Maduro lashes out at ‘insolent’ US sanctions
Argentina sentences 4 ex-judges for crimes
CARACAS, July 27, (Agencies): Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro branded US sanctions leveled at his regime on Wednesday as “insolent,” as pressure piled up on him abroad and at home over his controversial plan to elect a new body to rewrite the constitution.
The US measures came as Venezuela’s opposition began a two-day nationwide strike aimed at ousting the president through early elections.
The deadliness of four months of violent anti-Maduro protests was further confirmed with the death by gunfire of a 30-year-old man in a demonstration in the west of the country.
Prosecutors said a 16-year-old boy also was killed in Wednesday’s disturbances in Caracas. The deaths raised to 105 the number of people killed since April 1 in clashes with security forces.
In Washington, the US Treasury unveiled a list of 13 current and former officials, including the interior minister, senior military brass, the president of the electoral council, and the finance chief of state oil company PDVSA, whose US assets would be frozen.
The opposition and US moves are to force Maduro to give up his plan to have a 545-member “Constituent Assembly” elected on Sunday.
Critics say the body is a step towards a dictatorship, by bypassing or dissolving the opposition-held National Assembly.
Maduro called the US punishment “illegal, insolent and unprecedented.”
“Who do these imperialists in the United States think they are? The government of the world?” he said in a speech.
But in his country, where there are widespread shortages of basic goods and soaring inflation, protesters are showing their discontent with Maduro’s leadership. Organizers claimed 92-percent support for the walkout.
“No more dictatorship!” read signs on road barricades in eastern Caracas.
Maduro accuses the US of fomenting the unrest against him and his government, with the help of the conservative opposition.
The Venezuelan military has declared its
loyalty to him.
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BUENOS AIRES, Argentina: Four former federal judges in Argentina were sentenced Wednesday to life in prison for crimes against humanity committed during the country’s last dictatorship in a ruling human rights groups are calling historic for punishing the regime’s civilian accomplices.
The court in Mendoza province ruled that ex-judges Rolando Carrizo, Guillermo Petra Recabarren, Luis Miret and Otilio Romano participated in kidnappings, torture and murders. The men were tried for their failure to investigate petitions of habeas corpus filed by relatives of dissidents who disappeared during the 1976-1983 dictatorship.
During the trial, which began in 2014, prosecutors asked to change the charges against the four from being accomplices to primary participants in crimes, arguing their inaction on the petitions preceded the disappearance of more than 20 dissidents.