Venezuela president throttles rebellious congressCARACAS: Venezuela’s opposition-led legislature is fighting for air as the crisis-hit country’s government throttles it, threatening to cut off its cash and even its electricity. Maduro calls the opposition assembly members “devils.”“It is a bourgeois assembly, isolated, neutralized and defeated,” he said. “Since this National Assembly is outside of the law, I as head of the public treasury cannot allocate resources” to it, he said on television. The National Assembly is the one institutional weapon the opposition has in its fight to oust President Nicolas Maduro, whom it blames for a severe recession, chronic food shortages and mounting chaos. The National Assembly last week defiantly swore in three of its lawmakers who had been suspended by the high court over alleged electoral fraud.

Source: Manila Times August 06, 2016 06:11 UTC