absolutely fascinating and entertaining. you might think that's an oxymoron when it comes to a judge and a memoir, but it really is full of very, very interesting stuff. available on amazon.com. >> guest: thank you for saying so. >> host: and i look for to many, many more years of your service on the bench and are being together. thank you so much tragic thank you so much, senator. >> c-span, where history unfold daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by burqas cable-television companies and has brought you today by your cable or satellite provider.

>> beginning everybody. welcome to books and books. the cultural heart of south florida.tu first and foremost have get you to silence your cell phones we don't have any eruptions that would be great. also don't forget to go to our webpage. you can give us your e-mail address. we do it £.60 every month. you can pick up our calendar events on the counter when you're buying yours book this evening. don't forget to visit us at all of our stores. keep an eye out for that. we are happy to have with us this evening vanessa neumann and "blood profits." to introduce our author we have a good friend and colleague please welcome russell. [applause]

>> thank you very much. it's a pleasure to be here and one of the reasons that the nasa asked me to do this was number one because we are partners in a consulting company which does phenomenal consulting and this book is just an example and result of that which she will tell you about. but also ramon is a like-minded individual u.s. exiled now in this country as a former mayor who was chased out, but both of them i'm not venezuela although i ran the daily journal newspaper for many years in venezuela which i bought from manassas grandfather who was of those leading industrialists who came to the country and help build venezuela and put people to work and give it hope and modernize the country.

but these two people are both sort of venezuela exiles and will eventually hopefully go back, knock w on wood and help make venezuela great again. and i think that's the important thing. both of themm are obviously intelligent and a shining example of what venezuela has lost. because if you giving us the benefit of the wisdom instead of in venezuela putting that was to work to make that country had its place and world what should be for country were the largest oil reserves in the world instead of on the brink of bankruptcy. having said that, but then taking with him and as i wanted to introduce ramon because the mayor is a shining example of the future of venezuela.

he will do the actual introduction for the beautiful and talented and incredibly intelligent doctor vanessa. [applause] >> thank you, russ, for your kind words. i will go into if that's okay with you? [speaking spanish] [speaking spanish] [speaking spanish]

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[speaking in spanish] [applause] >> i'm going to switch into english, is that okay? okay. i can switch back. [speaking in spanish] >> sorry, i said i was going to

speak in english. sorry. i was listening to you, i instantly went into spanish. the adventure, trajectory of working on this book has been an unexpected adventure and i was very nervous when it came out because it's deeply personal, it's what i call professional autobiography. i originally we wanted to write this very geeky book, defense department type of language about disrupt the criminal network and deny and disrupt and destroy, the flattening network, dynamics and i said, nobody is going to read this thing. do you want to write about a book that's technical or do you want to write a book -- okay, i will write a book that people will read. andok member of organization of economic cooperation

development,f i was under an advisory group and leader of the groups on countering elicit trade. and their big concern was that all the money starts with consumers and we had elicit trade in pharmaceuticals, tobacco and and luxury goods and industry that would work together and said what we really need to do is to raise attention dto this problem and i said, i think i'veio got a book. you know, have been working for a while. the journey has been as ramon mentioned, and ross was deeply involved, raising awareness of the goldman sachs transactions, the hunger bonds, that was kicking around, i call them the blood bonds and at the time the book was basically into the publisher. that is not in the book but that the maduror. regime volume 2 has

certainly given us a lot of material. how the book storms it and how i got into this, i have a doctorate in philosophy, political pelosi and theories -- philosophy and theories of justice and people lead lives like value, geeky philosophers' terms. live a live with dignity, make money,an and more with your individual values and dignity intact. what i saw in venezuela early on and i started writing about it in '99, the minute chávez got elected, and then as i moved -- i was living in the united kingdom, i was living in london and also in the book, the

