president assad of syria. rex tillerson spent nearly two hours talking in moscow about last week's syrian chemical attack with president putin and his foreign minister. borussia dortmund have played their delayed champions league game against monaco. it was postponed for 2h hours after the german team's bus was hit by debris from three explosive devices. police have detained a man with islamist links. a state of emergency has been declared in some parts of new zealand, as the country braces for tropical storm cookjust days after cyclone debbie. it could be the worst storm in 50 years. hundreds of schools are shut and numerous flights cancelled. now on bbc news, it's time for hardtalk. the country with the biggest oil reserves in the world

is in economic meltdown. venezuelans queue for hours for bread. the sick can't get the medicines they need. violent crime is thriving in the chaos. caracas is now the world's most dangerous capital. hugo chavez's socialist revolution has lost its charismatic leader, but not yet its grip on power. opposition to chavez's successor, nicolas maduro, is mobilising. the national assembly is at war with the government. venezuela is on the brink of a terrifying descent into darkness. can anyone pull it back from the brink? foreign journalists are rarely welcome in venezuela,

so we charter a small plane to the country's caribbean island of margarita, where overseas visitors can still slip in with little fuss. this used to be a buzzing, prospering tourist town. now, the flow of people, money and jobs has dried up. many local businesses have closed down. more are likely to follow. the beaches have not lost their allure, but venezuela has. a broken economy, inflation spiralling beyond 1,000%, and violent crime have tainted even these shores. this has to be one of the most beautiful beaches i have ever seen. but, even a decade ago, it would have been packed with tourists from europe, latin america, and the united states as well.

but today, you can see, there is barely a soul here. i have this little piece of paradise all to myself. for you, it means there is nothing to do. i am alone here. what do you do all day? do you read a book? yes, i read a book, and try to... ..walk around. why do you think there is nobody here? i think the economy is one of the big problems here. but it is going to change, ithink, also. from margarita, we head to caracas, home to 5 million people, the epicentre of venezuela's economic meltdown. first appearances can be deceptive. vast oil wealth, even though mostly squandered, has created a veneer of normality.

but, beneath the surface, the prolonged slump in oil prices means the government is now drowning in debt, without the money to import basic consumer supplies. every day, tens of thousands of caracas resident spent all day in a desperate search for food. bread is almost impossible to find. most bakeries have shut, as wheat imports have dried up. nappies, baby milk, a whole shopping list of essentials supposedly subsidised by the government, to make them affordable, are missing from supermarket shelves. on the black market, they cost more than the average monthly wage. millions of venezuelans are queueing, not working. caracas is encircled by sprawling slums, barrios, which cling to the hills. this one is home to a couple of hundred thousand people,

hit hard by the shortages and rampant inflation. i am in one of thejeeps which specialises in transporting people up and down the mountain, and the principle here in the slum is pretty straightforward. the higher up the hill you live, well, the poorer you are. the irony here in caracas is that the poor have some of the best views, and much of the housing here really isn't too bad. hugo chavez poured an awful lot of money into the slums like this. but the problem for people living here right now is simply making enough money to eat. leo's family have three daughters. both of them work, but are still

struggling to survive. give me the reality of life today, living here. you talk about despair, leo, but are you also angry? you have a picture of hugo chavez and nicolas maduro here in the house. do you still believe in the revolution? thanks to the highest inflation rate in the world,

the value of the bolivar has collapsed. the us dollar is king. venezuela has three exchange rates. the strictest, official one is ten bolivares to the dollar. but out on the street, the blackmarket rate is 4,000 to one greenback, a reality that fuels inequality and crime. buenos tardes, carlos. i need to change money. thank you for coming. ok, so what have we got. 500 us dollars generates a mini mountain of boliva res. in caracas, kidnapping has become an epidemic. the victims no longer have to be rich. theyjust need a family capable

of scraping together a couple of thousand dollars. i made contact with the kidnap gang, who led me deep into their barrio. what followed was one of the more uncomfortable encounters of my life. when you take someone, what do you do with them? where do you take them, and how do you hold them? you mean, if the family cannot pay, or will not pay, you will kill them? so is it not possible

for you to make a good life for yourselves in the legal world? stephen, this is hugo. i met hugo chavez in washington, seven years ago. chavez was hated in washington for his left—wing populism, but has appeal to venezuela's poor was real. many believed in his

socialist revolution. high oil prices allowed him to spend many billions on subsidies and social programmes. he won elections, and even beat off an attempted coup. in 2013, he died. then the oil price started to tumble, a double whammy which was disastrous for the chavismo movement. his successor, nicolas maduro, a former bus driver, lacks charisma, and is blamed for disastrous economic management. the opposition won a decisive victory in the last national assembly elections. maduro‘s government recently responded with draconian new rules requiring all opposition parties to register thousands of supporters to be afforded legal status.

