The U.S. Congress gave its final approval Wednesday to new sanctions against Venezuelan officials accused of violating the human rights of anti-government protestors this year.

Thousands of activists were arrested and more than 43 people were killed during mass demonstrations against the government of President Nicolas Maduro, the elected successor of late strongman Hugo Chavez, which raged from February to May.

Venezuelan prosecutors charged a prominent opposition leader with conspiracy Wednesday in relation to an alleged plot to assassinate leftist President Nicolas Maduro.

Maria Corina Machado, a vocal supporter of anti-government protests that rocked the country earlier this year, vehemently rejected the charge as she left the attorney general's office after questioning.

Gloomily watching their money shrink in value, Venezuelans don't need government statistics to tell them what they already know: their country is facing the looming risk of hyperinflation.

Breaking its own regulations, the Venezuelan central bank has stopped publishing the official inflation rate, which stood at 63.4 percent at the end of August.

Thirteen Venezuelan inmates who had been on a hunger strike over prison conditions died Wednesday after drinking a cocktail of prescription drugs and grain alcohol, the government said.

Another 145 were being treated for poisoning after drinking the concoction, it added. An NGO put the death toll as high as 21.

The White House would support increased sanctions against Venezuela, a U.S. administration official said in a Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday.

Failed efforts from Latin American allies to reform the government of Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro have led President Barack Obama to switch his stance on increased sanctions, national security adviser Antony Blinken said while facing questions from lawmakers.

A gang shootout in Venezuela left 11 people dead, local media and prosecutors said Tuesday, just weeks after the government launched a nationwide initiative to crack down on escalating violence.

The two groups squared off in a farm in the state of Guarico on Monday and most of the deaths were from gunshot wounds, the prosecutor's office said.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro abruptly replaced his interior minister on Friday, weeks after violent clashes in Caracas which left five people dead.

Defense minister Carmen Melendez was named as Miguel Rodriguez Torres' replacement.

Sliding oil prices are deepening the budget crisis facing the Venezuelan government, which is already struggling to fund its lavish subsidies and rigid exchange-rate controls, analysts say.

Venezuela, which sits atop the world's largest proven crude reserves, relies on oil sales for 96 percent of its budget.

Venezuela's leftist President Nicolas Maduro on Wednesday accused Western powers of helping create the jihadist crisis in the Middle East and said that the only solution involved respecting regional governments.

In his first speech to the U.N. General Assembly since succeeding the firebrand Hugo Chavez last year at the helm of the South American nation, Maduro said that the Ebola virus was the world's biggest threat but that Western powers were busy "bombing the people of Iraq and Syria."

Three men were sentenced to more than 20 years in prison Tuesday in Venezuela over the killing of an ex-beauty queen and her partner.

All three, aged 18, 19 and 21, pleaded guilty to the crime, the attorney general's office said.