Chavez defiant as unrest grows

OPPONENTS of President Hugo Chavez piloted motor boats around oil tankers moored off the Venezuelan coast to show support for strikers on board in a new demonstration yesterday, hours after one million people marched through the capital demanding the president step down.

Dozens of boats pulled up around two tankers on lake Maracaibo in western Venezuela, while people on shore gathered in support waving red, yellow and blue Venezuelan flags.

A two-week-old nationwide strike has crippled Venezuela's vital oil industry, and the tankers stalled offshore for days have been a symbol of the opposition's drive to remove Mr Chavez.