People protest against new emergency powers decreed this week by President Nicolas Maduro with a gint Venezuelan national flag in Caracas on May 18, 2016. (AFP Photo)
International concerns are mounting over the economic and political crisis in Venezuela, where the military today was holding a second day of exercises ordered by embattled President Nicolas Maduro.
With the oil-dependent country's economy imploding under recession and hyperinflation, public sentiment is backing Maduro's ouster.
But the socialist president is digging in.
He imposed a state of emergency this week and ordered the two-day war games to show the military can tackle domestic and foreign threats he says are being fomented with US help.
After deploying its Russian-made strike aircraft across Venezuela's skies on Friday, the military today ran riot squads through their paces, state television showed.
The opposition, which has a majority in the congress, this week rejected the state of emergency.
It led protests on Wednesday demanding a recall referendum against Maduro on the basis of a petition that garnered 1.8 million signatures. Seventy percent of Venezuelans want a change of government, polls say.
But the Supreme Court, stacked with judges loyal to Maduro, overruled the legislature and called the emergency decree "constitutional." And electoral officials have been dragging their feet in validating the petition.