CARACAS, VENEZUELA—Thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets in wealthy eastern Caracas Thursday amid a tropical downpour to support a protest movement that is gaining steam even as it turns more deadly.

Venezuela officials confirmed earlier in the day that a fifth person had died in the wave of anti-government protests now entering its third week.

The public prosecutor’s office says it will investigate the death of 36-year-old Miguel Colmenares. He was shot at a protest in the central city of Barquisimeto on Tuesday.

Read more:Venezuelans rally to oppose President Maduro as officials attempt to break up crowd

Gruseny Calderon was killed during the same protest. Congressman Alfonso Marquina says the 32-year-old protester was injured by rubber bullets that pierced his lung and liver. </s> “If these other countries don’t recognize Venezuela as a democracy, it will be hard for them to look like a legitimate power,” said David Smilde, an analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights advocacy group. Mr. Smilde mentioned a list of consequences that such isolation could entail, from access to bank loans to straining diplomatic ties with its largest neighbors.

One candidate for the constituent assembly, José Félix Pineda, a 39-year-old lawyer, was killed in his home the night before the vote. Prosecutors said an armed group had broken into Mr. Pineda’s home in Ciudad Bolívar on Saturday night and shot him dead there.

Hours later, a large explosion rocked a middle-class neighborhood in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, injuring at least seven police officers on patrol. Video circulating on social media showed the uniformed officers, all on motorcycles, riding into a fireball that had just erupted in front of them.

Nearby residents applauded as the security forces threw tear gas at them.

As the day wore on, government security forces used water cannons, rubber bullets and batons against protesters, just as they have for the last three months. </s> Argentine legislator Héctor Olivares died three days after being seriously wounded in a gun attack that killed a provincial official, a Senate official said Sunday.

Acting Senate president Federico Pinedo said Olivares died of his wounds earlier in the day.

ARGENTINE LAWMAKER FIGHTING FOR HIS LIFE AFTER BEING AMBUSHED BY GUNMEN

At least six people have been detained in what has been described as a "mafia-style" attack Thursday that shocked Argentines. Officials have said two gunmen in a parked car shot wounded Olivares and killed Miguel Marcelo Yadón near the country's congressional building in Buenos Aires.

Olivares, a member of the pro-government Radical Civic Union party, represented La Rioja province in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of congress. Yadón worked for La Rioja's federal electric transportation system.

Authorities have said investigators are working to determine a motive. </s> Mexican independent presidential candidate Maria de Jesus Patricio was injured in a crash that also killed a person riding in her caravan and injured two others Wednesday.

The National Indigenous Council said in a brief statement that an SUV carrying Patricio and 10 other people went off a highway in the state of Baja California Sur.

The group said a woman was killed and council member Francisco Grado was in serious condition. Patricio and council member Lucero Islava also had injuries, the statement said without giving any details.

Patricio has been running as an independent candidate seeking to get a place on the July 1 presidential ballot. However, days before a deadline to gather some 866,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot, she is well short of the requirement. </s> Amid shortages of food and medicine, thousands take to Caracas streets as campaign to topple the president turns deadly.

Fresh clashes have erupted between police and protesters rallying against the Venezuelan government as a fifth person reportedly dies after being shot during earlier unrest.

Thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets in eastern Caracas amid a tropical downpour on Thursday to support a protest movement that appears to be gaining steam even as it turns more deadly.

Venezuela officials confirmed later in the day that a fifth person had died in the wave of anti-government protests now entering its third week.

The public prosecutor's office says it will investigate the death of Miguel Colmenares, 36.

He was shot at during a protest in the central city of Barquisimeto on Tuesday.

Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela's socialist president, is fighting off efforts to topple him as Venezuela struggles with shortages of food and medicine.

Dozens of people have been injured and more than 100 arrested over the past week in clashes in various cities, according to authorities.

Alfonso Marquina, an opposition politician, on Twitter identified the latest death as Antonio Gruseny Calderon and called him "another victim of the dictatorship".