guardian newspaper published this deputy editor about the wonders of the revolution of chávez n and how it was this grt come up-ins of american imperil imperialism and wonderful deliberation. and i thought, no it isn't. they are ceasing the means of production and taking everybody's right to lead life with dignity. i called them very angry and told them that i wanted to write ngan editorial in response and i did and i kept at it and i actuallyha ended up bizarrely on tv on news night debating samuel moncada whod was at the time the ambassador of venezuela to the uk. and we had at the time become

personal friends, the venezolana in london. i'm not sure i can name another one and came to engagement parties and dinners and said i don't like your boss, chávez, he said, that's okay, don't worry about it, we are friends. okay, now, ofnd course, he is -- he was the number two in the foreign ministry and is now appointed as ambassador to the un. as i started speaking out the uribe, president uribe got invitation from the white house of colombia to come out and see progress with intrigue -- integration and i got invited and to see reintegration of colombia with guys with big guns and helicopters and snipers with

60 other military and political commanders. i was the only one nonmilitary commander, i was a journalist, i was the only journalist covering how you got these people to put down their weapons and reintegrate into society. the kids with the legs blown off from stepping on land mines because they plant land mines to protect the coca crops and then going to bogotá, they are singing songs, narco corridos howw they are smuggling cocaine with colombia to venezuela with the protection of chávez and this was, before really way out there but it was opening discussed in colombia and i came back to caracas and i said to my brother, i just went to

medellín. why are we talking all the trash and i was really quite that vulgar, i'm afraid, of -- of la farc and then disrupting our own country, so the story started with that and then i started pulling the thread also on the relationship with hezbollah and i flew to lebanon and i said, i want to find out what's the relationship between venezuela and hezbollah and my beg plan was fly, meet hezbollah guys and ask them and that's actually what i did and that actually worked and that's in the book and now if you don't mind, i'm going to read you a little section from that, the reason i want to read from that a little bit is because it was in the news lately and that for political revealed how the obama

administration had all this information that they were getting from a number of people about the venezuelan regime drug trafficking and giving money to hezbollah and the involvement of hezbollah in venezuela and that was a very hard topic when i came back from lebanon and many people working on that and suddenly e-mails didin not get returned because thema administration policy had been, we are going to make a deal with iran on the nuclear deal and the fact that the people negotiating the nuclear deal are also involved in drug trafficking is not something that we want to bring in or meddling with venlz wella.ti the problem isso that's now 30 million of my comepatriots. thosehe profits from drug trafficking are in the bodies of my compatriots.

there's going to be volume two. after making a lot of noise, i got attention of corporations whoo said, hey, you seem to have credibility in the space, we have -- our goods are being smuggled and ironically it was tobacco, oil, big corruption case for 2 billion-dollar case and other issues like that and i traveled to -- the book covered adventures in guatemala, chasing down counterfeit what was counterfeit sporting goods funding islamist groups in panamá and i get to panama and they said, we don't speak spanish, we speak arabic within the colon free trade zone, who are you? look at the time. i think i need to go home. so that adventure is in there.

what i've realized is two things, how global the problem is and it's sport gambling, people worked on the fifa case, sport gambling for chinese triads, tobacco funding al-shabaab and russian covert operations and we -- and the world is so interconnected and whenever you see drugs, you also see weapons and you also see people and i was at the -- at the meeting, the oecd and they said, so the connections between corruption and elicit trade, what is the connection and it was very simple, there's never been a case of elicit trade without corruption. one of the things i became

concerned with, the book was originally titled grievance and originally what we see is free trade grows, so does elicit trade, so grievance greed is you see terrorist groups are increasingly becoming involved in transnational organized crime. they were there. smuggling stuff because you have to buy weapons. the money was there to buy the weapons for the revolution, increasingly the weapons are there to protect the money. and to protect the money and to protect that business, what has happened in venezuela the case of criminal organization. they moved from grievance to greed as motivation. other thing that i examined in the

book and motivated for that title, that working title was that they take your personal grievance and in many cases, i saw it in lebanon, panamá and again you see it in venezuela, they take your grievance of marginalized group, i'm here to liberate you, you angry people, i will represent you politically, vote me in, and athen you vote them in and basically it's the same that we saw before and all they do is they take control over the foreign currency exchange, the means of production and everything else and enrich themselves and they exploit your grievance for their greed, if you don't mind, give me one second. this is where i realize i left my reading glasses behind.

