Venezuela-Trump live: Marco Rubio refuses to say who is running country after Maduro capture

On Saturday, Donald Trump said the US would be “running Venezuela” after capturing president Maduro.

However, it seems to not be as clear cut as this.

When asked who is running Venezuela, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not give a clear answer, describing it as “running policy”, and said: “People keep fixating on that. . Here’s the bottom line on it… we expect to see changes in Venezuela, changes of all kinds long term, short term.

“We want Venezuela to move in a certain direction, because not only do we think it’s good for the people of Venezuela, it’s in our national interest.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has insisted the US is not at war against Venezuela after the attack on the South American country.

Spain has condemned what it called a violation of international law in Venezuela after a US attack.

In a letter to members of his Socialist Party on Sunday, prime minister Pedro Sanchez went further than his remarks on Saturday in which he said he would not recognise the intervention.

The Socialists’ hard-left coalition partner Sumar had urged the government to condemn the US strikes that resulted in the Venezuelan president’s capture, with party sources describing it as an act of imperialist piracy against a member state of the United Nations.

Sanchez’s letter described the “violation of international law in Venezuela, an act that we strongly condemn”.

An Australian lawyer and his wife were asleep in Caracas when airstrikes shattered the city before dawn, upending what had been a quiet family holiday.

Alexander, whose name has been changed for security reasons, woke with his Mexican-Venezuelan wife at 2am on Saturday to the roar of jets overhead.

Moments later came what he described as a “dull, very profound” blast as the nearby airport erupted in flames less than two kilometers away.

“It was very obvious what was happening,” Alexander said, reported the Sydney Morning Herald.

As lights flicked on across neighboring buildings and bar patrons spilled into the street, videos of explosions spread on WhatsApp. Other districts reported power and water outages.

There have been vast amounts of speculation that oil was a key factor in Donald Trump’s military intervention in Venezuela.

The South American country has the world’s largest estimated oil reserves.

Speaking on Saturday, the US president said: “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.”

In Venezuela on Sunday, people were anxiously discussing what would come next and some were stocking up on food and medicines, though streets were quieter than usual.

“I’ve just taken the dog out and it feels like an abandoned city, people are shut inside,” said Alejandra Palencia, 35, a psychologist in the city of Maracay.

“There is fear and uncertainty.”

Elsewhere, cars were moving, bakeries and coffee shops were open, and some people were out jogging and cycling as if it was a normal weekend.

Reform UK’s deputy leader has welcomed the capture of President Nicolas Maduro.

Richard Tice said: “It’s good news that a serious enemy of the West, Maduro, has been removed.

He was illegitimate. The UK, the US, the EU have said that for many, many years.”He said the “people who will be worried” would be Putin and the Chinese communist regime “because Maduro was supplying significant oil supplies and was a threat to US interests”.

He told Times Radio: “Lawyers will argue, of course, about UN Article 51. The reality is that an enemy of the West has been removed. The challenge now, and I think you were touching on it earlier, is to ensure that you don’t end up with a vacuum that slides into what happened in Iraq and Libya. That’s the key challenge.”