I often start my day now hopping onto a motorcycle taxi and heading to the front lines where the tear gas is wafting and the projectiles are flying.

I’ve come to know some of the regular protesters, like Tyler, 22, a former government supporter who has become adept at dodging rubber bullets and buckshot behind a homemade shield painted blue, yellow and red to match the Venezuelan flag knotted around his neck. His eyes peek from the black T-shirt wrapped around his face to hide his identity.

We sat beside a burning barricade during a lull and he told me about his family.

Tyler said he was fighting because of medicine shortages that killed his mother, worsened his grandmother’s high blood pressure and left his asthmatic little sister gasping. He said his family could afford only one meal a day, usually just plain white rice.

“We are living with a hunger that we have never had before,” he said. “Things are already really ugly here, and we won’t take it anymore.”</s>Venezuela's opposition has called a fresh 48-hour general strike against embattled President Nicolas Maduro's plans to have the constitution rewritten giving him broader powers.

The walk-out comes as violent and sometimes deadly protests continue amid a political and economic crisis that has led to shortages of basic goods and soaring inflation.

"We are calling out the entire people, all groups in society, for a 48-hour strike" Wednesday and Thursday, lawmaker Simon Calzadilla said.

Calzadilla said that the strike would be capped on Friday with a march demanding that Maduro officially scrap his Constituent Assembly vote scheduled for July 30.

Earlier on Saturday, police on motorcycles fired tear gas to break up an opposition march on the Supreme Court to press demands that elected socialist Maduro leave office.

That rally was also meant as a show of support for a slate of 33 magistrates -- a so-called shadow supreme court -- whose names were put forward Friday by the opposition to replace Venezuela's current high court, which is closely allied with Maduro and frequently rules in his favor.

Emboldened by a nationwide strike on Thursday that paralyzed parts of the capital Caracas and other Venezuelan cities, opposition leaders held a mock swearing-in ceremony Friday for the shadow court's new "judges."

Many of the actual court's justices were hastily appointed shortly before Maduro's ruling party lost its majority in congress.

"Everyone has given their backing to the new Supreme Court," tweeted Freddy Guevara, a leader of the opposition-led congress.

"We support the new judges because they will restore independence to the Supreme Court," said 43-year-old demonstrator Luis Torrealba, marching with his wife and teenage son.

Their swearing in was condemned by the government as "incitement to subversion" and an act of "treason," and officials threatened to throw the dissidents into prison.

One of the judges was arrested by intelligence services, the National Assembly said on Twitter.

Maduro said the opposition's bid to derail the constitutional assembly would fail.

"We are going to be implacable if they try to use violence to stop what cannot be stopped," the president warned on television.

In Saturday's march, hundreds of people took to a key Caracas motorway to head downtown toward the court building. But uniformed National Guard troops riding motorcycles fired tear gas to disperse them.

Wuilly Arteaga, a violinist who has gained celebrity for playing at many marches, was injured and taken to a clinic.

The 23-year-old was seen with blood pouring from cuts on the left side of his face. He said later he had been struck with buckshot.

"They are not going to frighten me," Arteaga said in a video he posted on Twitter.

The musician became an icon of the protest movement when he was pictured calmly weaving through tear gas with his violin on his shoulder, playing the classic Venezuelan folk song "Alma Llanera."

Immortalized in photographs from that performance during a demonstration on May 8, he said he meant it as a "message of peace."

With the situation already inflamed, the stakes have risen further, after the United States threatened economic sanctions if Maduro proceeds with his controversial vote for a body to rewrite the constitution.

The president has vowed to maintain the election of 545 members to the Constitutional Assembly.

Saturday's demonstrations, like many others since April, were organized by the Democratic Unity Roundtable, a coalition of political opposition groups.

The number of deaths in protests across the country since April has reached 103 -- about one fatality per day.

Datanalisis surveys have shown that more than 70 percent of Venezuelans reject Maduro's leadership.

But the president has brushed aside moves to oust him because he can count on the loyalty of the Venezuelan military, which has been given control of swaths of the economy.</s>Venezuela's opposition announced a two-day national strike against President Nicolas Maduro after a day of violent clashes in Caracas on Saturday where the injured included a violinist who is a famous face of the protests, Reuters reported.

