Venezuela launches new US visa requirement

Venezuela began requiring visas for US travelers to the country Tuesday, implementing a measure announced by President Nicolas Maduro in retaliation for American "meddling."
In a notice published in the government's official gazette three days after Maduro denounced the United States in a fiery speech, the interior and foreign ministries said the US was now "excluded from the list of countries benefitting from the non-immigrant visa waiver."
Maduro has said American visitors should pay the same fee Venezuelans pay to travel to the United States -- between $160 and $190, depending on the type of application.
The bulletin also put the official seal on Maduro's announcement that he was banning a list of US "terrorists" from visiting Venezuela, including former president George W. Bush and his vice president Dick Cheney, as well as Hispanic American lawmakers Marco Rubio, Bob Menendez and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
Those on the list "have committed terrorist acts and grave human rights violations," said the notice.
In his speech on Saturday, Maduro accused the United States of "conspiracies" against his socialist government and lashed out with a series of retaliatory measures.
In addition to the visa requirement and travel blacklist, he called for the United States to slash its embassy in Caracas to the same size as the Venezuelan embassy in Washington -- 17 staff.
His government on Monday gave the United States 15 days to present plans to cut its embassy staff by 83 percent.
Tensions have been growing between the two countries since Maduro said on February 12 that a US-backed coup plot against him had been disrupted -- a claim the United States dismissed as "baseless and false."
In the following days, Venezuelan security forces arrested the opposition mayor of Caracas on charges of conspiring to overthrow the government, a move condemned by Washington.
Like his late mentor Hugo Chavez, Maduro regularly denounces alleged coup plots and assassination attempts against him.
A fervent critic of "American imperialism," he has had numerous diplomatic spats with the United States. The two countries have not exchanged ambassadors since 2010.