the bestselling book and later film the right stuff is dangerous in that. he later said one of his requests was not going to college as not having a degree prevented him from becoming an astronaut. never regarded himself as courageous or hero often saying he was just doing his job a job that experts say led to new heights in aviation and space exploration. hello again the headlines on al-jazeera the world's 1st fully trials corona virus vaccine is being rolled out in the u.k. 800000 doses of pfizer biotech vaccine are now available in 70 hospitals elderly people and health workers are being prioritized higher stakes go for it through for it because it's free and it's the best thing that's ever happened. at the moment so

do please go for it that's what i say you know. if i can do it. so can you us has experienced its deadliest week of the current virus pandemic since april 15000 americans have died from cope with 1000 in the past 7 days much of the recent surge has been attributed to thanksgiving celebrations and there are warnings that will only get worse as more people travel for the end of your holiday season the number of afghan civilians killed in air strikes carried out by the u.s. and its allies has risen 330 percent since 2017 a report by the brown university called the costs of war projects said around 700 civilians died and 29000 alone it attributes the rise of the us relaxing its rules of engagement 3 years ago. a nationwide strike by farmers is under way in india transport workers and teachers unions are also supporting the strike tens of

thousands of farmers have been counted outside india's capital new delhi for almost 2 weeks they say a new law liberalizing the farming industry will hurt their livelihoods an inquiry into the new zealand mosque shooting has found failings by the police and intelligence but says nothing could have stopped the attack the royal commission says security agencies were almost exclusively focused on the perceived threat of terrorism by muslims and a member of abu dhabi's royal family has bought a 50 percent stake in is really a football club bates are jerusalem it's the only top club in israel never to have signed the palestinian israeli player it also has a group of fans which has been openly abusive towards palestinian israelis you up to date with all the latest headlines on al-jazeera inside story is coming up next thanks for watching.

venezuela's president consolidates power nicholasville right says he's retaking control of the last state institution in opposition hands so does his opponent had any legitimacy left this isn't. hello welcome to the program i'm wrong many say venezuela's parliamentary election was over before it even began the opposition boycotted sunday's vote calling it a sham president nicolas maduro says he's regained the national assembly the last institution controlled by his opponent. it's the latest setback for the

opposition's aim to remove madore from office outlets in america addison lucy and reports. it wasn't necessary to wait for the official election results to be announced to know the outcome as a jubilant president. made clear. we had the patience the wisdom to wait for this hour to wait for the state to get rid of that nefarious national assembly that the opposition used to bring the plague of sanctions on to venezuela now with this vote we will have just. been israel's mainstream opposition boycotted the legislative assembly poll which they say lacked the minimum conditions of a fair and free election the pro-government supreme court had taken over 3 of the 4 principal opposition parties appointing new leaders who are accused of being pawns of muggle in addition the court appointed a new electoral council also to the government. and there were no independent

observers only staunch supporters like former bolivian president evo morales despite threats to withhold subsidized food boxes to those who didn't vote the turnout was poor. in this voting center in the macoutes a district that is normally a lot of people when there's an election today what you have is a fraud now a country which is clearly on my. mother's foreign allies like russia china and iran will likely applaud the elections which could give their commercial agreements with venezuela a stronger legal framework with which to circumvent u.s. and european sanctions but the united states the e.u. and many latin american countries say they won't recognize the new parliament. plans to ask the new assembly to appoint a special commission to try enemies of the state especially opposition you know one by go but that could bring on more international reprisals dirtier. i think it

would be better from a juror to leave quite a alone. and play cat and mouse with him grab him by the tail and let him go what will the world see an opposition leader who once had 61 percent support and now has half of that and is losing more by the day. my dog has been recognized it when israel is interim president by more than 50 countries but his legitimacy has rested on being the elected leader of the national assembly. come january when a new legislature is sworn in the opposition will lose the only state institution it controlled destroying what critics regard as the national remnant of democracy in venezuela. you see in human al-jazeera in 2019 when garrido declared himself interim president claiming the duros reelection the year before was illegitimate as head of the national assembly gado said he had the

constitutional right to lead more than 50 nations including the u.s. and venezuela's neighbors recognize him as the legitimate leader quite a promise to relive the door up form a transitional government and organize free elections but his powers were limited as mature amain in control of the military and the judiciary. let's bring in our guests pulled open is an analyst an electoral system specialist at venezuela analysis dot com he joins us from merida in venezuela and new york we have venison newman founder and c.e.o. of the consultancy asymmetrical she recently resigned as the official representative for one gado to the united kingdom and ireland and joining us from washington d.c. eric phones with vice president at the council of the americas and former senior advisor to white house special envoy for the americas the old let's begin in venezuela with paul dobson is one as well the no one party states. not at all

