AFP USA

Google on Wednesday unveiled new Pixel 10 smartphones, showcasing artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities woven into its Android mobile operating system.The line-up of new products included a foldable phone, improved Pixel smartwatch, and ear buds all synced to work with AI and each other.”Pixel continues to be the best way for people to try out the latest bleeding-edge AI from Google,” product manager Tyler Kugler said during a briefing with journalists.Pixel phones claim a scant portion of a high-end smartphone market ruled by Apple, Samsung and Xiaomi, but custom Google hardware is an opportunity for the internet giant to highlight what is possible with its Android mobile operating system.And while Samsung routinely ranks as the world’s top smartphone seller, it powers handsets with Android software from Google.”Initially, Google Pixel devices were designed as a technological showcase to limit Android fragmentation and accelerate innovation,” said Forrester principal analyst Thomas Husson.”Ten years later, the strategic challenge is still not to become the market leader, but to demonstrate the value of Google’s integrated ecosystem.”The tactic promises to promote use of Google’s platform by handset makers and is a spin on the way Apple ties together its iPhones and other devices with its software.Meanwhile, with Apple seen as lagging in the fierce AI race, Google has touted all-out efforts to integrate advanced AI throughout its offerings as it competes with powerhouses such as Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft.”Its positioning remains premium and its market share is less than 5 percent, but in the age of AI, it is a true laboratory of innovation,” Husson said of the Pixel smartphone line.It is also “a means of countering Apple’s integrated hardware-software-services strategy while remaining a strategic partner for Samsung and the Android ecosystem,” Husson added.AI built into new Pixel phones lets Gemini AI assistant look through the cameras to “see” what users see, answering questions or providing tips about locations, objects or situations, according to Kugler.Google is not the only one putting AI in phones. South Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung has made AI a centerpiece of its Galaxy smartphone line and recently released a new Galaxy Z Fold7.Google’s product team described the new Pixel Watch 4 as a redesigned experience that marks the biggest update to the line.Features include smartwatch fitness tracking fine-tuned to distinguish between activities such as walking, bicycling, or tennis. The Pixel Watch also enables users to command Gemini AI assistant from one’s wrist.Gemini detects the mood of whoever is speaking to it and adjusts its responses accordingly, and can even “look” through the phone camera to offer photo suggestions, according to the Google team.

A careful selection of cast and roles and a clear strategy to avoid deadlocks. European leaders’ charm offensive on Donald Trump to foster Ukraine’s cause this week was hastily arranged but followed a scripted plan, say European sources.France’s Emmanuel Macron and Britain’s Keir Starmer were among seven European leaders who accompanied Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky to the White House on Monday for high-stakes talks with the US President.”There’s truly never been anything like it,” Trump enthused in an interview Tuesday. “There’s never been such a group,” he told Fox News.The summit came on the heels of a meeting between Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Alaska, which raised concerns in Europe that Kyiv would be pressured into making painful political and territorial concessions to Moscow.With nine leaders sitting around a long wooden table at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, the dynamics changed.Trump began the discussions by greeting his guests with a few words before the cameras. “You look great with your tan,” he told German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, while Starmer was introduced as “my friend, doing really well”.EU chief Ursula von der Leyen was told she was “probably more powerful than anyone else around this table”.- ‘Well prepared, well coordinated’ -Often criticised for their difficulties in communicating with Trump, the Europeans were hoping to steer the famously volatile US president closer to their position on the conflict, ahead of possible peace talks with Putin. “We were well prepared and well coordinated,” Merz said after the meeting. “I think that really appealed to the American president, in the sense that he noticed that we Europeans were speaking with one voice here.”Preparations for the meeting began Saturday when Trump debriefed Zelensky on his Alaska talks.The US president invited his Ukrainian counterpart to the White House and opened the door for a few European leaders to tag along, according to a European official. The proposal was discussed in a series of calls between European capitals. Some were wary of exposing themselves to an ambush in the Oval Office, the kind Zelensky suffered in February during his prior, explosive visit to the White House, according to the source.A team bringing together the leaders of major European powers France, Germany, Italy and Britain was nevertheless put together and announced on Sunday morning. Finland’s Alexander Stubb, who has befriended Trump playing golf and leading a country that shares a long border with Russia, was also included.A few hours later, Zelensky made a detour to Brussels and appeared alongside von der Leyen, who completed the line-up with NATO’s head Mark Rutte.