Venezuelan | Pakistan

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said on Monday she plans to return home “as soon as possible,” and slammed the interim president in Caracas. In her first public comments since a social media post over the weekend, when the US military forcibly removed and kidnapped President Nicolas Maduro, the Nobel Peace Prize winner vowed to return to her country. She had left Venezuela last month to travel to Norway to accept the award, and hasn’t returned since. “I’m planning to go back to Venezuela as soon as possible,” Machado told broadcaster Sean Hannity on Fox News, speaking from an undisclosed location. Machado openly rejected the country’s interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, saying she “is one of the main architects of torture, persecution, corruption, narcotrafficking”. Rodriguez, who has signalled her willingness to cooperate with Washington, was Venezuela’s vice president under Maduro. Machado said Rodriguez is “rejected” by the Venezuelan people, and voters were on the opposition’s side. “In ...

Nobel laureate and Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado emerged from hiding to make her first public appearance in almost a year, waving to supporters from the balcony of her Oslo hotel early on Thursday. Machado, who won the Nobel for challenging Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s grip on power, did not arrive in Norway in time for Wednesday’s prize ceremony. Her daughter collected the prestigious award on her behalf, and delivered a blistering acceptance speech in her stead. The Venezuelan democracy campaigner made it to the Norwegian capital hours later, and went straight to see her family, Nobel Prize Committee Chair Jorgen Watne Frydnes said. From the balcony of the Grand Hotel, Machado later greeted a crowd of jubilant supporters, who sang and shouted “libertad” (freedom), according to AFP journalists. Machado, who has been living in hiding in Venezuela, was last seen in public on January 9, when she protested Maduro’s inauguration for his third term. In her Nobel acceptance speech, the ...