The opposition Democratic Coalition - which organized a 24-hour shutdown this week that was heeded by millions and paralyzed large swathes of the South American nation - said the next strike would be on Wednesday and Thursday.

Mass marches were also planned for Monday and Friday in an effort to force President Nicolas Maduro into aborting a controversial July 30 election for a new congress.

The fast-escalating political showdown in the South American OPEC nation comes after more than 100 people have died and thousands more injured in anti-government unrest since demonstrations began in April.

"The Venezuelan people are not giving up, they are valiant, they will come out to defend democracy and the constitution," opposition lawmaker Simon Calzadilla said at a news conference flanked by other coalition officials.

Foes accuse Maduro of turning Venezuela into a dictatorship and wrecking what should be a prosperous economy. They want free elections and an end to two decades of socialist rule.

Maduro, 54, calls himself a flag bearer for the international left, up against right-wing "terrorists" seeking a coup with the connivance of the U.S. and the international media.</s>Well over 7 million Venezuelans cast ballots in an opposition-led referendum on July 16, a resounding rebuke of President Nicolas Maduro's call for a super-legislative body many see as a government attempt to entrench its power.

The turnout was well above what many expected and came despite the short notice for the vote, which did not have the same resources the National Electoral Council typically has for elections.

Nearly 700,000 of those votes came from Venezuelans abroad, where they voted at over 600 polling stations set up in 100 countries.

Now, however, the Venezuelan opposition is likely to face internal and external challenges — the former stemming from the at-times unwieldy coalition aligned against Maduro, including hardline radicals and disaffected government supporters, and the latter from a Maduro government that still holds considerable power and has shown little sign it will budge.

International support for the opposition and criticism for the government has been building in recent months, particularly since the end of March, when the Supreme Court, which is aligned with Maduro, made an attempt to assume the powers of the opposition-controlled legislature.

While the Supreme Court walked back that move, it sparked a period of protests that has now lasted more than 100 days and led to the deaths of more than 100 people.

"One of the more interesting things about this moment for the opposition is just how much international support they've been able to muster," Alejandro Velasco, a professor at New York University, told Business Insider about a week prior to the vote. "Certainly they've gotten far more attention than they've ever had and far more favorable attention than they've ever had."

Venezuelans abroad played a large role in organizing for the vote. While three months have worn down and frustrated many opposing the Venezuelan government, the success of the unofficial plebiscite is likely to buoy their spirits and burnish their international standing, even as Maduro has vowed to go ahead with the July 30 vote to select members of his constituent assembly.

"Overall this vote, I think, makes it difficult for the government to just proceed as planned," David Smilde, a professor at Tulane University and expert on Venezuela, told the Associated Press. "I think it's going to embolden the international community to reject" Maduro's constituent assembly.

The US, the EU, Germany, Brazil, Canada, and Mexico are some of the countries that have already called for the constitutional assembly to be canceled.

Over 90% of voters in the July 16 referendum voted in favor of the three questions asked by the opposition.

The third question began by asking the if voter saw the need for the "renewal of public powers" and for free and transparent elections but concluded with a more ambiguous reference to the formation of a national unity government "to restore the constitutional order."

That part of the question may present political and legal stumbling blocks for the opposition and its backers as events move forward.

The opposition had "been struggling to sort of find a message that says this plebiscite is actually, has some sort of foundation and that it isn't just about creating a parallel state," Velasco told Business Insider in an interview earlier this month.

The overwhelming support that the public mustered for the referendum may have freed opposition leaders of such reservations, however.

Lawmakers said the vote was a "trigger" to form a national unity government and to ask for global recognition before the end of July, according to Wall Street Journal correspondent Anatoly Kurmanaev.

The naming of 33 justices to the Supreme Court in a rejection of the current court, which has been stacked by Maduro, appears to be one of the first steps toward that goal.

"This is where the law ends," writes a contributor to Caracas Chronicles, a website heavily critical of the Maduro government. "If we have two people for the same post, there's no mechanism to tell us which one is actually legal. A while back, the government blocked out all the strictly legal options, and it's time to go into uncharted territory."

