CARACAS : Venezuela’s economy slowed sharply in the first quarter, the central bank said, auguring a difficult year for the OPEC nation that is already struggling with galloping inflation and shortages of basic consumer goods. The economy grew only 0.7pc compared with 5.9pc the same period a ...

CARACAS: Venezuelans have been hit by a chronic toilet paper shortage, leading to empty supermarket shelves and long queues to snap up the remaining rolls. When new stocks arrive at supermarkets customers have been rushing in to fill their trollies. Venezuela is used to a scarcity of basic food ...

SAN JOSE : The CARACAS (AFP) - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro took a swipe at Barack Obama on Saturday, calling him the "grand chief of devils" after the US president declined to recognize his contested re-election. "Coming out of Central America, Obama let loose with a bunch of impertinent ...

CARACAS :  Venezuela's opposition on Thursday challenged the results of last month's presidential poll won by the late Hugo Chavez's successor, further muddying an already messy transition to life without the divisive leader. The center-right opposition in the oil-rich South American nation filed ...

HAVANA : Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has renewed a strategic alliance with Cuba, signing $1 billion in cooperation agreements two weeks after his election to replace the late Hugo Chavez.The 51 agreements signed Saturday during Maduro's visit to Cuba encompass health, education, ...

HAVANA: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro arrived inCubato strengthen ties with the communist regime of the island, the state run media said Saturday. Maduro, the hand-picked heir to the late Hugo Chavez, landed inCubalate Friday on an official visit to further strengthen the "strategic alliance" ...

CARACAS  - President-elect Nicolas Maduro was set to be inaugurated in Venezuela Friday, even as election officials moved to defuse a political crisis by yielding to demands for an audit of the results in Sunday's bitterly contested elections.The last minute development came after Maduro flew ...

MADRID:- AFP Spain has recognised the Venezuelan authorities' decision to confirm Nicolas Maduro as the winner of Venezuela's tight presidential election after initially expressing doubts over the outcome of the vote. "Now that the constitutional and legal procedures have ended, the government of ...

CARACAS AFP The opposition planned more protests Tuesday against the confirmation of late leader Hugo Chavez’s political heir as president-elect, but faced the prospect of rival demonstrations from the declared winner’s side.Thousands of opposition supporters crammed the streets of ...

CARACAS  - Venezuela plunged into uncertainty Monday, with acting President Nicolas Maduro due to be proclaimed the winner of a tight election to succeed the late Hugo Chavez despite international pressure for a recount.After Chavez dominated elections for 14 years, his political heir barely ...

CARACAS  - Venezuelans flocked to the polls Sunday to pick Hugo Chavez's successor, choosing between the handpicked heir of his socialist revolution and an opponent vowing change in the divided nation.After a brief and bitter campaign, supporters of acting President Nicolas Maduro played ...

CARACAS - Venezuela complained that the United States meddled when it noted a new election must be called in that country if cancer-stricken President Hugo Chavez is deemed too sick to do his job. Chavez returned home by surprise Monday after spending two months in Cuba for cancer surgery and ...

CARACAS  - Venezuela said it was devaluing its currency by 32 percent against the dollar on the orders of cancer-stricken President Hugo Chavez, in part to trim a bloated budget deficit.The bolivar will go from 4.3 to the dollar to 6.3 at the official exchange rate. The move was announced ...

CARACAS  - With cancer-stricken President Hugo Chavez hospitalized in Cuba, tens of thousands of flag-waving Venezuelans filled the streets of Caracas on Thursday to inaugurate his new term without him.Bands played patriotic anthems from street-side stages as citizens clad in the red of ...

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan lawmakers re-elected a staunch ally of Hugo Chavez to head the National Assembly on Saturday, putting him in line to be caretaker president if the socialist leader does not recover from cancer surgery.By choosing the incumbent, Diosdado Cabello, the ...

BEIJING (AFP) - A Chinese rocket on Saturday successfully launched a Venezuelan earth-observation satellite into orbit, state media said. The satellite, dubbed “Generalissimo Francisco de Miranda” after the major Venezuelan independence figure, was launched from the northwest Jiuquan ...

BEIJING - A Chinese rocket on Saturday successfully launched a Venezuelan earth-observation satellite into orbit, state media said. The satellite, dubbed “Generalissimo Francisco de Miranda” after the major Venezuelan independence figure, was launched from the northwest Jiuquan base in ...

There are fears there will soon be a second world missile crisis after it was reported that Iran, who are fierce enemies of Israel, are due to build a mid-range rocket base in Venezuela. According to German paper Die Welt Iran have bought launch pads on the Paraguana Peninsula, and the Middle East ...

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan opposition parties cautiously accepted an offer of dialogue from President Hugo Chavez on Sunday but said the firebrand socialist leader had soon forgotten similar invitations in the past. Chavez proffered the olive branch during a typically lengthy speech to ...

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela condemned on Thursday the United States revocation of its ambassadors visa as an imperial move by President Barack Obamas government, saying the measure should be immediately overturned. In the latest flare-up between the ideological foes, Washington withdrew the visa ...

Eight people were killed in Venezuela in downpours caused by the tropical storm Matthew, which later weakened to tropical depression, Venezuelan media reported on Sunday. El Universal reported citing Venezuelan Interior Minister Tareck El Aissami as saying that seven people were killed in a ...

At least 6,000 kg of drug-making chemicals and 4.5 tonnes of cocaine have been seized from eight laboratories near the Venezuela-Colombia border, officials said. "This has been one of the biggest operations in recent years," Interior Minister Tarek El Aissami said Thursday. The drugs belonged to ...

Miss Venezuela was the fairest of them all, again. Venezuelan Stefania Fernandez won the 2009 Miss Univere pageant in the Bahamas on monday. Dressed in a flowing red gown, Fernandez embraced runner up Miss Dominican Republic as the announcement was made, and received the crown from last years ...

Venezuela and China Wednesday signed 12 cooperation agreements and doubled their joint investment fund to 12 billion dollars, as Vice President Xi Jinping's wound up his visit before heading to Brazil. The China-Venezuela investment fund, set up in 2007 with a starting capital of six billion ...

A new species of fish from tropical South America is confirming suspected roots to the loricariid catfish family tree. Lithogenes wahari shares traits with two different families of fish: the bony armor that protects its head and tail, and a grasping pelvic fin that allows it to climb vertical ...

Venezuela expelled two Human Rights Watch representatives late Thursday, hours after the US-based group released a report accusing President Hugo Chavez of weakening democracy and the rule of law. The foreign ministry ordered the expulsion of Jose Miguel Vivanco, the group's director of the ...

CARACAS (AFP) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez expelled the US envoy to Caracas and threatened to halt crude exports to the United States on a day he highlighted the recent arrival of two Russian Tu-160 strategic bombers. Chavez on Thursday ordered US ambassador Patrick Duddy to leave the ...

Miss Venezuela Dayana Mendoza, 22, won the Miss Universe pageant held in southern Vietnam on Monday, contest presenter and US talk show host Jerry Springer announced. 

Colombia: Venezuela's foreign minister has accused Washington of fomenting violence in Latin America and labelled US Undersecretary of State John Negroponte a criminal, drawing a sharp rejoinder from the US. The United States "is directly responsible" for an "operation... to bring ...