america's secretary of state, mike pompeo, has paid a brief visit to iraq to reassure it of us support. after talks with the prime minister, mr pompeo said he didn't want iraq to be beholden to its neighbour — iran. there's growing tension between washington and teheran. venezuela's supreme court has ordered the prosecution of six leading opposition lawmakers for treason. the court said the prosecutor—general should open criminal cases against the mp5. although the group does not include the current president of the country's national assembly — juan guaido. it follows an uprising last week. an 18—year—old student has died and at least eight people have been injured in a school shooting in colorado. police have arrested two pupils from the school, which is just about five miles from columbine — scene of one of america's deadliest school shootings, 20 years ago.

it is about half past four in the morning. you're up—to—date with the headlines. now on bbc news, it's hardtalk with stephen sackur. welcome to hardtalk. i'm at stephen sackur. a week ago, venezuela's opposition was confident that the socialist regime led by nicolas maduro was in its death throes. well, they — and their allies in the trump administration — were wrong. maduro still occupies the presidential palace, even if opposition leader juan guaido continues to say the top job is rightfully his. my my guest is one ofjuan guaido‘s diplomatic representatives, vanessa —— vanessa neumann. have the missteps and miscalculations of the opposition made a regime change less likely?

va nessa vanessa neumann in washington, dc. welcome to hardtalk. thank you for having me on. it has been a week of drama and turbulence in venezuela, which the whole world has been watching, but would you accept it has left juan watching, but would you accept it has leftjuan guaido and you in the opposition in a weaker position? well, that's up the debate, obviously. because i'm not sure about the weak opposition, because what has come out as we have had more unity in the international arena. the stronger statements by the group of lima, which is 13 western hemisphere countries, not including the united states, and

even the international contact group is aligning more with the sharper edge of lima. and it has forced more countries to basically bigger side and generally decide they have picked as ours. it has also revealed rifts. we now know that the closest circle around nicolas maduro has actively been negotiating his exit. so while it did not remove him from power and get him on a peaceful transition on an aeroplane out as we would have liked, it has, actually, revealed, you know, how the regime clings to power and has actually force people to unify behind us. but there is a competence and credibility question, surely, hanging over one guaido and his most senior advisors. and after all of the drama and we thought that mr guaido may literally be marching to the presidential palace in aden didn't happen, he said this to the washington post "we have recognised

oui’ washington post "we have recognised our mistakes, what we didn't do and what we did too much of". as an advisor of his, what were those mistakes? well, first of all, first of all aml one of 26 ambassadors. so express my opinion when i'm asked for it. so am not a permanent advisor. usually the chain of command flows the other way. i think you need to understand that the regime is basically a criminal organisation. and my view is that what was not properly taken into account was the extent of the criminality that this military is earning a $.8 billion, is our estimate, from illicit trade every year. so they are loath to get rid of that. while the appeal is to come and support the constitution, come and support the constitution, come and support the constitution, come and support jays, come and support the constitution, come and supportjays, come and support tamir rice, come to us, is very appealing, they did not take proper account of the financial motivation to stay put. we will talk about the

machinations inside the regime, but i'm thinking about the relationship at the moment between guaido and the ordinary people of venezuela, because trust and credibility are very valuable assets and if you lose them it's very hard to get them back and here are the words of a respected venezuelan political a nalyst, respected venezuelan political analyst, carlos romero, who said after these events, "these events have shaken venezuelan politics and people are now confused, they are wounded, and unmotivated". and that isa wounded, and unmotivated". and that is a big problem for you. well, i think it is a very big problem, yes. because people, to get out onto the street is very difficult for venezuelans. the street is very difficult for venezuela ns. the reality street is very difficult for venezuelans. the reality is you wake up venezuelans. the reality is you wake up in the morning without running water, without electricity, sometimes, and then with your baby crying, because you don't have enough food to eat. so for guaido to have succeeded in unifying people, get them out onto the street and

inspire them was very, very big and significant... crosstalk. that is precisely my point. you have to convince people it is worth it, with all of the risks, literally risk to life and limb to go out on the streets to back this man who says he is writing a wave all the way to the presidential palace. it turns out he gravely miscalculated. those people are not going to go out for him again, and we've seen the size of the crowds in recent days, they are much smaller. yes, u nfortu nately they are much smaller. yes, unfortunately that's not surprising. that is the reality, that people will now, if they there is no exit from inside, that whatever they do, that this won't change, you are right, the streets will go quiet. and that is actually one of the regime's goals. so, unfortunately, yes. let's talk about exactly what miscalculations were made about what was happening inside the maduro

