SPANISH authorities on Thursday said Venezuela released prominent Venezuelan-Spanish rights activist Rocio San Miguel and four other Spaniards from prison, but local rights groups said Venezuelan prisoners had not yet been freed as promised.

Venezuela’s top lawmaker Jorge Rodriguez said earlier on Thursday that a significant number of both foreign and Venezuelan prisoners would be freed in the coming hours.

Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares confirmed the release of Mr. San Miguel, an expert on security and Venezuela’s military, in an interview with broadcaster RNE. He named the other freed Spanish citizens as Andres Martinez, Jose Maria Basoa, Ernesto Gorbe, and Miguel Moreno. Spain called Venezuela’s action a “positive step.”

However, a leading local human rights group cast doubt on the scope of the prisoner release, stating that as of Thursday evening, the promised release of Venezuelan nationals, who they describe as political prisoners, had “not been executed in a real way.”

The Committee for the Freedom of Political Prisoners said there was “uncertainty in the detention centers where families stationed at the doors… report that the releases of unjustly imprisoned Venezuelans have not been carried out.”

The prisoners were released during a week of political turmoil in Caracas after the US ouster of President Nicolas Maduro, his arraignment in a New York court on narcoterrorism charges, swearing-in of interim President Delcy Rodriguez and announcement that the US would refine and sell up to 50 million barrels of crude oil stuck in Venezuela under US sanctions.

Opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado, who has several close allies imprisoned, has repeatedly demanded releases.

For years, Venezuela’s opposition and human rights groups have said the government uses detentions to stamp out dissent, a charge authorities have consistently denied.

Mr. San Miguel was detained in February 2024 at Maiquetia international airport near Caracas, an arrest widely condemned by opposition politicians and rights organizations.

Leading local rights group Foro Penal estimates there are more than 800 political prisoners in the country. That figure includes at least 86 foreign detainees from the United States, Spain, and other countries.— Reuters

BEIJING — China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Thursday and called for greater cooperation with Africa’s fastest growing economy, including in infrastructure, green industry, and the digital economy.

China’s Foreign Ministry said Wang, who is on an annual New Year tour of Africa, said China is willing better align development strategies with Ethiopia to promote their “all-weather strategic partnership” to new heights.

Mr. Wang met Mr. Abiy in Addis Ababa during the first stop of his six-day Africa visit.

He called for accelerating the upgrading of trade and economic cooperation and advancing “high-quality Belt and Road cooperation between China and Africa,” according to official state news agency Xinhua.

Beijing aims to highlight countries it views as model partners of President Xi Jinping’s flagship Belt and Road infrastructure program and to expand markets, particularly in young, increasingly affluent economies such as Ethiopia, where the IMF forecasts growth of 7.2% this year.

Mr. Wang said he hopes Ethiopia will provide a “sound environment for Chinese enterprises to invest and conduct business,” and said China looks to Ethiopia as playing “an important role in regional and international affairs.”

Both sides agreed to deepen cooperation in traditional areas such as trade, infrastructure, energy, transportation, and law as well as in new areas such e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and green energy, Xinhua said.

“They also agreed to expand cooperation in culture, tourism, media, education, and think tanks,” it added.

Mr. Wang will also travel to Somalia, Tanzania, and Lesotho during his trip which runs until January 12.— Reuters

 US IMMIGRATION agent shot and wounded a man and a woman in Portland, Oregon, authorities said on Thursday, leading local officials to call for calm given public outrage over the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shooting death of a Minnesota woman a day earlier.

“We understand the heightened emotion and tension many are feeling in the wake of the shooting in Minneapolis, but I am asking the community to remain calm as we work to learn more,” Portland police chief Bob Day said in a statement.

The Portland shooting unfolded Thursday afternoon as US Border Patrol agents were conducting a targeted vehicle stop, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.

The statement said the driver, a suspected Venezuelan gang member, attempted to “weaponize” his vehicle and run over the agents. In response, DHS said, “an agent fired a defensive shot” and the driver and a passenger drove away.

Reuters was unable to independently verify the circumstances of the incident.

Portland police said that the shooting took place near a medical clinic in eastern Portland. Six minutes after arriving at the scene and determining federal agents were involved in the shooting, police were informed that two people with gunshot wounds – a man and a woman – were asking for help at a location about 3 kilometers (2 miles) to the northeast of the medical clinic.

Police said they applied tourniquets to the man and woman, who were taken to a hospital. Their condition was unknown.

The shooting came just a day after a federal agent from ICE, a separate agency within the Department of Homeland Security, fatally shot a 37-year-old mother of three in her car in Minneapolis.

That shooting has prompted two days of protests in Minneapolis.

Officers from both ICE and Border Patrol have been deployed in cities across the United States as part of Republican President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

While the aggressive enforcement operations have been cheered by the president’s supporters, Democrats and civil rights activists have decried the posture as an unnecessary provocation.

US officials contend criminal suspects and anti-Trump activists have increasingly used their cars as weapons, though video evidence has sometimes contradicted their claims.

Portland Mayor Keith Wilson said in a statement his city was now grappling with violence at the hands of federal agents and that “we cannot sit by while constitutional protections erode and bloodshed mounts.”

He called on ICE to halt all its operations in the city until an investigation can be completed.

“Federal militarization undermines effective, community‑based public safety, and it runs counter to the values that define our region,” Mr. Wilson said. “I will use every legal and legislative tool available to protect our residents’ civil and human rights.”—Reuters