Venezuela has banned six major international airlines from landing in the country after they failed to meet a 48-hour deadline to resume flights there.
The airlines had temporarily suspended their routes into the capital, Caracas, after the US warned of “heightened military activity” in the area as its forces ramp up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Angered by this, the Venezuelan government issued the carriers with an ultimatum that expired on Wednesday. While a number of smaller airlines continue to fly to Venezuela, thousands of passengers have been affected.
The US warning comes as it builds up its military presence in the Caribbean under the guise of targeting drug trafficking.
Venezuela’s civil aviation authority, which reports to the country’s ministry of transport, announced on Wednesday that Iberia, TAP Portugal, Gol, Latam, Avianca and Turkish Airlines would lose their landing and take-off rights with immediate effect.
In a reference to the heightened US military activity off the coast of Venezuela, it also accused the airlines of “joining the actions of state terrorism promoted by the United States government and unilaterally suspending air commercial operations”.
The US has deployed 15,000 troops and the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, to within striking distance of Venezuela.
The US says the aim of the deployment, the largest by the US in the region since it invaded Panama in 1989, is to combat drug trafficking.
But the Venezuelan government accuses the US of trying to depose Maduro, whose re-election last year was denounced by the Venezuelan opposition and many foreign nations as rigged.
Amid the rising tensions, the US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) issued a warning on Friday to flight operators operating in Maiquetía, the international airport serving Caracas.
It urged airlines “to exercise caution… at all altitudes due to the worsening security situation and heightened military activity in and around Venezuela”.
It was in the wake of that warning that the now-banned airlines suspended their flights to Venezuela.
An attempt by aviation industry body Iata to defuse the situation – by stressing that its member airlines were keen to restore operations – failed to appease the Venezuelan government.
In recent days, both Maduro and his US counterpart Donald Trump have signalled a willingness to hold direct talks.
Asked about it on Air Force One, Trump said that he “might talk” to Maduro, but also warned that “we can do things the easy way, that’s fine, and if we have to do it the hard way that’s fine, too”.
Maduro, meanwhile, uploaded a video of himself driving around Caracas pointing to Christmas decorations, in what appeared to be an attempt to show that life in the city was going on as normal.
A long-running dispute between Universal Music Group’s German arm and internet services company Cloudflare could soon be decided at the European Union’s top court.
According to a document published in the EU’s Official Journal on November 17, a German federal court has asked the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to resolve the question of whether Cloudflare and other internet services companies can be held liable if their infrastructure is used in the spread of copyright-infringing content.
If the CJEU rules in Universal’s favor, it would mean that internet infrastructure companies like Cloudflare, Akamai, Amazon CloudFront and Google Cloud CDN could be held liable for piracy that takes place via websites for which they provide services. It would mean a new and powerful avenue for combatting piracy.
Universal Music GmbH sued Cloudflare in 2019, arguing that Cloudflare should be held responsible for piracy made possible by DDL-Music, a now-defunct site that provided links to pirated music content.
Cloudflare provided DNS and CDN services to DDL-Music. DNS is the system by which web browsers locate websites on the internet. CDN, or content delivery network, is a way of distributing content across multiple servers to speed up download times by allowing web users to access content from the nearest server.
Specifically, Universal Music said Cloudflare had allowed the pirating of tracks recorded by German pop star Sarah Connor. Although DDL-Music is no longer online, the court case has continued because it can decide the limits of who can be held responsible for pirated content under EU law.
In 2023, a court in Cologne, Germany ruled partly in Universal’s favor and partly in Cloudflare’s favor. It concluded that Cloudflare’s DNS service couldn’t be held liable for piracy, but its CDN service could be. Cloudflare appealed that ruling to a higher court, and earlier this year, that court asked the CJEU, Europe’s top court, to issue an opinion on the matter.
Universal has argued that because Cloudflare’s CDN service caches the content for up to a year (i.e., it creates copies of it for easy access), it should be treated as a “hosting” service that can be held liable for infringement under EU copyright law.
But Cloudflare has argued that this goes against EU law. In a 2023 blog post, the company said the EU’s Digital Services Act “expressly identifies CDN services as among the caching services entitled to a liability privilege.”
