Venezuela announces new 'people's parliament' as the country's elite face mounting drug charges
Venezuela’s government has found an ingenious way to cling on to power in their rapidly-unravelling state: announcing the creation of a new, parallel parliament which will run as a “people’s assembly,” beside the National Assembly they no longer control....

...Reports in America in the early hours of Wednesday suggested that a New York prosecutor was preparing to charge the head of the country’s border agency with drug trafficking – a highly significant move, which would be the first time a sitting official has been charged on narcotics offences. Nestor Reverol, a high-ranking ally of the late president Hugo Chavez and head of the National Guard, has used his social media account to champion his team’s work in detecting drug shipments from Colombia. But he and his deputy are likely to face charges later this month of collusion with cartels....