- ‘Clumsy attempts’ -Each had a pre-scripted role, according to one participant at the summit.Rutte, who has long cultivated his relationship with Donald Trump, was responsible for starting discussions with Trump, the source said. Each leader then addressed a different aspect of the conflict. Von der Leyen, a mother and grandmother, for example emphasised the plight of Ukrainian children abducted by Russian forces.Whenever Trump seemed to get stuck on an issue, someone would chime in trying to present the matter from a different perspective and refocus the discussion, the source said.In a semantic shift, some avoided using the word “ceasefire” — disliked by Trump who after meeting Putin has pivoted to seeking a full peace deal — calling for Russia to “stop the killing” instead.Talk of security guarantees for Ukraine similarly deliberately saw the use of the vague term “presence”, the source said. Whether such adjustments will help successfully resolve what promises to be an extremely difficult negotiation process on the future of Ukraine remains to be seen.On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov criticised Europe’s “clumsy attempts to change the position of the US president” — a possible sign that Moscow is concerned about their impact. 

It is the highest-grossing movie of the year, and the biggest animated film ever made — but if you live outside China, you’ve likely never heard of “Ne Zha II.” That may be about to change.A24, the trendy indie studio behind “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” is releasing a redubbed English-language version in US theaters this Friday, featuring a voice cast including Michelle Yeoh.The hope is that a fantastical tale of warring dragons, demons and immortals — rooted in Chinese mythology, but reimagined with flashy battle scenes worthy of a Marvel movie — can translate to Western audiences.Speaking on the red carpet of a Los Angeles premiere this month, Yeoh described the movie as a “cultural exchange.””I had seen ‘Ne Zha II’ in Chinese, and even at that time I thought, ‘I hope they do an English version, because you want little kids to be able to see it and understand,'” she told People magazine.The sprawling fantasy film centers on Ne Zha, a tiny child with fearsome magical powers, who sets off on a quest to save his best friend after his hometown is attacked by dragons.The movie is already an astonishing box office success. “Ne Zha 2” has grossed around $2.2 billion worldwide — a source of great patriotic pride in China, even if the vast majority of those receipts came from domestic audiences.For context, since the Covid-19 pandemic, only one other film has passed $2 billion worldwide: “Avatar: The Way of Water.””This is probably the most talked-about non-US film of the year,” said Comscore box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “$2.2 billion puts it in the pantheon.”Chinese audiences have also pointed to the movie’s special effects as evidence of the country’s film industry catching up with, or even surpassing, Hollywood’s offerings. Some 4,000 Chinese animators worked on the 3D fantasy epic.- ‘Globalization of content’ -Still, the movie’s initial, subtitled launch overseas failed to set box offices alight. It took $20 million in the US, and generated similarly solid but not spectacular figures in other markets like the United Kingdom and Australia.The movie is based on the 16th-century Chinese novel “Investiture of the Gods” which itself draws heavily on millennia-old folklore and characters.It features an at-times bewildering array of shape-shifting heroes and villains who will be unfamiliar to viewers with no knowledge of traditional Chinese stories or the film’s 2019 predecessor, “Ne Zha.”That said, A24 is hoping that an international voice cast, delivering the film’s irreverent humor in a style reminiscent of Hollywood superhero fare, can help bridge the cultural gap.It comes at a time when Western audiences are increasingly flocking to works rooted in Asian cultures, such as last weekend’s US box office top 12 featuring two Indian films (“Coolie,” “War 2”) and one Japanese movie (“Shin Godzilla 4K.”)And the shift has been even more pronounced on streaming platforms. Summer smash-hit “KPop Demon Hunters” is rapidly on course to become Netflix’s most-watched original film ever, and the debut season of “Squid Game” remains its most-watched TV show of all time.”There’s definitely been a globalization of content, in terms of people all around the world enjoying cinema from different countries,” said Dergarabedian.

