A Royal Navy warship seized £290.66m of cocaine and narcotics in two huge blows to drug runners in the Caribbean. British sailors, Royal Marines and a US Coast Guard team on HMS Trent intercepted a suspected smuggling speedboat south of the US Virgin Islands.
The United Kingdom said Venezuelan President Nicolàs Maduro's decision to up his country's military readiness over the Essequibo dispute with Guyana was unjustified. The Bolivarian forces deployed over 5,000 troops in response to the arrival in the area of the Royal Navy's HMS Trent.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro ordered preventive measures be taken as the Royal Navy's HMS Trent was reaching the area to side with Guyana amid tensions over the disputed oil-rich Essequibo area.
The Royal Navy Offshore Patrol Vessel HMS Trent has been dispatched to Guyana in a show of British support for the Commonwealth nation. Guyana is suffering threats of invasion and land grabbing by neighboring Venezuela which claims some two-thirds of the former British colony's territory.
Steel was cut this week for the first of three new Royal Navy offshore patrol vessels (OPVs) at a ceremony in Glasgow. The vessels, which will be used by the Royal Navy to undertake various tasks in support of UK interests both at home and abroad, will be built at BAE Systems’ shipyards under a £348 million contract that has protected more than 800 Scottish jobs.