inner circle. the united states administration says it had been talking for weeks to senior figures, including the defence minister, the chief of the supreme court, the head of the presidential guard, those three were seen to be turncoats who we re three were seen to be turncoats who were prepared to turn on maduro. it turned out that wasn't entirely right, was it? well, there are a number of things, and let me give you a little bit of the inside baseball here. the insider analysis. first of all, those are not the only ones inside the regime that had been negotiating. and if fact there are many others, not to be named on our, but there are several, there are many. so they have been sort of turncoats in that they have been negotiating. people close to maduro have been negotiating an exit tensai was there two years ago on ——in may 2017. they started negotiating their exit. that didn't work out either. the fact that there is ongoing

negotiations from many people is now well known. what has happened, i think, also... also the release of lopez is a complicated phenomenon. on the one hand it shows that sabine, which is a very hard—core intelligence service that tortures people, the fact that they released him really speaks within the regime. however, the military is not a fan of lopez, because they tortured him for three and a half years in a military prison. so there might have been some question as to whether if he is outward the deals of amnesty really apply? that might have been cause for concern. that is very interesting about what you have said about the deals for amnesty. i understand did that the offer, when the americans and people around maduro were having their talks, covert or otherwise with the inner circle, the deal was that if you

turn on maduro, we guarantee that you will keep your top jobs in the military and the security services andindeed military and the security services and indeed the supreme court as well, i.e. you will remain in position, despite the fact that we have been describing us of the criminal gang running venezuela we are prepared to let you keep your jobs. how do you think ordinary venezuelans would react to that deal? i think ordinary venezuelans really wa nt deal? i think ordinary venezuelans really want out from maduro and they understand that we need to keep territorial control and we need to keep peace. there is a real territorial control issue in venezuela, not just territorial control issue in venezuela, notjust because of the military, and you need the military in place, but you also have the paramilitary groups coming have russians come you have gibbons, all these people will need to be those from the venezuelan territory to regain our sovereign tree and the military has a role to play another. you appear to alluding to leopoldo lopez's role. of those who do not

know, he has been a long time hard time radical leader of the opposition 23. he was imprisoned after public protest lead to protest in 2014. it is then been under house arrest. as you say, he was dramatically released onto the streets during the height of last week off events. now, lopez chose to then be very high—profile. he was speaking out, he was on the streets protesting. many in the opposition have said, you know, he probably misplayed that because there is so much mistrust of him inside the maduro regime that it hardens their stand. do you agree? it is hard to know. they have no way of knowing what goes on inside the mind of a criminal drug trafficking military commander who's torturing my people. i can't relate to that mindset. what ican i can't relate to that mindset. what i can see is that his release was surprising. if there had been a script that was being followed, if

there had been an agreement of a step—by—step, his release was, if it was surprising to me and others, i wonder whether that was surprising to them and that played a role. but i cannot say that it did, because they don't know exactly what went on on the other side. itjust gets to the facts, and they know this from my own reporting in venezuela over the years, that the opposition has been fragmented and divided for yea rs. been fragmented and divided for years. and yes, there is a leopoldo lopez, and here in many ways is the juan guaido mentor to, but there are many others. you can think of so many others. you can think of so many others. you can think of so many others who do not appear to have been involved in the events of the last week and who appear to have been sidelined since guaido declared himself as the interim president. the opposition is still deeply divided. no, let me back to differ with that. ollio bottas is the ambassador to the lima group. he is not at all sidelined. he is in an

extremely powerful position of the guaido administration. actively so. he wasjust guaido administration. actively so. he was just not under house arrest. the only one was leopoldo lopez. not enrico kapri les, who has gone quiet in the past couple of years. that is not the issue. so i'd disagree with you on that. what is an issue, however, is, as i said, the military tortured leopoldo lopez for three and a half years in a military prison. so, yeah, they can't really expect that he is going to be very positively disposed to them. not only did they talk to him for three and a half years, when they went to house arrest they rearrested him and tortured him for another three days, where he lost some of his eyesight, so... where he lost some of his eyesight, so...i where he lost some of his eyesight, so... iwant where he lost some of his eyesight, so... i want tojust move where he lost some of his eyesight, so... i want to just move another important part of the story. since

the failure of the guaido pusher power last week, he has indicated that he would be open to the option of the us using some sort of military intervention. in mike pompeo, the us secretary of state, has that ultimately a set of options may have to be taken that could involve the use of the us military. is that your official position now asa is that your official position now as a movement that you invite, that you believe, inevitably, there will be some sort of us military intervention? first of all, the term intervention? first of all, the term intervention is something we take issue with. arguably, we have been intervened, as you well know, because they have seen your visits to venezuela, which are wonderful reporting, we have been intervened by the cubans, the russians, the iranians, it is absolutely invaded. they have invaded our security and into forces... ifjuan guaido it is recognised... with respect, they we re recognised... with respect, they were invited by the government in

