Venezuelan government makes more arrests in connection with apparent drone attack on Maduro

Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s president, speaks during a ‘Vow of Loyalty’ event at the Ministry of Defense in Caracas, Venezuela, on May 24.

of a gas leak and explosion, but witnesses dismissed those.

“It was not a gas leak. We have direct gas,” said Catherine Pita, 24, a neighbor. “It was a drone that hit the building and caused the fire. One girl was hit by flying glass on the head and was taken to the hospital.”

Reverol said there had been two drones, which he identified as M600s. Neither, he said, reached its intended target area before detonating. Two separate videos, posted on Twitter, showed drones at the scene; one crashed into a building and the other exploded in mid-air.

Maduro went so far as

to blame Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos by name for the attack, prompting Santos’ office to issue an “emphatic denial.”

“The suggestion that the Colombian president is responsible for this supposed attack against the Venezuela president is absurd and lacking in all foundation,” Santos’ office said in a statement. “It is already the custom of the Venezuelan leader to permanently blame Colombia for any type of situation.”

A senior State Department official declined to comment on the incident beyond saying the department was following reports from Caracas.

OTTAWA, Ontario – Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said she’s ready to move forward quickly once the U.S. and Mexico reach an agreement on automobiles, and downplayed any notion that her country has been shut out of North American Free Trade Agreement talks.

“I and Canada are very, very keen to get it done as quickly as possible,” Freeland said during a conference call from Hong Kong, where she stopped after leaving Association of Southeast Asian Nations meetings in Singapore. “We’re very, very supportive of moving forward fast, and we are in close touch with both our Mexican and U.S. counterparts.”

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said last month that an agreement in principle could be achieved this month, and he blamed Canada for not compromising as the U.S. and Mexico had. Since then, negotiations have carried on mostly without Canada as Mexico and the U.S. focus on resolving bilateral issues, particularly regarding cars.

Freeland said Canada and the U.S. had already moved past some of the key automotive issues involving domestic content requirements and rules of origin before talks stalled in May.

“That is the engine of this deal,” she said, referring to the auto issue. “It is fiendishly complicated, and that needs to get sorted out.”

Freeland sidestepped questions about whether she or Canada’s lead NAFTA negotiator, Steve Verheul, would be in Washington this week, saying instead that her country is ready to negotiate “anytime, anywhere,” and that she looks forward to discussing the remaining issues with her U.S. and Mexican counterparts.

She reiterated that NAFTA is “absolutely,” a trilateral deal, and that modernizing the 24-year-old agreement is a priority for Canada.