"the venezuelan presidential elections have come and gone and the people of venezuela have voted. they want president nicholas maduro to stay in power. now that should be enough for any country to move to the next phase of their democracy, but not for the us who is pushing again for regime change and resource rich venezuela, creating a source of instability in that country and for its economy. hi, i'm kaviy, welcome to economic divide. some of the highlights coming up in today's program, the elections for the..."

presidency of venezuela, the incomed maduro won 51% of the votes, opposition candidate gonzalez garnered 44%, but the us is disputing the election, calling it a fraud. the us is after regime change in venezuela. the us claims that these groups funded by the us government is what the reference point is. it includes fake ballots, dead people, massive promoduro protest, however, make the story in favor of maduro. then venezuelan. forces, perhaps that is at the center of a us's focus on venezuela, oil and gas is what the us is after, the us is sanctioning venezuela in order to prevent economic advancement, that is called economic terrorism.

venezuela's presidential election had a winner, the incumbant president nicholas maduro, garnering over 50% of the vote compared to his opponents and opposition candidate edmundo gonzales, venezuelans were cheering for having maduro in power, but that was dampened by the us, in which it argued against the election result, calling it a sham election. we've seen the announcement just a short while ago by the venezuelan of electoral commission. "we have serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the venezuelan people. the us referenced american-based sources, funded by the us state department and associated with the cia, to make its case that maduro had lost and that..." had won with an overwhelming margin.

this was enough to send some venezuelans out to the streets to protest. even though maduro's counterprotest brought out millions of protesters and towered over the protest by gonzalez followers, all fingers were pointing to the us for going after another regime change effort in the latin american country. this is while venezuelans had paid their dues from years of unfair us sanctions and had seen their economy finally pick up and past few years with a positive gdp growth. the us anti-maduro stance was countered by other latin american countries like brazil, which accepted the election results and congratulated madura for his win. this is section that we take a look at social media posts and we have quite a few of them today. first up, breaking, at that point it was breaking. usa finds new one guide up. the us has officially. recognized the victory of

maduro's rival in the venezuelan elections. the state department considers opposition leader edmundo gonzales urua to be the winner of the presidential election, according to reports in the media citing an official statement. well, us government linked firm is the source of the exit pole, claiming venezuelan opposition won the election. venezuela's opposition and us media outlets claimed that there was fraud in the july 28 election based on the exit poll that's done by us government link. firm edison research, which works with the cia linked us state propaganda organs and was active in ukraine, georgia and also in iraq. next, blincan fails to see any of the thousands of war crimes being committed in gaza, but in venezuela, he sees things that aren't even there. there were over 100 foreign election observers in venezuela from 110 countries monitoring the elections. the election result, which doesn't go your way, you have serious concerns when you fail in your... plot, you start giving

more lectures on democracy, you overthrow the elected governments in pakistan and imposed your stugos. next, activist in new york city, us protest in front of fox news. to denounce is lies against venezuela and popular democracy and his active role in the ongoing coup against venezuela orchestrated by us imperialism. hands off venezuela: the mainstream of fox news is simply mouth piece to manufacture consent for medaling in venezuela's affairs of sovereign state to protect the interests of capital. so we call for an end to sanctions now, we want justice, you say how, we want justice, you say how, hands on. hands off venezuela now, hands off venezuela now, we want justice, you say how, we want justice, you say how, hands off venezuela now, and finally, us sanctions impact, i lost my grandpa, i lost my uncle, i almost lost my mom and my little brother, all

due to lack of medical supplies. i suffered malnutrition, food insecurity, poverty, weeks, months without electricity or water services and depression and anxiety. do not explain venezuela. to me, you can see some of the hardships that venezuelans have felt because of the us sanctions. all right, let's get down to our first segment of the q&a, and let me introduce our guests, joining us first, we have jill clark, jill clark galub is an activist for peace and latin american solidarity and several organizations, includes the venezuela solidarity network, the america's without sanctions campaign, the friends of latin america and the nicaragua solidarity coalition and her articles haveen. published in the council on hemispheric fairs, counterpunch, popular resistance, and the lines for global justice. all right, jill clark, welcome to economic divide. it's a pleasure to be here, thank you. take a look at the presidential election, you have again the us coming out in opposition. uh, it has

come out rejecting the results, calling it bogus, and it's even back the opposition to the hilts sounds like another long guide out. why is the us you think so eager to interfere and? elections in venezuela like it has done in the past and again in particular when we see what it did with guido. well, the us, there are several things, but the us has never forgiven venezuela for taking back its oil profits and using them for the people of venezuela. the united states was and us companies, particularly were getting ridiculous rates off the royalty. from venezuela's oil, and under president hugo chávez, and continued under nicolas maduro, the venezuelan government keeps those profits for its own country, for the development of its country, and so that is one thing that

the us and corporations that run the us government are not happy with venezuela about, another thing is that under president ugo chavez and continuing under president maduro, venezuela is a leader of latin american integration. in other words, latin american countries exercising their sovereignty to run their countries for the benefit of their own people, not respond to the dictates of the us government and us corporations, and to gain strengthen this by joining together, and also fostering south south solidarity throughout the world, and the other reason that the us government is so much against the venezuelan project is that it it is, as i heard a venezuelan official say the other day, it does pose an

