Day: September 17, 2025

Venezuelan VP Denounces U.S. Interception of Fishing Vessel

This week, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez formally condemned what she termed a violation of her country’s sovereignty after the U.S. Navy intercepted the fishing vessel Carmen Rosa. This incident occurred on September 12, 2025, when the vessel was operating within Venezuela’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), reports 24brussels.

Rodriguez alerted the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and other international institutions in a letter detailing the confrontation. The fishing vessel, flying the Venezuelan flag, was approached 48 nautical miles northeast of La Blanquilla Island by the U.S. warship USS Jason Dunham (DDG-109), which was equipped with advanced weaponry and crewed by military personnel, starkly contrasting with the unarmed Carmen Rosa, crewed by nine fishermen.

After the interception, 18 armed soldiers from the U.S. warship boarded the Carmen Rosa and held the crew for eight hours, blocking communications and halting their authorized fishing operations. Rodriguez emphasized that this action went unreported to Venezuelan authorities, raising concerns about both the legality of the interception and the treatment of the fishermen.

In her letter, Rodriguez asserted, “The use of a missile-equipped warship and command military personnel against a civilian fishing vessel constitutes a clearly disproportionate act that undermines the rules and principles governing maritime navigation control operations.” She further highlighted the infringement on the fishermen’s rights to liberty and personal integrity, characterizing the U.S. actions as a serious violation under international law.

Venezuela, which has a robust fishing industry, is determined to defend its rights against what it perceives as unjustified aggression. Rodriguez’s communication called for international condemnation of the U.S. actions, which she argues not only threaten the livelihoods of fishermen but also disrupt Venezuela’s economic development.

In this context, Rodriguez urged that maritime control actions must respect international laws, particularly regarding proportionality and human rights. She emphasized the importance of nations coordinating efforts in maritime operations and adhering strictly to applicable fishing regulations.

This incident further complicates Venezuela’s already strained relations with the United States, with regional ramifications signalizing growing tensions in maritime law enforcement and international fishing rights.

• Stephanie Essenfeld is a 33-year-old psychotherapist and business owner in Miami.
• She was diagnosed with breast cancer in January 2025.
• She quickly discovered that cancer made her a better team leader for her staff.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Stephanie Essenfeld, a psychotherapist who also hosts conferences helping businesses learn assertiveness and boundaries. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Back in November of 2024, my team and I were excitedly talking about plans for the year ahead — new retreats and conferences we would host in 2025.

As the year ended, I felt a lump in my breast. Days later, the doctor told me I had an aggressive type of cancer.

Suddenly, I was filled with uncertainty and fear

For years, I had been teaching people about radical acceptance — not rejecting pain, but recognising pain as a part of reality right now, and learning how to live with it.

Even though I initially questioned “why me?” I immediately shifted to “what now?” Cancer was happening, and it was one of the challenges I was going to have to deal with. I was going to get through this journey coming from a place of peace and gratitude, rather than fear.

In my sadness, anger, and pain, I’d open myself up to the amazing things that would come as a result of cancer.

Over the last six months, I’ve experienced a lot of good stuff. My relationship with my husband has strengthened, my daughters have been amazing, and the support I’ve had from friends and family has been incredible.

Cancer has also made me a better leader.

I was honest with my employees

When I was diagnosed, I was afraid of letting my team down. I didn’t want them to carry a burden that wasn’t their own, or to panic about the future.

At one of the first Monday team meetings in January, I was honest — I told my team about the cancer and all the uncertainty that felt very uncomfortable.

Every subsequent week, I gave them updates and shared my fears about cancer and treatment.

These meetings became group brainstorming sessions — making decisions about next steps. Prior to this, I made decisions, and my team would execute them. With cancer, I stepped off my pedestal to allow the team to be a team on a mission together.

We all started asking for help more openly

Initially nervous that asking for help would make me look weak, I learned that by inviting them into the decision-making, brainstorming process, they felt seen and heard. They were no longer puzzle pieces I moved around, but they were building the puzzle themselves.

Over the last six months, there have been days when I have no energy, and I tell them. They, too, have started doing similar things. When one of us is down, the rest of the team pulls together to help each other.

