Venezuelan president defends currency withdrawal decision

Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, has defended the decision to withdraw the country's most used bank note, which has led to mass protests in the region.

Maduro made the decision to withdraw the 100-bolivar note last week on the basis that it would help to stymie Bolivia's rapidly increasing black market. Although the note will only cease to be legal tender in 2017, a high percentage of businesses are not accepting the note.

Food and medicine are in short supply in many areas of Venzuela, particularly in rural areas. Maduro has closed the country's borders with Colombia and Brazil and this will remain the case until the note is withdrawn on 2 January.

"If I had done nothing, this week they (Colombian gangs) would have achieved a major victory against peace and tranquility in the country," Maduro said of the decision.

"We have defeated a monetary, political, social and economic attack, by having contained it. We have to contain it, neutralise it and start to get back to what is a defeat for them, and a victory for this country."

United States president Barack Obama was not spared from Maduro's televised speech, and was accused of planning to engineer a coup against the country's left-wing government.

Over 300 protesters have been arrested in recent days owing to violence caused by the bank note withdrawal, but Maduro rebuffed opposition parties' claims that they were being treated unfairly.

"Don't come and tell me they are political prisoners," he said.