In its request for a preliminary ruling, first reported on by piracy news site Torrentfreak, Germany’s Federal Court of Justice asks the CJEU to decide two questions: Whether a link to a pirated file itself a form of piracy (Music-DDL provided links to pirated content, but didn’t itself host that content) and whether Cloudflare’s CDN infrastructure should be treated as a hosting service or caching service.
On the first question, if the CJEU rules that linking to pirated content is not itself piracy, it would be a major setback for copyright holders, as many websites that offer pirated content only provide links to content hosted on so-called cyberlockers like 1ficher, Krakenfiles or Rapidgator.
Copyright holders would have to sue those cyberlockers directly, which is difficult because they often hide their ownership, or are located in countries that are lax on copyright law, like Russia.
Conversely, if the CJEU rules that linking does amount to piracy, websites like DDL-Music could be sued directly for providing links to pirated content.
On the second question, if the CJEU rules that Cloudflare is providing a caching service, the company will likely be off the hook for pirated content linked to on websites for which it provides CDN services.
But if the court rules that its CDN services amount to hosting, Cloudflare and other internet infrastructure providers could be on the hook for piracy on websites they service – and that would give copyright holders a new point of leverage for eliminating copyright infringement online.
The CJEU hasn’t set a date for a decision on the matter, but the court usually takes 12 to 18 months to respond to requests for rulings from courts in EU member states.Music Business Worldwide
A required part of this site couldn’t load. This may be due to a browser
extension, network issues, or browser settings. Please check your
connection, disable any ad blockers, or try using a different browser.
Here are the key events from day 1,372 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Published On 27 Nov 202527 Nov 2025
Share
Here’s where things stand on Thursday, November 27.
Fighting
Intense clashes took place across eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, including in Slobozhansky, Kupiansk, Lyman, Kramatorsk, Kostiantynivka, Pokrovsk, Huliaipole and Orikhiv.
Ukraine’s military said some of the fiercest fighting was in the strategic town of Huliaipole in the southeastern region of Zaporizhia, where forces are battling for “every metre” of land amid increased Russian shelling and drone attacks.
A Russian drone attack on the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson killed a woman and young child, while Russian air strikes in Zaporizhzhia city injured 18 people, including 12 women, according to local authorities.
Ukraine’s military claimed it struck a Russian military-industrial complex in the region of Chuvashia, sparking a fire.
Early Thursday, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces claimed its forces killed or wounded 1,140 Russian troops over the last day. It also claimed its forces destroyed one Russian tank, three armoured combat vehicles, 21 artillery units, 214 drones and two aircraft.
Diplomacy
Russian officials expressed caution about the prospect of a quick peace deal. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that while negotiations are “ongoing” and “serious”, it’s “premature” to suggest a deal is imminent.
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Moscow isn’t ready to publicly discuss the Trump administration’s recently modified peace plan, but that it won’t budge on its key demands. “The overall success of this process is not guaranteed”, he said.
Still, US special envoy Steve Witkoff is set to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow next week, the exact date of which is yet to be confirmed, according to Russia’s Peskov.
European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said the Trump-backed peace plan is a “starting point” but requires more work to ensure future Ukrainian and European security.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated his call for further sanctions on Russia, accusing the country of obstructing peace efforts.
Sweden’s Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard also urged the EU to immediately enact a 20th round of sanctions on Russia.
Numerous Baltic states issued strong statements of support for Ukraine after a meeting of EU foreign ministers, with Estonia’s Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna saying peace talks must begin with “firm conditions for the aggressor, not the victim”.
Energy
Ukraine’s Energy Ministry urged the public to conserve electricity and warned of emergency outages in some regions where energy infrastructure has been targeted by Russian attacks.
Ukraine’s Prime Minister said the state would provide targeted energy assistance to 280,000 families living in frontline areas to help them “get through the winter period more easily and meet basic needs”, including by paying for up to 300 kilowatts/hour per family monthly.
Putin, on a state visit to Kyrgyzstan, announced Russia’s state nuclear energy corporation is considering building a nuclear power facility in the former Soviet state.