if the intention was to strangle dissent, it has backfired. these people have been lining up for hours in order to register their support for one of the opposition political parties, and it is quite clear, talking to them, that however long it takes, they will stay. they are determined to have their voices heard. why don't they let us have elections? you think... they just put obstacles, and more obstacles, and more obstacles. that's why we had to do all of this before. and many people who are here are poor as well. and i wasn't poor, but now i am poor. but venezuela's opposition is far from united. there is a multitude of competing parties, egos, and agendas, and an age—old problem. can parties rooted in the upper and middle classes win over the poor? the biggest threat to chavismo right now doesn't come from the combination of long—standing political opponents, the alienation

of core supporters. we travel deep into the countryside, to hearfrom farmers impoverished by a collapsed economy. state—controlled crop prices have lagged way behind inflation, so farmers have taken to a subsistence, hand—to—mouth existence. this is the cocoa bean. it needs to be dried, it needs to be prepared, but this is your basic ingredient for chocolate. rodolfo, given the state of the economy here, out in the countryside, do you see any future

here for you and your family? were you a chavez supporter in the old days, and how do you feel about president maduro, today? in the last two weeks, venezuela has been rocked by a series of anti—government demonstrations, and sporadic, violent clashes between protesters and police.

the spark was the government's short—lived decision to abolish the powers of the opposition—dominated national assembly. that decision was reversed, but new anger was stirred when one of the most prominent opposition leaders, henrique capriles, was banned from politics. the opposition is torn — undecided whether resistance to maduro‘s government should be focused in the political arena or on the streets. they learned a painful lesson back in 2014. then, the radicals, led by this man, leopoldo lopez, took to the streets demanding the immediate exit of maduro. the violence that followed killed more than a0.

lopez was convicted of incitement and sentenced to 14 years in prison. he is venezuela's highest profile political prisoner. i head to the ramo verde military prison, with lopez's mother. she tirelessly campaigns for her son's release. do you think the people of venezuela really care about leopoldo and his situation? that's a really interesting question. when you have a country that has no food, has the highest inflation in the whole continent, it has 28,000 people who die every year because of delinquency, to care about a political prisoner is difficult. but, leopoldo is on their minds.

the government would say that leopoldo lopez is in prison because he refused to play the political game. he refused to accept that there is a democratic process and he demanded change through street and popular action and that's why in the end a court of law convicted him of incitement, because he was not being constitutional, he was trying to subvert venezuela's political system. he was calling for people to go to the streets to protest. that's a constitutional right in venezuela. i just wonder whether you think he was going too far? no, i don't think so. leopoldo has never been a radical. leopoldo is a strong and charismatic leader. people follow him. and that's what he was doing, going to the streets, but never in a radical or violent way.

now, we are about 300 metres away from leopoldo‘s cell. can you communicate with him from here? well, maybe i will try to say hello. have you done that before? yes, i have. he said, hello, how are you? and he is shouting very strong. very strongly. but you hear the whistles? the guards are trying to drown out the voice. exactly. i don't know if you can hear all of this, but his voice, leopoldo lopez's voice, is coming across very clearly. it's a 300 metre distance from the prison tower, where he is being held. but we can hear his voice so strong and so clear. for you, this must be quite moving, quite emotional to hear your son's voice like that? for us, having such a limited

opportunity, having our voice out internationally and to have you here and you can see and feel, it's very important. it's worth taking the message out and you, as a witness of his whole confinement. where do you find your strength from? from him. when you listen to those calls, to those messages and, um, and we're out here. well, this is what we have to do. we have to put the best, our minds, experience, emotions, physical strength, to go on with this. ajeep hasjust come out of the prison. maybe they will take your camera. they want to talk to us. this was the moment our filming in venezuela came to an abrupt end. as the military police

approached us from the prison, we attempted to leave. we managed to conceal the camera in our car, but our cover was blown. within hours, state media accused hardtalk of illegally entering the country and filming in a prohibited area. producer—director ian 0'reilly was detained and interrogated for 2h hours before being deported. i slipped out of the country the next day. venezuela's socialist revolution is on the ropes. the authorities don't want to face questions from foreign journalists, but there can be no escaping the scale of the mess they're in. back at the bbc, in london,

i meet temir porras, a former close adviser to both chavez and maduro. would it be fair to say that the lifeblood of the venezuelan socialist revolution really drained away with the death of hugo chavez? definitely the passing of president hugo chavez created a great challenge for socialism. not only in venezuela, also in the region. are you personally still a believer in chavismo? oh, yes, absolutely. how can you be, when you look at the state of your country today? chavismo has been mostly been a success. for the last three years the country has been hit by both a terrible economic crisis and a political

