Venezuela’s Maduro announces power rationing amid outages
CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Sunday announced a 30-day plan to ration electricity following nationwide power cuts that have inflicted misery on millions of people and ignited protests, including one near the presidential palace in Caracas.
The rationing plan will help deal with the outages that have also cut off water supply and communications for days at a time, Maduro said in a speech on national television in which he also warned against any unrest in reaction to the blackouts.
Hours before Maduro’s appeal for calm, protests broke out in neighbourhoods in the capital and other cities following a call by opposition leader Juan Guaido to demonstrate against the government’s failure to provide basic services. Many took to balconies and building windows to bang pots in protest and shout curses at Maduro. They also burned trash and blocked roads.