 Hello and welcome to the news clip. Today I have Professor Surendra Neghi with me to speak on Venezuela. Professor Neghi, the recent Constituent Assembly election in Venezuela which happened on 30 July 2017, paves way for a kind of political stability in Venezuela. How do you evaluate this? There are two ways to look at it. One is from the point of view of Venezuelan government, from the people of Venezuela, and the other one is how the corporate media directly financed by the US and its allies, how they look at it. So in the recent past we have seen the most important contribution of the National Constituent Assembly election is that it ended the violent protests that Venezuela witnessed in the last 3-4 months from March to July. So after the elections the most important contribution is that that violence wave, long wave, it ended. There is a direct intervention from the US and the pressure is being seen all over Venezuela and outside also. But what I do see is that in the elections where almost 40% of the voters came out despite the threat, the clear threat to their lives, they came out and they did participate in that election process. What does that mean? That clearly means that how much ever the US, in collaboration with the opposition parties of Venezuela, how much ever they are trying to destabilize the economy, the politics in Venezuela, the people are not really in favor of that. And the elections on 30th July are a proof of that, that they will not accept an intervention whether economic or military in their country. The major challenge in front of the Venezuelan government now is the economic stability. We have seen that Venezuela has a very strong social sector. Where are the things going now? So Chavez came into power in 1999. In couple of years he managed to overcome the challenges that he was facing at that particular point of time within the country and from outside also and we all remember how the coup took place in 2002. But in spite of all those forces working against his regime, Chavez began with long wave of social reforms, which even after his demise, the current government under Nicolas Maduro's regime, they still continue. And I can share with you a small figure like in the housing sector what they have achieved. So I can share with you that by 2019 they are targeting approximately 30 lakh houses for people who come from the marginalized sections of Venezuela. But what does it actually mean? It means providing dignity, providing access to a dignified life to a lot of people. And who are these people? These are the people who live or who have lived all their lives in the slums which in Venezuela are called barrios. They have lived all their life there. And it is for the first time that under Chavez's regime and under Maduro's regime they come and start living in these beautiful flats which the government has provided them at an incredibly low EMI, which is absolutely unimaginable for us. They don't even have to pay the down payment there. They don't pay anything as a lump sum amount at the beginning. Depending upon the total income of a family, the government decides how much money they will pay for that particular flat, which can be a 1 BHK, 2 BHK, 3 BHK depending upon the size of the family. So the government charges them 30% of the cost that the government incurs on that flat. It's a huge achievement. I must congratulate Venezuelan government for doing this. Now even of that 30% of the investment that the government puts in on these flats, the interest rate that applies there, it varies from 4% to 10% again depending upon the total income of that family. So this has really, really helped the marginalized sections of Venezuelan population to have a dignified life where they have electricity, they have access to drinking water and the government is not just providing them with a flat as such. They're also giving them some basic infrastructure like basic furniture, like a refrigerator, a washing machine, some basic things that people have never, ever had in their life. Now that's on the housing sector. In the education sector, Chavez came into power in 1999 and by 2005-2006, Venezuela almost touched a 100% literacy rate. That's incredible. You don't see it happening anywhere else. This whole talk of Venezuela living under dictatorship and Chavez was a dictator. Now Maduro is also a dictator. I wonder whether we really want to live in a democracy where people do not have access to water, where people do not have access to a dignified life, housing, education, social security. If the democracy cannot provide you that, the system which is providing people these basic commodities, whether you call it dictatorship or democracy, it doesn't really matter. For people, what is important is to have access to these basic things in their life. And I think that's very important. It's crucial for them to understand what they have gained in the last 18, 19 years after this whole process of Bolivarianism or Bolivarian revolution or Chavezmo has started in 1999. Talking about dictatorships, let's go to United States where we have a democratically elected dictator. Donald Trump, who is moving around threatening everyone, everyone considered as enemy with military action. And the same we have seen, he has targeted Venezuela, saying that he will use military as an option against Venezuela. So do you think that under Donald Trump regime, U.S. is again trying to extend its influence in Latin America to implement its whole neoliberal agenda? So I would start with Cuba. 1959, Fidel Castro comes to power. In couple of years, he declares it a socialist state. And then the whole problem starts. And we have seen how the economic blockade has existed over the last 60 long years. And the U.S. under Obama's regime, it did, to a certain extent, it did admit that their foreign policy towards Cuba has failed. It didn't open it in clear terms, but they did admit to a certain extent that they failed there on that front. Now, what happens in case of Venezuela is quite, quite different. Cuba is not a rich country compared to Venezuela. Bolivia is not that way so rich as a country in comparison with Venezuela. All these countries which have shifted to the left, when you look at Venezuela, which has today the largest known sources of oil on this planet, you do understand why U.S. has shown so much of interest in the internal affairs of Venezuela. So even if the U.S. today intervenes militarily in countries like Bolivia or Cuba or any other small country in Latin America, it doesn't necessarily translate into a huge profit in economic terms. Whereas in Venezuelan case, if they destabilize the government of Maduro and bring the national oligarchy back to power, it essentially means gaining access to those large resources which are the national oil, which Chavez nationalized completely in the year 2002 or 2003 when he actually nationalized it. And the corporate world of the U.S. and the other European countries, they started losing their profits there because Chavez, from 1% of taxes on the Venezuelan oil, Chavez took it to 33%. Now this huge shift from 1% to 33% on oil, it ultimately where did that money go? That all that money went into the social sectors. So naturally this doesn't suit the big corporations of the U.S. and the other advanced economies of the world. So I would say that the military intervention that the Donald Trump administration has of course publicly announced is most probably going to be a reality in the coming days, especially in the context of the elections which are expected on the 15th of October this coming Sunday. I have this understanding that whether the current government of socialists, the PSUV party, whether they win or lose in these assembly elections, the corporate media has already made its story. If Maduro's party wins, the story will be that the democracy has completely collapsed and that's why they have come to power again. If Maduro's party loses elections, the story will be that this is a slap on Maduro's dictatorship. So I think the story is very, very clear and it's already ready. We are just waiting for some days and after the elections results are announced, the story will again run all over the world through these big corporate houses.