President’s Backers Try to Halt Protest March

Venezuelan police and National Guardsmen fired hundreds of shots into the air and sprayed tear gas to stop hundreds of supporters of President Hugo Chavez from storming an opposition march.

Eight people injured in the clashes were taken to the hospital, one after being shot in the stomach, said Capt. Carlos Cardozo of the Caracas fire department.

The centrist Democratic Action party marched in downtown Caracas to protest a package of laws Chavez passed under special powers allowing him to avoid parliamentary debate. Supporters from the president’s leftist Fifth Republic Movement party streamed downtown to disrupt the protest.