caracas. you know it much more than i. caracas. you know it much more than i, the point about talking of us military intervention is that it invites maduro to play the card of railing against the american yankee neo— went to realists who are only after one thing, which is venezuela's resources, i.e. oil. the story is never going to change. quite frankly, nobody listens to maduro anymore. malpas back give he can say whatever he likes. because he isa can say whatever he likes. because he is a criminal. it is a drug cartel. they're going to say whatever keeps them with territorial control and keep them in power. i think, you know... so that's not going to work. what is going to happen and what has been discussed is that they purposely pulled venezuela out of a regional cooperation, mutual defence agreement, the inter— american defence cooperation agreement. i'm not quite sure what it is in

english. that we are looking to get back into that. that would enable oui’ back into that. that would enable our neighbours to come and work with us our neighbours to come and work with us and help us regain our territorial control and regain our sovereignty and not just the territorial control and regain our sovereignty and notjust the united states. you airily dismiss the credibility of maduro's claims on the way the americans are pulling the strings here. but the fact is if you look at who is in the white house dealing with venezuela, that isjohn bolton, one of the leading neocons who has a lwa ys one of the leading neocons who has always favoured aggressive us interventionism full than elliott abrams who we all associate with the support of the sandinistas and anti—communist movements, even by covert operations in the 1980s. and, with the greatest of respect, there are people like you on the scene who, as i understand, you have worked in washington for a long time 18 months. and at times you have

been a consultant working for the us government. so when maduro points to all of these suspicious, in his view, ties to washington's agenda, he does have a point full he can point to them all he wants but we can point to torture, starvation and the exodus of a .4 million people, com pletely the exodus of a .4 million people, completely dwarfing syria. my consultancy, my past work has been specific fully on the asymmetric wa rfa re specific fully on the asymmetric warfare tactics employed by the two vistas. and all the while, the venezuelan people are suffering. they are hungry and many have been forced to leave the country. malaria and other diseases are spreading, hospitals barely operate. these is the reality and you want more sanctions? i want the food on the money to go to the venezuelan people are not the criminal regime. they have stolen between five and 800 lian dollars. the greatest clipped chrissy of all time. it is not about

sanctions. a, and i have never taken a position that i want stronger sanctions. i have never publicly stated that and i don't know where you get that from. i am inviting you to contradict me then. you do not support the tough sanctions that have been imposed recently which many people, including the economist jeffrey sachs, directly tied to the suffering of venezuelan people? good. he is entitled to his position. i beg to differ and many people beg to differ and if you have been tracking venezuelan finances for 20 years you will know that is not the case. what needs to happen is that the money needs to be capped. they cannot continue to fund torture, murder and by capped. they cannot continue to fund torture, murderand by murder capped. they cannot continue to fund torture, murder and by murder i mean paying pelham paramilitary groups to shoot the opposition industry. i am not being theoretical, i am being

specific. the money needs to go to fund the reconstruction of venezuela, the humanitarian aid. don't forget, these guys locked the entry of humanitarian aid and only are now starting to accept it. we worked with the international red cross as we built the channels with a growing coalition of the international community, maduro's forces shot their own starving people for the crime of carrying food to their starving relatives. that is all you need to know. let's talk about donald trump. un people around juan guaido have invested a lot of hope in donald trump and his administration. he spoke iphone to vladimir putin at the end of last week at the end of the phone call he said that latimer putin is not looking at all to get involved in venezuela other than he would like to see something positive happened for the country and i feel the same way. we want some humanitarian aid

in. that does not sound like a donald trump who thinks is playing a role in venezuela. i have said, pompeo has many other academics have said it. so what is going on? i cannot speak for the president of the united states what he is thinking. all i can say is that the open arrival of russian military force, which they admitted, the venezuelan military admitted, maduro admitted and of which we have ample photographs. it is not a question for debate. they say so themselves that they have invited russian military aid. so donald trump or no donald trump or whoever says it, the maduro regime has admitted it. it is a fact. but vanessa neumann my point is that you are a guaido diplomat

and you read the runes and what we haveis and you read the runes and what we have is a president who spoke to vladimir putin who does not want to make this a source of deep confrontation between washington and moscow. we know the russians are committed to propping up the maduro regime and the cubans even more so. the russians and the cubans will not end their support for maduro so how do you contract that? counteract that. we are continually calling the military to come on the side of the constitution. we call upon our friends and allies, the 54 countries who recognise us to come and help and deal with this transnational criminal organisation that is propping up maduro, the maduro regime. we have a number of other options here. if you treat them like the criminal syndicate that they are there other other options.

increasing the financial disincentives to the leadership... i'm sorry are we going back to sanctions? is that what you are talking about? those are not sanctions. it is proceeds of crime and anti— laundering and transnational crime legislation. very different from sanctions. isn't the truth, as we look at the terrible suffering of the venezuelan people, that the only way that we can see out of this, more so after the events of the last week is negotiation. is some sort of dialogue between the maduro regime andjuan dialogue between the maduro regime and juan guaido and all the forces arranged in the opposition. the problem with that is that maduro has not shown any willingness to dialogue. he is the one who said no.