thank you. i might. thank you. let me try, will -- let me try h that. so this is about my landing in -- in -- this is about my landing in baru, meeting the colonel and was supposed to be informing me about the connections between -- between hezbollah. u day after i landed, lee who was my editor at a magazine i was writing for at the time invited me to the christening, they were catholics, maronite founded in lebanon across before the muslims. i had asked -- i talked about how i wanted to speak to somebody, a who, who told you to

speak to him said my host when i asked him act the shake whose name i had been given after a dinner in new york. i didn't answer. let me guess, he looked back at me, no wonder the americans have no idea what is going on in this country. he paused. he's not even a real shake, you know, he's a farce, maybe, so but he was clearly a man many nonmuslims knew quite well and generated strong responses and that interested me. when we left the christening i called the shake and gave lee my cell phone number for him to call me back. the next day lee and i were standing on the sidewalk when hisne phone rang, it was the shake. hello, sir, thank you for calling me back, i was referred to you by a mutual friend, he spoke no english. he spoke no french. i spoke no arabic. i handed the phone to lee who did speak arabic, shake told when i should meet him in one hour. you know this place i asked lee,

sure, it'st the business district, just a couple of miles that way. in back of taxi with lee giving driver the address, lee would not be joining me having his own interview to do, we would meet up at the end of the day. i realized that we wouldn't -- i wouldn't -- how would we know each other, i waited outside when the cars pulled up, if i made myself obvious he would find me. mercedes pulled up with a man wearing, rather different than the europeanized muslims of the brotherhood where i was saying. vanessa, get in. i he'sateed. i didn't anticipate this. get in he repeated. i got in and shut the door and we go my house. we go my house.

your house? yes. i didn't think many foreigners made it to this part. this sort of thing usually ends bad in youtube video, i thought. [laughter] >> we pulled up in narrow plain buildings. it was dark inside, all that was visible was stair way leading up. my heart thumped. no one would know where to find me. how would i escape if i got into trouble. we arrived at an apartment and he beckoned me into the softa. he made a call in arabic, not a word of which he could understand, french, colonel, speak english. okay, i answered. about 20 minutes a man in military uniform arrived and introduced himself as colonel, he said he would be our interpreter, he was tourist forthright and physically strong to perfect military man but how much he was translating the

clerics ideas and how much he was spousing his own would never be known and unreliable narrater indeed. i asked the shake via the colonel whether he they had ever seen drugs or money coming in from south america. venezuela in particular. money comes in from venezuela so much money, a room full of cash affirmed the colonel sweeping his arms up in gesture of large size, i've seen it. he was likely boasting about reach and involvement in dark international matterses. it was impossible for me to assess honesty without cooperation but if he was feeling talkative i would keep asking. how about the colombian cocaine, what did you know about that. hezbollah has always had a relationship with the colombian farc, the election of hugo chávez in venezuela helped hezbollah a lot. the drugs that had been flown are now industrial airliners,

military planes with government protection. it was inevitable that -- it was inevitable that south american cocaine traffickers and terrorists would become increasing important to hezbollah and other groups. while intelligence officials believe that hezbollah use today receive as muche as $200 million annually from primary iran and additional money from syria, both sources have largely dried up due to sanctions imposed on the former turmoil and the latter. the colonel proceeded how far they spread and iranian proxy, hezbollah he explained have close relationship with north korea and the army in iraq with one million fighters under the command of shiite cleric. .. ..