Opposition leader and National Assembly Vice President Freddy Guervara said "the dictatorship accuses us of mounting a parallel state."

"Who usurps functions of the National Assembly to name the national electoral council and deputy attorney general?" Guervara added, referring to actions taken by the Maduro government. "We are the constitutional state."

But seeking international recognition for such a parallel government "could considerably complicate matters," Smilde writes. It would be "no small step for governments in the region and would likely take longer than the two week window they have before the" vote on the constituent assembly's members.

What the people want

It's also not clear what the broader Venezuelan public sentiment will be toward the establishment of such an alternative government.

Survey results released this month found that nearly 80% of Venezuelans wanted political change by way of elections, which Maduro has postponed, but there was no consensus on how to resolve to the current crisis: 33% of respondents wanted to wait for presidential elections in 2018; 25% said they saw dialogue as the solution, while 18% wanted a combination of dialogue and protest. Just 5% supported Maduro's constituent assembly. (The survey didn't ask about the opposition's referendum or the national unity government.)

The survey also found that only about 19% of Venezuelans said they had taken part in a march or protest in recent weeks.

While that number may be influenced by differing definitions for what constitutes a "protest" among Venezuelans, Velasco said, the divergent visions for moving ahead suggest that the opposition has thus far not be able to unite the vast swaths of Venezuelans unhappy with Maduro and that a broad range of Venezuelans remain unsatisfied with the visions that both the government and opposition have presented.

"So you have these varied factions, which speaks to these two poles that are very, very retrenched, and yet they can't really capture everyone else that's in the middle," Velasco told Business Insider earlier this month, "and so everyone else that's in the middle is going off in these various directions."

These domestic political questions seem unlikely to to shape looming international action, particularly the possible sanctions the US is contemplating, where the Trump White House has said that "all options are on the table" for penalizing the Venezuelan government.

"Venezuelan domestic politics, that's for the Venezuelan politicians and that's for the Venezuelan people to work out," Mark Feierstein, who worked for the Obama White House as special assistant to the president and senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs, told Business Insider.

"It's not for the international community to decide who runs Venezuela, or who the president is, but it is the role of the international community to weigh in when people's fundamental rights are being deprived," Feierstein said.

The Trump White House didn't respond to a request for comment about its deliberations regarding sanctions on Venezuela.

The full impact of Venezuelans' resounding rejection of the Maduro government in the July 16 referendum has yet to unfold — as does the US's and international community's full response.

And events are likely to be complicated again by the July 30 constituent-assembly vote that Maduro says will go ahead. But for the opposition, the July 16 vote sent a clear message.

"We interpret [the results] as a message from the people telling us to keep doing what we have been doing, plus much more," Juan Andres Mejia, an opposition legislator who organized the referendum, told The Washington Post. "We will respond to that call accordingly."</s>Clashes erupt in Caracas as security forces fire tear gas to block opposition march on Venezuela's Supreme Court.

Police on motorbikes have fired teargas to break up an opposition march on Venezuela's Supreme Court to stop President Nicolas Maduro from proceeding with his plans to rewrite the constitution.

Thousands gathered in the capital Caracas on Saturday to march on the Supreme Court, but security forces blocked their way with armoured vehicles and riot shields.

Clashes ensued, injuring several people including student protester Wuilly Arteaga, who has become famous for playing his violin in front of security lines.

"Repression is the only way this regime keeps itself in power," opposition lawmaker Luis Florido said at the march, blaming the Maduro government for the latest violence.

The rally was also meant as a show of support for a slate of 33 magistrates appointed by the opposition-controlled congress to replace Venezuela's Supreme Court, which is closely allied with Maduro.

Saturday's protest appeared to be smaller than previous anti-government demonstrations.

READ MORE: Venezuela has reached the 'zero hour' - What's next?

The opposition coalition launched protests in early April against Maduro whom they accuse of turning Venezuela into a dictatorship and wrecking its economy.

Maduro has accused demonstrators of seeking a coup with US support.