Marquina and officials earlier said a 13-year-old boy was shot dead in protests on Tuesday in Barquisimeto.

Marquina blamed that killing on so-called colectivos, armed supporters of the government whom the opposition accuses of attacking them during demonstrations.

A 36-year-old man was killed the same night in Barquisimeto, prosecutors said.

Two 19-year-old students were shot by police in earlier unrest, one on April 6 and one on April 11, according to authorities.

Also on Thursday, Jose Manuel Olivares, another opposition legislator, said police fired tear gas "point-blank" at demonstrators in the state of Vargas.

"If they think they will scare us that way they are wrong. We will stay in the street!" he wrote on Twitter.

While demonstrations are often held in middle-class neighbourhoods, this most recent wave of unrest for the first time has prompted protests in the slums that have historically been bastions of support for the socialist revolution launched nearly two decades ago by Hugo Chavez, the late president. </s> MEXICO CITY — Mexican independent presidential candidate Maria de Jesus Patricio has been hurt in a crash that also killed a person riding in her caravan and injured two others.

The National Indigenous Council says in a brief statement that an SUV carrying Patricio and 10 other people went off a highway Wednesday in the state of Baja California Sur.

It says a woman is dead and council member Francisco Grado is in serious condition. It adds that Patricio and council member Lucero Islava sustained unspecified injuries.

Patricio has been running as an independent candidate seeking to get a place on the July 1 presidential ballot. However, days before a deadline to gather some 866,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot, she is well short of the requirement. </s> Voters in Venezuela are going to the polls to elect a constituent assembly that President Nicolas Maduro wants to rewrite the country's constitution in order to concentrate power in his hands.

It has not been very peaceful. Protests have erupted across the country as the opposition decries the contest as a "power grab" by Maduro.

A leading opposition candidate for assembly was shot dead in his home and a prominent youth activist along with two other protesters were shot dead in the street.

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Lawyer Jose Felix Pineda, 39, was killed from multiple shots fired by assailants who broke into his home overnight, prosecutors said. Ricardo Campos, who worked as a youth secretary with the opposition Accion Democratica party, was also killed during protests today. Pineda was the second candidate to be murdered after the July 10 death of another, Jose Luis Rivas, as he was campaigning in the northern city of Maracay. In the west of Caracas, national guard troops fanning out to put down any disruption to the election used armoured vehicles and fired shots to disperse protesters blocking roads. Video posted on Twitter showed troops smashing down a metal gate and entering to the sounds of gunfire, and what appeared to be an armored vehicle on fire. The opposition has called for a boycott and mass demonstrations against the election, which it calls a bid by Maduro to install a dictatorship with the backing of the military. Maduro kicked off voting by casting his ballot in a west Caracas polling station. "I'm the first voter in the country. I ask God for his blessings so the people can freely exercise their democratic right to vote," the president said. He was accompanied by his wife, Cilia Flores, who is a candidate to sit on the new assembly. Turnout will be key to determining the legitimacy of the election. But that will be difficult to ascertain as most voters will be able to vote twice, as candidates are drawn from social and industry sectors as well as geographically. Surveys by Datanalisis, a pro-opposition polling firm, show more than 70 percent of Venezuelans opposed the idea of the new assembly - and 80 percent reject Maduro's leadership.

Most of the Organization of American States has condemned the vote, with several countries saying they wouldn't recognize the results. So why is Maduro risking civil war?

The political opposition is currently in control of the legislature. This has curtailed Maduro's ability to survive the economic and humanitarian crisis that threatens the Venezuelan people with mass starvation and economic ruin. Maduro needs the enhanced powers to cement his position and maintain control.

Maduro has the military behind him. He made sure of that by purging officers he couldn't count on completely. But how long will the senior officers support him if he orders them to shoot protesters down in the street?

That the vote will be in Maduro's favor is not in doubt. But the Venezuelan people have been aroused by this attempt to kill their democracy and no matter how big the margin of victory Maduro announces, the opposition will keep the pressure on. </s> At least four people have died following overnight clashes ahead of Wednesday's rival protests in Venezuela by supporters and opponents of President Nicolas Maduro, police and non-governmental organizations said.