Hundreds of protesters turn out every night, a year after pro-European demonstrations began
“I’m standing for the future of this country,” says Giorgi Arabuli, who has taken part in protests on the streets of Georgia’s capital Tbilisi almost every night since they began a year ago.
Mass demonstrations were met with violent police crackdowns as tens of thousands of Georgians turned out, angered by Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze’s decision on 28 November 2024 to call a four-year halt on moves towards joining the EU.
“I’m from the generation of the 1990s. I’ve seen those dark times after the civil war,” said Giorgi. “Most of it was caused by Russian influence in a post-Soviet country. We don’t want to go back there.”
On the streets, the protests have evolved into a grinding war of attrition.
For months, Tbilisi’s main Rustaveli Avenue was blocked for a few hours every evening. New laws and a heavy police presence forced the protesters to adapt, marching through adjacent streets and facing nightly arrests.
NurPhoto via Getty Images
Protesters still try to gather on Rustaveli Avenue but police quickly clear the road
The Georgian Dream government has imposed massive fines for blocking roads, slapped criminal charges on young protesters and most recently pushed through a law allowing up to 14 days’ imprisonment for a first offence of blocking traffic, with repeat offenders facing up to a year in jail.
“Freedom for regime prisoners,” reads a large banner carried towards the nearby Supreme Court.
“They’ve used every method to crush the protests… but the fact is they haven’t been able to,” says Nata Koridze. Her husband, Zura Japaridze, is one of six key opposition figures jailed after refusing to testify before a parliamentary commission into alleged crimes by the previous government.
The six were jailed for up to eight months and banned from holding public office for two years.
Prosecutors have since announced new charges against eight opposition leaders, including Japaridze. They now face up to 15 years for alleged sabotage and aiding foreign powers.
Nata Koridze’s husband is due to be released on 22 December but she says he is due to appear in court again three days later.
They are accused of communicating with Western partners about government abuses – standard democratic practice – as evidence of betraying state interests.
Japaridze, like all the jailed politicians, is held in solitary confinement.
“Zura has not seen anybody except for a doctor and the guard,” she says.
Georgia’s path to EU membership, once the cornerstone of its post-Soviet identity, is now farther away than ever.
“Georgia is not on the trajectory to become an EU member state, neither in 2030 nor later,” said Pawel Herczynski, rejecting the government’s pledge to ensure membership by 2030.
The BBC approached the head of the parliamentary committee on European integration and other Georgian Dream MPs for comment, but no-one was available.
The government’s public response has been increasingly hostile towards its foreign critics.
Parliamentary speaker Shalva Papuashvili has accused the EU of “ideological and political dictates”, telling pro-government TV this month that “today’s Brussels does not want a Georgia that is like us”.
“They want a country standing on one foot,” he complained. “The policies and approaches in Brussels must be changed. For them, the Georgian people and their choice mean nothing, zero.”
Georgian Dream, in power since 2012, won 54% of the vote in last year’s disputed parliamentary elections, which monitors from Europe’s OSCE security mission said were marked by several shortcomings, including intimidation, coercion and pressure on voters, especially public sector employees.
All opposition parties have since boycotted parliament leaving it entirely in government hands. That means increasingly repressive legislation has been passed unopposed.
As well as steep fines for protesters blocking the road, there have been a restrictive broadcasting law and a law on foreign grants requiring all foreign funding for civil society and media to be approved by a government commission.
Hundreds of protesters have been fined and dozens jailed, among them well-known actor Andro Chichinadze, given two years for allegedly organising protests.
His theatre – once the best attended in Tbilisi – has closed in solidarity.
Andro Chichinadze’s theatre used to sell out regularly – it has now shut down
The belief that Georgia’s government is acting in Russia’s interest is widespread among pro-Europeans here.
They point to the ruling party’s billionaire founder, Bidzina Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Russia in the 1990s; legislation mirroring Russian laws targeting civil society; the government’s refusal to impose sanctions on Moscow over Ukraine and increasingly hostile anti-Western rhetoric.