Venezuelan authorities have routinely responded with tear gas and rubber bullets to nearly four months of street protests. At least 100 people have died in the unrest and thousands more have been injured or detained.

Maduro has shown no sign of giving in, instead promoting the constitutional rewrite as a solution for Venezuela's political standoff and dire economy.

The government plans to hold a vote next weekend to elect a special congress to overhaul Venezuela's charter.

The new assembly could disband the existing opposition-led legislature

The opposition, emboldened by a nationwide strike that paralysed parts of Caracas and other Venezuelan cities, has vowed to escalate street tactics to block the July 30 vote.

The government said it would to put 232,000 soldiers on the streets to ensure the vote goes ahead.

In recent days Maduro and pro-government leaders have also warned that once the special assembly is elected, those they brand as "fascists" and "terrorists" could face justice.

In Washington, President Donald Trump's administration has threatened to take "strong and swift economic actions" if Maduro proceeds with the constitution rewrite.

"The people voted and they rejected this constituent assembly," read the sign of one man who marched through the streets with a stream of people.

"We are at 'zero hour,'" metropolitan Caracas Mayor Helen Fernandez said, referring to the opposition's protest plan. "We will elevate our protest to wherever necessary."</s>CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan soldiers on motorbikes fired teargas at hundreds of masked and stone-throwing youths in Caracas on Saturday during the latest protest against President Nicolas Maduro.

The Democratic Unity coalition had called a march on the pro-Maduro Supreme Court in support of alternative magistrates appointed by the opposition on Friday. But security forces blocked their way with armored cars and riot shields.

Clashes ensued, injuring several people including student protester Wuilly Arteaga, who has become famous for playing his violin in front of security lines.

Paramedics attended Arteaga in the street as blood poured down his face, witnesses said.

"Repression is the only way this regime keeps itself in power," opposition lawmaker Luis Florido said at the march, blaming the Maduro government for the latest violence.

The opposition coalition and a self-styled youth-led "Resistance" movement launched protests in early April against Maduro whom they accuse of turning Venezuela into a dictatorship and wrecking what should be a prosperous economy.

He says demonstrators are seeking a coup with U.S. support.

Since April, more than 100 people have died in the unrest, with thousands injured and hundreds arrested. Five people died during an opposition-led national strike on Thursday.

Venezuela's long-running political crisis has entered a dangerous new stage as the opposition escalates street tactics to try and block a controversial new super-congress Maduro wants to set up via an election next weekend.

The opposition is boycotting that vote which they say is a sham intended to guarantee a majority for the unpopular Maduro. They are demanding instead conventional elections to try and end nearly two decades of Socialist Party rule.

Foes of Maduro are threatening to shut down Venezuela with protests to block the July 30 vote for the Constituent Assembly, which could re-write the constitution and disband the existing opposition-led legislature.

Foreign pressure has grown too on Maduro to abort the vote, including a threat from U.S. President Donald Trump to apply economic sanctions, potentially at the OPEC nation's oil sector which accounts for 95 percent of export revenue.

But the government is showing no sign of backing down, announcing that it will put 232,000 soldiers on the streets to ensure the Constituent Assembly goes ahead in a week's time.

Read the original article on Reuters. Copyright 2017. Follow Reuters on Twitter.</s>CARACAS - A 24-hour nationwide strike in Venezuela on Thursday is set to increase pressure on beleaguered President Nicolas Maduro, whose policies have put him on a collision course with the United States. The opposition called the stoppage after holding an unofficial plebiscite last weekend in which a third of Venezuela’s voters cast ballots rejecting Maduro and his policies. Chief among them is the president’s plan to hold an election July 30 to choose a 545-member citizens’ body, called a Constituent Assembly, to rewrite the constitution.

US President Donald Trump has threatened “swift economic actions” against Venezuela if that election happens.

The European Union, the United Nations, the Organization of American States and the Catholic Church have all condemned Maduro’s plan. They fear the move - seen by the opposition and Trump as a bid for dictatorship - will irretrievably worsen the political crisis in Venezuela, and risk adding to a death toll that currently stands at 97 since anti-Maduro street protests turned violent in April.

