Maduro lashes out at 'insolent' US sanctions

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro branded US sanctions leveled at his regime on Wednesday as "insolent," as pressure piled up on him abroad and at home over his controversial plan to elect a new body to rewrite the constitution.

The US measures came as Venezuela's opposition began a two-day nationwide strike aimed at ousting the president through early elections.

The deadliness of four months of violent anti-Maduro protests was further confirmed after a general strike entered its second day in Venezuela yesterday as street protests left two more people dead.

The latest deaths in clashes with security forces raised to 105 the number of people killed since April 1.

In Washington, the US Treasury unveiled a list of 13 current and former officials, including the interior minister, senior military brass, the president of the electoral council, and the finance chief of state oil company PDVSA, whose US assets would be frozen.

The opposition and US moves are to force Maduro to give up his plan to have a 545-member "Constituent Assembly" elected on Sunday.

Critics say the body is a step towards a dictatorship, by bypassing or dissolving the opposition-held National Assembly.

Maduro called the US punishment "illegal, insolent and unprecedented."

"Who do these imperialists in the United States think they are? The government of the world?" he said in a speech.