Samoa declared a state of emergency this weekend, closing all schools and cracking down on public gatherings, after several deaths linked to a measles outbreak that has spread across the Pacific islands.

The island state of about 200,000, south of the equator and half way between Hawaii and New Zealand, declared a measles epidemic late in October after the first deaths were reported.

Since then, at least six deaths, mostly infants younger than 2, have been linked to the outbreak, the health ministry said in a statement late last week. Of the 716 suspected cases of measles, 40% required hospitalization.

Worst yet to come

As of the weekend, vaccination “for members of the public who have not yet received a vaccination injection, is now a mandatory legal requirement,” the government said in a statement. Only about two-thirds of the population has been immunized, according to the health ministry.

“The way it is going now and the poor (immunization) coverage, we are anticipating the worst to come,” Samoa’s Director General of Health Leausa Take Naseri was cited in the health ministry statement as saying.

He added that the children who died had not been vaccinated.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said Friday his country would send 3,000 doses of vaccine and 12 nurses to Samoa to assist with the outbreak.

“Measles is highly contagious, and the outbreak has taken lives in Samoa,” Peters said in a statement. “It is in everybody’s interests that we work together to stop its spread.”

Measles on the rise

Measles cases are rising globally, including in wealthy nations such as the United States and Germany, where some parents shun immunization mostly for philosophical or religious reasons, or concerns, debunked by medical science, that such vaccines could cause autism.

In Tonga, about 900km (559.23 miles) from Samoa, the ministry of health last week said an outbreak of measles in the country occurred following the return of a squad of Tongan rugby players from New Zealand.

Since then, 251 cases of confirmed or suspected measles have been identified, the ministry said in the statement.

American Samoa, a U.S. territory neighboring Samoa, declared a public health emergency Thursday following the measles outbreak in Samoa and Tonga, according to New Zealand media.

According to Samoa’s Naseri about 90% of population in Tonga and American Samoa has been immunized and neither of these countries have reported any measles-related deaths.

Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil giant Aramco announced Sunday it will sell a 1.5% stake in the company as it looks to raise as much as $25.6 billion from the sale.

The newly released figures also revealed a valuation for the company that’s between $1.6 trillion and $1.7 trillion, a figure that fell short of the $2 trillion mark Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had sought.

Still, a 1.5% flotation could raise between $24 billion and $25.6 billion to help fuel the Saudi economy. Saudi Aramco announced it will have 200 billion regular shares, selling 1.5% or what is 3 billion shares.

Aramco set a stock price range of 30 to 32 Saudi riyals, or $8 to $8.50 a share for investors.

The company is selling 0.5% to individual investors, which will include Saudi citizens, residents of Saudi Arabia and Gulf Arab nationals, and 1% to institutional investors, which could include major Chinese and Russian buyers.

Aramco will announce the final price for the stock when the book-building period ends Dec. 5. Trading on the local Tadawul exchange in Riyadh is expected to happen sometime in mid-December.

Global buzz

The highly anticipated sale of a sliver of the company has been generating global buzz because it could clock in as the world’s biggest initial public offering, surpassing record holder Alibaba whose IPO raised $21.8 billion on its first day of trading in 2014.

Saudi Aramco is the kingdom’s oil and gas producer, pumping more than 10 million barrels of crude oil a day, or about 10% of global demand. The oil and gas company netted profits of $111 billion last year, more than Apple, Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil combined.

The kingdom’s plan to sell part of the company is part of a wider economic overhaul aimed at raising new streams of revenue for the oil-dependent country, particularly as oil prices struggle to reach the $75 to $80 price range per barrel analysts say is needed to balance Saudi Arabia’s budget. Brent crude is trading at just more than $63 a barrel.

Prince Mohammed has said listing Aramco is one way for the kingdom to raise capital for the country’s sovereign wealth fund, which would then use that revenue to develop new cities and lucrative projects across Saudi Arabia.

Risks for investors

Despite Aramco’s profitability, the state’s control of the company carries a number of risks for investors.

Two key Aramco processing sites were targeted by rockets and missiles in September, an attack claimed by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen but which Saudi Arabia blamed on Iran. The government also stipulates oil production levels, which directly impacts Aramco’s output.
 

People with severe but stable heart disease from clogged arteries may have less chest pain if they get a procedure to improve blood flow rather than just giving medicines a chance to help, but it won’t cut their risk of having a heart attack or dying over the following few years, a big federally funded study found.

The results challenge medical dogma and call into question some of the most common practices in heart care. They are the strongest evidence yet that tens of thousands of costly stent procedures and bypass operations each year are unnecessary or premature for people with stable disease.

That’s a different situation than a heart attack, when a procedure is needed right away to restore blood flow.

For nonemergency cases, the study shows “there’s no need to rush” into invasive tests and procedures, said New York University’s Dr. Judith Hochman.

There might even be harm: To doctors’ surprise, study participants who had a procedure were more likely to suffer a heart problem or die over the next year than those treated with medicines alone.

Hochman co-led the study and gave results Saturday at an American Heart Association conference in Philadelphia.

Less testing, invasive treatment

“This study clearly goes against what has been the common wisdom for the last 30, 40 years” and may lead to less testing and invasive treatment for such patients in the future, said Dr. Glenn Levine, a Baylor College of Medicine cardiologist with no role in the research. Some doctors still may quibble with the study, but it was very well done “and I think the results are extremely believable,” he said.

About 17 million Americans have clogged arteries that crimp the heart’s blood supply, which can cause periodic chest pain. Cheap and generic aspirin, cholesterol-lowering drugs and blood pressure medicines are known to cut the risk of a heart attack for these folks, but many doctors also recommend a procedure to improve blood flow.

That’s either a bypass — open-heart surgery to detour around blockages — or angioplasty, in which doctors push a tube through an artery to the clog, inflate a tiny balloon and place a stent, or mesh scaffold, to prop the artery open.

Earlier study

Twelve years ago, a big study found that angioplasty was no better than medicines for preventing heart attacks and deaths in nonemergency heart patients, but many doctors balked at the results and quarreled with the methods.

So the federal government spent $100 million for the new study, which is twice as large, spanned 37 countries and included people with more severe disease — a group most likely to benefit from stents or a bypass.

All 5,179 participants had stress tests, usually done on a treadmill, that suggested blood flow was crimped. All were given lifestyle advice and medicines that improve heart health. Half also were given CT scans to rule out dangerous blockages, then continued on their medicines.

The others were treated as many people with abnormal stress tests are now: They were taken to cardiac catheterization labs for angiograms. The procedure involves placing a tube into a major artery and using special dyes to image the heart’s blood vessels. Blockages were treated right away, with angioplasty in three-fourths of cases and a bypass in the rest.