Tim Mulligan moved to central Manhattan so he could be closer to work and avoid a daily ordeal on the rattling, screeching subway, just one part of the urban noisescape that tests New Yorkers every day.”Even with your earbuds in, turned all the way up, you can’t hear anything for the whole commute, and you’re ruining your ears at that level,” said Mulligan, a US Marines veteran who lives with PTSD.At his home close to New York’s tourist hub Times Square, Mulligan has sealed his windows with high-density soundproof foam, draped them with double thick curtains and invested in earplugs to sleep.On the street he has resorted to noise-cancelling headphones, and he prefers bikes to the subway for getting around.New Yorkers and visitors to the megacity of 8.5 million people are bombarded with blaring sirens, loud locals, raucous bars and car horns almost constantly.A city-wide hotline received 750,000 noise complaints in 2024, the most commonly complained about quality of life issue.The city that never sleeps, perhaps because it can’t, is one of the few built up US areas with a noise code regulating sound from vehicles, construction, businesses, and recreation.It has even installed cameras with sensors to detect and penalize violators.Nine-in-ten New Yorkers are at risk of hearing loss from daily exposure to noise levels exceeding 70 decibels, the healthy average, a Columbia University study conducted between 2010 and 2012 found.The report’s author, professor Richard Neitzel, is now leading the first national study on noise in which 200,000 volunteers wear smart watches to track sound levels.”It looks like somewhere around one-in-four Americans are exposed to noise levels that could hurt their hearing over the long term,” said Neitzel, a professor at the University of Michigan.- ‘You can’t undo it’ -Among young people aged 18 to 25, the primary source of excess noise exposure comes from headphones.Overall, more people are exposed to high levels of environmental noise than to noise from their headphones, Neitzel added. Although the percentage of the population exposed to noise is similar to those exposed to air pollution, acoustic issues are not prioritized by residents and officials like air quality is, Neitzel said.There is clear evidence that excess noise is linked to poor sleep, cardiovascular issues, depression, cognitive decline, premature births and poor academic performance.Tinnitus, a permanent ringing in the ear affecting three out of 20 study participants, is increasingly prevalent.Loud music is even used to promote increased consumption, said Shane Newman, who manages a popular Mexican restaurant in Manhattan’s trendy Hudson Yards development. “You have a drink in the music, it feels like a nice vibe and… they end up staying longer,” he told AFP.Audiologist Michele DiStefano said the effects of noise on well-being have “not really been studied well enough.””The longer you have the exposure, and the higher the level, the (greater) degree of hearing loss you’ll have” — particularly for young people, she warned.”Once it does affect your hearing, you can’t undo it, but you can actually prevent it,” she said.”There’s really a push to educate the younger generations on how you don’t have to just have really loud noise at a concert — it can be cumulative.”