Georgia’s leaders reject that portrayal, describing their approach towards Russia as “pragmatic” and their primary duty to maintain peace with their northern neighbour.
“Where are the facts?” said Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, denying pro-Russian bias during a recent TV interview. The government, he said, was being “responsible to Georgian society which wants to keep peace in the country”.
Batumelebi
Acclaimed journalist Mzia Amaglobeli was arrested in January and remains in jail
That is not the view of one of Georgia’s most respected journalists, Mzia Amaglobeli, imprisoned for two years for slapping a police officer.
“Russia is conquering us without war. An oligarch is ruling our country, depriving us of a European future and legitimising autocratic, dictatorial rule. We need the support of the democratic world,” she told the BBC in a handwritten letter from prison.
Georgia’s democratic decline intensified even before last year’s elections, with a June 2024 Russian-style law on foreign influence that targeted civil society and independent media.
Students played a big part in protests at the time and the government has responded with sweeping education reforms planned next February. Georgia’s 19 state universities will be required to concentrate on a single academic discipline under the slogan “one city, one faculty”.
The reforms will tackle perceived problems including excessive concentration of universities in Tbilisi, duplication of programmes and inadequate state funding.
The prime minister argues that funding should be “focused on fulfilling state tasks”. Leading figures at Georgia’s pre-eminent research institution, Ilia State University, say the reform is more about imposing political control and eradicating free space.
“After political parties, media and NGOs, universities must be put under pressure,” says Nina Doborjginidze, rector of Ilia State University. “If students are removed from the capital, they’re removed from the political scene.”
“This is not about education quality, it’s a political project,” adds vice-rector Georgi Gvalia. “This is an abrupt change in Georgia’s foreign policy from being one of the most pro-European countries in the region to the most difficult partners of the West, and change towards more autocratic great powers, like Russia and especially China.”
Back on Rustaveli Avenue, teacher Rusudan Lomidze, who has attended the protests every day, says Georgia’s fate is inextricably linked to Ukraine’s.
“If Ukraine is forced to sign a capitulation agreement, it will be an absolute disaster for us. Our boys are fighting in Ukraine, and they are fighting for both Ukraine and Georgia.”
The crowds are smaller than they were a year ago, but several hundred protesters still gather every night despite the risks.
Reflecting on her years as a diplomat working towards EU and Nato integration, Nata Koridze now believes “all of that has crumbled”.
“But the protest embodies an idea. And ideas live through decades, through centuries.”
The International Energy Agency reports that energy demand across Southeast Asia rose at twice the global average rate in 2024 and finds that consumption is set to double by 2050. To maintain rising living standards, economies across the region are pushing into higher-value and more energy-intense industries, data centres being one obvious example.
That creates a problem.
The ASEAN nations enjoy vast but as yet largely untapped potential for renewable energy, especially PV solar, and onshore and offshore wind. The IEA puts potential supply at 20 terawatts, roughly 55 times the region’s present generation capacity. And this energy would be cheap. But the increase in overall demand is for now far outpacing new supply from renewables. Until that changes, ASEAN nations remain dependent on rising fossil fuel imports that expose them to price risk, potential supply disruptions, and increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
Asian corporate executives have focused recently on coping with tariffs and trade restrictions, potential supply chain disruptions and geopolitical insecurity—rather than energy and power. In the latest EY-Parthenon Global CEO Outlook survey, Asia-Pacific CEOs expressed greater unease than their peers in Europe and the Americas about geopolitics, macroeconomics and trade. They must not lose sight of how investment in modernizing energy supply and transmission today will provide considerable benefits including, but not limited to, low-cost power. And they should mobilize all sources of finance, private and public, for projects to achieve this.
That is why the recent announcement from the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and ASEAN of a new financing initiative to support a connected ASEAN power grid (APG) is so important. It comes ahead of an enhanced memorandum of understanding set to be signed later this year by the ASEAN nations to finally realize the vision for a connected grid that has tantalized since the 1990s.
Building it will be expensive, estimated at over $750 billion. But the returns—cheaper and more reliable electricity, enhanced energy security and regional co-operation, lower emissions—will justify the cost, as long as finance can be mobilized.