Doctors then tracked how many in each group suffered a heart attack, heart-related death, cardiac arrest or hospitalization for worsening chest pain or heart failure.

Results are in

After one year, 7% in the invasively treated group had one of those events versus 5% of those on medicines alone. At four years, the trend reversed — 13% of the procedures group and 15% of the medicines group had suffered a problem. Averaged across the entire study period, the rates were similar regardless of treatment.

If stents and bypasses did not carry risks of their own, “I think the results would have shown an overall benefit” from them, said another study leader, Dr. David Maron of Stanford University. “But that’s not what we found. We found an early harm and later benefit, and they canceled each other out.”

Why might medicines have proved just as effective at reducing risks?

Bypasses and stents fix only a small area. Medicines affect all the arteries, including other spots that might be starting to clog, experts said.

Drugs also have improved a lot in recent years.

Having a procedure did prove better at reducing chest pain, though. Of those who had pain daily or weekly when they entered the study, half in the stent-or-bypass group were free of it within a year versus 20% of those on medicines alone. A placebo effect may have swayed these results — people who know they had a procedure tend to credit it with any improvement they perceive in symptoms.

Dr. Alice Jacobs, a Boston University cardiologist who led a treatment-guidelines panel a few years ago, said any placebo effect fades with time, and people with a lot of chest pain that’s unrelieved by medicines still may want a procedure.

“It’s intuitive that if you take the blockage away you’re going to do better, you’re going to feel better,” but the decision is up to the patient and doctor, she said.

The bottom line: There’s no harm in trying medicines first, especially for people with no or little chest pain, doctors said.

Protesters angered by Iran raising government-set gasoline prices by 50% blocked traffic in major cities and occasionally clashed with police Saturday after a night of demonstrations punctuated by gunfire, in violence that reportedly killed at least one person.

The protests put renewed pressure on Iran’s government as it struggles to overcome the U.S. sanctions strangling the country after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers.

Though largely peaceful, demonstrations devolved into violence in several instances, with online videos purporting to show police officers firing tear gas at protesters and mobs setting fires. While representing a political risk for President Hassan Rouhani ahead of February parliamentary elections, it also shows the widespread anger among Iran’s 80 million people who have seen their savings evaporate amid scarce jobs and the national rial currency’s collapse.

The demonstrations took place in more than a dozen cities in the hours following President Hassan Rouhani’s decision early Friday to cut gasoline subsidies to fund handouts for Iran’s poor. Gasoline in the country still remains among the cheapest in the world, with the new prices jumping up to a minimum of 15,000 rials per liter of gas — 50% up from the day before. That’s 13 cents a liter, or about 50 cents a gallon. A gallon of regular gasoline in the U.S. costs, on average, $2.60 by comparison.

Protests turn violent

But in a nation where many get by as informal taxi drivers, cheap gasoline is considered a birthright. Iran is home to the world’s fourth-largest crude oil reserves. While expected for months, the decision still caught many by surprise and sparked immediate demonstrations overnight.

Violence broke out Friday night in Sirjan, a city about 800 kilometers (500 miles) southeast of Tehran. The state-run IRNA news agency said “protesters tried to set fire to the oil depot, but they were stopped by police.” It did not elaborate, but online videos circulating on Iranian social media purported to show a fire at the depot as sirens wailed in the background. Another showed a large crowd shouting: “Rouhani, shame on you! Leave the country alone!”

Mohammad Mahmoudabadi, an Interior Ministry official in Sirjan, later told state television that police and demonstrators exchanged gunfire, wounding several. He said many protesters were peaceful, but later masked men armed with guns and knives infiltrated the demonstration.

“They insisted on reaching the oil depot and creating crises,” Mahmoudabadi said.

The semi-official ISNA news agency later quoted Mahmoudabadi as saying the violence killed one person.

In Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan province, online videos purported to show police firing tear gas on crowds. The province’s city of Khorramshahr also saw gunfire, as could be heard in a brief clip played on air by state television. The region has long been a political tinderbox, with its ethnic Arab population that feels disenfranchised from the country’s Persian-language majority.

Saturday morning, the start of the Iranian workweek, saw protesters stop cars on major roadways across the capital, Tehran.

Peaceful protesters blocked traffic on Tehran’s Imam Ali Highway, calling for police to join them as the season’s first snow fell, according to online videos. A dump truck later dropped bricks on the roadway to cheers.

A large crowd in the city of Kermanshah demonstrated and later drew tear gas fire from police, a video showed. Others reportedly clashed in Tabriz, another major Iranian city. The online videos corresponded to Associated Press reporting on the protest.

Charges of ‘fake news’

Such protests require prior approval from Iran’s Interior Ministry, though authorities routinely allow small-scale demonstrations over economic issues, especially as the country has struggled with currency devaluation. Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli later warned on state TV that authorities would crack down on anyone threatening the nation’s security.

It wasn’t immediately clear if police made arrests. Iranian state television aired a segment Friday night trying to dispute the claims of opposition satellite news channels about the protests, calling their videos of demonstrations “fake news” in English. Demonstrators in many online videos Saturday began identifying the time and place in response.

Iranian internet access meanwhile saw disruptions and outages Friday night into Saturday, according to the group NetBlocks, which monitors worldwide internet access. By Saturday night, “real-time network data show connectivity has fallen to just 7% of ordinary levels following 12 hours of progressive network disconnections as public protests have continued across the country,” NetBlocks said.

“The ongoing disruption is the most severe recorded in Iran since President Rouhani came to power, and the most severe disconnection tracked by NetBlocks in any country in terms of its technical complexity and breadth,” the group said. The websites of state media outlets appeared affected by the outage early Sunday.

Reminiscent of 2017

Protester chants mirrored many from the late 2017 economic protests, which resulted in nearly 5,000 reported arrests and at least 25 people being killed. Some criticized Iran’s spending abroad on Palestinians and others while the country’s people remain poor. Protests meanwhile continue in Iraq and Lebanon, two Mideast nations home to Iranian proxies and crucial to Tehran’s influence abroad.

Iran long has suffered economic problems since its 1979 Islamic Revolution cut off its decades-long relationship with the U.S. Its eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s followed, further straining its economy.

The collapse of the nuclear deal has exacerbated those problems. The Iranian rial, which traded at 32,000 to $1 at the time of the accord, fell to 122,600 to $1 in trading Saturday. Iran has since begun breaking terms of the deal as it tries to force Europe to come up with a way to allow it to sell crude oil abroad despite American sanctions.

