Caracas(Venezuela), Jan 3: At least seven explosions and low-flying aircraft were heard around 2 am local time Saturday in the capital, Caracas. Venezuela’s government accused the United States of attacking civilian and military installations in multiple states.

Pentagon referred requests for comment to the White House, which didn’t immediately return an email seeking comment. Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Authority has banned US commercial flights in Venezuela airspace over “ongoing military activity” ahead of explosions in Caracas.

Smoke could be seen rising from the hangar of a military base in Caracas. Another military installation in the capital was without power.

People in various neighbourhoods rushed to the streets. Some could be seen in the distance from various areas of Caracas.

“The whole ground shook. This is horrible. We heard explosions and planes,” said Carmen Hidalgo, a 21-year-old office worker, her voice trembling. She was walking briskly with two relatives, returning from a birthday party. “We felt like the air was hitting us.”

Venezuela’s government, in the statement, called on its supporters to take to the streets.

“People to the streets!” the statement said. “The Bolivarian Government calls on all social and political forces in the country to activate mobilization plans and repudiate this imperialist attack.”

The statement added that President Nicolás Maduro had “ordered all national defence plans to be implemented” and declared “a state of external disturbance.”

This comes as the US military has been targeting, in recent days, alleged drug-smuggling boats. On Friday, Venezuela said it was open to negotiating an agreement with the US to combat drug trafficking.

Maduro also said in a pretaped interview aired Thursday that the US wants to force a government change in Venezuela and gain access to its vast oil reserves through the monthslong pressure campaign that began with a massive military deployment to the Caribbean Sea in August.

Maduro has been charged with narco-terrorism in the US. The CIA was behind a drone strike last week at a docking area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels in what was the first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the US began strikes on boats in September.

US President Donald Trump for months had threatened that he could soon order strikes on targets on Venezuelan land. The US has also seized sanctioned oil tankers off the coast of Venezuela, and Trump ordered a blockade of others in a move that seemed designed to put a tighter chokehold on the South American country’s economy.

The US military has been attacking boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean since early September. As of Friday, the number of known boat strikes is 35 and the number of people killed is at least 115, according to numbers announced by the Trump administration.

They followed a major buildup of American forces in the waters off South America, including the arrival in November of the nation’s most advanced aircraft carrier, which added thousands more troops to what was already the largest military presence in the region in generations.

Trump has justified the boat strikes as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the US and asserted that the US is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels.

Meanwhile, Iranian state television reported on the explosions in Caracas on Saturday, showing images of the Venezuelan capital. Iran has been close to Venezuela for years, in part due to their shared enmity of the US.(AP)

Kyiv, Jan 03: The number of civilians killed in a drone attack on a cafe and a hotel in the Kherson Region of Ukraine’s Khorly has climbed to 28, Governor Vladimir Saldo said, as quoted by TASS.
“Three people died in the hospital, so the number of those killed now stands at 28. More than 100 people were in the cafe at the time of the attack, and over 60 were affected,” Saldo said.

Saldo said the attack took place on January 1, when civilians had gathered to mark the New Year. He said 31 people, including five children, were hospitalised after the incident, TASS reported.
Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed that two missiles from Moscow struck the city of Kharkiv.

In a post on X, Zelenskyy condemned the strike by Russia, saying it targeted a residential area and caused significant damage.

“A heinous Russian strike on Kharkiv. Preliminary reports indicate two missiles struck an ordinary residential area. One of the buildings has been severely damaged. A rescue operation is currently underway, with all necessary services on site,” Zelenskyy said.

He also noted that the exact number of casualties is yet “unknown”.

While Russia’s Defence Ministry has denied reports of a strike on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, calling the claims false, Sputnik reported.

“Information about the alleged strike on the city of Kharkov by the Russian Armed Forces on January 2 of this year is untrue,” the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said Russian armed forces neither planned nor carried out any missile or air strikes within the city on January 2, Sputnik reported.

“The Kiev regime’s claims about the alleged ‘Russian strike on Kharkov’ are intended to distract international attention from the brutal terrorist attack committed by the Ukrainian armed forces against civilians in the settlement of Khorly in the Kherson Region overnight into January 1,” the statement read.

Mexico City, Jan 03:  A strong earthquake rattled southern and central Mexico on Friday, interrupting President Claudia Sheinbaum’s first press briefing of the new year as seismic alarms sounded and leaving at least two people dead.

The earthquake had a magnitude of 6.5 and its epicentre was near the town of San Marcos in the southern state of Guerrero near the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco, according to Mexico’s national seismological agency. There were more than 500 aftershocks.

The state’s civil defence agency reported various landslides around Acapulco and on other highways in the state.

Guerrero Gov. Evelyn Salgado said that a 50-year-old woman living in a small community near the epicentre died when her home collapsed. Authorities also said that a hospital in Chilpancingo, Guerrero’s capital, suffered major structural damage and various patients were evacuated.

Residents and tourists in Mexico City and Acapulco rushed into the streets when the shaking began. Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada said that one person died after suffering an apparent medical emergency followed by a fall while evacuating a building.

The US Geological Survey said the earthquake occurred at a depth of 21.7 miles (35 kilometres), 2.5 miles north-northwest of Rancho Viejo, Guerrero, which is in the mountains about 57 miles northeast of Acapulco.

Sheinbaum resumed her press briefing a short time after the quake.

José Raymundo Díaz Taboada, a doctor and human rights defender who lives on one of the peaks ringing Acapulco, said he heard a strong rumble noise and all the neighbourhood dogs began barking.

“In that moment the seismic alert went off on my cellphone,” he said, “and then the shaking began to feel strong with a lot of noise.”

He said the shaking was lighter than in some previous quakes and he had prepared a backpack of essentials to be ready to leave as the aftershocks continued.

He said he had been unable to reach some friends who live along the Costa Chica southeast of Acapulco because communications were cut.