Maduro challenges Guaido to new elections and calls him 'Mr. Clown'

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro challenged opposition leader Juan Guaido to general elections on Tuesday.

Guaido proclaimed himself as the new interim president of Venezuela on 23 January, calling on Maduro to step down, and was quickly recognised by nearly 50 countries as the acting head of state.

"Let Mister Clown call elections, if he indeed has what it takes to take power as it should be done, with votes," the 'de iure' president said during a medical school graduation ceremony in Caracas.

Lawmakers in Caracas recently voted unanimously to authorise the entry of humanitarian aid from the United States and other countries and called on the armed forces and national police to remove the roadblocks that had been put in place to impede those aid deliveries.

But the Maduro administration was adamant in its resistance to foreign aid shipments, claiming that they were just the first step towards a US military intervention.