Henry Rome, an analyst at the Eurasia Group, said that after mass protests, Rouhani was forced to back down from a 2017 plan to increase fuel prices by 50%.

“The government was clearly attuned to this risk: The latest announcement was made in the middle of the night before a weekend,” Rome said. “It took effect immediately, and it was announced without direct consultation with lawmakers.”
 

The House Intelligence Committee overseeing the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump released transcripts of depositions Saturday from two officials who will be questioned in public hearings next week.

Congressional investigators also met Saturday in a closed-door session with Mark Sandy, a longtime career official with the Office of Management and Budget, who could provide valuable information about the U.S. delay of about $400 million in aid to Ukraine last summer.

The transcripts released Saturday were from previous closed-door depositions with former National Security Council official Tim Morrison and Jennifer Williams, an aide to Vice President Mike Pence. Morrison and Williams are scheduled to be questioned in public Tuesday by the House panel.

At the heart of the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry against the president is whether Trump withheld needed military aid to Ukraine in an effort to pressure Ukrainian officials to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a potential opponent of Trump’s in the 2020 presidential election, and his son, Hunter Biden. No wrongdoing by either Biden has been substantiated.

The United Nations warned Saturday that violence in Bolivia could “spin out of control,” following a night of skirmishes between security forces and coca farmers loyal to ousted President Evo Morales that left at least eight dead. 

Morales resigned under pressure from Bolivia’s police and military last Sunday after evidence of vote rigging tainted his October 20 election victory. He fled to Mexico. 

The leftist and charismatic former coca farmer has since called his ouster a “coup” and decried growing allegations of heavy-handed repression by security forces under interim President Jeanine Anez, a former conservative lawmaker. 

“The coup leaders massacre indigenous and humble people for asking for democracy,” Morales said on Twitter late Friday, following reports of mounting deaths.  

Anez has blamed Morales for stoking violence from abroad, and has said her government wishes to hold elections and meet with the opposition to mend fences.  

The rising body count prompted Morales to strike a more conciliatory tone with the government of Anez in recent days. 

“For the sake of democracy … I have no problem not taking part in new elections,” Morales told Reuters in an interview in Mexico City. 

Morales’ party, now the opposition, has asked for a session of both chambers of Bolivia’s legislature this Tuesday to discuss a plan for holding the elections to replace the interim government. 

Anez, meanwhile, has moved quickly away from Morales’ leftist rule. 

On Friday, Bolivia asked Venezuelan officials to leave the country. The Andean nation also accused Cuba, once a close ally, of stoking unrest following Morales’ resignation. 

Anez spoke with Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guiado on Saturday. She said she was pleased to establish relations with a 
“democratic Venezuela.” 

“We have the same objectives, and I hope soon we can cry freedom for Venezuela, as it so rightly deserves,” she said in the televised meeting. 

Guatemala could send asylum seekers to some of the country’s most remote regions, a top official said on Saturday, as the Central American country and the United States move closer to finalizing details of a controversial migration agreement.

Interior Minister Enrique Degenhart, who met officials from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Friday, told Reuters in an interview that he wanted to finalize the agreement before President-elect Alejandro Giammattei takes office in January. A representative for the incoming government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Degenhart said the regions could include, but would probably not be limited to, the Peten jungle, a sweltering area in northern Guatemala that borders Mexico and is known to be frequented by drug cartels.

He declined to give further details on the scope of the agreement before finalizing discussions with his U.S. counterparts.

Migrants whose asylum claims were rejected by the United States could be transported to airports across the country, Degenhart said. “All airports are being analyzed,” he said.
“There are some that’ll qualify but others that won’t.”

The United States pressured Guatemala to accept more asylum seekers under a “safe third country” agreement signed in July, but it has not yet been implemented as the two sides iron out details amid opposition in Guatemala.

By accepting a safe third country deal, Guatemala could help U.S. President Donald Trump implement a new U.S. rule that would deny asylum to migrants unless they first apply in a country they have traveled through en route to the United States.

Trump’s administration has struggled to stem a flow of mostly undocumented Central American migrants heading to the U.S. border and bring down migration, a key promise of his election campaign.

“The process has not finished,” Degenhart said of the negotiations. “We are close to finishing it but it’s important that we finish defining the details before making a final
decision.”

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido on Saturday called on supporters to lead a new wave of protests against President Nicolas Maduro, who has held on to power despite an economic crisis and aggressive U.S. sanctions.

Guaido won broad international backing in January after declaring Maduro’s 2018 re-election a fraud and assuming a rival interim presidency. But momentum since then has waned as repeated efforts to force him from office have failed.

Speaking at a rally in Caracas meant to usher in a new phase of activism, Guaido said the opposition should stage frequent protests to boost pressure on the deeply unpopular Maduro. “Every Venezuelan has the obligation to carry on the fight, to go into the streets to demand their rights,” Guaido said at rally in eastern Caracas before cheering demonstrators who waved Venezuela’s red, yellow, and blue flag and waved signs denouncing Maduro as a dictator.

“Today we have to continue advancing the protests until we obtain the freedom of all Venezuela.”

In the coming days, groups including students, teachers and nurses plan to hold protests, he said.

Demonstrations have in the past galvanized the opposition and left the ruling Socialist Party isolated.

But the economic crisis has made day-to-day existence an enormous struggle, leaving many weary and apathetic. And change in Venezuela will also hinge on a shift in allegiance of the armed forces, which remain loyal to Maduro.

That remains the crucial difference between Venezuela and Bolivia, where a combination of street protests and military pressure led President Evo to resign following criticism that his October re-election was the result of fraud.

“I know there’s a small chance Guiado will get Maduro out,” said Rosmely Guerra, 49, a sociology professor. “But even if there’s just a 1% chance, I’m going to throw 99% of my faith behind it. What other option do we have?”

The Socialist Party held a rally in downtown Caracas in support of Bolivia’s Morales.

“We’re here because we want to make it clear that if someone meddles with our country, it won’t be the same as in Bolivia,” said Aida Romero, 66, who works in a government food program. “We’re willing to do anything. This revolution is peaceful, but it’s also armed.”

Venezuela’s collapsing economy has spurred an exodus of more than 4 million seeking better access to food and medicine.

More than 50 countries have recognized Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate president and the United States has implemented a sanctions program that has crippled Venezuela’s oil exports. Maduro dismisses Guaido as a puppet of the United States, and blames the economic problems on U.S. sanctions.

A new report by leading health and safety agencies finds millions of sanitation workers in developing countries are forced to work under horrific conditions that put their health and lives at risk.

