VENEZUELA’S interim president Delcy Rodriguez said on Tuesday that the country has received $300 million from oil sales, the first proceeds from US President Donald Trump’s announced 50-million-barrel oil supply deal with Caracas, following the capture of President Nicolas Maduro earlier this month.

Mr. Trump said separately on Tuesday his country had taken the 50 million barrels out of Venezuela, and was selling some of it in the open market, though shipping records show that volume has not yet been exported.

Reuters reported last week that four Venezuelan banks had been notified by the country’s government that they would split $300 million of oil revenues deposited in an account in Qatar, enabling them to sell dollars to Venezuelan companies that need foreign exchange to pay for materials.

“We should inform you that we have gotten funds, from the sale of oil, and we have gotten, of the first $500 million, $300 million,” Ms. Rodriguez said at an event in Caracas. “These first funds will be used through the exchange market in Venezuela, by national banks and the central bank, to consolidate and stabilize the market and protect the incomes and purchasing power of our workers.”

Elsewhere on Tuesday, Ms. Rodriguez’s brother, lawmaker Jorge Rodriguez, said a reform of the country’s main oil law expected to be debated for the first time this week will be based on a partnership structure first introduced during President Nicolas Maduro’s administration, though he provided no details.

Interim president Ms. Rodriguez told lawmakers last week that the government supported changes to the hydrocarbons law to boost foreign investment. The law has a single contract model of joint ventures controlled by state company PDVSA, but the country has been introducing so-called ‘productive participation contracts’ for new partnerships in recent years, whose terms have not been fully disclosed.

Those contracts are “a fundamental element to be expressed in the law’s reform,” Jorge Rodriguez told journalists.— Reuters

TOKYO — A Japanese court will on Wednesday deliver its verdict on a man accused of fatally shooting former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, three and a half years after the assassination of the country’s longest-serving premier stunned the nation.

Tetsuya Yamagami, now 45, was arrested on the spot in July 2022 after fatally firing at Mr. Abe with a homemade gun while the former prime minister was delivering a campaign speech in the western city of Nara. Mr. Abe was 67.

Although he was no longer Japan’s leader at the time, Mr. Abe remained a powerful and binding force within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. His absence has left a vacuum within the party, which has since seen two leadership races and by extension, a revolving door of prime ministers.

Mr. Abe himself served as prime minister for a total of 3,188 days over two separate terms, stepping down in September 2020 citing health reasons.

His protegee Sanae Takaichi now leads Japan and the LDP, but the party’s grip on power has considerably diminished.

Mr. Abe’s killing also brought to light a deep link between his party and the Unification Church, an organization many consider a cult. An in-party investigation found that more than a hundred lawmakers had dealings with the group, leading many voters to shun the LDP, which has ruled Japan for most of the post-war period.

Media have quoted Mr. Yamagami as telling the court that he held a grudge against the Unification Church after his mother’s large donation to it caused financial hardship for their family, and that he took out his anger on Mr. Abe because the former prime minister had once sent a video message to an event held by a group affiliated with the church.

Founded in South Korea in 1954, the Unification Church is famous for its mass weddings and counts Japanese followers as a key source of income.

A guilty verdict is all but certain after Mr. Yamagami admitted to killing Mr. Abe in the first court hearing at the Nara District Court in October, and attention is on the severity of the sentence.

Prosecutors sought a life sentence last month, calling the act an “extremely grave incident that is unprecedented in post-war history”.

Mr. Yamagami’s lawyers, meanwhile, argued that the family’s misfortune caused by the donation to the Unification Church should be taken into consideration and limit his prison term to 20 years at most.

While Mr. Abe was a divisive figure domestically, he was among the few global leaders to have a strong rapport with US President Donald Trump.

Mr. Abe was the first foreign leader to meet Mr. Trump after his 2016 election victory and the two went on to forge a close bond over rounds of golf in the United States and Japan. Prime Minister Takaichi has repeatedly referenced their friendship in her own dealings with Mr. Trump.—Reuters

THOUSANDS of US workers and students marched through cities and university campuses on Tuesday in opposition to the immigration policies of President Donald Trump.

On the first anniversary of Mr. Trump’s second term, protests sprang up across the country against his aggressive immigration crackdown that prompted outrage after federal agents dragged a US citizen from her car and shot dead 37-year-old mother Renee Good in Minneapolis in past weeks.

Hundreds of protesters gathered in Washington and smaller cities like Asheville, North Carolina, where demonstrators marched through the downtown shouting “No ICE, no KKK, no fascist USA,” according to online videos.

The Trump administration says it has a mandate from voters to deport millions of immigrants in the country illegally. Recent polls show most Americans disapprove of the use of force by officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies.

University students demonstrated in Cleveland, Ohio, chanting “No hate, no fear, refugees are welcome here” while high schoolers in Santa Fe, New Mexico, left class to attend a “Stop ICE Terror” rally at the state capitol, according to protest organizers and school officials.

The actions were organized by left-leaning groups such as Indivisible and 50501, as well as labor unions and grassroots organizations opposed to immigrant detention camps, like one in El Paso, Texas, where three detainees have died in the last six weeks, according to federal authorities.

The demonstrations were set to roll west to cities such as San Francisco and Seattle, where afternoon and evening protests were planned.— Reuters