Venezuela’s increasingly militant opposition stepped up its push to remove leftist leader Nicolas Maduro on Wednesday with rallies that drew hundreds of thousands of protesters and calls for a general strike and march on the presidential palace. Enraged by last week’s suspension of their push for a referendum to remove Maduro and determined to end 17 years of socialism in the South American OPEC nation, Venezuela’s opposition has sharply ramped up its tactics in recent days. Maduro, the unpopular 53-year-old successor to Hugo Chavez who has presided over an unprecedented economic crisis, accuses the opposition of seeking a coup with U.S. help. “They are desperate, they have received the order from the north to destroy the Venezuelan revolution,” he told a counter-march of red-shirted government loyalists. After launching a political trial against Maduro on Tuesday in the National Assembly, the opposition coalition held nationwide marches dubbed “Takeover of […]