Venezuela: Opposition Calls for 'Defiance' of State of Emergency

CARACAS, Venezuela - The political crisis in Venezuela is deepening as the opposition coalition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) is calling on citizens to defy the State of Emergency decreed by President Nicolás Maduro to "prevent a possible coup."

Maduro declared an indefinite State of Emergency that would "permit the Executive to recover the productive capacity of the country during May, June, July and the rest of the time that we are constitutionally allowed throughout 2016 and probably 2017."

"I have decided to take such a measure, in which a State of Emergency and an economic emergency are included, that will give the government enough power to prevent a coup effort, defeat the economic war, to stabilize our nation socially and to face all the domestic and international threats that Venezuela is facing at this moment," Maduro said from the Miraflores presidential...