US Sanctions Top Venezuela Officials

The U.S. Treasury Department announced new sanctions against six military leaders who played a role in blocking humanitarian aid to the embattled South American nation. The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned the agency’s leader, Manuel Ricardo Cristopher Figuera, and its first commissioner, Hildemaro Jose Rodriguez Mucura.

The Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, in a statement said “We are sanctioning members of Maduro’s security forces in response to the reprehensible violence, tragic deaths, and unconscionable torching of food and medicine destined for sick and starving Venezuelans”.

Steven Mnuchin said that the blockades used to halt stop the aid from entering the country are the recent example of Maduro’s “illegitimate regime weaponizing the delivery of food and critically needed supplies in order to control vulnerable Venezuelans.”

Reuters reports that a representative the U.S. Transportation Department that oversees NHTSA said that “NHTSA’s Crash Investigation Division assigned a Special Crash Investigation team to investigate the crash”, while the NTSB said it is sending a team of three “to conduct a safety investigation”.

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