Venezuela’s National Assembly has passed an election law that critics say will favour the party of President Hugo Chavez in polls next year.

The law passed easily in the National Congress, which is dominated by supporters of Mr Chavez.

It allows the National Election Council to redraw voting district boundaries.

Meanwhile, Venezuela’s media regulator ordered the closure of 34 radio stations amid a growing feud between the government and the private media.

Diosdado Cabello, the head of the national regulatory agency, said the stations would have to stop transmissions once they were notified of the ruling.

Some 240 radio stations in Venezuela are at risk of being closed for allegedly failing to hand their registration papers into the government ahead of a deadline last month.

The move comes after public prosecutor Luisa Ortega Diaz proposed a tough new media law under which journalists could be imprisoned for publishing "harmful" material.

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