>> on and on, because i want you to read the book, rather than have me read it to you -- [laughter] to buy it. but the story, the book sort of weaves a very personal perspective of having gone to these places and spoken to people, not all of whom wanted to answer questions, and try and find out what is really going on. and as ramon said, my objective in writing it really is for us to understand what are the consequences of the choices that we make. particularly of the financial transactions in which we participate. whether it's the blood bonds, whether it's the counterfeit handbag, whether it's the narcotics, whether it's, you know, i also have a case of novartis antimalarial drugs

being given to a u.n. organization that ended up, through corruption, funding an islamist group in west africa. so it's absolutely everywhere. a friend of mine who works with me wasfr just down the street wn two bombs went off in small ya, in -- somalia, motion dish she -- mogadishu. so it's been, what i wanted for us is, first, to understand our role and how interconnected we are in a world of commerce and in a world of morality, really, and causality. so the closing line of the book -- but you have to still read the rest of it -- is money does not need to -- money may not buy happiness, but it need not pay for misery. so i hope that you will buy the book. you can have a cocktail as you

read it. [laughter] which you probably need. and i thank you so much for coming here this evening, and help us also, help us understand by understanding these connections and the links with corruption and how it is actually -- the other thing i say in the book, it's actually the goal of these transnational organized crime groups and terrorist groups to eat away at the governments that are supposed to protect us. so the irony, what is particularly galling is that they make all the money by preying onn us as consumers and as citizens. and then they take their money and send it to london and new york or miami and geneva and countries where property rights are respected, where the rule of law will protect their money while they work to destroy your rule of law. and that is where the joke is ultimately on us.

so thankus you very much for coming, and please buy book. [applause] >> do we do questions, or do you want to come up? ramon, do you want to come up? come up with me. so, you know -- gracias. oh, yes. support of venezuela libre. [laughter] ms. . >> thank you for coming. russ, you would like to add something? >> do we entertain questions? you stay up here with me. okay. in espanol?

>> not a question, but a comment. the timely -- [inaudible] come up with the obama administration -- >> yep. >> -- kind of -- information into precisely what your book addresses too. very timely without -- have you got a lot of attention, or -- >> well, yes. it's getting more and more attention. especially after that because of the political in the "new york times." i think bloomberg is going to do something on it after the madness of christmas and new year. t and the daily beast, for whom i have also written on the links between citgo, russia and chavez, i wrote for them a couple of times, they're also going to run an excerpt on the book. and, yeah. so it's actually quite ironic that -- [inaudible] yeah, very timely.

yeah. it's a strange sensation to be writing about my work in this field triggered by, basically, my being angry about what i saw happening withpp my country, whh is really what started this all off, and have it come out basically as my country is basically imploded. i'm also an american. say, please, this is not good for either, either of us. you know? please help. so, yeah, we'll see. we'll see. [inaudible conversations] [laughter] >> here in miami and also in all other parts of the world, we haven't seen all these -- [inaudible] anti-money laundering, you know,

bank secrecy act and everything related to the book, and how you can deal and how your book will help, you know, the actual banking politics and everything regarding to, you know, helping people to drive all these -- [inaudible] here in miami all the banks are in, you know, are in sections. well, almost all the banks are in sections. and, you know, we also know a lot of companies -- not only banks -- also have deals, as you said. we as individuals that work in the corporations can, you know, well, you know, noticing desire that you have to help. >> t right.

>> because at the end, you are in a corporation, you know? >> right. >> you are in that position -- [inaudible conversations] >> i just want to add something so that vanessa can sort of answer that. talking about sanctions, i'm absolutely in favor of sanctions against regimes like maduro's. but when you apply a sanction to maduro's regime, you are not only trying to increase the probability to get at regime change in venezuela, but also you are kind of protecting your institutions. you don't want your banks involved in businesses with a regime that is not only killing its own people, but involving narcotics, for example. sanctions do work sometimes.

in south africa, for example, it was important. there were sanctions and permission to sell weapons, arms, an arms embargo. when you do that, you also want your companies -- you don't want them to get involved with that, with those regimes. when canada, not only the u.s., but canada, when both governments went forward and sanctioned venezuela, they were protecting -- [inaudible] and that's a very legitimate concern. as virginia vanessa was saying,e these guys are destroying our citizens, our nations, but they come with their money and their assets to countries like the u.s. to get the protection they're denying their own people. [inaudible]