a run not at all i think looking at the initial results of yesterday's elections we can see that the ruling party and their allies are 8 part which will say back to their candidates of he won a majority national assembly but there are also important representations for the opposition and one bloc of the opposition won 18 percent of the vote another block won 4 percent of the vote and even the left wing critics of the government the communist party won 3 percent so then that i was stunned to read representation in the new national assembly which will start its ruling on january 1st but will it have any real teeth what i was with every parliament in the world there is a majority party there is a majority voice which would awfully impose its agenda on the on the parliament this is how democracy works and we will expect that the ruling party will it will pass the majority of the laws that it would wish to present to the national

assembly but there will be opposition voices within that parliament how effective that will be or not would have been a lot on the capacity of the parliamentary legislators who have been elected. norman in new york is quite a rosy picture pulled up since painting that i think i don't think i'm going to. no i don't agree with him at all. absolutely not i mean this was 1st of all the middle regime is illegitimate whatever it does is illegitimate it has you know it has 1st of all it has. the mother was not supposed to be in power because he had a farcical election in 2018 the entire creation of basic kwang by though stems out of the legitimate national assembly that that got sworn that won the election in 2015 so everything that they would oh does is illegitimate period this meant no constitutional guarantees we have no no proper international observation they had they call they made co-opted the insignias of the main opposition parties they

paid for the so-called opposition they had no free air time they blocked communications and they threatened people with food i think if you don't vote you don't eat any election where you have a party that says threatens you with starvation without voting for the regime is is i'm tired democratic is using food is actually part of one of the complaints of crimes against humanity is using food as a political weapon so in this election they committed a crime against humanity in this so-called election and that's really all you need to know and the participation was run by threats of starvation was absolutely reasonable it's around 20 percent around 20 percent perhaps even though the poll was a little unfair to you by saying you painted a rosy picture there but you were telling us what was going on how it hurt the knesset pains quite a different pitches any part of that you do agree with. well the let let's just

clarify the participation according to the data released by the independent national electoral count for 31 percent. there are a host of international independent international observers in the country who are very who are verifying the electoral process they will be admitting a report within the next 48 hours on their conclusion so i think the election in itself doesn't meet international requirements of crumbs parents see one of their element which moneta points out with his iranian is that all of the candidates with him probably a 2nd of the communist party candidates but one of the opposition candidates had 3 at a time or national t.v. on private and public media and very were different then the proposal to the country ok there were 107 parties running so i think we have to be very careful when we look at this election and we shouldn't be basing base our conclusions on preform prejudices or political analysis trying to distort it to defame personal

political agenda but there was food was used as a weapon in this election you can't deny that some of the government spokesmen did indeed point out that there was either a link yes and this is also you have to be looked at this has to be investigated of his of course not nor right in any sort of functioning democracy without a doubt. in new york or in washington d.c. eric phones where the u.s. made a big deal of backing wide. alarm bells must be ringing surely. well in some ways yes in some ways no i mean this was a completely pre-determined result i mean we could've said what the result would have been 3 months ago or so the european union refused even to send a delegation to observe because they said that even the basic elements of free and fair elections could not be met and this was months ago so this so-called election yesterday met no standards of legitimacy and because of that there was massive abstention across the country the united states knew that intice

a paid it expected it so from that perspective it was a rather ho hum result in the context though going forward it does consolidate them of their oath dictatorship it does remove the last vestige of venezuela's once vibrant if imperfect democracy it does take away the last public space for legitimate opposition voices to be raised in a peaceful manner so going forward it's going to be more complicated in venezuela no question about it and the question will be how does the united states and the international community respond or now faced with a consolidated dictatorship and will that change policies going forward or will there still be an effort to try to make some sort of accommodation i think that's a real question that's going to have to be asked the incoming administration to the u.s. joe biden has got a challenge on his hands with iran with china with russia. i mean how far up the agenda is venezuela going to get the u.s. it's

a really good question that you're asking emraan because look any new administration in the u.s. is going to be faced with a wide variety of challenges in the binah ministration coming and it's going to be faced with an even greater set of challenges than normal because they're simply not receiving the same level of cooperation from the outgoing trump administration in terms of transition in terms of building a smooth process to continue looking at some rather complicated issues going forward and you mentioned several down this whale it is however the worst human. tarion crisis in the modern history of the western hemisphere over 20 percent of venezuela's population is now outside of the country as refugees this is a situation that can't be ignored the question will be you know is there a policy that can really help address some of these issues and that's what people have struggled to find and it will be incumbent i think on the incoming administration to really work to try to find those solutions i would say however