Sanitation workers everywhere occupy the lowest rung of society and are stigmatized and marginalized because they do the dirty work that other people do not want to do.  

The report’s authors – the International Labor Organization, the World Health Organization, the World Bank and WaterAid – say they hope to raise awareness on the plight of sanitation workers and the dehumanizing conditions under which they are forced to work. For example, the report says that many sanitation workers aren’t given the safety training or equipment needed to protect them when handling effluent or fecal sludge.

World Health Organization spokesman Christian Lindmeier says sanitation workers make an important contribution to public health at the risk of their own lives. Poor sanitation, he says, causes more than 430,000 deaths from diarrhea every year and is linked to the spread of other diseases such as cholera, dysentery, typhoid, hepatitis A and polio.

“Sanitation workers are the people who work in jobs such as cleaning toilets, emptying pits and septic tanks, cleaning sewage and manholes and operating pumping stations and treatment plants.… Waste must be correctly treated before being disposed of or used.  However, workers often come into direct contact with human waste, working with no equipment or no protection to remove it by hand which exposes them to a long list of health hazards and diseases,” Lindmeier said.

Authors of the report say sanitation workers in developing countries largely operate in the informal sector.  They labor under abusive conditions, have no rights or social protections and are poorly paid.

The study calls on countries to rectify these wrongs.  It urges governments to enact laws and regulations that improve working conditions for sanitation workers and protect their safety and health.  It says sanitation workers must be given the equipment and training necessary for the safe, proper disposal of waste. 
 

A car bomb exploded Saturday in a northern Syrian town controlled by Turkey-backed opposition fighters, killing at least 18 people and wounding several others, Syrian opposition activists and Turkey’s Defense Ministry said.

Northern Syria has been hit by several explosions that have killed and wounded scores of people over the past month. That’s since Turkey began a military operation against Kurdish fighters in the wake of President Donald Trump’s decision to pull the bulk of American troops out of northern Syria.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that 19 people, including 13 civilians, were killed Saturday in the town of al-Bab in Aleppo province. The Aleppo Media Center, an activist collective, said 15 people were killed in the blast in a busy part of town near a bus station.

Turkey’s Defense Ministry said the blast killed 18 people and blamed the main Kurdish militia, known as the People’s Protection Units.

It is not uncommon for reports to give differing casualty figures in the immediate aftermath of this kind of attack.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack.

A video posted online by Albab City, an activist collective, showed several vehicles on fire with black smoke billowing from a wide street with shops on both sides. Inside the bus station, several white minibuses appear damaged.

“It looks like doomsday. May God help us,” a man could be heard saying as five young men carried a wounded person away. At least two bloodied and wounded men could be seen rushed away on motorcycles.

Turkey-backed opposition fighters took control of parts of Aleppo province, including the towns of al-Bab and Afrin, in previous military offensives in 2016 and 2018, respectively.

The past month’s attacks have come amid an expanding Turkish invasion of into northeast Syria against Kurdish-held towns and villages along a stretch of the border.

Three car bombs went off Monday in the northeastern Syrian town of Qamishli near the border with Turkey, killing at least six people, according to activists and Syria’s state news agency SANA.

On Nov. 2, a car bomb killed 13 people in the northern Syrian town of Tal Abyad, which is also held by Turkey-backed opposition fighters.

The Turkish offensive has aimed at pushing Kurdish fighters away from the border. Those Kurdish fighters had been key U.S. allies in the fight against the Islamic State group. Turkey considers the Syrian Kurdish fighters terrorists linked to a Kurdish insurgency within Turkey.

Turkish forces have consolidated control over a stretch of the border running 120 kilometers (70 miles) wide and 30 kilometers (20 miles) deep into Syria. They have also kept up pressure outside that area, fighting with Kurdish forces on the edges.

Syrian government forces and their Russian allies have moved into other parts of the border under a Russian-Turkish deal.

 

Chinese troops came out of the barracks in Hong Kong on Saturday — not to quell protests but to help clean up.

It was a rare public appearance by the People’s Liberation Army on the streets of the semiautonomous territory, where the local government’s inability to end more than five months of often violent protest has fueled speculation that Beijing could deploy its troops.

Running in formation with brooms instead of rifles, they chanted in military cadence before joining street cleaners removing debris near Hong Kong Baptist University, where police fired tear gas during at protesters earlier this week.

Most anti-government protesters left Hong Kong’s universities Saturday after occupying them for about a week. Small contingents that remained harassed some of those cleaning up and kept a major cross-harbor tunnel closed.

For a city now accustomed to fierce weekend clashes between police and protesters, Hong Kong had a relatively quiet Saturday. About 1,000 people turned out for an annual Gay Pride event in the center of the city.

Dozens of Chinese troops, dressed in black shorts and olive drab T-shirts, came out from a nearby barracks to pick up paving stones, rocks and other obstacles that had cluttered the street and prevented traffic from flowing. Hong Kong riot police kept watch from nearby streets.

China, which maintains a garrison of about 10,000 soldiers in Hong Kong, publicly noted several times earlier during the protests that it could deploy them, though technically it would have to be requested by Hong Kong’s government.

Doing so, however, would incur international criticism and revive memories of the army’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters at Tiananmen Square in 1989.

There were scattered incidents of protesters arguing with people clearing roadways, and in one instance, throwing a gasoline bomb near City University of Hong Kong.

Protesters also massed near Hong Kong University in the evening to try to block a main road again, but they were stopped by police firing pepper-spray balls.

Several dozen protesters remained at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, some keeping watch on the blocked access road to the Cross-Harbor Tunnel, where they torched the toll booths on previous nights.

Traffic disruptions continued to plague parts of Hong Kong, and schools and universities remained closed in the city of 7.5 million people.

Now in their sixth month, the anti-government protests have grown increasingly violent even as they have shrunk in size, often causing chaos in the streets.

The protests were sparked by a government decision to submit legislation that would have allowed the extradition of criminal suspects to the mainland. Activists saw it as an erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy under the “one country, two systems” formula implemented in 1997, when Britain returned the territory to China.

The bill has been withdrawn, but the protests have expanded into a wider resistance movement against what is perceived as the growing control of Hong Kong by Communist China, along with calls for more autonomy for the territory.

Universities have become the focus of the protests in the past week and the main battleground between pro-democracy activists and the police.

Police retook control of suburban Chinese University of Hong Kong after students and protesters left.

Authorities said that all lanes of Tolo Highway, which the Chinese University protesters had blocked, were reopened around midday.

