ALAN SIMPSON looks at the bigger issues behind Trump’s Venezuelan piracy

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Western outrage was absolute. Yet today, the tone is markedly more subdued regarding US aggression against Venezuela. The manner in which the media and politicians frame this invasion exposes a profound ideological double standard, writes MARC VANDEPITTE

The US assault on Venezuela is brazen and unlawful – yet our PM claims uncertainty. By refusing to confront Trump’s naked imperialism, Starmer abandons international law, mortgages British policy to Washington, and clears the ground for war, argues ANDREW MURRAY

RAINER RUPP examines former CIA analyst Larry Johnson’s description of the US operation to kidnap Nicolas Maduro as a tactically successful but strategically disastrous move, with shades of Bush’s disastrous intervention in Iraq

SALLY LEWIS asks why Maduro’s legitimacy in Venezuela is contested, while Keir Starmer’s is not despite his mandate resting on a far smaller share of the vote

The attack on January 3 is part of the US war that began in 2001 and will continue long after the engines of the Chinook helicopters cool down, say TAROA ZUNIGA SILVA and VIJAY PRASHAD

Trump’s Venezuela “coup” along with his fake peace deals, including the latest in the Congo, are motivated by personal gain and self-aggrandisement, writes Linda Pentz Gunter

The Morning Star sorts the good eggs from the rotten scoundrels of the year just gone

As the dollar falters and US power turns predatory, Britain and Europe must abandon transatlantic illusions and build a collectivist alternative before the system implodes, writes ALAN SIMPSON

But the award has been met with near universal derision and disgust, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

The US reprisal of global nuclear proliferation, threatening a new arms race, could push the world to the brink of annihilation, warns SOPHIE BOLT of CND

Colombia’s success in controlling the drug trade should be recognised and its sovereignty respected, argues Dr GLORY SAAVEDRA

Where normally only the US and its ally Israel vote to strangle Cuba economically, there have been special efforts to slander and isolate the besieged socialist island nation year — so we must redouble our solidarity, writes TARIQ ANDERSON

LINDA PENTZ GUNTER reports from the one of 2,700 protests against the Trump government’s power grabs, on a day when seven million people defied fear-mongering in a outpouring of joy and hope in what might be the biggest protest in US history