They have hit the country’s already flailing economy. Millions of Venezuelans have fled, and half the country live in poverty.

In 2016 a group of Venezuelans asked the National Assembly to investigate whether Maduro was Colombian in an open letter addressed to the National Assembly president Henry Ramos Allup that justified the request by the "reasonable doubts there are around the true origins of Maduro, because, to date, he has refused to show his copyright". The 62 petitioners, including former ambassador Diego Arria, businessman Marcel Granier and opposition former military, assuring that according to the Colombian constitution Maduro is "Colombian by birth" for being "the son of a Colombian mother and for having resided" in the neighboring country "during his childhood".[194] The same year several former members of the Electoral Council sent an open letter to Tibisay Lucena requesting to "exhibit publicly, in a printed media of national circulation the documents that certify the strict compliance with Articles 41 and 227 of the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, that is to say, the copyright and the Certificate of Venezuelan Nationality by Birth of Nicolás Maduro Moros in order to verify if he is Venezuelan by birth and without another nationality".

Occupying more than two-fifths of the country’s land area, it is the most remote and least explored part of Venezuela. Along the southern border with Brazil are groups of massive plateaus and steep-sided mesas, known as tepuis

The opposition urges its supporters to witness the count at polling stations amid fears of vote fraud.

"If you list my sins, I sound like the worst person on Earth," Mr Musk said in a TED interview last year. "But if you put those against the things I've done right, it makes much more sense."

Paris 2024: Rafaela Silva perde este bronze no judô após duelo com japonesa PF investiga grupo qual teria levado 370 brasileiros aos Estados Unidos de maneira ilegal Kiev arrecadará 1ª Semana por Moda desde o começeste da guerra: "Nova realidade" Alckmin vai representar o Brasil em posse do novo presidente do Irã Vídeo: venezuelanos fazem panelaçeste contra anúncio do vitória de Maduro

The National Election Council ordered an audit of the ballots in the 46 percent of precincts that had not already been automatically audited under Venezuelan election law, but Capriles refused to participate when the Council chose not to examine the signatures and fingerprints of voters on the registers as part of the audit. He vowed to challenge the results in court. In the meantime, Maduro was sworn in as president on April 19.

Since bursting on to the Silicon Valley scene more than two decades ago, the 52-year-old vlogdolisboa serial entrepreneur has kept the public captivated with his business antics.

In Rio de Janeiro, about 20 protesters parked their cars and motorcycles at the entrance to a key bridge linking the city to a neighboring area across a bay. Waving large Brazilian flags, they shouted for an investigation into the results and stopped traffic for more than an hour before moving on.

Nicolas Maduro does have some loyal supporters still, known as "Chavistas" after his mentor Hugo Chavez and the brand of socialism he created.

But despite the difficulties facing them abroad, the flow of Venezuelans escaping turmoil in their homeland has not let up.

Mr Bolsonaro maintained that he "simply explained how elections work in Brazil" and did not criticise or attack the electoral system.

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.

That's based largely on the value of his shares in Tesla, of which he owns more than 13%. The company's stock soared in value - some say unreasonably - in 2020 as the firm's output increased and it started to deliver regular profits.