Maduro claims US killing plot

– Socialist Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Thursday accused the Trump administration of seeking to assassinate him, as relations strain between the ideologically opposed nations.

Asked about Maduro’s comments, a spokesperson for the White House’s National Security Council said: “US policy preference for a peaceful, orderly return to democracy in Venezuela remains unchanged.”

Venezuela’s opposition says Maduro lobs ludicrous accusations at enemies to deflect from his own incompetence.

Almost two million Venezuelans have fled the ailing oil-rich nation since 2015, driven out by brutal food and medicine shortages, hyperinflation and violent crime.

Washington has imposed sanctions on Venezuela, denouncing Maduro as a dictator who has quashed human rights and triggered an economic meltdown.

Maduro did not give an explanation for his accusations and did not provide any evidence.

Venezuela’s Information Ministry did not respond to a request for further information. – Reuters

Caracas

Moscow

Two astronauts who survived the mid-air failure of a Russian rocket will fly again and are provisionally set to travel to the International Space Station (ISS) in spring next year.

Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russian space agency Roscosmos, was speaking a day after Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin and American Nick Hague made a dramatic emergency landing in Kazakhstan after the failure of the Soyuz rocket carrying them to the orbital ISS.