Venezuela protests: Young man killed in Valencia

A young man has been killed in violence in the Venezuelan city of Valencia, amid protests against the rule of President Nicolas Maduro.

Hecder Lugo, in his early 20s, died from a head wound. Officials said he had been shot.

Youths looted shops in several cities. In Caracas an armoured vehicle was filmed ploughing into protesters.

At least 36 people have died and hundreds have been injured in weeks of protests.

Demonstrators are angry over what they describe as Mr Maduro's plans to amass power in his own hands.

They were particularly incensed by a recent decree that creates a 500-member constituent body to rewrite the constitution, a step that would bypass the opposition-controlled National Assembly.

A women's march is scheduled for later on Saturday.

An AFP correspondent in the northwestern city of Valencia said it looked like a disaster zone.

The looting, which broke out earlier in the week, has angered local shop staff.

"There was a crowd of them. They broke through the walls and took everything. They destroyed everything," bakery worker Nuvia Torrealba told AFP.

"My bosses have lost their home and we are out of a job. It was horrible."

Meanwhile video posted on social media purportedly showed the pulling down of a small statue of Hugo Chavez in the western town of Rosario de Perija.

Mr Maduro succeeded Mr Chavez, a popular leader, who had introduced wide-ranging social welfare programmes and died in 2013.

Since then, falling prices for Venezuelan oil exports have cut government revenue and there have been shortages of food, baby milk, medicine and other basics.

The International Monetary Fund has forecast that inflation in Venezuela will be above 700% this year.

Presidential elections are due at the end of next year.