Police and protesters fought intense running battles at the Chinese University campus Tuesday, which had been transformed into a fortress by hundreds of protesters.

Except for the Polytechnic University in Kowloon, most of the remaining nine major universities in the city were for the most part no longer occupied, except by a handful of protesters. A hardcore group retained their grip on Polytechnic.

Students there have amassed a huge arsenal that includes hundreds of Molotov cocktails, rocks and paving stones. The campus is adjacent to a major road tunnel under the water to Hong Kong island that has been closed for days after protesters set toll booths on fire.

Service remained partially suspended on at least three of Hong Kong’s 12 rail lines because of damage to stations and other facilities, and many of the city’s buses were not running.

The presidents of nine universities issued a joint statement late Friday calling on the government to resolve the political deadlock and restore safety and public order.

“No political viewpoint gives a license to damage property, employ physical threats, or use violence against individuals,” the statement read in part. “It is regrettable that societal disagreement has led to university campuses becoming major political battlefields, and that the government response has so far not been effective.”

Many universities have canceled classes for the rest of the year and hundreds of foreign students, and from mainland China, had left or were leaving Hong Kong. Some protesters targeted mainland students, while foreign students were asked to leave by their universities or governments.

Hong Kong media reported Saturday that at least 300 Dutch exchange students were asked by their home universities to return home because of the violence.

 

Muslim voters traveling by bus to polling stations in northern Sri Lanka were attacked by gunfire and stones and blocked by burning tires hours before polls opened in presidential elections Saturday, in what a member of the Elections Commission called a coordinated effort to disenfranchise the minority group.

There were no reported injuries and police were investigating, said Manjula Gajanayake, spokesman for the Colombo-based Centre for Monitoring Election Violence.

Campaigning for Sri Lanka’s seventh presidential election was dominated by worries over national security in the backdrop of the deadly Islamic State-inspired suicide bomb attacks on Easter that killed 269 people. At the same time, there’s fear among both Tamils and Muslims about a return to power of front-runner Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a hard-line former defense official under his brother, ex-President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Heavy handed

The Rajapaksa brothers are revered by Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese Buddhist majority for defeating the Tamil Tiger rebels in 2009. Because of their heavy-handed rule during and after the war, some minorities fear their return.

“There is a concerted effort to keep the Muslims away from the ballot box,” Ratnajeevan Hoole, a member of the Elections Commission, told The Associated Press while heading to northwest Sri Lanka to speak with the Muslim voters who came under attack.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether any of the attackers had been arrested.

Hoole said he had called for the arrest of a former top Tamil rebel commander in the east now in alliance with Rajapaksa for making inflammatory comments against Muslims in the run-up to the election, but his request was not heeded.

The ex-rebel commander Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan broke away from the Tamil Tigers in 2004 and worked with the government to defeat the rebel group. His split helped the government end a 26-year separatist insurgency.

Hoole said that in videos posted on social media, Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan, also known as Karuna Amman, had talked about the need to suppress the Muslim vote to undermine Muslims’ growing influence in Sri Lanka’s Eastern province.

Rajapaksa had been widely expected to triumph over the ruling party candidate, Housing Minister Sajith Premadasa. But as the election approached, the race became very close.

Muslim convoy

Premadasa’s supporters organized the convoy of Muslims who had fled their homes in the northern district of Mannar in 1982, when the Tamil insurgency began to grow. A large number of Muslims also were evicted from the north in 1990.

The Elections Commission had encouraged them to register as voters in Mannar but had not arranged enough transportation to bring them from their homes in the northwestern district of Puttalam, Gajanayake, from the election monitoring group, said.

Nearly 16 million of the 22 million people were eligible to vote and choose a new president from a record 35 candidates. President Maithripala Sirisena, who was elected in 2015, is not seeking reelection. Results are expected as early as Sunday.

A decade of peace following nearly 30 years of civil war was shattered earlier this year when homegrown militants pledging loyalty to the Islamic State group detonated suicide bombs at three churches and three hotels on April 21. Rajapaksa, 71, cast himself as the only candidate capable of protecting Sri Lankans from such attacks.

Harsh rule

He is accused of persecuting critics and overseeing what were called “white van squads” that whisked away journalists, activists and Tamil civilians suspected of links to the Tamil Tigers rebel group. Some were tortured and released, while others simply disappeared. The Rajapaksa brothers are also accused of condoning rape and extrajudicial killings and deliberately targeting civilians and hospitals during the war.

At a Buddhist temple serving as a polling station in a suburb of Colombo heavily guarded by police, Rajapaksa arrived to cheering and clapping supporters, some watching from their balconies and rooftops.

He told The Associated Press that he was “very confident” of victory.

“People of Sri Lanka will get a better future under me, under my presidency,” he said.

Premadasa, the son of a former president who was assassinated by a Tamil Tiger suicide bombing, has gained support in recent weeks by promising to expand welfare programs and bringing disgruntled party stalwarts into the fold.

Because the Rajapaksas maintained emergency laws after the war ended, curtailing civil liberties, Premadasa and his supporters have warned that Sri Lankans could lose freedoms if the brothers return to power, a line of rhetoric that helped a coalition of political foes led by Sirisena defeat Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2015 elections.

Voters started trickling in early at a polling station guarded by armed police in Dehiwala, a suburb of the capital Colombo.

Sha Nawaz, a 72-year-old retired state employee, said he and his wife cast their ballots for Premadesa.

“The reason is we like him, young and we need a person like that in our country,” Nawaz said.

The U.S. Senate has passed a bill that makes animal cruelty a federal felony. The so-called PACT — Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture — Act was approved unanimously. VOA’s Maxim Moskalkiv reports.

Five supporters of former president Evo Morales were killed Friday in violent clashes between protesters and security forces in Bolivia, according to an AFP correspondent who saw the bodies at a hospital.

Authorities did not report any deaths in the riots outside Cochabamba, though it said 100 people were detained. Media reports said eight were wounded.

Clashes had broken out Friday in the suburbs of Cochabamba, where thousands of coca growers were trying to reach the city center 11 miles (18 kilometers) away to join a protest against interim leader Jeanine Anez.

But they were blocked by police, who stopped them from crossing a bridge.

The protesters carried “weapons, guns, Molotov cocktails, homemade bazookas and explosive devices,” Cochabamba police commander Colonel Jamie Zurita said.

“They used dynamite and deadly weapons like the Mauser 765 (rifle). Neither the armed forces nor the police are equipped with such a caliber, I am worried,” he said.

The crowd was dispersed after dark by riot police, who were supported by the army and a helicopter.