I stopped micromanaging

Continuing to work throughout chemo, I let go of control without losing vision. As a leader, I could set out a clear purpose and mission without micromanaging every detail. Instead of supervising every move of each staff member, something I no longer had the energy to do, I started trusting them to carry out the vision we’d set.

I used to think that in order to lead, there had to be pressure on my team to get the results I was looking for. While they had always met the goals, they weren’t meeting them in a way that was fulfilling. With a lot of pressure, you don’t create from a place of enjoyment.

On this cancer journey, I haven’t had the energy to apply that pressure, but I was still present, trusting, supporting, and excited for the staff.

With this leadership style, I prioritized people over performance. I didn’t just want to hear about my staff’s performance; I wanted to hear about how they were doing.

Instead of falling apart, my team showed up, and they showed me the kind of leader I want to be once I’ve completed my treatment. We’ve grown, not only as a team, but as a business. I’ve never been so fulfilled about my work as I am now.

First, a young Kazakh schoolgirl in a black dress with a starched collar, her hair tousled by the wind of the Aral Sea, clutches a large Russian book tightly to her chest as she stands before a lonely school building in the middle of nowhere.

Then, a camel speaks: “Give me back the sea!”

“No!” cries a woman, her face hidden beneath a military hat. She stands before an abandoned edifice, her head wrapped in fur, her body strangely adorned with eggs.

Image: Almagul Menlibayeva

This series of surreal images is from the video Transoxiana Dream, by one of Central Asia’s pioneering contemporary artists, Almagul Menlibayeva. The Times of Central Asia attended her major solo show, I Understand Everything, curated by Thai curator Gritiya Gaweewong, a powerful exploration of memory, trauma, and identity, which provides the “treble clef” for the opening of the Almaty Museum of Arts.

The show brings together works spanning decades, from Menlibayeva’s early paintings and collages in the 1980s, to her recent internationally recognized video and photography works. Through a variety of mediums, she charts the collapse of the Soviet Union, the ecological devastation of Kazakhstan, and suppressed cultural memory.

Almagul Menlibayeva, People Talking against a Blue Background, 1988; image: Almaty Museum of Arts

As always in her practice, the feminine and feminist narratives are at the forefront. Menlibayeva’s women are at times bound with nature or with military rule, alternately merciful or merciless. Her works tackle ecological concerns, tying them directly to the destruction of patriarchy.

“For us, opening our program with Menlibayeva’s show was highly significant,” says Meruyert Kaliyeva, the museum’s artistic director. “She is a pioneering Central Asian artist who is known internationally but at the same time has always dealt with topics and themes that are important locally.”

A New Museum in Almaty

The inauguration of the Almaty Museum of Arts represents a decisive step in shaping Kazakhstan’s creative future. As the country’s first large-scale contemporary art museum, it houses over 700 works collected across three decades, offering a panoramic view of modern Kazakh art while opening pathways to Central Asian and international dialogues.

Almaty Museum of Arts; image: Alexey Poptsov

Its mission extends beyond exhibitions: the institution positions itself as a center for education, research, and collaboration, aiming to nurture local artists and connect them to global networks. For Kazakhstan, long without a dedicated contemporary art museum, this moment signals a new era, one in which cultural identity is asserted with confidence, and the arts are recognized as a vital force for national memory as well as international visibility.

Kaliyeva emphasizes how essential it is that Kazakh artists now have a platform where voices once peripheral to national culture can take center stage. She also stresses the urgency of the moment: in a world reshaped by geopolitical fractures, climate crises, and cultural decolonization, this opening is necessary: “It’s a moment for Kazakhstan to assert its own narratives, to host memory and imagination on its own terms.”

Meruyert Kaliyeva; image: Anvar Rakishev

Kaliyeva situates the institution in Kazakhstan’s broader cultural history, highlighting how the country has long been a “laboratory of friendship,” forged through waves of migration and displacement, from deported Koreans to Soviet dissidents. In her view, the museum must serve as a decolonial institution, allowing Kazakhs to reclaim identity apart from Soviet ideology. “This sentiment began a long time ago when Kazakh people started to look for their own identity, but it became especially important after the war in Ukraine,” she observes.

