Premium petrol will rise from less than 0.1 bolivars ($0.02) a litre to 6 bolivars ($1.32) — but Mr Maduro has also announced a 37 per cent devaluation of the currency, which would see a price at the pump of around 85 cents a litre. Lower grade petrol would cost around 14 cents a litre. Under the current exchange rate, minimum wage in Venezuela is as low as 32 cents an hour.

It might be easier to make a list of what is available, rather than what’s not. Venezuelans are getting some extra vacation this year. President Nicolas Maduro ordered extended shutdowns of businesses and offices across the country to close for all of the semana santa instead of the usual two days. The president says the measures are a necessary energy-saving step as the country faces rolling blackouts due to an electricity shortage, but business owners say it’ll cut into their Holy Week...

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro has decreed that all Fridays for the next two months will be holidays, in a bid to save energy in the blackout-hit OPEC country. "We'll have long weekends," Maduro said in an hours-long appearance on state television on Wednesday night, announcing the measure as part of a 60-day plan to fight a power crunch. A severe drought, coupled with what critics say is a lack of investment and maintenance in energy infrastructure...

The President of Venezuela has urged women to stop using hairdryers and offered alternative styling tips as the country’s energy crisis continues. Nicolas Maduro has announced a decree giving state employees Fridays off for two months as part of measures to offset a crippling electricity shortage. He urged his compatriots to increase other efforts to save power, including cutting appliance use and raising the temperature on air conditioning units.

Former president turned country's clocks back in 2007 so that children could wake up for school in daylight, his successor returns to previous system to ensure more daylight in evening when energy consumption peaks

Venezuela's public employees will work only on Monday and Tuesday as the country grapples with an electricity crisis. President Nicolas Maduro announced Tuesday that the government was slashing working hours for at least two weeks in a bid to save energy. He said the water level behind the nation's largest dam has fallen to near its minimum operating level thanks to a severe drought. Experts say lack of planning and maintenance is also to blame.

With their country gripped by an economic crisis, Venezuelans lost half an hour of sleep Sunday as their clocks were set forward to save power on President Nicolas Maduro's order. At 2:30 am local time, the oil-dependent South American nation shifted its time ahead by 30 minutes -- to four hours behind Greenwich Mean Time.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro declared a 60-day state of emergency on Friday due to what he called plots from within the OPEC country and the United States to topple his leftist government. Maduro did not provide details of the measure. A previous state of emergency, implemented in states near the Colombian border last year, suspended constitutional guarantees in those areas, except for guarantees relating to human rights.

The relationship between the US and Venezuela has for many years been nothing less than toxic. In 2002, then President Hugo Chavez was briefly ousted in a coup by opponents supported by the US. Washington continued to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars to his critics, while Mr Chavez took to the podium of the UN to accuse George W Bush of being the devil.

By morning, three newborns were already dead. The day had begun with the usual hazards: chronic shortages of antibiotics, intravenous solutions, even food. Then a blackout swept over the city, shutting down the respirators in the maternity ward. Doctors kept ailing infants alive by pumping air into their lungs by hand for hours. By nightfall, four more newborns had died.

Scarcity forces people to trade drugs on social media as country faces public health emergency

As the nation’s economy teeters on the brink. Coca-Cola FEMSA has suspended all production in Venezuela because of a sugar shortage, the Mexican beverage multinational said in a statement. The company, the largest Coke bottler in the world, told workers sugar supplies were too low and that the problem could persist for months, according to several media reports.

Three years of shortages have left Venezuelans desperate and angry for change, posing the most serious threat yet to President Nicolás Maduro

Venezuela is running out of sugar. Amid a political and humanitarian crisis, Venezuela's state-run sugar producers announced earlier this week that they have temporarily ceased production due to a lack of raw sugar. On Thursday, Coca-Cola FEMSA, the largest bottler worldwide of Coke, threw up a red flag. To make Coke in Venezuela, FEMSA needs refined, industrial sugar made by the Venezuelan Agricultural Corporation of Sugar, a government entity.

Venezuela's economy is in trouble. With oil accounting for 95 percent of the country's export earnings, plummeting world prices have sent the South American economy reeling towards collapse. People are going hungry, inflation has spiralled out of control, the military is patrolling supermarkets to keep order amid rising anger, basic raw materials and supplies have run out, factories are shutting down and there is not enough electricity in the country.

The International Monetary Fund has predicted that inflation in Venezuela will hit 720% this year. That might be an optimistic assessment, according to some local economic analysts, who expect the rate to reach as high as 1,200%. A sharp drop in global prices for oil -- on which Venezuela depends for most of its foreign currency -- is a big part of the problem. Critics also accuse the government of irresponsible spending on social welfare programs and oil subsidies to Cuba and other countries.

Right-wingers have seized control of Brazil, but the State Department is more interested in trashing Venezuela's left-wing regime.

Venezuela's Supreme Court on Wednesday banned media from publishing videos of lynchings, saying they create "anxiety and uncertainty" in a country ravaged by violent crime and an economic crisis. The OPEC nation's society is in upheaval amid triple-digit inflation, a deep recession and brutal shortages of food and medicine. As Venezuelans have grown increasingly angry at frequent thefts, hold-ups and homicides, mob beatings and lynchings have increased in the country, which is already one of the world's most violent.

Police in Venezuela have arrested 400 people after riots broke out over a deepening food crisis in the struggling South American country. At least three people have been killed in the unrest.

With delivery trucks under constant attack, the nation’s food is now transported under armed guard. Soldiers stand watch over bakeries. The police fire rubber bullets at desperate mobs storming grocery stores, pharmacies and butcher shops. A 4-year-old girl was shot to death as street gangs fought over food. Venezuela is convulsing from hunger. Hundreds of people here in the city of Cumaná, home to one of the region’s independence heroes...