Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Wednesday shuffled his cabinet by naming a new economy czar to oversee the OPEC country's decaying populist system and a new oil minister to confront the economic difficulties caused by low oil prices. He also appointed a new vice-president, state governor Tarek El Aissami, a hard liner that could replace Maduro if he is forced to step down.
The Chilean conservative alliance Chile, let's go which achieved a sweeping victory in last Sunday's municipal elections, causing a serious disarray to the ruling coalition New Majority with only a year before the 2017 presidential election, also managed to win the Punta Arenas mayoralty for the first time since the end of the Pinochet era.