that washington is driven often by a crisis and therefore if something happens and we're not hoping or predicting or wanting this to occur or might have some some crisis occurs in the venezuelan context that would push the issue up the agenda in washington now if you were advising the special envoy for the americas the white house special envoy to the americas eric what would you be telling him right now. well i would be telling him couple things the 1st is the humanitarian crisis has to be addressed by the international community it's not our fault but it is our problem because this is affecting neighbors it's affecting the people of venezuela so we have to do better in terms of addressing humanitarian crisis number one number 2 we have to continue to work with the international community this is not a u.s. issue this is a venezuelan issue and we have to make sure that those that that perspective is maintained by the international community the allies the friends certainly the

democracies in the western hemisphere but then i also think that the work that the organization of american states oas has done is very important very profound showing the venezuela has the the de facto government regime has and is committed crimes against humanity against its own citizens that process really has to be worked at the international criminal court in the hague that process is going forward but it is taking a long time and my hope would be that for example that the united states could help encourage a more rapid process along those lines sanctions i believe will be continued against individuals in venezuela and of course then the question is is there a negotiation process in the future i guess you have to ask the question is within the goetia process do any good with their regime actually be willing to negotiate anything in particular and that's something that i think that the incoming administration in the united states will also have to decide. if you had any advice for the incoming administration what would it be and would you like them to push

venezuela writes itself. yes absolutely they would i mean i know that option for the incoming biden administration national merit is not top of the agenda however venezuela is at the top of that i'm american agenda because of the crises as eric was saying it isn't because it's the biggest humanitarian crisis it also has 2 issues one of the main supports for my google you know touches upon 2 issues that are high on the agenda for the biden administration which is china and russia we can expect biden to take a much stronger line against russia. than the trumpet administration did and china continues to be very high on the agenda if you read any of the white papers of many of the incoming people from the administration they're all aligned and concerned about chinese influence in the western hemisphere i'm not you know i don't think that necessarily everything is the fairest but it is certainly an influence point that we have seen that we have seen in him and us whether that china continues the

continued support helps keep mother there more broadly though that the russia issue russia has very long term plans to stay in venice well and to really dominate and shown it into another cuba that what does pose very strategic threats against the united states i believe that a lot of the incoming people in the biden administration get that their number of issues that i think the opportunity to to work more collaboratively with the with the european union presents an opportunity for the for the by the mid ministration and they can also they need to also go back to pushing things like anti-corruption and integrity i personally would very much like to see them pursue a very aggressive and very coherent. asset recovery program a lot of what has happened with why my google it remains in power and why it's people who supposed to you know keep him there is because of the illicit financial flows from going as well other than russia it is one of the biggest kept talking cities in history and all of that money that has flowed out has flowed through

other political. parties to foreign banks to foreign countries and there is no surprise that those countries have been corrupted into supporting them and they need to keep my doodle there because it is basically a washing machine for illicit financial flows so by tall getting that more broadly than just the sanctions were really cutting off those channels as a way to disincentive was the increased support from other rudolph and while that much is talked about on this list really we are never going to come to i want to come to pull dobson on this if the united states and its allies play hardball with venezuela that plays in to the door his hands right he can just say well look the americans meddling once again in south america 1st without a doubt without a doubt one of the major policy line which helped the ruling party in minutes well are we in yesterday's elections even find the us blockade against the country the us blockade their government have been ruling have been have been running on that

line for months on end trying to explain away all of the problems in the country and put the blame exclusively at the door of the blockade when we look at the problems in the country often we can't talk about them without mentioning the blockade the blockade is completely illegal criminal under international law and also has been described as collective punishment but we also have to look at other internal factors which is something which the ruling party is not doing in venezuela corruption and mismanagement brain drain and everything else but these us policy under the trumpet ministration certainly gave a very easy scapegoat to the matter of government in terms of explaining away the on going to go economic problems in the country but now we've got a challenge on his hands of he has consolidated power which he has done he's got a real challenge on his hands in order to be able to deliver for the venezuelan people and you know if they're all functioning the very the resists blockading simply won't be able to do it we'll. with or without a doubt without a doubt one of the major lessons from yesterday to election is that there is cross

party disillusionment with political leadership both in terms of the heaviest of forces but also the opposition forces and that really has a lot to do with the fact that people are looking for solutions people are well aware of the problems people are well aware of the causes of the problems in venezuela they must consciousness about the illegal criminal brocade which is coming out of washington and the people now understand a lot of that want solutions and they're looking for solutions from any party any group in which to which we will promise them to them and it's really about time that we start seeing things things change here on the ground and the quality of life improved for ordinary venezuelans see shaking at the. yes i just wanted to add one comment i want to be clear that what i was advocating was not actually the you know more sanctions or more of the blockade is as old obstinate as labeling it what i'm talking about is getting back the assets that were stolen the things that belonged to the venezuelan people the mismanagement of the money that flowed out through corruption through illicit financial flows so i'm not saying wait

