Opposition leaders in Venezuela delivered a May 2016 petition to the National Electoral Council (CNE) calling for a recall referendum, with the populace to vote on whether to remove Maduro from office.[84] On 5 July 2016, the Venezuelan intelligence service detained five opposition activists involved with the recall referendum, with two other activists of the same party, Popular Will, also arrested.[85] After delays in verification of the signatures, protestors alleged the government was intentionally delaying the process.

The region has received the bulk of Venezuelan migration, leading to an anti-immigration political backlash in some places.

The July 28 date — also Chávez’s birthday — was chosen from among more than 20 proposed based on input from ruling party allies, business associations, university officials, religious groups and other organizations.

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The US State Department issued a fact sheet stating that Maduro's most serious corruption involved embezzlement in which "a European bank accepted exorbitant commissions to process approximately $2 billion in transactions related to Venezuelan third–party money launderers, shell companies, and complex financial products to siphon off funds from PdVSA".

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Maduro and the second or maternal family name is Moros.

In March 2017, SpaceX saw the successful test flight and landing of a Falcon nove rocket made from reusable parts, a development that opened the door for more affordable space travel.

On Monday, a day after he lost, he declined to immediately concede to his leftist challenger, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, leaving Latin America’s largest democracy on edge over whether there would be a peaceful transition of power.

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The deal immediately earned Maduro some reprieve from economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. But one of the sanctions has already been reimposed as the Venezuelan government has tested limits of the agreement, including by opening criminal investigations against the organizers of the primary that Machado won.

The United States responded by freezing Maduro’s assets and barring trade with him; sanctions had already been enacted against more than a dozen of his associates, and Maduro became the fourth sitting head of state to be personally targeted with economic sanctions by the U.S. Two days after the election, opposition leaders Leopoldo López and Antonio Ledezma were taken from their homes in the middle of the night by state security agents. The two had been under house arrest for their alleged connection to antigovernment protests in 2014, but the Maduro-backed Supreme Court ordered their rearrest, spurring a fresh wave of international condemnation.

Mr Bolsonaro maintained that he "simply explained how elections work in Brazil" and did not criticise or attack the electoral system.

Mr Musk also champions digital currencies and has a hand in several other smaller companies, including tunnel-maker the Boring Company and experimental brain-computer start-up Neuralink.

He was spending Monday evening working on a response at the presidential palace, with a plan to say something on Tuesday, though what he would say was unclear, according to a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.