Morales resigned and fled to Mexico after losing the support of Bolivia’s security forces following weeks of protests over his disputed Oct. 20 reelection.

With the five protesters killed Friday, the death toll from the unrest rises to 15 with more than 400 wounded.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, in a televised speech to the nation earlier this week, announced that his government would release three prominent Taliban members in exchange for two Westerners abducted by the Taliban as a confidence-building measure with the insurgent group.

“We have decided to conditionally release three Taliban prisoners who have been detained outside of Afghanistan with the help and coordination of our international partners and have been kept in Bagram prison [north of Kabul] in Afghanistan for some time,” Ghani said.

The Western hostages are American Kevin King and Australian Timothy John Weeks who have been in Taliban’s captivity since 2016 when they were abducted from the capital, Kabul. Both were professors at the American University of Afghanistan.

Conflicting reports

Since Ghani’s announcement of the deal Tuesday, there have been several conflicting reports about the whereabouts of the three inmates, with no comments from the Afghan government.

Some reports say the inmates have been transferred to Qatar where the Taliban has a political office, while other reports allege they are still in Afghanistan.

However, a spokesperson for the Afghan Taliban told VOA Friday that the inmates have not left the prison, and he blamed the U.S. for the failure of the swap.

“As per the deal with the Americans, our prisoners were to be taken to the mutually agreed safe location and freed there. We would have then released and handed the American (and his colleague) over to them,” Zabihullah Mujahid explained in a Pashto-language audio message he sent to VOA, implying that the talks were with the U.S. not the Afghan government.

U.S. officials have not immediately reacted to the Taliban claim.

The Afghan Ministry of Defense declined to comment on the issue or the whereabouts of the inmates. An Afghan diplomat Wednesday confirmed to Reuters, on condition of anonymity, that the deal has fallen apart.

In announcing the decision, Ghani said while it was not “easy,” it was “necessary.”

“I have said this several times that enduring and dignified peace requires us to, one day, pay its bitter price. But this price would not come at the expense of the republic,” Ghani added.

Reactions among Afghans were mixed, with some hoping that it would lead to the beginning of direct dialogue between the Afghan government and the Taliban, who have refused so far to talk to the Afghan government, calling it a “puppet” regime. Others viewed it as an insult to the victims of the terror attacks carried out by the militants in Afghanistan over the years.

Who are the inmates?

The three prisoners are prominent Taliban leaders, including Anas Haqqani, the younger brother of the Taliban’s deputy, Sirajuddin Haqqani, who leads the Haqqani Network, a U.S.-designated terror group. The others are Mali Khan, a senior member of the Haqqani Network who has family relations to the founder of the terror group, and Qari Abdul Rashid Omari, who was in charge of southeastern Afghanistan for the Haqqani Network before his arrest.

Mali Khan was arrested in 2011 in a U.S. forces raid in Afghanistan’s Paktika province. Omari and Anas Haqqani were arrested in 2014 while traveling in the Persian Gulf, according to Long War Journal, a think tank following developments related to the Afghan war.

“Khan, Rasheed, and Anas are three dangerous Taliban commanders, and the Taliban has been seeking their release since their capture,” Bill Roggio, founder of Long War Journal and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told VOA.

“Khan has served just about every position within the Haqqani Network, including its operations commander for eastern Afghanistan. Rasheed served as the Haqqani’s military commander in eastern Afghanistan. And Anas is a key propagandist, fundraiser and ambassador for the Haqqanis,” Roggio added.

Of the three, Mali Khan is viewed by experts as the most influential member of the Haqqani network, both because of his age and his close family ties to the founders of the network. He has alleged family ties to both Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin Haqqani. Khan’s sister is Sirajuddin Haqqani’s mother, and Jalaluddin Haqqani’s sister is married to Khan’s uncle.

Concerns

There are concerns among some analysts that, if released, the three members of the Taliban would return to the battlefield.

“I have no doubt that the three will return to the fight in some capacity. For instance, Anas can resume his role even if confined to Qatar or another country,” analyst Roggio said.

“All three provide the Taliban a key propaganda victory, and will, at the minimum, aid the group in fundraising,” he added.

Michael Semple, a longtime expert on Afghanistan, however, believes that risks associated with their release are not so much about their return to battlefield.

“Now I personally think that the risks associated with releasing them are more about propaganda and morale rather than as operational,” Semple told VOA. “All three of them have long been replaced in roles they had.”

Confidence building

While Ghani sees the prisoner release as a confidence building measure, analyst Semple believes the Taliban don’t. They rather see it as a matter of prestige that they “look after their own,” he said.

“I do not believe that the leaders of the Taliban movement entered into this deal as a confidence building measure to bring peace about,” Semple said.

Sher Jan Ahmadzai, director of the Center for Afghanistan Studies at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, believes that these goodwill gestures have to be part of a larger mechanism.

“Prisoners exchange, talks, meetings and cease-fire should result in a permanent peace not in the release of prisoners with no permanent peace guarantees,” he said.

Jason H. Campbell, a policy researcher at Washington-based Rand Corp, echoes Ahmadzai’s concerns.

“The question I still have is whether this exchange is a first step of something larger or just a one-off attempt to build some degree of trust,” he said.

“If it is the former, Ghani is taking a big political risk as the Taliban understand that if nothing else materializes, it can have a negative impact on the political unity in Kabul,” he added.

Refusing to talk to the Afghan government, the Taliban have held nine rounds of direct talks with the U.S. in Qatar’s capital city, Doha, with both sides closing in on a deal, before President Donald Trump called off the talks in September, citing increased violence in Afghanistan perpetrated by the militants in an attempt to gain more leverage at the negotiation table.

VOA’s Ayaz Gul contributed to this story from Islamabad.

Iran’s abrupt decision to raise gasoline prices as its economy worsens under U.S. sanctions and domestic corruption has angered many Iranians, prompting protests in at least five cities and online complaints.

Without prior warning, the state-run National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company announced an immediate 50% increase in the country’s heavily subsidized gas price early Friday, raising the price from about 8 cents to 13 cents per liter. As part of a new rationing system, the state body also said each private car would be allowed up to 60 liters of gas per month at the new price, which would double to 26 cents a liter for any gas purchased above the quota.

Iranian state TV quoted Vice President Mohammad Bagher Nobakht as saying the higher gas price and new quota system were intended to raise funds for the government to provide cash handouts to about 60 million underprivileged people accounting for around three-quarters of the population. He said the payments would begin in the next week to 10 days.

