Supporters of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro hold a poster of him outside the Supreme Court where he is being sworn-in for another term in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 10, 2019. “The people of Venezuela deserve to live in freedom in a democratic society governed by the rule of law,” State Department spokesman Robert Palladino said. Pompeo told reporters traveling with him that the events taking place in Venezuela now were “incredibly important.”“The Maduro regime is illegitimate and the United States will continue ... to work diligently to restore a real democracy to that country,” he said. A once wealthy oil nation, Venezuela is gripped by a growing crisis of relentless inflation, food shortages and mass migration. Seventeen Latin American countries, the United States and Canada denounced Maduro’s government as illegitimate in a measure adopted Thursday at the OAS in Washington.

Source: Washington Post January 12, 2019 09:49 UTC