crisis and i believe that decision—makers today from the government and opposition are responsible for the situation of the country. but what i do not agree with is this view that the chavismo is a failure, that the left is not viable in latin america and we should all espouse conservative, free—market oriented policies. you worked as a senior adviser to chavez and for a short while an adviser to maduro. you are in a better place than almost anybody to explain to me how come venezuela is steadily going bust when you have had hundreds of billions of dollars in oil revenues? i was the head of the sovereign fund for a very short period of time and i was, you know, sent out of government. it was a very short period of time. but can you answer me the question, because a lot of venezuelans think the answer to my question is corruption. total mismanagement of the economy.

absolutely failed governance. 0k, one thing, first. where has the money gone? come on. venezuela experienced economic growth for most of the chavista period and for most of president chavez's cycle. the money went for the first time in venezuela's history, the venezuelan people, through the political system, got control over oil and that was heavily invested in education and healthcare, in housing. the hospitals can't even afford medicines today. but you know as well as me, you don't ignore it, one thing is what you can do, what you have invested already in the country, but you need a flow to sustain that model. the country has gone again through a very, very difficult economic crisis and doesn't have the means to keep sustaining that great deal

of social advancement. what you are saying is all of the money spent during the chavista years was spent in a way that wasn't building a sustaining economy? that's not what i'm saying. i'm saying that when you have an external shock, like my country suffered, you need to adapt your policy. when the oil price was at $100, you don't need exactly the same policies as today. that's what has happened. things in the economic policy haven't changed. that's strangling the venezuelan economy. venezuela should be the richest country in latin america. instead it is the most chaotic, the most gratuitously mismanaged. its people have been wearied by the struggle to survive and it's hard to see where salvation is coming from. hello, good morning.

it looks like it will be on the cool side for the easter weekend. more on that in a moment. we've introduced cooler air at the moment behind this very weak weather front that moved down across the country. this north—westerly airflow. particularly chilly first thing in eastern scotland and eastern england, with the cloud more broken. temperatures in the countryside briefly not far from freezing. at least we have early sunshine through lincolnshire, east anglia and the south—east. the tendency through the day is to increase the cloud from the west. that's already happening in south—west england, across wales and in the north—west cloud is thick enough for some light rain or drizzle, chiefly over the hills. again, fine to the east of the pennines. as it will be in eastern scotland, with sunshine. western scotland a bit dull and damp. not much sunshine for northern ireland too. through the day it clouds over across the eastern side of england and scotland. at the same time in the afternoon we open up a gap in the cloud

across south wales, south—west england and that should push into the south—east. here we have the best of the sunshine in the afternoon and the highest temperatures, but still only 13—111. further north, a lot of cloud, a lot of places dry. around the western hills primarily we get the damp weather. over the easter weekend temperatures disappointing for the time of year. a rather cool feel. warm when the sun is out, but on the whole there will be a lot of cloud. probably not much rain around. just a bit a nuisance now and again. these weather systems coming into the uk for good friday are going to be very much on the weak side. but across england and wales we will see a lot of cloud. there will be some pockets of light rain or drizzle here and there. no great amounts. but a bit of a damp picture, especially for south wales and south—west england. to the north of northern england, scotland and northern ireland, something a bit brighter, some sunshine, but also showers. a strong wind will make it feel chilly in scotland. maybe sneaking a 16 in the south—east if we are very lucky. those weather systems pull

away and we are back into the cooler north—westerly airflow. so we fluctuate almost from one day to the next over the easter weekend. and saturday, easter saturday, much drier and brighter. most places will have a fine day. a little sunshine at times, not doing an awful lot for temperatures. there could be a few showers in those stronger winds across the north of scotland. then we are back into the fluctuation again for easter day. more weather fronts arriving across the uk. mainly across the north. higher pressure in the south. those weather fronts again are fairly weak. most of the rain over the hills, across scotland, northern ireland and northern england. to the south, it should be dry and brighter. 15 perhaps in london, nine in glasgow. this is bbc news. i'm james mendez. the headlines: russia and america fail to resolve their differences over the syrian chemical attack and president assad's future. donald trump says relations with moscow may be at an all—time low. it could be the biggest in 50 years — new zealand braces itself for another powerful storm,

just a week after cyclone debbie. borussia dortmund play their big european match after a 24—hour delay. german police say a man with islamist links has been detained over the attack on the team bus. and i'm aaron heslehurst. day of reckoning on wall street — can america's banking giants back their sky—high share prices with sky—high profits? plus, scooter boys beware. why your take—away food could soon be arriving by robot.