But many Iranians were unconvinced, seeing the move instead as putting a further burden on their wallets at a time of worsening economic conditions. The International Monetary Fund has predicted the Iranian economy will shrink by 9 percent this year, as U.S. sanctions choke off oil exports that have been Iran’s main revenue source, and endemic corruption hobbles Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s efforts to address the crisis.

“Many Iranians are upset and understandably so,” said Jason Brodsky, policy director for U.S. advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran, in a VOA Persian interview. “We’ve seen that the people can’t win under the alleged pragmatic regime of Rouhani, just as they couldn’t win under his [conservative] predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who instituted a similar fuel-rationing system in 2007 that only was discontinued in 2015.”

Video clips verified by VOA Persian and sent from Iran showed angry drivers protesting on the streets of at least five cities on Friday: Ahvaz, Behbahan, Khorramshahr and Omidiyeh in the southwest, and Mashhad in the northeast of the country.

WATCH: Gas price protest in Ahvaz, Iran, Nov. 15, 2019 

In one clip, protesters in Ahvaz chanted for drivers to shut down their cars and block the roads, while a man who filmed the video zooms in to a gas pumping machine showing the newly raised price.

Watch: Gas price protest in Behbahan, Iran, Nov. 15, 2019

In a video from Behbahan, demonstrators chanted: “Gas prices have increased and the poor have become poorer! Iranians will die, but will not accept humiliation!”

WATCH: Gas price protest in Mashhad, Iran, November 15, 2019 

A third clip, sent from Mashhad, showed a street blocked by idle cars with people standing around. A narrator said drivers shut off the engines of cars and even a bus in anger at the gas price hike.

“This year, something is occurring that has never previously happened in Iran: the almost complete and absolute shutdown of oil exports that are their major source of foreign exchange earnings and foreign currency,” Michael O’Hanlon, Brookings Institution foreign policy research director, said in another VOA Persian interview.

“Therefore any part of the economy that depends on trade is going to be under severe stress, and even things that don’t require foreign trade could be under stress because the Iranian government just doesn’t have the money to provide things the way it used to,” O’Hanlon said.

While many Iranians also took to social media to air their grievances about the increased gas prices, French news agency AFP said some members of Iran’s ruling conservative and reformist political factions posted online messages defending the government.

Even after the reduction in subsidies, gas prices in Iran remain among the cheapest in the world, a phenomenon that has led to high consumption and rampant fuel smuggling to neighboring countries.

This article originated in VOA’s Persian service. VOA Persian’s Katherine Ahn contributed.

A teenage shooter who opened fire at his high school in Southern California this week, and then turned the gun on himself, died from his wounds Friday afternoon. 
 
Police said Nathaniel Berhow, 16, died at a hospital with his mother at his side. 
  
Berhow shot five fellow students Thursday at his high school in Santa Clarita with a 45-caliber semiautomatic pistol, killing a 15-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy. Berhow, whose 16th birthday was the day of the shooting, saved the last bullet for himself, shooting himself in the head. 
 
Captain Kent Wegener of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s homicide unit told reporters Friday that police had so far been unable to determine Berhow’s motive, even after carrying out more than 40 interviews. He said no manifesto or suicide note had been found. 

Random targets suspected
  
Berhow opened fire in an outdoor plaza at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, about 65 kilometers (40 miles) north of Los Angeles. 
 
“As far as we know the actual targets were at random,” Sheriff Alex Villanueva said. 
 
“There’s no relationships that we can tell [between] the suspect and the victims,” he said. 
 
Police said there also was no evidence that the teen had been bullied.

Quiet, sociable 
 
Classmates described Berhow as quiet but sociable. They said he was a Boy Scout and had previously been on the school’s track team. 
 
Police said they were trying to determine how and where Berhow obtained his gun. Media reports said Berhow’s father, who died in December 2017, had sometimes taken Berhow on hunting trips and might have taught him how to shoot. 
 
Saugus High School has 2,385 students enrolled in grades nine through 12 for the 2019-20 school year. 

President Donald Trump on Friday released the summary transcript of his April congratulatory call with Ukraine’s president-elect, the latest salvo in the White House effort to blunt Democratic allegations that Trump abused his power by pressuring a foreign leader to get involved in U.S. politics.

The new account of Trump’s call with Volodymyr Zelenskiy differs significantly from the initial summary of the conversation that the White House released in April. While the first readout of the call said Trump had expressed his commitment to help Ukraine “root out corruption,” there is no mention of corruption in the rough transcript released Friday.

The release of the April call came as the House held a second day of public impeachment hearings with U.S. diplomats who have raised concerns that Trump may have misused his presidential powers by withholding military aid to Ukraine as he called on Zelenskiy to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a top political rival.

The 16-minute call, placed from Air Force One as Trump flew back to Washington after a weekend in Florida, is filled with flattery for Trump from Zelenskiy, and invitations from the new Ukrainian leader for Trump to visit Kyiv. There is no reference to Biden or his son, or to Trump’s interest in having the Eastern European leader launch an investigation into the Bidens.

National security officials who listened to the call had said in advance that this first conversation between Trump and Zelenskiy was not considered problematic. The House impeachment inquiry was spurred by Trump’s second conversation with Zelenskiy, on July 25, in which the U.S. president urged Zelenskiy to look into the Bidens and Democrats in the 2016 election.

According to the White House account of the April call, Zelenskiy told Trump: “You are, as I said, a great example. We are hoping we can expand on our job as you did. You will always, also, be a great example for so many.” Pressing Trump to visit Ukraine, Zelenskiy added: “I know how busy you are but if it’s possible for you to come to the inauguration ceremony, that would be a great, great thing for you to do to be with us on that day.”

‘Very important’ transcript

Trump in recent days has attempted to shift the spotlight from his July conversation with Zelenskiy to the April call, in which he spoke to Zelenskiy soon after he won a landslide victory over Ukraine’s then-President Petro Poroshenko.

Trump, in comments to reporters last week, called the April call transcript “very important.”

Referring to the April call, he urged reporters to read the transcript and “tell me if there’s anything wrong with it.”

The rough transcript was released minutes before former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch began her testimony before impeachment investigators on Capitol Hill. The top Republican on the panel, Rep. Devin Nunes, read the rough transcript aloud into the congressional record.

“The President took the unprecedented steps to declassify and release the transcripts of both of his phone calls” with Zelenskiy “so that every American can see he did nothing wrong,” said White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham.

In that first call, Zelenskiy, taking power against the backdrop of Russian menace, urgently tried to build a relationship with Trump, extolling Ukraine’s food and people while repeatedly asking the president to come visit. Trump demurred but pledged that a high-level delegation would attend Zelenskiy’s inauguration.