>> no, no. >> so there's -- now you have two questions to answer. >> i have two questions. i'm not sure that, i'm not sure i really need to give an answer. so your question is what can we do about it or what? >> [inaudible] >> make noise. i mean, you know, i mean, that's why i wrote the book, because it gives me an excuse -- i mean, aside from people might actually read it, we hope, it also gives me an excuse to give talks like and to offer that -- like this and to offer that perspective of having it, you know, seeing it in realtime play out on a country. on our country. and really just to make a lot of noise. and it's amazing how we saw, and russ who deals in venezuelan bonds or, you know, is that something you put on your card anymore? maybe not anymore. [laughter] but it is a lifelong, you know, we live through what happened.

when we went to protest, i went with a bunch of -- they're kids. and what'swh interesting to me d the other interesting point, i mean, ramon and i are the psalm age, and we remember the days -- the same age, and we remember the days of the 4.30 -- [inaudible] at today's exchange rate, it's 116 million to the dollar, and that's in our lifetime. so, you know, we remember the good old days. but the kids with whom i protested in front of goldman sachs are, like, 20 years old. they grew up under -- [inaudible] they don't remember the good old days the way ramon and russ and i do at all. and they still reject it unilaterally, which is amazing to me. and, youat know, there was the security of goldman sachs and the, you know, they came with a dog, and they watched us, and apparently i later found out somebody said, well, it's just a bunch of kids outside. yeah, but we were ade bunch of

kids with signs -- well, i wasn't a kid -- and they got bloomberg, and they got, you know, "wall street journal," and they goty the financial times. it was, like, front page of 16 newspapers the next day. and then we humiliated goldman sachs. and so that's the power to say if you give money to these people, these are the consequences. so really -- and there's nothing illegal about that transaction. so really there's a great deal of power in raising consciousness of causality, of how the choices we make impact the lives of others. and i backed sort of into this, and -- my country, i used to consult with the asymmetric warfare group which is counterunurgency. i actually was the act -- counterinsurgency. of i know a little bit about the subject. and, you know, i thought, you

know, here we are spending all sending all these kids out into warfare to be blown up, and then i go in later to reintegrate the fighter and deal with the kids with their legs blown up. i said, you know, the irony is you could cut off the money. so i always had this concern about trying to cut off, cutting off the funding as an effective counterterrorism tactic. and then i realized it was a much bigger problem that is everywhere. and i talk about how your neighborhood bank is involved in these transactions. that's also in the book. >> thank you. >> sure. >> yes. on finish -- aside from puppeteering the government in venezuela,ez what's been the roe of cuba in the global arena in this theme that we're talking about tonight in. >> do you want to answer that, or should i answer it? [speaking spanish] >> i would just add something on top of that for you to answer --

>> you're supposed to make my life easier, ramon. [laughter] you're supposed to be my friend. >> just to share with you what we know. i mean, of course, involvement in finish the cuban involvement in venezuela is huge. and recently something i know went to a military base to deliver a message, and she was with a clear mission. it was to deliver an envelope to one of the commanders of that military base. so she went there, she took her daughter. herer daughter was a former participant in venezuela. so she explained to the guard she was going to talk to him because he was looking for a sponsor for her daughter who wants to -- [inaudible] it was a whole story.

so she managed to get to the guy. and she was there, like, for an hour talking to him, and she was not able to hand the envelope because the whole time there was a cuban guy besides him. every time, all the time. when one of the guards took her to the office of the chief of the military, he was telling, listen, you will see a guy right there. he's a cuban. and he will never leave. and she was there for an hour, looking for a moment to hand an envelope and was not able to do that. she request, she suggested him to interchange phone numbers to be able to communicate regarding the miss miranda pageant and sponsoring her daughter, and it