he said no to hosting free and fair elections. it is not us, it is him. that is a nonstarter. there is a conversation to have about when you are when are you getting on the plane out and when can we carry on to restore the country to democracy and prosperity. that is what we want. that is a negotiated solution. the negotiated solution is sir, your plane awaits, where would you like to go? what is your message to the outside world? what we have seen so far in terms of support from the us and europeans and other countries who have recognised guaido, it is not enough. and you need to do more. is that it? we need to do more. we need to continue to treat them as a transnational criminal organisation as there. they are not government. dealing with them diplomatically, you know, that is not how you deal with a drug cartel. you do not send diplomats to talk with them. you

deal with the drug cartel by picking up deal with the drug cartel by picking up the leadership, throwing them in prison, seizing their money, their houses, their boats and you cancel their visas. and that is what you do. it is not a military operation, thatis do. it is not a military operation, that is a law enforcement operation. and that will help us a lot. final brief point. guaido and others last week were saying that maduro's and is about to happen, that he is in his death throes. he is not dead. how long will it take, in your view? it is hard to know. can anyone ever predict it? the fall of the berlin wall was the result of after many negotiations the entire cold war et cetera, it was basically down to one guard who said let them pass. as the trickle of people turned into a rush, the berlin wall was suddenly down. nobody had predicted that. who knows? even the people did not

predict the iranians revolution accurately. when you havejust change it is hard to predict. what we do know is that there is instability within the regime, they are negotiating around that. that much of the mid—level commanders are unhappy. the sabine let go the guy who had been tortured by the regime for 3.5 years. there is instability and we know we will have to wait and see how it shakes out and continue to work with our allies to restore my country to democracy and prosperity and i have absolute faith that it will happen. when it will happen, i have no way of knowing. we have to end but thank you very much for being on harder talk. —— hardtalk.

hello there, good morning. with the benefit of some sunshine yesterday, temperatures reached 17 degrees at heathrow. but for the most part it remains chilly and that's the way it's going to stay through the rest of this week. and there will be some showers or some longer spells of rain. the weather is changing again. you can see how this cloud is sort of curling itself up into a knot. the thickest of the cloud is producing some rain and that is continuing to push its way up from the south—west. still quite chilly though, ahead of that. across some northern parts of scotland there may be a touch of frost. and we've still got some rain elsewhere across scotland, and that's going to be joined by this general wet weather that we've got moving up from the south—west, heading northwards across england and wales. following that, across wales, midlands and southern england, we should actually get some sunshine but the showers developing could be heavy and thundery as well. the wind is turning to more

of a south—westerly, lifting the temperatures, but with an easterly wind and that rain for eastern scotland and the north—east of england, it really is going to be a cold day. temperatures 6—8 degrees i think degrees in many places. not quite so chilly for western scotland because we've got that easterly wind. temperatures may make double figures in northern ireland, but rain is never too far away. a cold day with rain on—and—off across northern england, and perhaps north wales. some heavy, thundery showers heading towards norfolk, through the home counties, and towards the south—west of england. low pressure essentially in charge of our weather. that was that curl in the cloud. the low centre itself is just going to drift slowly eastwards across the uk on thursday. still got a weather front end of the north, producing rain and drizzle but that should be moving away from scotland. sunshine following on behind but still cloudy and damp across northern england. some showers for northern ireland. and some showers across parts of england and wales,

especially in the south—east of england this time. those temperatures — there they are — still disappointing for this time of the year, below average and quite chilly again underneath the cloud and rain in northern england. that low pressure though is going to pull away or take away most of that rain with it as well. we've got low pressure, low pressure, high pressure, high pressure — it's what we call a cull, and when we have that sort of weather pattern you're going to get some showers. there's going to be some sunshine. difficult to say exactly where the showers are going to be. that's where they're looking at moment for friday. and some of those could be on the heavy side once again. but large parts of the uk will still have a dry day. but again, those temperatures are below par — 10—15 degrees fairly typically. however, as we head into the weekend, we've still got some chilly air to begin with, but it is going to be warming up as the weekend goes on and into next week. much more sunshine and temperatures probably getting up to 19 or 20 celsius.

hello, this is the briefing. i'm sally bundock. our top stories: the polls open in south africa in an hour's time, claims of corruption have dominated the campaign. comeback kings — liverpool enjoy one of their greatest nights beating barcelona in the semifinals of the champions league. as the european parliamentary elections approach, we take a look at the rise in popularity of far—right parties. and markets fall for a third day as investors continue to worry that the trump administration will increase tariffs on chinese imports on friday.