A 16-year-old was among the dead having suffered "a firearm injury during a demonstration" in the capital Caracas, the Social Conflict Observatory said.

The other three deaths were registered in the southern state of Bolivar.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) </s> In the grainy, nighttime video, journalist Angel Gahona, clad in jeans and a blue shirt, holds up a cellphone and narrates as he approaches the facade of city hall in Bluefields, Nicaragua, reporting live via Facebook on protests that have rocked the Central American nation for four days.

Seconds later a gunshot rings out and Gahona slumps lifeless to the curb. Voices cry his name and someone presses a piece of cloth to his head to try to staunch the stream of blood. Another Bluefields reporter, Ileana Lacayo, confirms that he died before reaching the hospital.

Besides Gahona at least 25 others have been killed since Wednesday in unrest over social security reforms planned by President Daniel Ortega's government, according to a human rights group. Dozens more have been injured or arrested.

Ortega said Saturday in his first public appearance since the demonstrations began, that his government is willing to enter into talks over the dispute. In a nationally televised address, he said he is open to negotiations so that there is "no more terror for Nicaraguan families."

But he said the dialogue would be just with business leaders and not with other sectors of society. He also seemed to try to justify what has been a heavy-handed response by the government and allied groups, accusing demonstrators, most of them university students, of being manipulated by unspecified "minority" political interests and of being infiltrated by gangsters.

"What is happening in our country has no name. The kids do not even know the party that is manipulating them. ... Gang members are being brought into the kids' protests and are criminalizing the protests. That is why they are put at risk," Ortega said.

Those remarks appeared to fan the flames, as soon afterward thousands of people spilled into the streets in seven cities including the capital, Managua, after tensions had calmed somewhat Friday night.

"We are in the streets asking for Ortega and his wife to go. This has already gone beyond the social security issue. Here there have been dead, wounded, and he does not even apologize for his killings or the savage repression against the people," said Mauri Hernandez, one of thousands of demonstrators at a central rotunda.

On Friday night vice-president, first lady and government spokesperson Rosario Murillo said nine people had been confirmed dead in the clashes, though the human rights group Cenidh said Saturday it had counted at least 25 deaths nationwide.

Minutes later news emerged of the killing of Gahona, who worked for the news show Meridiano. In a separate video that he himself filmed, he showed damage to an ATM as riot police advanced up a darkened street.

The source of the gunshot was not discernible in either of the videos, but Lacayo was quoted by La Prensa newspaper as saying that police were the only ones carrying weapons at the scene.

A prominent business chamber issued a statement saying its talks with Ortega won't take place until he promises an end to repression, the freeing of detained protesters and respect for freedom of expression, as the authorities have kept off the air one private news channel that is covering the protests.

"We cannot go into a dialogue if these minimal conditions are not met," it said.

There were more clashes at the Polytechnical University of Nicaragua, one of the strongest bastions of the protesters.

"We stand firm. They will not wear us out. Here we will give our all until the government understands that it will not continue to do whatever it pleases," Lombardo Ruiz Picado, a leader of the student protesters, told The Associated Press by phone from inside the school.

In the morning, army troops were deployed to Esteli, a city north of Managua that has been a main flashpoint of the demonstrations, to help police repel protesters.

State-affiliated media showed images of armed soldiers patrolling the city centre and said they were safeguarding strategic concerns after fires at several public buildings.

The Roman Catholic Conference of Bishops in Nicaragua condemned repression against protesters and urged the government to listen to them and drop the social security reforms.

"A unilateral decision always brings with it social instability. Rectifying decisions is a sign of humanity, listening is the path of reason, seeking peace at all cost is wisdom," the conference said in a statement.

The reforms, issued by decree, increase income and payroll taxes and make changes to pensions to try to shore up Nicaragua's troubled social security system.
A least nine people have been killed in the last 24 hours, including Constituent Assembly candidate Jose Felix Pineda, and Accion Democratica Party youth secretary Ricardo Campos.