From a fake image of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin dancing in the snow with a polar bear to a fabricated photo of European leaders waiting somberly outside the Oval Office, AI-enabled disinformation has clouded the diplomatic push to end the war in Ukraine.The online fakery — dubbed widely as AI slop — underscores how easily artificial intelligence tools can flood the internet with false and satirical content around major global events.These creations also highlight the challenge of policing bogus content as tech platforms offer creators monetization incentives for viral posts.In hundreds of online posts mocking European leaders as powerless mediators snubbed by Trump, one such image purported to show French President Emmanuel Macron and other top officials waiting somberly in a White House corridor with their heads bowed.”This is utter humiliation of these corrupt scumbags. Absolutely beautiful,” said one post on X from a conservative political commentator that AFP has previously fact-checked for spreading misinformation about Ukraine.Such posts — in multiple languages including Greek, German and French — gained traction as European leaders joined Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House Monday for talks with Trump following the US president’s summit with Putin in Alaska. – Red carpet brawl -AFP fact-checkers identified visual inconsistencies that indicate the image including Macron was AI-generated. Some of the individuals depicted in the image also do not match those seen in official photographs from the high-stakes meeting.Macron and other European leaders represented a group of Ukraine’s allies known as the “Coalition of the Willing” for White House consultations.But multiple pro-Kremlin sources sharing the AI-generated image ridiculed them as the “coalition of those in waiting.”The image was also amplified by sites operated by the Pravda network, a well-resourced Moscow-based operation known to circulate pro-Russian narratives globally, the disinformation watchdog NewsGuard said in a report.The falsehood was an illustration of how “pro-Kremlin sources often seize on high-profile meetings involving European leaders to spread false claims,” NewsGuard said.In other viral posts, an AI-generated clip purported to show Trump and Putin skidding down snow-covered slopes, eating ice-cream beside a snowman, and waltzing with a polar bear to country music.And in another AI video, Trump and Putin were depicted brawling on a red carpet leading from an airplane staircase, trading punches and kicks as secret service agents idle in the background.The tongue-in-cheek posts offer a window into a social media landscape increasingly filled with AI-generated memes, videos and images competing for attention with — and sometimes drowning out — authentic content.As tech platforms scale back content moderation, AI videos spread rapidly, muddying the waters around serious diplomatic efforts to end the three-year war in Ukraine.Trump on Tuesday ruled out sending American troops to back up any Ukraine peace deal but suggested air support instead, as European nations began hashing out security guarantees ahead of a potential Russia summit.

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized top museums for their “woke” focus on subjects including “how bad Slavery was,” his latest attack on the cultural institutions in a country that fought a civil war over the issue.”The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future,” Trump wrote.He was referring to the Smithsonian Institution, an independent organization that operates 17 museums, galleries and a zoo located across the country, which receives public funding, and which he has previously accused of espousing a “corrosive ideology.”The translatlantic slave trade from Africa to the Americas spanned three centuries, and has been referred to as the United States’ “original sin.”The country’s South fought to maintain slavery in the 1861-1865 Civil War, but lost. Since then African Americans have fought for their civil rights, including in the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, which forced a new national reckoning on the darker parts of US history.”The Museums throughout Washington, but all over the Country are, essentially, the last remaining segment of ‘WOKE’,” Trump wrote in the Truth Social post, using his shorthand for leftist social justice movements.For months now, Trump has disparaged cultural institutions, which have worked to bring more diversity to exhibits and programming in recent years, highlighting women, people of color and queer culture.Last week, the White House posted a letter to its website saying the administration plans to target eight major museums for “comprehensive internal review” in an effort to “celebrate American exceptionalism” and “remove divisive or partisan narratives.”The targeted institutions include the National Museum of American History, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the National Museum of the American Indian, the letter said.”Now museums are being targeted because they speak too openly about the horrors of slavery,” wrote prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump on X in response to Trump’s post.”If telling the truth about slavery makes a museum ‘too woke,’ then the problem isn’t the history, it’s the people who want to erase it,” he continued.In 2017, during his first term, Trump visited the National Museum of African American History — which opened the year before and which depicts the slave trade, among other historic subjects.”This museum is a beautiful tribute to so many American heroes,” Trump said after his tour, according to US media reports from the time. “It’s amazing to see.” 

