International News

Crisis-hit Venezuela sets clocks ahead to save power

CARACAS, (APP/AFP): With their country gripped by an economic
crisis, Venezuelans lost half an hour of sleep Sunday as their clocks were set forward to save power on President Nicolas Maduro’s orders.
At 2:30 am local time, the oil-dependent South American nation
shifted its time ahead by 30 minutes — to four hours behind Greenwich Mean Time.
The move, announced in mid-April, is part of a package of measures
the embattled socialist president is pursuing to cope with a crippling electricity shortage.
Maduro’s government has also instituted four-hour daily blackouts
across most of the country, reduced the public-sector workweek to two days and ordered schools closed on Fridays — adding to the woes of a nation already stuck in a crushing recession.
The power cuts sparked riots and looting this week in Venezuela’s
second-largest city, Maracaibo.