was not possible. this guy said, listen -- the cuban guy -- suggested to take his number instead. so that's the kind of -- >> [inaudible] >> -- and supervision these guys have over day-to-day, i mean, it's not that they're -- [inaudible] but they are everywhere. they are in civil registry, they are in assignment and basically the national -- [inaudible] they are in state of -- [inaudible] they are in the army, they are everywhere. there's no way to exaggerate the influence they have on venezuelan affairs. no way. >> and why do you think, i mean, why do you think that is? the sort of traditional story is that they helped get rick chavez back into power after the 2002 coup attempt. that's the story, who knows whether that's -- and that, you know, the cubans can't run a country, but they're very good at running an intelligence

service. so, and they literally effectively command military and all sectors of society. so the irony is for those people who have asked for the u.s. for assistance and called those of us who have done that as traitors, asking for interference, you know, the perspective is we've already beenen invaded. there is no sovereignty. the debt is owned by russia and china. we are oppressed by iran and cuba. so what foreign interference? we've been laboring under it for years. [speaking spanish] i want to say gary, by the way, was my former boss. she was the head of the finance department at -- [inaudible] which was our business, and she taught me everything i've since forgotten -- [laughter] about financial analysis. [laughter]

>> vanessa, you were -- well, all the regulation was based on -- [inaudible] follow the trail of the money, okay? to find the terrorists. and you're mentioning that the reputational risk will be a very important step to find out all the bad money around the world, that it's financing terrorists and maduro's regime and around the world, okay? is that enough? and when do you see the time spent changing the pendulum, you know? because it seems that it's going wrong and rotten, rotten, rotten. when it's time the change it? when it will occur? it will be -- >> what, you mean venezuela or -- >> no, no -- [inaudible conversations] >> the regulation, the reputational risk. because what you mention is that the money comes back -- >> right.

>> -- through, the rule of law is protecting them. >> right. >> the rotten guys. >> right. well, i -- yeah. i don't know. i understand little about banking compliance really, and all i know is friends of mine who are big executives at big banks are like, oh, my god, we spend a billion dollars a year at citibank and doing, you know, yempliance. and it seems to be largely -- [inaudible] yeah. and yet you still have all these transactions and all this money. and i know from friends who work in that that the problem is the way the system is set up, you have 95% false positives, right? so you spend all your time muddling through this trash to findgh out people like me rentig a holiday house, you know? no,ho not funding hezbollah, jut going on holiday to mexico or something, you know? and so it's onerous, and it still doesn't get through. i don't understand enough. i. know, apparently, a.i. is

supposed to save the world and particularly save thehe world of banking compliance, artificial intelligence. i don't know enough about it. you know, maybe you're better off -- you're the banker. of you're the one who should be answering the question. so we'll see. yes. okay. him and then you. [speaking spanish] [speaking spanish]

>> forever -- transfer pricing. [speaking spanish] >> bueno. so the question is about banking secrecy as revealed by paradise papers, and he touched upon the morality of transfer pricing. not an expert in transfer pricing, but my mentor who was my dissertation adviser at columbia -- and i'm now a fellow at his program at yale because he moved to yale on global justice -- he's, this is, that's his wheelhouse, is about the morality of corporations, you know, making their money in one country, taking the money out,

moving it with the transfer pricing,g, manipulating. he's all over that, and he had a book come out last year called global tax -- [inaudible] which he edited. it's like his 32nd book or something. and we, and the answers to that, the answer that links it all together, and i don't think it's going to be that popular, is norway which is sort of world's do-gooders have introduced a proposal for radical transparency, financial transparency. like no banking secrecy anywhere ever for anyone. and all corporations must put in their financial statements, you know, where they made their money, whathe goods they extracted, how much tax pay paid to thehe country from where they hired the labor and extracted the goods. i don't see that being very popular, but that kind of solves the entire paradigm in one fell swoop. yeah. >> [inaudible] >> not when you have bitcoin. oh, robert hanson, a banker.