Former champion boxer Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. has been detained in Mexico after deportation by the United States to face shock charges of involvement with a drug cartel, Mexican authorities said Tuesday.The son of boxing icon Julio Cesar Chavez stands accused of serving as a henchman for the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel, which Washington designated a foreign terrorist organization this year, and of trafficking firearms and explosives.Acccording to Mexican media, which claim to have had access to the case files, Chavez, 39, was allegedly a “hitman” used to punish members of the cartel.”He hangs them (and) grabs them like a punching bag,” the Reforma newspaper reported, citing testimony in the prosecutor’s documents.The Attorney General’s Office has withheld details of the indictment. Chavez was handed over Monday and transferred to a prison in Mexico’s northwest Sonora state, according to information on the country’s National Detention Registry.”He was deported,” President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters, adding there was an active arrest warrant for him in Mexico.US authorities arrested Chavez in July for being in the United States illegally. They also said he was wanted in Mexico for alleged ties to the Sinaloa cartel, one of six Mexican drug trafficking groups designated as terrorist organizations by the United States.The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees US immigration enforcement, said Chavez had entered the United States legally in 2023 on a tourist visa that was valid until February 2024.He applied for permanent residency in April, 2024 “based on his marriage to a US citizen, who is connected to the Sinaloa Cartel through a prior relationship with the now-deceased son of the infamous cartel leader Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman,” DHS said in its July 3 arrest announcement.His extradition comes as US President Donald Trump cracks down on immigrants as part of a promise to deport millions of people.- Boxing legacy -Chavez’s arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Los Angeles occured four days after his lopsided loss to YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul before a sell-out crowd in California.Once a top-rated boxer, Chavez won the WBC middleweight world title in 2011 and successfully defended it three times. But his career has also included multiple suspensions and fines for failed drug tests.Homeland Security said that in addition to the active warrant in Mexico, Chavez had criminal convictions in the United States, including for possession of an assault weapon, in January 2024 in Los Angeles.The Los Angeles Times reported at the time that police said they had found Chavez in possession of two AR-style hard-to-trace “ghost” rifles. DHS in its announcement had expressed astonishment that the administration of Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden had not prioritized Chavez’s deportation.”Under President Trump, no one is above the law — including world-famous athletes,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in the announcement.After his US arrest, the boxer’s defense team sought to prevent his prosecution in Mexico by filing multiple legal appeals, which were rejected by the Mexican courts.Julio Cesar Chavez Sr, now 63, was a world champion in three weight divisions, and held various title belts from 1984 to 1996.

The White House launched a TikTok account on Tuesday, as President Donald Trump continues to permit the Chinese-owned platform to operate in the United States despite a law requiring its sale.”America we are BACK! What’s up TikTok?” read a caption on the account’s first post on the popular video sharing app, a 27-second clip.The account had about 4,500 followers an hour after posting the video. Trump’s personal account on TikTok meanwhile has 110.1 million followers, though his last post was on November 5, 2024 — Election Day.TikTok is owned by China-based internet company ByteDance.A federal law requiring TikTok’s sale or ban on national security grounds was due to take effect the day before Trump’s inauguration on January 20. But the Republican, whose 2024 election campaign relied heavily on social media and who has said he is fond of TikTok, put the ban on pause. In mid-June Trump extended a deadline for the popular video-sharing app by another 90 days to find a non-Chinese buyer or be banned in the United States.That extension is due to expire in mid-September.While Trump had long supported a ban or divestment, he reversed his position and vowed to defend the platform — which boasts almost two billion global users — after coming to believe it helped him win young voters’ support in the November election.Trump’s official account on X, formerly Twitter, has 108.5 million followers — though his favored social media outlet is Truth Social, which he owns, where he has 10.6 million followers.The official White House accounts on X and Instagram have 2.4 million and 9.3 million followers, respectively.

