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Piracy in the Caribbean.
That's how Venezuela's describing the US seizure of an oil tanker off its coast.
It's World Business Express from the BBC World Service.
I'm Gideon Long.
Plus, survivors of a typhoon in the Philippines take the oil giant Shell to court, saying it's partly to blame.
And how does the World Cup ticket ballot actually work?
Let's start in the Caribbean, where the US has seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela.
A video released by the White House showed special forces swooping down onto the deck of a ship from a helicopter.
Venezuela's interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, described the action as piracy.
What they want is to steal our oil, to steal our gold.
They want to steal our gas.
They want to steal our water because they don't want to pay.
And why don't they pay for it? because they're thieves.
US officials said the vessel was taking sanctioned oil to Iran.
I spoke to Vanessa Neumann, a former Venezuelan diplomat who's written extensively about how the government of Nicolás Maduro finances itself.
She said the ship was heading north first.
This ship was apparently bound for Cuba.
And as you know, Cuba provides a lot of the counterintelligence and the protection for Maduro.
Also, the tanker had been sanctioned for being involved with doing trade with Iran.
Iran itself is sanctioned.
The tanker itself was sanctioned.
So what we're seeing is U.S. sanctions enforcement.
Usually we're used to seeing that in terms of frozen bank accounts and other assets.
We're not used to seeing them in terms of oil tankers.
But in reality, it's simply a sanctions enforcement action.
And do you think we're likely to see more actions of this kind from the US?
Yes, I think so.
I think absolutely.
Oil, gold, and narcotics, right?
Venezuela is the biggest transshipment point of narcotics in the world.
So cutting all of those things off which are illegal transactions is going to hold the United States in very good stead in its strategy of isolating and debilitating Maduro.
It will also give pause to all of those traders based in Dubai and Singapore who engage in these transactions.
So it has not only the direct effect of the actual action, but it actually has a dissuasive effect on those who would engage in financially supporting Maduro.
This is like a game of Jenga right, where they start removing the little pieces so that the tower will start to fall, to take away Maduro's protection, to take away his international support and also debilitate other regimes that are anathema to American interests.
And finally Vanessa, is the seizure of this ship and the possible seizure of ships by the US in the future?
Is it likely to impact global oil prices?
No, not really.
It'll impact Maduro.
It'll impact Cuba.
I mean Venezuelan oil production is so low 1 of the global supply you'll get a few traders who'll get a little bit hysterical and you'll see a little bit of a bounce.
But really, there is more oil in the world than we know what to do with.
Vanessa Neumann there.
Survivors of a deadly typhoon in the Philippines have filed a legal claim in Britain against the oil and gas giant Shell.
They say it was partially responsible for the climate change that caused Typhoon Rai just before Christmas in 2021.
The typhoon killed more than 400 people and displaced tens of thousands.
Here are two of the survivors.
I call on Shell to pay.
It seems like you want to be the only ones to survive, leaving the poor to be poorer.
I know that we can do something about this.
This will be a tough journey, but we are here, ready to wait and ready to fight.
I spoke to Aran Pedrosa, a lawyer from the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice, part of the team taking the legal action.
Shell has violated both provisions of the civil code and the constitutional rights of Filipinos when, in their decades of continued, unabated emissions of carbon dioxide for oil production, it has spawned the impacts now being felt by communities across the Philippines.
And why Shell?
Because if the accusation is that they exacerbated climate change through their actions, then surely many other companies are also responsible.
So why single them out?
We are taking Shell to court because of its historic carbon emissions.
And because of its emissions, because of the scale of its contribution, it has increased the likelihood and severity of the damage caused by Typhoon Odette or Typhoon Ray, internationally named, in the Philippines.
Now you also argue that Shell knew of the link between fossil fuels and climate change as early as the 1960s, before it was widely known.
Shell vehemently denies that.
What's the evidence?
In 1962, Shell's chief geologist, Marlon King Hubbard, acknowledged in his report that there were possible human environmental risks of global warming.
It says there is evidence that the greatly increasing use of fossil fuels is seriously contaminating Earth's atmosphere with carbon dioxide.
And the same report says this could have profound effects both on weather and on the ecological balances.
That was Aaron Pedrosa.
And Shell told the BBC that the legal claim is baseless and that it had no unique knowledge about climate change back in the 1960s.
Let's go to the markets.
The US trade deficit has unexpectedly narrowed to its lowest level in five years, thanks to a surge in exports.
I'm joined by Jennifer Snyder, Financial Advisor for Brighton Securities in Rochester, New York.
Jennifer, how is the market taking this data?
Yes, this is good news.
Markets are simply at an all-time high, so it does appear that investors aren't considering much impact from the trade deficit.
However, it is bringing some scepticism to seeing these higher prices and supply chain issues.
But overall, good reaction.
And tech stocks have also taken a hit, haven't they, with Oracle leading the way, leading the decline after reporting weaker than expected sales.
So could this be a sign that the AI boom we've talked about so much is starting to lose momentum?
Well, certainly Oracle's down about 15%, but the bottom line is that this drop isn't just one thing.
It's really a mix of heavy AI-related spending, renewed skepticism about profit from big AI investments that's driving the pullback.
But most important to note is Oracle 600 billion market cap versus Microsoft, Google north of 3 trillion.
So size and impact is something to consider for market sentiments as well.
Jennifer, thanks very much for joining us.
Now, if you're already dreaming about the Football World Cup next summer, here is your moment.
The main ticket ballot officially opens today, Thursday on the FIFA website.
Tom Grundy from BBC Sport told me how it works.
There's around a month's window where you can apply for specific games, specific categories of tickets.
And there's no real advantage to actually applying on day one versus say, the last day of the window.
And what happens after that in late January is FIFA will run a lottery, decide whose applications have been successful and then ultimately inform the fans if they have been in February time.
And it's a pretty complicated World Cup and a pretty complicated ballot, in the sense that you're talking about three countries, four time zones and, as I understand it, four different categories at each stadium.
We don't at this point know the exact price points for this stage of the ticketing process.
Certainly much more expensive than Qatar.
So we're talking about tickets running into the hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.
But there was one category, category four, where in theory...
The tickets were quite cheap, perhaps starting at $60.
But if you actually look at some of the stadium maps that FIFA have already published, the amount of Category 4 tickets seemingly available are minuscule.
And most of the tickets appear to be in Category 1 or Category 2, which are the most expensive.
And for people who miss out on tickets in this ballot let's say we get into February, March next year and they're still without the tickets will there be other ways of getting hold of them?
There are other methods.
Each participating nation's football associations get around 8 of the matches they're involved in, and it's then up to them to distribute them.
That's it for this edition of World Business Express.
Want to know how to become the richest person in the world?
Start with the latest episode of our podcast, Good Bad Billionaire.
We're telling the story of how Elon Musk amassed half a trillion dollars from his troubled childhood in South Africa to buying Twitter and launching rockets into space, with all the boardroom dramas along the way.
Find out how he did it on Good Bad Billionaire.
Listen wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