Nurlan Smagulov, the museum’s founder, frames his role as one of stewardship as much as ownership: “It’s a lot of responsibility because Kazakhstan never had a contemporary art museum of this kind.”

Smagulov’s love affair with art began in his youth, amidst the halls of Moscow’s Pushkin Museum. At just 17 years old, he found solace and inspiration in the works of the Impressionists, igniting a passion that would shape his life’s journey.

Nurlan Smagulov; image: Almaty Museum of Arts

“Growing up in what used to be the Soviet Union, everything was prohibited,” he recounts. “Going abroad was impossible. Nobody was buying art. All the exhibitions I saw, I saw on TV. The artists could only paint in the style of Socialist Realism. There was a very strict censorship. There was no freedom in art.”

Smagulov began building his collection in the early 1990s, focusing on local artists whose works resonated with his own experiences and memories. These acquisitions now form the basis of the museum’s permanent holdings. Today, his collection spans several generations of artists, from the pioneering figures of the 1960s and 70s to the contemporary visionaries of today. In the absence of a proper contemporary art museum, the focus on Kazakh and Central Asian art is particularly significant.

Zhanatai Sharden, Aksai Mountains; image: Almaty Museum of Arts

The permanent collection also includes works by international artists such as Richard Serra, Anselm Kiefer, Bill Viola, and Yayoi Kusama. These pieces serve as a bridge between Kazakhstan and the global contemporary art scene, fostering a dialogue between cultures and artistic traditions.

“I feel that I’ve written a new story,” says Smagulov. “I feel joy that many people will come here and they will be proud of their country.”

The Permanent Collection

The museum’s inaugural exhibition, curated by Latvian curator Inga Lace, is titled Konakhtar (“guests”), emphasizing the theme of hospitality that has shaped Kazakh culture for centuries. “A thing about hospitality is that in nomadic times, guests would also bring with them interesting stories,” says Lace. “So, hospitality was seen as a way of survival, but also a way of communicating.”

The works she places in the foreground open with festive gatherings, such as Aisha Galibaeva’s Shepherd’s Feast, where traditions of Kazakh conviviality are refracted through the Soviet lens. Yet hospitality, Lace reminds us, is not always voluntary. Soviet-era forced displacements – Koreans, dissidents, or those sent during the Virgin Lands campaign – reshaped communities. “Hospitality emerges as a very political act,” she notes.

The exhibition traces how these histories live on in artistic visions, whether through music, as in Dina Pilsava’s dombra performances appropriated by Soviet officials, or in avant-garde reinterpretations of nomadic forms by the generation of the 1960s.

“This collection and this museum is built as this kind of dialogue,” says Lace. “So, we have Kazakh art and the collection of the founder as the nucleus, and then international art to have this bridge with the global contemporary scene.”

Inga Lace; image: Almaty Museum of Arts

Lace’s presentation concludes with a meditation on migration and cosmopolitanism, embodied in artists like Yevgeny Sidorkin, who illustrated Kazakh folk tales, or Sergey Kalmykov, who adopted Kazakhstan as the site of his cosmic experiments. For Lace, these works collectively express the desire to “see the past and also imagine different futures through the art of the region and the country.”

Both founders see the museum as a catalyst for change, hoping that international audiences will be more and more encouraged to come to Almaty. Presenting artists insisting on sharing voices across regions and histories, the Almaty Museum of Arts gathers fragments of memory, trauma, and resilience, weaving them into a cultural space that allows Kazakhstan to see itself anew, and to be seen by the world.

Almagul Menlibayeva, People and Animals, 1997; image: Almaty Museum of Arts

Almagul Menlibayeva perhaps put it best: “When we look at Kazakhstan, we see a strong connection with a number of countries and regions, from Europe, Siberia, Japan, Korea, but also China, and, of course, the Middle East,” she says. “I found that for me it was easy to understand, even if some places don’t understand each other. I feel like I’m a satellite, moving between regions and attempting to understand everything.”