US diplomat: Maduro lost to rival in Venezuela vote; UN body sets meeting over Hamas chief killing

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro | Federico PARRA / AFP

WASHINGTON—The top US diplomat for Latin America said Wednesday that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro had overwhelmingly lost to opponent Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia. Venezuela’s National Electoral Council has yet to release a detailed vote breakdown to back its awarding of Sunday’s election to Maduro, despite calls to do so from the opposition and many nations.

“Why haven’t they?” asked US assistant secretary of state Brian Nichols at an Organization of American States (OAS) meeting. “The answer appears to be clear, either they know the real results prove that Edmundo Gonzalez clearly won the election, so they don’t want to share the results—or they know that the real results prove that Edmundo Gonzalez clearly won the election and Maduro’s CNE needs time to prepare falsified results to back their false assertion.”

The opposition has published online tens of thousands of polling result papers. “The tabulation of these detailed results clearly show an irrefutable result: Edmundo Gonzalez won with 67 percent of these votes compared to 30 percent for Maduro,” Nichols said. —AFP

UN body sets meeting over Hamas chief killing

UNITED NATIONS, United States—The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting later Wednesday after Hamas said its political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed by an Israeli strike on Iran’s capital, the Russian presidency of the council said. The meeting was requested by Iran and supported by representatives of Russia, China and Algeria.

UN chief Antonio Guterres also denounced the attacks on Tehran as well as Beirut as a “dangerous escalation,” after an Israeli strike on Tuesday evening also killed top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Lebanon. “The secretary-general believes that the attacks we have seen in South Beirut and Tehran represent a dangerous escalation at a moment in which all efforts should instead be leading to a ceasefire in Gaza” and “the release of all Israeli hostages,” his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said. —AFP

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