a strangulation but we know that at least 302450 1000000000 dollars has been stolen from the venezuelan people that should be found and that you can incentivize banks by giving them sort of a certain percentage of like almost a finder's fee and put it into a boss kit that becomes a trust becomes the basis of a future sovereign wealth funds and give everybody who collaborate in giving back what was stolen from the venezuelan people back to the future prosperity of venezuela a stake in the future prosperity for all solutions that can be found and i think that the illicit financial flows network is a very good way to do it i'm not talking about stopping the money to develop some people quite the opposite i'm saying what was stolen should be restored i'm talking about addressing the kleptocracy so in terms that is a solution and there are many other solutions that can be proposed i do agree that we do need. you know a coalition that is also more representative and opposition that looks like the

people it purports to represent but it's what is a is a rainbow or the real running because they are not always but i would like to make rather guess as well eric phones with in d.c. look sanctions are always not a great tool for governments as often they often backfire as in the case of iran for example in the maxim press or policy the us has held that is any of what vanessa is saying makes sense to you is a good strategy. oh absolutely i mean hundreds of billions of dollars have been stolen by the regime through illicit sales of oil which is the patrimony of the country through outright theft through money laundering but those by definition those assets loads are devilishly difficult to track down there and that's not to say that the international community hasn't been looking at those for a long time but i want to take you back to one other point and that is the issue of sanctions ideally sanctions are not just to you'd be used to punish they're also to be used to provide leverage to create conditions that the people in power will find

difficult to sustain and therefore want to negotiate a peaceful resolution to a political crisis there is no blockade on the country items are allowed in items are allowed out a blockade is not something that the united states and pursued it has pursued sanctions on individuals and of those core of course sanctions the energy sector as well and the individuals have been sanctioned for a fast and that's what we're saying but also for things like drug trafficking also for things like human rights abuses things like that that the entire human and international community is behind the other thing i think we have to mention is that the united states explicitly allows and encourages humanitarian assistance into venezuela and it's madeira himself who refuses to accept it 2 years ago the international community try to get humanitarian assistance into the country and when there are deployed thoughts on the border of colombia and brazil to literally kill people to make sure that humanitarian assistance did not come into the country

and that was really looked because on the issue there if he would allow in humanitarian assistance from independent bodies like the red cross then in fact that would be something that would help the people mentally. you're shaking your head almost everything eric phones us just said. what i think. with that with all due respect i think a little more attention if we paid to what's actually happening in venezuela humanitarian aid has arrived has arrived many times over the last 2 years agone come from washington no but there are other instances in the global community which provide humanitarian aid to many neighbor for the people in washington it is hard to imagine that there are other powers in the world but yes they do exist and they house sentiment and inane red cross humanitarian aid chinese humanitarian aid latin american humanitarian aid even from the vatican they sent humanitarian aid ok so this is happening the government are not blocking this and the other point i want

to take issue with is the the light the the light that the u.s. is allowing things to come in and out of venezuela only a few months ago the u.s. east some oil tank this bring in fuel to venezuela they took this oil and then they sold it and that money i presume is in the federal reserve but it doesn't know where i'm going to swallow so the u.s. is not allowing things to come in and out of venezuela there is have been a shortage of the fuel in venezuela which i cannot repeat how something to do with mismanagement of the industry corruption brain drain a whole other range of of issues principally principally because of the blockade because the us is seizing fuel tankers bringing fuel to minutes way that pulled into fuel and i'm going to put it i'm not running. from iraq and iran is undecided you are and i a few are allowed in a few are allowed in and then subsequently us east but they that's not of it as well an issue that's actually america in iraq that's a different that's all but those tankers were leaked it was it was it was you know

if you look at water by venezuela to distribute across the country for its population and the u.s. did not allow this you want to write another country this is a fact eric what do you think there has been sanction that's correct the energy sector has been function but under international sanctions but there is a blockade on the country crude and medicine and humanitarian assistance and other things are allowed into the country the process. well here is the collapse of governance coming from caracas the collapse of the economy instituted by maduro and the folks around him and the theft of the national patrimony that has been conducted for almost 20 years by the government this is the real problem the international community is trying to find ways to address that in a way that's consistent with democratic practices and that goes for the most good for the most venezuelan people who at the end of the day are the real people who are the losers in this entire political battle i want to thank all our guests pulled. the nesa newman and eric fons with and i want to thank you too for watching

you can see the program again any site by visiting our website so does their adults column and for further discussion go to our facebook page at facebook dot com forward slash a.j. inside story and you can also join the conversation on twitter we are at a.j. inside story for me iraq and the whole team here in life and. i. 2020 year of lock downs and social distancing he can't reach across the screen and give someone a alleyway explores one of the global pandemics biggest side effects loneliness

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