One person was killed on Monday in protests demanding a recall vote to remove President Hugo Chavez, as electoral authorities postponed announcing whether a recall referendum will be held until midday yesterday.
Soldiers killed the protester during an anti-Chavez rally in Caracas, said Juan Fernandez, a spokesman for the opposition Democratic Coordinator umbrella group.
PHOTO: AFP
Since Friday five people have been killed and about 100 injured in political unrest.
Chavez foes were out in the streets on Monday and burning barricades blocked many streets, especially in southeastern Caracas.
In violent unrest on Sunday at least 30 people were seriously hurt. Firefighters treated another 230 for minor injuries.
The number of signatures calling for a referendum has actually been known since Saturday, Jorge Rodriguez, a member of the National Electoral Council (CNE), said in a late Monday press conference.
However it was not to be made public until midday yesterday. The results of the signature-collecting campaign were originally supposed to be made public on Sunday.
The pause "enables us all to reflect" and study the outcome within a democratic framework and without violence, he said. "With humility and patience, the CNE tries to maintain the players ... in the democratic game," he added.
Late Monday National Guard police used tear gas and rubber bullets to break up anti-government protesters gathered in the Plaza Altamira, an opposition hotbed in eastern Caracas.
Protesters flooded the area after the postponement was announced, banging on pots and hurling rocks and fireworks at the police.
Military police also stood watch over a main east-west highway in the capital.
Police in upper- and upper-middle class districts to the east and southeast of Caracas, where many anti-government protests have been held, report to mayors who oppose Chavez's government. In some cases they have patrolled without stepping in as demonstrators burned trash, hurled molotov cocktails and in some cases opened fire with handguns.
But "this is not a protest by the rich, by the upper class. There already has been looting," said lawmaker Henry Ramos, a Social Democrat.
Protests turned violent on Sunday after the main opposition umbrella group said it rejected the authority of the National Electoral Council because it said it was reviewing the legality of more than one million of the 3.4 million signatures the opposition says it gathered in favor of having a recall referendum set.
The constitution requires a minimum of 2.4 million valid signatures. So the council's decision, if it were to disqualify the questioned signatures, would take the total to a potentially razor-thin margin between a green light and a red light for a recall vote. The government has claimed fraud was widespread in collecting the petitions.
At a rally Sunday, the president told some 60,000 cheering supporters he would block US access to Venezuela's oil resources if Washington moves against his government.
In a three-hour anti-US diatribe that singled out US President George W. Bush as an illegitimate leader, Chavez said "if Mr Bush is possessed with the madness of trying to blockade Venezuela, or worse for them, to invade Vene-zuela in response to the desperate song of his lackeys ... sadly not a drop of petroleum will come to them from Venezuela."
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
RSS