first sighting of an Indian wild dog in Kaziranga in 35 years and the appearance of a rare golden tabby tiger. India’s rhino population, once pushed down to around 1,800, now stands near 4,000, almost entirely concentrated in the Assam stronghold, showing the success of protection efforts, but also noting the ongoing risk of over-reliance on a single region.
Trump’s pathetic reason to snubb Venezuelan opposition leader
According to The Washington Post, President Trump declined to back Venezuela’s internationally recognised opposition leader after she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, a decision attributed by two unnamed individuals close to the White House directly to Trump himself. One of those sources said Trump privately described the acceptance of the prize as the “ultimate sin.” The rather pathetic reasoning is a bizarre piece of news to accompany a large scale assault on a sovereign nation.
If true, it is more clear than ever that personal grievance and ego played a decisive role in shaping U.S. policy toward Venezuela, which most analysts believe at the moment already.
More Israeli ceasefire violations in Gaza
Israeli forces carried out further attacks on Gaza yesterday and again this morning. Airstrikes, tank fire, drones and artillery fire were reported in multiple areas, including Gaza City, Khan Younis, and Rafah, with residential neighborhoods once again targeted as Israel claims to be striking militant infrastructure. The renewed assaults follow days of escalating violence and come despite international pressure to de-escalate.
The latest strikes deepen Gaza’s already catastrophic humanitarian situation, with medical facilities overwhelmed and civilian infrastructure repeatedly hit. Israel has offered no indication that operations are winding down, despite the ceasefire that they have already broken hundreds of times. The continued attacks, and the large scale ignorance by Western media, shows that most journalists are happy to simply ignore the plight of the Palestinians.
Israeli leaders approve operation against Iran
Israeli officials have approved a new military plan referred to in Israeli media as Operation Iron Strike, following an extended meeting of Israel’s security cabinet attended by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Israel Katz, and IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir. Israeli authorities have not formally announced the operation or released operational details, reporting tells us the plan is focused on a significant escalation against regional targets, with Iran widely understood to be central to the planning.
At this stage, Operation Iron Strike appears to be a contingency framework rather than an active operation, with no confirmed launch order, timeline, or publicly identified target set.
The Israeli ruling regime, and much of the media sphere, continue to talk about the possiblity of an Iranian strike against the colonial power, while, in reality, Israel are meeting and putting together the pieces for an attack on Iran.
Maduro arrives in New York Court
Former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has arrived at a U.S. federal court in Manhattan today, marking his first trail since being kidnapped and flown to New York by American forces over the weekend. Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are expected to be arraigned around noon Eastern Time on narco-terrorism, drug trafficking, and related charges, a superseding indictment that accuses him of leading a decades-long conspiracy to ship cocaine into the United States. U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein will preside over the hearing, which is likely to begin a protracted legal battle over whether Maduro can be tried in the U.S. and whether sovereign immunity applies, which it likely should.
Protesters in Venezuela demand Maduro release
Venezuelans have taken to the streets in the wake of Nicolás Maduro’s removal, though the protests reflect division rather than a unified public response. Demonstrations have been reported in Caracas and other cities, largely driven by Maduro supporters calling for his release and denouncing U.S. intervention, with crowds gathering at key locations following official appeals for resistance. At the same time, fact-checking organizations have warned that several viral videos claiming mass celebrations or nationwide protests tied to the U.S. operation are misattributed or predate recent events, underscoring how fragmented and volatile the situation on the ground remains.
BBC censors their journalists again
The BBC has issued internal editorial guidance instructing its journalists to avoid describing the removal of Nicolás Maduro as a “kidnapping,” instead directing staff to use terms such as “captured,” explicitly attributed to the U.S. government, or “seized,” while avoiding the former altogether. The directive, circulated by the BBC News Editor and shared publicly by journalist Owen Jones, lays bare how language is being actively managed in coverage of the U.S. operation, even as the facts remain unchanged. The guidance does not dispute that Maduro was taken by force from Venezuela and transported to the United States; it simply narrows the vocabulary reporters are permitted to use, underscoring once again how editorial framing, rather than factual disagreement, is shaping mainstream coverage of what would be described very differently if carried out by a U.S. adversary.
Trump isn’t focusing on democracy in Venezuela
President Trump has explicitly said that restoring “law and order” and stabilizing Venezuela’s broken economy and institutions must take priority before any elections are held, indicating that democratic contests are “a secondary concern” until the country is put back together. In an interview on Air Force One following the U.S. operation that ousted Nicolás Maduro, Trump stressed the need to “run the country properly” and “bring it back,” emphasising rebuilding and reform first and deferring elections until a later, unspecified time when Venezuela is sufficiently stabilised.
This all flies in the face of reasonable fact. The country is more unstable after the US attack and kidnapping of their leader, which opened up a power vacuum in the nation. Following the attack, Trump and his cronies claimed that they were bringing democracy to the country, but now they say that is no longer the priority, while the regime is all talk when it comes to Venezuelan oil.
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The juxtaposition between Trump calling democracy a "secondary concern" after claiming the operation would bring democracy to Venezuela is pretty glaring. I've noticed this pattern in corporate restructuring too - initial rhetoric about values gets quietly dropped once control is secured. The BBC editorial guidance is another datapoint in how institutional language shapes perception before facts even enter the conversation. It's less about whether kidnapped vs seized is technically accurate and more about establishing which narrative framework becomes default. Interessting how thse directives come from editorial management rather than being openly debated by the newsrooms themselves.