But Maduro has vowed to forge on “now more than ever” after Trump’s threat, and to punish “conspirators” who try to stop him. His labor minister, Nestor Ovalles, warned that companies in Venezuela that joined the strike on Thursday would be “sanctioned.”

And the military reaffirmed its loyalty to Maduro by saying it would protect the polling.

The opposition, which controls the National Assembly, sees the strike as the launch of a “final offensive” including civil disobedience and further protests designed to force Maduro out of office through early elections.

Previous efforts to bring about a recall referendum against Maduro were stymied by electoral authorities and judges who have systematically sided with the president.

With efforts at negotiations between both sides also exhausted, the stalemate risks worsening the deteriorating situation ordinary Venezuelans are enduring.

Their oil-rich nation is staggering under a lack of food and medicine, triple-digit inflation, rising crime and dire currency controls that enrich a few at the expense of the many.

Maduro has blamed the crisis on low global oil prices and an economic “war” waged on him by the United States and the right-wing opposition.

But the opposition says the crisis is due to government mismanagement, including nationalizations and state appropriations of firms, and generally inept policies by Maduro and his late predecessor Hugo Chavez.

It’s not clear what “actions” Trump is considering against Venezuela, but oil could be a key pressure point. Around a third of Venezuela’s crude production is exported to the US market.

“All options are on the table,” a senior White House official said Tuesday. But Geoff Thale, with the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) lobbying group, told AFP he was “very skeptical that unilateral US sanctions (would be) effective.”

“They are more likely to make the government feel they have no option but to resist, and they offer the government a nationalist rallying cry against the US,” he said.</s>Anti-government protesters face-off with security forces blocking them from marching to the Supreme Court, in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday. Protesters marched through the Venezuelan capital, chanting and waving flags in an escalating push to stop President Nicolas Maduro's plan to rewrite the constitution. National guard troops launched tear gas in at least one location in Caracas, blocking protesters with clouds of white gas and rows of officers on motorcycles. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)</s>Venezuela's opposition calls a fresh 48-hour general strike against embattled President Nicolas Maduro's plans to have the constitution rewritten

CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuela's opposition on Saturday, July 22, called a fresh 48-hour general strike against embattled President Nicolas Maduro's plans to have the constitution rewritten giving him broader powers.

"We are calling out the entire (Venezuelan) people, all groups in society, for a 48-hour strike" Wednesday and Thursday lawmaker Simon Calzadilla said.

With anti-government marchers still clearing streets Saturday, Calzadilla said that the strike would be capped on Friday, July 28, with a march demanding that Maduro officially scrap his planned Constituent Assembly vote. It is scheduled for Sunday, July 30.

Earlier police on motorcycles fired tear gas to break up an opposition march on the Supreme Court to press demands that elected socialist Maduro leave office, as months of sometimes deadly anti-government demonstrations showed no signs of abating.

That rally was also meant as a show of support for a slate of 33 magistrates – a so-called shadow supreme court – whose names were put forward Friday, July 21, by the opposition to replace Venezuela's current high court, which is closely allied with Maduro and frequently rules in his favor.

Emboldened by a nationwide strike on Thursday, July 20, that paralyzed parts of the capital Caracas and other Venezuelan cities, opposition leaders held a mock swearing-in ceremony Friday for the shadow court's new "judges."

Many of the actual court's justices were hastily appointed shortly before Maduro's ruling party lost its majority in congress.

The shadow court has strong support from the demonstrators, organizers said Saturday.

"Everyone has given their backing to the new Supreme Court," tweeted Freddy Guevara, a leader of the opposition-led congress.

"We support the new judges because they will restore independence to the Supreme Court," said 43-year-old demonstrator Luis Torrealba, marching with his wife and teenage son.

In Saturday's march, hundreds of people took to a key Caracas motorway to head downtown toward the court building. But uniformed National Guard troops riding motorcycles fired tear gas to disperse them.

Wuilly Arteaga, a violinist who has become a celebrity for playing at many opposition marches, was injured and taken to a clinic. The 23-year-old was seen with blood pouring from cuts on the left side of his face. He said later he had been struck with buckshot.

