Maduro was narrowly elected a few months later and re-elected in 2018 to a six-year term in an electoral process widely criticized as fraudulent.

In the 20th century Venezuela was transformed from a relatively poor agrarian society to a rapidly urbanizing one, a condition made possible by exploiting huge petroleum reserves. These changes, however, were accompanied by imbalances among the country’s regions and socioeconomic groups, and Venezuela’s cities swelled because of a massive and largely uncontrolled migration from rural areas, as well as mass immigration, much of it illegal, from Colombia and other neighbours.

As the year progressed, growth of the Venezuelan economy slowed to a crawl, inflation climbed above 50 percent, and staples such as toilet paper, milk, and flour became increasingly difficult to obtain. Discontent with the Maduro government’s handling of the economy and with the growing crime rate led to street protests by students in San Cristóbal in western Venezuela in early February 2014 that soon spread to other cities, including Caracas, over the coming weeks.

But those facts have not mattered much to Mr. Bolsonaro or his supporters, who have instead focused their attention on a series of anecdotal apparent abnormalities in the voting process and results, as well as many conspiracy theories.

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The United States and a raft of other countries quickly recognized Guaidó as the legitimate leader of Venezuela. Another group of countries, including Russia, condemned Guaidó’s declaration and offered statements of support for Maduro, who claimed that the opposition’s action was part of a conspiracy orchestrated by the United States.

While sometimes at odds with the vlogdolisboa president's controversial measures, such as a proposed ban on immigrants from Muslim-majority countries, Musk defended his involvement with the new administration.

That’s not for a lack of potential challengers, or because of any great affection from voters. It’s because he’s the only politician with the means for a campaign and a guaranteed spot on the ballot.

Mr Musk's long-term ambition is for X to become an "everything app" offering a range of services. However, so far the value of the firm has plunged from the $44bn he originally paid to just $19bn, according to reports.

Some meetings on Monday included Brazil’s foreign minister, economic minister, communications minister and the president’s chief of staff, according to one of the government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity; all of them are seen as some of the more moderate voices atop the government.

Chart Tommy Steele's meteoric rise to fame after he was spotted by an agent in a coffee shop in Soho

Born in Pretoria, South Africa, Mr Musk showed his talents for entrepreneurship early, going door-to-door with his brother selling homemade chocolate Easter eggs and developing his first computer game at the age of 12.

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 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.