At the ASEAN ministers on energy meeting in October, the ADB committed up to $10 billion over the next ten years. The World Bank is providing an initial $2.5 billion. The multilaterals will also offer grants, guarantees, political risk insurance and other concessions to attract private capital, as well as technical assistance.
Why has this connected grid not been built already? Partly for technical reasons. ASEAN nations use different voltages in their transmission systems. Their national grids stand at varying levels of sophistication. They employ distinct operating standards and regulatory frameworks. Politics has also played a part. Countries have previously prioritized domestic industrial development and national energy policies.
Increasing urgency around energy transition has shifted those priorities and focused on how to transmit renewable energy from the widely distributed sources that provide it to the consumers that need it, even in other countries. The key now is to progress beyond simply connecting countries’ networks to a more widespread upgrading of national grids.
In May, leading energy companies from Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam agreed a strategic partnership to explore the use of undersea cables to transmit electricity generated mainly from Vietnam’s offshore wind farms through the Peninsular Malaysia National Grid to homes and businesses in Malaysia and Singapore.
Vietnam is prioritizing investment in offshore wind as part of a strategy to become a regional renewable energy hub. Singapore, while lacking the natural resources for large-scale renewables, intends to be a key enabler of cross-border trade in clean energy. It has given conditional approval for ten projects to import it, including solar power from Australia; solar, hydropower and potentially wind power from Cambodia; and solar power from Indonesia; as well as offshore wind from Vietnam. Thailand could be another big importer.
High return on investment
The vision for an ASEAN power grid, connecting a population likely to hit 780 million by 2040 across a $10 trillion regional economy, triple the size in 2022, was laid out one year ago at COP29. Doubling the number of interconnections across the 10 ASEAN countries could boost connected capacity from 7.2 gigawatts in 2022, to 33.5 GW fifteen years from now.
This will take more than undersea cables and high voltage direct current lines capable of transmitting power over long distances with minimal leakage. To succeed at scale a resilient ASEAN grid must cope with the key challenge faced in all renewables—intermittency. This necessitates investments in industrial-scale battery and other storage and conversion technology to balance increasingly variable supply with rising demand. Managing that balance is essential to keep grids stable and prevent outages, including amid extreme weather events that coincide with peak power off-take.
Upgrading domestic networks should include integration of new digital technology, familiar from the internet of things, to monitor and measure systems continuously, spot potential weaknesses before they trip supply, and enable steady maintenance instead of expensive repairs.
An ASEAN power grid paves the way to lower cost manufacturing and enhances competitive advantages, as the region continues to move up the manufacturing value chain.
In the longer term, it can also improve climate-resilient food security and pitch the region into a positive feedback loop. Related investment in agritech might also boost production of biofuel, potentially making air travel greener and helping to decarbonize other sectors that are difficult to electrify.
A significant proportion of total employment across Asia Pacific is in sectors directly impacted by climate, like farming and fishing, putting populations at high risk from global warming and rising sea levels. With the ASEAN grid, governments, large utilities, energy companies and financers are coming together to address this risk, and build a project that promises huge benefits for generations to come.
Bangkok, Thailand – Stewed, seasoned with sugar and cloves, deep-fried or dished up in a zingy chilli mince – the diets of most Thais are incomplete without pork.
But a $3bn market – supplied nearly entirely by domestic pig farmers – may be about to face competition like never before from the giant hog farms of the world’s third-largest producer, the United States.
Recommended Stories
list of 4 itemsend of list
While the fine print of the Thai government’s preliminary trade deal with the US is yet to be revealed, some details have emerged.
Washington has a 10,000-item-long wish list of goods it wants to enter Thailand duty-free to reduce its $45.5bn trade deficit with the Southeast Asian country, an imbalance President Donald Trump says unfairly disadvantages US producers.
The list includes pork, corn, soya beans and some fruits.
Shortly after Trump met Thailand’s caretaker prime minister, Anutin Charnvirakul, on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Malaysia last month, the White House revealed some of the many strings attached to its trade deal, which set the tariff rate for the kingdom’s exports to the US at 19 percent.
