Venezuela congress declares 'state of alarm' over blackout

Venezuela's opposition-run congress on Monday declared a "state of alarm" over a five-day power blackout that has crippled the OPEC member country's oil exports and left millions of citizens scrambling to find food and water, report agencies.
Meanwhile, European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini warned Tuesday that military action in Venezuela would be unacceptable and that a solution to the crisis should not be "imposed from outside," putting the United States on notice.
Addressing the Security Council, Mogherini said the standoff between President Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido must be resolved though political, peaceful and democratic means.
Much of Venezuela remained without power on Monday, although electricity had largely returned to the capital of Caracas following an outage that began on Thursday and which President Nicolas Maduro has called an act of US-backed sabotage.
The outage has added to discontent in a country already suffering from hyperinflation and a political crisis after opposition leader Juan Guaido assumed the interim presidency in January after declaring Maduro's 2018 re-election a fraud.