
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro embraced the currency of his bitter rival the United States on Sunday, calling it an “escape valve” that can help the country weather its economic crisis amid U.S. sanctions aimed at forcing him from power.

Venezuela's opposition staged nationwide protests against President Nicolas Maduro on Saturday and Sunday and called for a new wave of demonstrations to revive their stalled effort to topple the deeply unpopular ruling Socialist Party.

The widely recognized as interim president of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, convened for this Saturday a great day of protest throughout the country to maintain the pulse in the street against the government of Nicolás Maduro, an initiative backed by the Episcopal Conference of Venezuela (CEV), which also called for citizen mobilization.

Venezuela ordered El Salvador's diplomats to leave the country in reprisal for President Nayib Bukele's expulsion of officials representing the government in Caracas. El Salvador does not recognize Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as legitimate and said on Saturday it would receive a new diplomatic corps representing opposition leader, Juan Guaido.

The exodus of Venezuelans is on track to reach 5 million people, as pressure grows on neighboring countries to provide them with long-term support, United Nations and European Union officials said on Wednesday.

Venezuela's opposition leader Juan Guaido has asked China and Russia to help end a political crisis crippling the Latin American country during exploratory talks, his diplomatic representative in Brazil said on Monday.

Venezuela on Thursday won a seat on the controversial U.N. Human Rights Council -- a move that the U.S. quickly branded “an embarrassment” and further proof that its decision last year to leave the body last was the right one.

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro, under fire all year to quit from the United States and its allies, exulted on Monday in the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump, though he did not expect the White House to let up against him.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Monday scoffed at sanctions imposed by the European Union and accused Brussels of doing US President Donald Trump's bidding. “I don't care about the European Union sanctions, the sanctions of the European Union make us laugh,” Maduro told a press conference, saying the EU was “sinking in the mud of Donald Trump's failed Venezuela policy.”

The UN Human Rights Council on Friday voted to send a team of investigators to probe alleged violations, including extrajudicial executions and torture, in crisis-wracked Venezuela.