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Inauguration of Venezuela's Maduro Draws International Condemnation

People in Caracas, Venezuela rest on stairs featuring a mosaic portraying the eyes of the country's late president Hugo Chavez during the inauguration of his successor, President Nicolas Maduro, for a third term. Betty Laura Zapata / AFP
People in Caracas, Venezuela rest on stairs featuring a mosaic portraying the eyes of the country's late president Hugo Chavez during the inauguration of his successor, President Nicolas Maduro, for a third term. Betty Laura Zapata / AFP
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Inauguration of Venezuela's Maduro Draws International Condemnation

People in Caracas, Venezuela rest on stairs featuring a mosaic portraying the eyes of the country's late president Hugo Chavez during the inauguration of his successor, President Nicolas Maduro, for a third term. Betty Laura Zapata / AFP
People in Caracas, Venezuela rest on stairs featuring a mosaic portraying the eyes of the country's late president Hugo Chavez during the inauguration of his successor, President Nicolas Maduro, for a third term. Betty Laura Zapata / AFP

Nicolas Maduro's inauguration on Friday for a third term as Venezuela's president drew widespread admonishment from countries that have accused him of stealing the July election.
The defiant 62-year-old leader, who has shrugged off allegations of electoral fraud and insisted he won another six-year term, was also congratulated by states that have maintained support for his controversial government.
Here are the main reactions to Maduro taking the oath of office in Caracas.
United States
Washington hiked its reward for information leading to Maduro's arrest to $25 million on Friday.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that Maduro "clearly lost" last year's election and called the swearing-in ceremony "an illegitimate presidential inauguration."
In a separate announcement, the US Treasury Department said it was sanctioning eight senior officials who lead "key economic and security agencies enabling Nicolas Maduro's repression and subversion of democracy in Venezuela."
On Thursday, incoming US president Donald Trump defended Venezuela's opposition party leader and its exiled presidential candidate as "freedom fighters."
European Union
The EU said Friday that Maduro was not Venezuela's legitimate president.
Foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said "Maduro lacks all democratic legitimacy," as Brussels announced sanctions on a further 15 officials from Venezuela's National Electoral Council, judiciary and security forces.
Britain UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy said Maduro's "claim to power is fraudulent," as London also announced further sanctions on individuals associated with the Caracas government.
"The outcome of July's elections was neither free nor fair and his regime does not represent the will of the Venezuelan people," Lammy said.
United Nations
UN chief Antonio Guterres called Friday for Venezuelan authorities to release all those who have been "arbitrarily detained" since the elections.
"The Secretary-General strongly condemns the detention of a large number of persons, including opposition figures, journalists and human rights defenders since the July 28 presidential elections," spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.
Russia
Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Maduro on his swearing-in, according to the lower house of parliament.
Lower house speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, who attended Maduro's inauguration in Caracas on behalf of Putin, "conveyed congratulations from Russia's head of state", it said in a statement.
- Regional states -
In a sign of Maduro's pariah status, only two leaders -- Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel and Nicaraguan president and ex-guerrilla Daniel Ortega -- attended his inauguration.
Traditional left-wing allies, including Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, pointedly stayed away from the ceremony.

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Jeju Air ‘Black Box’ Data Missing from Last 4 Minutes before Crash, South Korea Ministry Says

This undated handout photo taken at an undisclosed location and released on January 1, 2025 by South Korea's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport shows the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) retrieved from Jeju Air flight 2216 which crashed killing 179 people. (Handout / South Korea's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport / AFP)
This undated handout photo taken at an undisclosed location and released on January 1, 2025 by South Korea's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport shows the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) retrieved from Jeju Air flight 2216 which crashed killing 179 people. (Handout / South Korea's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport / AFP)
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Jeju Air ‘Black Box’ Data Missing from Last 4 Minutes before Crash, South Korea Ministry Says

This undated handout photo taken at an undisclosed location and released on January 1, 2025 by South Korea's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport shows the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) retrieved from Jeju Air flight 2216 which crashed killing 179 people. (Handout / South Korea's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport / AFP)
This undated handout photo taken at an undisclosed location and released on January 1, 2025 by South Korea's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport shows the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) retrieved from Jeju Air flight 2216 which crashed killing 179 people. (Handout / South Korea's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport / AFP)

The flight data and cockpit voice recorders on the Jeju Air jet that crashed on Dec. 29 stopped recording about four minutes before the airliner hit a concrete structure at South Korea's Muan airport, the transport ministry said on Saturday.

Authorities investigating the disaster that killed 179 people, the worst on South Korean soil, plan to analyze what caused the "black boxes" to stop recording, the ministry said in a statement.

The voice recorder was initially analyzed in South Korea, and, when data was found to be missing, sent to a US National Transportation Safety Board laboratory, the ministry said.

The damaged flight data recorder was taken to the United States for analysis in cooperation with the US safety regulator, the ministry has said.

Jeju Air 7C2216, which departed the Thai capital Bangkok for Muan in southwestern South Korea, belly-landed and overshot the regional airport's runway, exploding into flames after hitting an embankment.

The pilots told air traffic control the aircraft had suffered a bird strike and declared emergency about four minutes before it crashed into the embankment exploding in flames. Two injured crew members, sitting in the tail section, were rescued.

Two minutes before the Mayday emergency call, air traffic control gave caution for "bird activity". Declaring emergency, the pilots abandoned the landing attempt and initiated a go-around.

But instead of making a full go-about, the budget airline's Boeing 737-800 jet took a sharp turn and approached the airport's single runway from the opposite end, crash-landing without landing gear deployed.

Sim Jai-dong, a former transport ministry accident investigator, said the discovery of the missing data from the crucial final minutes was surprising and suggests all power including backup may have been cut, which is rare.

The transport ministry said other data available would be used in the investigation and that it would ensure the probe is transparent and that information is shared with the victims' families.

Some members of the victims' families have said the transport ministry should not be taking the lead in the investigation but that it should involve independent experts including those recommended by the families.

The investigation of the crash has also focused on the embankment, which was designed to prop up the "localizer" system used to assist aircraft landing, including why it was built with such rigid material and so close to the end of the runway.