"They are not going to frighten me," Arteaga said in a video he posted on Twitter. He is seen in a hospital bed with bandages on his face and swollen lips. "We are going to keep fighting."

The Venezuelan intelligence service arrested one of the shadow judges, Angel Zerpa Aponte, the opposition-controlled National Assembly said on Twitter.

The swearing-in of a shadow judiciary was condemned by the government as "incitement to subversion" and an act of "treason," and officials threatened to throw the dissidents into prison.

Venezuela is in the throes of a political and economic crisis that has led to shortages of basic goods and soaring inflation.

With the situation already inflamed, the stakes have risen further, after the United States threatened economic sanctions if Maduro proceeds with a controversial July 30 election of a body to rewrite the constitution.

The president has vowed to maintain the July 30 election of 545 members to the "Constitutional Assembly."

Saturday's protests, like many others since April, were organized by the Democratic Unity Roundtable, a coalition of political opposition groups.

The number of deaths in protests across the country since April has reached 103 – about one fatality per day. – Rappler.com</s>Venezuela congress going ahead despite ‘imperial’ threat, says Maduro

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro gestures while he speaks during his weekly broadcast 'Los Domingos con Maduro' (The Sundays with Maduro) in Caracas July 23, 2017. — Miraflores Palace/Handout via ReutersCARACAS, July 24 — Defying pressure from abroad and at home, Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro said yesterday that a controversial election would go ahead next weekend for a new congress his foes fear will institutionalise dictatorship.

“The imperial right wing believes it can give orders to Venezuela, the only ones who give orders here are the people,” Maduro said in reference to a threat from US President Donald Trump to impose economic sanctions if the vote is not aborted.

“This time next week Venezuelans will vote for a Constituent Assembly,” the leftist leader added in his weekly TV programme.

Venezuela's opposition has been protesting in the streets since April against the unpopular Maduro whom they accuse of wrecking the OPEC nation's economy and crushing democracy.

Opponents are boycotting the Constituent Assembly vote, which they see as a farce designed to ensure a majority for a government with minority popular support, and demanding instead conventional free elections including for a new president.

The European Union and major Latin American nations have also stated their opposition to the constituent body, which will have power to rewrite Venezuela's 1999 constitution and override other institutions.

“We need the support of other democracies to avoid turning into another Cuba,” said Julio Borges, who leads the opposition-led National Assembly legislature that officials say will be replaced by Maduro's new constituent body.

Opposition leaders are planning a week of protests, including a two-day national strike on Wednesday and Thursday, to try to force Maduro's hand. He says they are “terrorists” working for Washington to try to control Venezuela's oil.

More than 100 people have died in four months of anti-government unrest. Hundreds have also been injured and arrested.

Venezuela's political showdown is playing out against the backdrop of a crippling economic crisis, with many going hungry and suffering shortages during a fourth year of deep recession.

In his lengthy TV show, Maduro urged the opposition to let Venezuelans vote in peace next Sunday, but also said special election centres would be set up to accommodate those blocked by “fascists” at their local vote point.

Transport would be provided free to maximise turnout, Maduro added, dressed in a red shirt and dancing with his wife to publicity jingles for the Constituent Assembly vote.

“They have not toppled me nor will they topple me,” he said.

Maduro also vowed that members of a new alternative Supreme Court panel appointed by the opposition in defiance of the government would be imprisoned: “They are all going to jail, one by one. And all their property and accounts will be frozen.”

One of the 13 opposition appointees, lawyer Angel Zerpa, was arrested by the state intelligence service on Saturday.

Venezuela's state prosecutor's office, whose chief Luisa Ortega has broken with the Maduro government in protest at rights abuses and erosion of democracy, said Zerpa's whereabouts were unknown and filed for habeas corpus to have him freed.

Earlier yesterday, Ortega said the Constituent Assembly should have been preceded by a referendum and that 90 percent of Venezuelans opposed it, according to a statement from her office. — Reuters
Protesters march towards Venezuelan Supreme Court against what they feel is bias in favor of President Nicolas Maduro.