Top US and European military officers met in Washington Tuesday to discuss the mechanics of a possible Ukraine peace deal, after President Donald Trump ruled out sending American troops to back an agreement but suggested air support instead.In a flurry of diplomacy aimed at ending the war, Trump brought Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders to the White House on Monday, three days after his landmark encounter with Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Alaska.But while Trump said Putin had agreed to meet Zelensky and accept some Western security guarantees for Ukraine, those promises have been met with extreme caution by Kyiv and Western capitals, and many details remain vague.Putin proposed holding the summit with Zelensky in Moscow, three sources familiar with a call between Trump and the Russian leader told AFP. One source said Zelensky immediately said no to meeting in the capital of his country’s invader.As Western leaders push for an agreement, top US officer General Dan Caine held talks Tuesday evening with European military chiefs to discuss “best options for a potential Ukraine peace deal,” a US defense official told AFP.The in-person talks precede a virtual meeting of military chiefs from NATO’s 32 member countries on Wednesday, in which Caine is also scheduled to participate.Trump, long a fierce critic of the billions of dollars in US support to Ukraine since Russia invaded in 2022, earlier said that European nations were “willing to put people on the ground” to secure any settlement.”France and Germany, a couple of them, UK, they want to have boots on the ground,” Trump said in a Fox News interview. “We’re willing to help them with things, especially, probably, if you talk about by air.”Asked what assurances Trump had that US boots would not be on the ground, he replied: “Well, you have my assurance and I’m president.”- Allies discuss next steps -The White House later doubled down on Trump’s statements — but gave few new details on either the summit or the security guarantees.Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump “has definitively stated US boots will not be on the ground in Ukraine” and that the use of US air power was an “option and a possibility.” Leavitt insisted that Putin had promised Trump he would meet Zelensky, and said top US officials were “coordinating” with Russia on a summit.Trump had dramatically interrupted his meeting with Zelensky and the Europeans at the White House on Monday to call the Russian leader.Allies have expressed doubts that Putin will go through with the meeting, but the Europeans are seizing on the possibility of a peace deal following the Trump talks.French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer brought together around 30 of Ukraine’s allies known as the “Coalition of the Willing” for virtual consultations.Starmer told them coalition teams and US officials would meet in the coming days to “prepare for the deployment of a reassurance force if the hostilities ended,” a Downing Street spokesperson said.- Geneva, Budapest floated for summits -Russia has warned that any solution must also protect its own “security interests” and has ruled out Ukraine joining NATO.Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov added that any meeting between the leaders “must be prepared very thoroughly.”Lavrov’s comments, and Putin’s offer of Moscow as a summit venue, reinforced European fears that Russia was once again stalling. Macron said he wanted the summit to take place in Geneva, a historic venue for peace talks.Switzerland said it was ready to offer immunity to Putin, who faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court over the war.Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz have both said the summit could take place in two weeks.The White House declined to comment on a Politico report that it was eying Hungary’s capital Budapest as a venue for a follow-up three-way summit including Trump.On the streets of Kyiv, there was skepticism about whether the latest talks can end the grinding conflict.”The main problem is Putin himself doesn’t want it,” said Anton, 32, who works in a warehouse.But in Moscow, some people were more optimistic. “I hope we can agree on mutually beneficial terms,” said Vyacheslav, 23, who works for the government. burs-dk/wd/st

The Venezuelan government on Tuesday claimed that 66 Venezuelan children are being illegally held in the United States after being separated from their parents during deportation, as the White House cracks down on immigration.Caracas is demanding the children be handed over to Venezuelan authorities so they can be repatriated.”We have 66 children kidnapped in the United States. It’s a number that grows each day… a cruel and inhumane policy,” said Camila Fabri, president of the government’s Return to the Homeland program that advocates for the voluntary return of people who left the country.She spoke at a gathering at which women read out letters to US First Lady Melania Trump asking her to intercede on behalf of the children, who they said had been placed in foster care.More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have left the country since 2014, the largest population exodus in Latin America’s recent history, according to UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. It blamed “rampant violence, inflation, gang-warfare, soaring crime rates as well as shortages of food, medicine and essential services.”In recent years Venezuelans in the United States had been granted temporary protected immigration status, allowing them to live and work there for a designated time period. But President Donald Trump’s administration revoked that protection as part of his aggressive campaign to deport millions of undocumented migrants from the United States.The US Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to AFP requests for comment on the claim by Caracas.To date, 21 stranded children have been returned to Venezuela, including a daughter of one of the 252 Venezuelans detained in Trump’s immigration crackdown in March, who was accused without evidence of gang activity and deported to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison.   The men were freed in a prisoner swap in July and flown home to Venezuela, where four of them told AFP they suffered beatings, abuse and deprivation.Fabri said that 10,631 Venezuelans have returned in 2025, both those deported frm the United States and others stranded in Mexico.The White House has also squared off against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who faces federal drug trafficking charges, with the US placing a $50 million bounty on him. Washington, which does not recognize Maduro’s past two election victories, accuses the South American country’s leader of leading a cocaine trafficking gang, and has launched anti-drug operations in the Caribbean.On Monday Maduro said he would deploy millions of militia members in the country in response to the US “threats.”