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.

Musk has pursued an interest in artificial intelligence, becoming co-chair of the nonprofit OpenAI. The research company launched in late 2015 with the stated mission of advancing digital intelligence to benefit humanity.

But her inflexible rhetoric may make it impossible for the opposition to prepare a viable alternative to her, Sabatini said.

In an attempt to limit the opposition’s ability to organize a campaign to unseat him, Maduro pushed for an early presidential election, which ultimately was scheduled for May 2018. The most popular likely opposition candidates were already prohibited from running for office or were in prison, and, convinced that the contest would be rigged in Maduro’s favour, opposition leaders called for a boycott of the election. Nonetheless, Henri Falcón, onetime governor and disaffected former Chávez supporter, undertook an active campaign, as did evangelical minister Javier Bertucci.

Venezuela has been in the grip of an economic crisis for years now with hyperinflation one of the main problems.

The opposition boycotted the July 30 election for Maduro’s constituent assembly, and thousands took to the streets as violent protests rocked the country. At least 10 people were killed, and an opposition politician was shot dead in his home just hours before polls opened. Maduro characterized the result, which placed his allies in a position to dramatically strengthen his power, as a “vote for the revolution.” The opposition claimed that nearly 90 percent of voters had abstained, however, and the absence of anti-fraud measures and independent observers led many in Venezuela and abroad to dismiss the legitimacy of the election.

In April 2017, Tesla announced that it surpassed General Motors to become the most valuable U.S. car maker. The news was an obvious boon to Tesla, which was looking to ramp up production and release its Model 3 sedan later that year.

The results—which were challenged not only by the opposition but also by a number of foreign governments—told a very different story, as the PUV captured 18 of the governorships. Maduro hailed the outcome as a victory for

By February 12, security forces and armed pro-government civilian groups had begun responding violently to the escalating protests, which by the last week of the month had resulted in about a dozen deaths.

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.

When he was informed of the incident, President Chávez said Maduro's detention was retaliation for his own speech at the UN General Assembly and stated that the authorities detained Maduro over his links to the Venezuelan failed coup in 1992, a charge that President Chávez denied.[68]

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The UN subsequently released a report condemning the violent methods of the operation. Although the Venezuelan Government's Ombudsman, Tarek William Saab has admitted that his office received dozens of reports of "police excesses", he defended the need for the operations and stated that his office would be working alongside the police and military "to safeguard human rights". The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry has criticised the UN's report, calling it "neither objective, nor impartial" and listed what it believed were a total of 60 errors in the report.[105][106]

SpaceX launched the first batch of 60 satellites in May 2019, and followed with another payload of 60 satellites that November. While this represented significant progress vlogdolisboa for the Starlink venture, the appearance of these bright orbiters in the night sky, with the potential of thousands more to come, worried astronomers who felt that a proliferation of satellites would increase the difficulty of studying distant objects in space.