By Hugh Bronstein CARACAS (Reuters) - Rock-throwing Venezuelans braved tear gas and rainstorms on Friday, blocking streets in protest against a legislative super-body to be elected on Sunday that critics call a plan by President Nicolas Maduro to create a dictatorship. The imminent election of a constituent assembly has been broadly condemned by countries around the world as a weakening of democratic governance in the OPEC nation, which is also struggling under a crippling economic crisis. Opposition demonstrators said urgency was increasing as they set up barricades along main roads in the capital, Caracas, pelted by sheets of rain and teargas canisters fired by police.
An international animal welfare charity was on Friday completing the evacuation of a dozen animals stranded in a neglected zoo in the conflict-torn Aleppo province of northern Syria. The Four Paws group was seeking to move two lions and two domestic dogs from the "Magic World" zoo and amusement park in Syria over the border into Turkey and then to an animal protection centre in the north of the country, a spokesman for the charity told AFP. The convoy with the animals crossed the Syria-Turkey border late Friday and was now on their way to the animal protection facility in Karacabey, outside the northwestern Turkish city of Bursa, said spokesman Martin Bauer.
The US and South Korea have said they are considering military responses after the latest test of a intercontinental missile by North Korea. Earlier this month, US officials said they believed North Korea had the capability of firing a missile that could reach Alaska. At the same time, reports said US intelligence officials believed North Korea was just one year away from completing a nuclear weapon that could be attached to such a weapon.
Romania on Friday sparked fury in Moscow by blocking a Moldova-bound plane carrying a senior Russian minister entering its airspace because of an EU travel ban over the Ukraine crisis. The foreign ministry in Bucharest confirmed to AFP that the passenger jet carrying deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin was "not allowed to fly over Romanian airspace".
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