Vice President Mike Pence was slated to attend the Kyiv ceremony but his trip was canceled. In the end, Energy Secretary Rick Perry led the delegation.

‘Dour’ phone call

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, an Army officer assigned to the National Security Council, said during a closed-door deposition last month that the two calls between the president were starkly different in tone.

“What I could say is the tone in the call on the 21st of April was very positive, in my assessment,” Vindman said. “The call, the tone of the call on July 25th was not. It was … I’m struggling for the words, but it was not a positive call. It was dour. If I think about it some more, I could probably come up with some other adjectives, but it was just — the difference between the calls was apparent.”

Fiona Hill, the former top Russia policy specialist at the National Security Council, in her deposition described the April exchange between the two presidents was a “short congratulatory call.”

The first call was marked as unclassified, for official use only. The second call was classified as Secret/Originator Controlled/No Foreign Nationals and was placed on a highly classified National Security Council server.

The rough transcript released Friday appeared to show some warmth between the two leaders with Trump extending congratulations on the electoral victory.

“I think you will do a great job. I have many friends in Ukraine who know you and like you. I have many friends from Ukraine and they think — frankly — expected you to win,” Trump said. “I have no doubt you will be a fantastic president.”

Invitation to visit

Democrats have said that Trump withheld military aid and the possibility of a White House visit, a clear symbol of alliance between the two governments, unless Zelenskiy investigated the Bidens. Trump, in the April call, did offer a visit to Washington.

“When you’re settled in and ready, I’d like to invite you to the White House,” he said. “We’ll have a lot of things to talk about, but we’re with you all the way.”

Zelenskiy has yet to visit Washington, though the two men met in September in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. In the April call, the Ukrainian leader vowed to practice his English for their eventual meeting — Trump responded with a laugh, “I could not do that in your language!” — and repeatedly extolled his country and asked Trump to come visit, even if not for the inauguration.

“Well, I agree with you about your country, and I look forward to it,” Trump said. “When I owned Miss Universe, they always had great people.”
 

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has seen an ally forced from office and protests rattle leaders across Latin America in recent weeks, while he has enjoyed a period of relatively smooth sailing, expounding his socialist dream in nightly television addresses and attending international conferences. 

But opposition leader Juan Guaido is determined to disturb Maduro’s comfort, and has called on Venezuelans across the crisis-torn nation to flood the streets Saturday for protests nearly a year after he launched his campaign to push Maduro from power. 

“We don’t have a choice,” Guaido told a rally this week, saying the circumstances were dire. “The alternative for this situation today is death. We want to live.” 

Test of his appeal

Guaido’s renewed call will test his ability to draw out masses, despite shrinking crowds rallying around him in recent months in a sign of disillusionment. 

Geoff Ramsey, a Venezuela researcher at the Washington Office on Latin America think tank, said a lot of people will be watching closely to gauge Guaido’s ability to inspire, especially at home in Venezuela. 

“Guaido is under increasing pressure from within his coalition to present a realistic path forward,” Ramsey said. “There’s a lot riding on this.” 

Guaido’s call for renewed protests in Venezuela came as political turmoil embroils governments across the region, from Chile to Ecuador to Bolivia, forcing presidents into concessions and even contributing to one’s departure. Bolivia’s President Evo Morales abruptly resigned and fled into exile in Mexico. 

While all this happened, Maduro traveled to Azerbaijan for an international conference and even enjoyed a small bump in crude production after years of crashing levels and bad news for the oil-rich nation. 

Assumption of power

Guaido, 36, leaped to the center of Venezuela’s political fray when the opposition-led National Assembly appointed him as its leader. On Jan. 23, he declared that he was assuming presidential powers. He vowed to remove Maduro and hold new elections. 

The United States was first among a steadily growing list of more than 50 nations and international bodies to endorse Guaido. They say Maduro clings to power following a sham election in 2018. They accuse him of human rights violations and failed economic policies that have bankrupted Venezuela. 

That nation sits atop the world’s largest oil reserves, but production has been down for two decades. Production made a rare uptick in October, according to OPEC figures, showing the first increase in six months. Still, oil pumping is at the same level Venezuela last produced in 1944. 

Most Venezuelans earn minimum wage, which equals less than $15 a month, and inflation this year is estimated to hit 200,000%. Millions live with unreliable water supplies and constant power outages, and drivers wait in mile-long lines to gas up their cars. 

Guaido has held numerous events in recent days, reminding residents that these conditions aren’t normal. He’s visited neighborhoods and talked with university students, urging their return to the street. The opposition published “Wakeup Venezuela!” videos on social media promoting the march. 

Guaido rejected claims that disillusionment will prevent Venezuelans from heeding his call come Saturday, saying he’s defied doubters before. 

“Nobody believed in Venezuela on the 23rd of January,” Guaido told The Associated Press. “Today, Venezuela is even clearer about its future.” 

U.S. support

James Story, charge d’ affaires for the Venezuela Affairs Unit of the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, Colombia, said Friday that officials knew going in that forcing Maduro from power would not quick or easy. But he said Guaido continues to have unwavering support from the U.S., the international community and, more important, from Venezuelans. 

“When he travels throughout the country, the people always respond,” Story said in conference call with reporters. “He’s going to get the same kind of response tomorrow.” 

Bolivia’s crisis is likely serving as a case study for both Maduro and Guaido, analysts say. Morales, a longtime socialist ally of Maduro, fled to exile in Mexico when a general “suggested” he step down, after irregularities in the election that he claimed gave him a fourth term. 

However, Maduro has diligently cultivated Venezuela’s generals, who have remained loyal, even as Guaido early in the campaign pushed to flip the soldiers against Maduro and later mounted a failed military uprising. 

The government plans to counter Saturday’s opposition demonstration. The socialist party has called its own rival rally. Maduro beefed up security, ordering civilian militias to patrol the streets. 

Police clashed with students at a Caracas university following a speech by Guaido. Dozens of students offered the police white roses and urged them to abandon Maduro. The students then tried to charge the police line and threw rocks, drawing pepper spray and tear gas in return. 

Exiting a Caracas subway, shop owner Jose Buitrago, 53, said he’s fed up watching relatives leave Venezuela. He complained of living with a painful hernia while the broken health care system deprives him of a simple operation. 

“The time has come for us to go out to fight, because this can’t stand anymore,” said Buitrago, who plans to protest on Saturday and said he hoped other Venezuelans would join him. 

VOA Connect Episode 96 – Join us as we look at access to the basics. Whether it’s groceries in rural villages, feminine products for disadvantaged women, or the job market for newly released felons, there are people out there helping others, and themselves.