{Sanctions imposed on chief judge Maikel Moreno and seven others for usurping powers of opposition-led parliament.}<\/p>\n
The United States has imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s chief judge and seven other members of the country’s Supreme Court as punishment for seizing powers from the opposition-led congress earlier this year.<\/p>\n
Those sanctioned will have their assets frozen within US jurisdiction, and US citizens will be barred from doing business with them, the US treasury department said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The new sanctions package was aimed at stepping up pressure on supporters of President Nicolas Maduro amid growing international concern over a crackdown on mass street protests.<\/p>\n
“The Venezuelan people are suffering from a collapsing economy brought about by their government’s mismanagement and corruption,” Steven Mnuchin, the US treasury secretary, said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“Members of the country’s Supreme Court of Justice have exacerbated the situation by consistently interfering with the legislative branch’s authority,” he said.<\/p>\n
“By imposing these targeted sanctions, the United States is supporting the Venezuelan people in their efforts to protect and advance democratic governance in their country.”<\/p>\n
Venezuela’s latest wave of anti-government unrest, which has left at least 44 people dead in the last six weeks, began when the Supreme Court assumed the powers of the National Assembly in March.<\/p>\n
The de facto annulment of the congress drew widespread international condemnation, and the decision was later partially reversed.<\/p>\n
Among those hit with sanctions was Maikel Moreno, a Maduro ally who became president of the 32-judge court in February.<\/p>\n
The sanctions came shortly after US President Donald Trump called the situation in Venezuela a “disgrace to humanity”.<\/p>\n
“People don’t have enough to eat. People have no food. There’s great violence,” Trump told a press conference with visiting Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos.<\/p>\n
He added: “And we will do whatever is necessary and we will work together to do whatever is necessary to help with fixing that.”<\/p>\n
Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets against the Maduro’s government, demanding elections, freedom for jailed activists, foreign aid and autonomy for the opposition-led legislature.<\/p>\n
Despite its vast oil reserves, Venezuela is suffering chronic shortages of food, medicine and other basic supplies. The centre-right opposition blames it all on mismanagement and corruption in the Socialist government.<\/p>\n
Opposition leader Henrique Capriles said on Thursday that authorities confiscated his passport and prevented him from travelling to New York to discuss the country’s crisis with United Nations officials.<\/p>\n
Maduro’s government, however, accuses the opposition of seeking a violent coup and says many of the protesters are no more than “terrorists”.<\/p>\n
The US treasury department has in the past sanctioned Venezuelan officials or former officials, charging them with trafficking or corruption, a designation that allows their assets in the US to be frozen and bars them from conducting financial transactions through the US.<\/p>\n
The officials have denied the charges and called them a pretext as part of an effort to topple Maduro’s government.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration has threatened further measures against Caracas, but sanctions so far have stopped short of hitting the oil sector in Venezuela, which is a major US oil supplier.<\/p>\n
Source:Al Jazeera<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Sanctions imposed on chief judge Maikel Moreno and seven others for usurping powers of opposition-led parliament.} The United States has imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s chief judge and seven other members of the country’s Supreme Court as punishment for seizing powers from the opposition-led congress earlier this year. Those sanctioned will have their assets frozen within […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-34669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34669\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34669"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=34669"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=34669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}