>> [inaudible] >> bitcoin comes as popular as it might and other cyber currencies, you know, they're needed. you can use that. your people you're writing about, it's a dream for them. >> right. >> it's a dream. >> yeah. it's also a dream for venezuelans under hyperinflation and a regime that doesn't let themem exchange goods or money. there are good guy applications. there are people who want to evade their government controls for very good reason, you know? so, yeah. and retain value. yeah. >> let me add something too. just to add something to that last question. i think all the issue of corruption and tax evasion and -- [inaudible] it's huge. i mean, it's huge. i mean, that's global finances. it's narrower than that. i would say that our attention

is on the groups of criminals doing bad things like hezbollah or the farc, but also very nice people wearing nice ties in new york doing business with these guys. and you have been talking about reputational risk. that is very important. for the goldman sachs of this world to know that it could, it may be a good business idea, it could make sense economically. it may be legal or not illegal, let's say, but it carries a huge reputational risk,ar and we need tone unite. i mean, we, the affected by their actions, we need to unite. i remember them -- remind them of the risk of doing these kind of transactions with people like maduro or the farc or the

hezbollahs of the world. i would say that's the narrower scope of the work. >> yep. thank you. okay. and now you have to buy the book, and i have to sign it. [laughter] okay. >> i have a question, and it's toward your experience in dealing with hezbollah. i work in compliance, specifically in anti-money laundering, and i was and have always been very curious about how -- maybe you know this -- the link between venezuela and hezbollah started. did that connection began? >> oh. that -- [inaudible] yeah. so a couple of other pages further along in that, in that sectionr he said, you know -- e makes, the colonel who knows how much he was bragging, it's hard to tell. these guys are like i know everything, i'm all-powerful, the world dances to my tune. so, you know, how much is true and how much isn't, it's hard to

parse out. but he bragged. he saidar if they get rid of chavez, we'll just create another one. and that's, i think, page 83 or whatever in the book. yeah. well, chavez was alive at the time. and that's maduro, right? so the irony is they will, they bragged that in their view they thought they had enough control overha venezuela that they will just create another puppet regime to advance their interests. that's what -- and he said it in so many words. but that -- [inaudible] and one of the things that we're elaborating and it's not out yet, but there is a report being produced because i've seen an advance copy of it by a friend of mine who's in the book, and i don't know how much i should say. until he's done with his report. but has spent the last year, okay, parsing out relationships between the venezuelan regime anden certain middle eastern families. a year, okay? and the blood ties and how, and

over time how they spread across the power structure in venezuela. and he compares it to another instance, to a pan-arabism. i haven't read the final draft of this thing. that the bowl very january project -- bolivarian project spread throughpr the blood ties of -- [inaudible] and various others who are directly related to the assad family. and there's a town, and i can't, you know, now -- i'm so bad with names, i'm so sorry, but there's a town in syria which is actually called, like, little venezuela. it has literally 300,000 venezuelans living there who came to live there x they're part of a clan. i don't know how much you understand about the middle east. they always talk about sunni and shia rivalries, but it's really more like clan rivalries. if you really understand the

place, that's really what's going on than sunni and she that. shia. and thosens clans are tied to te various clans that are also exerting power in venezuela and with certain assad -- and there's a sector that links the, they cross religious divides. it's more of a regional landscape. so you haven that to look forwad to, that horror show to look forward to to come out. but that -- so the ties apparently, we're about to find out just how deep they are. yeah. >> thank you. >> sure. yeah. okay. [applause] >> thanks, everybody, for coming. the books are for sale behind the counter. you want to limit yourself to four or five copies apiece.

[laughter] dr. neumann will be right over here signing them. thank you so much. [inaudible conversations]rs >> you're watching booktv on c-span2, television for serious readers. here's our prime time lineup. at 6 p.m. eastern, john hope bryant, founder and ceo of operation hope, argues that the poor should turn to economic independence to protect themselves from social and economic injustices. at 7:30, paul hall person explores the relationship between richard feinman and john wheeler who explored theories of quantum reality and time. and on booktv's "after words" at 9 p.m., former clinton administration official and georgetown university law professor peter edelman argues that courts are exploiting the poor by charging excessive fines and fees for minor crimes. he's interviewed by

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