They include Thailand agreeing to “address and prevent barriers to US food and agricultural products in the Thai market”, according to the White House, and a commitment to “expediting access” for US meat and poultry products.
That has panicked Thailand’s pig farmers, who say the industry may not survive a flood of cheaper, subsidised US pork, which is fattened up on ractopamine, a livestock additive banned in many countries, including the kingdom.
The entrance of an outlet of the grocery chain on January 8, 2022 [Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images]
If US pork is allowed into Thailand without duties, nothing less than the kingdom’s food security is at stake, according to Worawut Siripun, deputy secretary-general of the Swine Raisers Association of Thailand.
“Producers will not be able to survive and will stop raising pigs. But the risks are not only for farms facing falling pig prices,” Worawut, who has about 10,000 pigs, told Al Jazeera.
“Those who grow feed crops are also affected, as well as animal feed traders, animal feed producers, and veterinary drug sellers. Everyone in the production cycle is impacted.”
Trump had made trade talks with Thailand contingent on Bangkok signing an extended ceasefire agreement with Cambodia.
But in the weeks since meeting Anutin, Thailand has suspended truce talks over alleged Cambodian breaches of the terms of the agreement.
While there are conflicting signals over whether tensions with Cambodia have put Thailand’s trade negotiations with its biggest export destination on the back burner, farmers and livestock companies are bracing for intensified competition.
Thailand’s pork industry has weathered challenges ranging from outbreaks of swine flu to illegal imports from China and Vietnam.
But it faces high costs, largely as a result of government price controls on corn and soya used to feed pigs and other livestock – a measure intended to protect the country’s crop farmers, a key voting bloc.
And like most of Thailand’s agricultural producers, the country’s pig farmers deal with slim margins.
Butchers chop up pork at the Bangkok Noi wholesale market on January 8, 2022 [Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images]
“Both imported and locally produced feed materials in Thailand are more expensive compared to the US, where feed is cheaper,” Worawut said.
Corn and other feed farmers are also bracing for tough times.
Thailand announced earlier this month that it would lift its annual corn import limit, from approximately 50,000 tonnes to 1 million tonnes, and scrap a 20 percent tariff to appease Washington.
Prime Minister Anutin is likely to dissolve parliament in the coming weeks and set a date for new elections.
He is angling to return to office in defiance of critics who say he has already given away too much to Washington before a comprehensive trade deal has been signed.
Trump officials have already announced a deal to gain preferential access to Thailand’s rare earths, the sale of billions of dollars of US-made aircraft and a promise by Bangkok not to tax US digital services companies.
Anutin’s bargaining position has been weakened by tough economic conditions.
A woman looks at a food stall selling roasted pork during a street festival in Bangkok, on December 28, 2019 [Mladen Antonov/AFP]
On Monday, the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Council trimmed its economic growth forecast for 2026 to 1.2 percent, down from an expected 2 percent expansion this year – by far the weakest performance among Southeast Asia’s leading economies.
With a third round of trade talks with the US under a cloud following the suspension of the Thailand-Cambodia peace deal, the main political opposition party has called on the government to pause the negotiations and consult with local stakeholders.
“This is a crucial moment,” said Weerayut Karnchuchat, deputy leader of the opposition People’s Party, Thailand’s largest in parliament.
“The minister of commerce has said negotiations will conclude by the end of 2025. That leaves around two months. The government should hold eight weeks of stakeholder hearings … especially groups directly affected, such as corn farmers.”
Thailand should take stock and assess if regional peers with full US trade deals – including Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia – are happy with the outcomes and “whether Thailand is offering too much”, he added.
For many midsized businesses, the return of Trump and his trade war has made for a difficult year, with demand depressed across countless supply chains exposed to the US.
Orders are retreating inside Thailand for everything from lightbulbs to electrical wires needed to run factories that export to the US.
Tipok Lertwattanaweerakul, a durian farmer and middleman, said he has seen his profit margins slashed.
Saudi Arabian buyers who sold durian to customers in the US had been Lertwattanaweerakul’s main source of business, but with the Arab country hit with a 10 percent tariff, “they are no longer purchasing from me at all,” he told Al Jazeera.