extraordinary threat to the united states, but it's not the threat of military intervention, it's the threat of a good example. venezuela in the... last 13 years has provided low income fah families with free or very low cost housing, 5.1 million homes in a population of just 31 million. this means at least one third of the population has benefited from this. this is a problem that's tremendous in the united states, and if people know more about the case of venezuela, there will... demanding housing to resolve the tremendous um uh homeless crisis that we have in the united states, and the examples go on and on with education and uh healthcare in particular. all right, that's a very good point uh that

she makes that. let me bring in our next guest, we have maria fernando bretto uh join us, she is a venezuelan-based writer and director of the communications platform, and she has received. an award for her work as female communicator at the khushied international media festival that was held here in iran in mashad. maria fernanda barretto, welcome to economic divide. thank you very much, my... pleasure uh taking a look atuh the presidential elections that was just held, the us again has tried to interfere with venezuela's political process in essense really violating its sovereignty because uh it has brought people out to the streets uh against uh the president maduro, some who have followed the us line um why do you think the us keeps interfering in venezuela's affairs and keeps wanting to oust maduro? well because the all the imperialist and especially usa always to control our resource, you know venezuela have so many

oil, gas and gold and dray earth, and venezuela have also an very strategic position in our continent, and of course venezuela have a great history putting in front of the colonialists and the imperialist. interest and that's why they always try to control our life and support that kind of opposition who really are their mopets, they are just mops mopets of that imperialist interest in our country and like you you say they support dot, they support uh carmona estanga, they support all of um coups

in our history, because they always want to control our destiny and they don't uh accept that we are uh free and we are an independent uh nation. all right, well jill, let me let me turn to you here, we're looking at the us, the other destructive role that it plays is uh plays deadly sanctions against venezuela, where one report indicated years ago, you probably are aware of this one, that not only the venezuela lose billions of uh its currency and dollars overall, but also 40,00 lives were lost. um, if it weren't for the us sanctions, how much better do you think venezuela's economy would be? uh, if it weren't, as is true of all of the countries that are suffering from the illegal, unilateral coursive. measures imposed by the united states and by some of the countries of

western europe, countries would have much more development, and that would be true as well in venezuela, the venezuelan authorities have talked about, you know, more, more schools, more healthcare, even even more housing, more infrastructure that would be available, but and it's not just 40,000 lives, that was... lives in one year in venezuela, there have been estimates as much as 100,000 lives lost in venezuela because of the crippling sanctions um that caused the oil revenue to go from billions of dollars down to 1% of of of what the the country was receiving in oil revenue before this so it has had a tremendous impact on the country, but the good news is that the venezuelan

government and people have managed to make tremendous strides in overcoming these sanctions. the most important thing is that they have learned to grow their own food. um, about five six years ago venezuela depended on imports for 80% 5% of its food, the country through programs such as urban agriculture, where people in the city of the very densely populated city of karakas have um gardens on rooftops of buildings, people are now producing over 90% of the food that venezuelans, so this has been very important and also some wise decisions have been made by the government and now um uh inflation is

at 1% the lowest that it's been in the past 39 years, so all of this has been through lot of suffering and struggle of the venezuelan people, and lot of suffering of the last few years would have not taken place because of sanctions, but it's hard to estimate how much more developed the country would be had it not been for those sanctions. we still feel the painful brutality. they endured in their struggle for freedom. people of african descend around the world uh continue to be victims of systemic racial discrimination. these millions of people, humans, like any one of us, were not merely robbed of their

physical freedom, but their identity and dignity. "the legacies of colonialism and islaven an apartade are still alive today. time now for the indepth section of the program: the venezuelan economy suffered from years of us sanctions. which it does to this day along with low oil prices from years ago, but it appears that the economy is actually bouncing back from its a low of years ago. let's take a look at some of the indicators that reflect this positive trend. first up, reports do suggest that the economy is moving up slightly, moving from a minus 30% gdp that you see there from the year 2020, 0.5% for 2021, and then 6.5% in 2022, not bad.

information suggests optimism for venezuela, linking the increase in oil pr profit for venezuela and that's partly due to the boycotting of russian oil and it's projecting a 5.6% gdp growth for the year 2023 that actually at this point uh did uh pan out to be just that and then for the year 2024 5% at this point nicholas madura the president has said that venezuela's economy grew more than 5% in 2023 which it did 5.6% and growth will reach 8% this year. let's find out if that happens for them. next when it comes to oil product. although it is still far from what used to be 2.5 million barrels that it produced at the height of the oil boom, well today that figure is uh much lower, it produces 82000 barrels for the year 2023, 70,00 more than year ago and almost 20% more than 2 years ago, well international sanctions imposed by the white house have prevented this figure from increasing even further. president nicholas maduro, well he

has projected another projection that venezuela will produce at least 1.2 million barrels of oil per day in 2024, hoping to reach the 2 million uh barrels per day by the following year as part of a broader strategy to revitalize the country's economy. next positive economic trends, well it's based on improvements in uh certain uh sectors uh trade and services is one of them oil and also the mining sector is another in addition to the growth of uh uh sectors like food processing and pharmaceuticals, these have contributed to the positive trend. well wages for work in 20. 24 has ended up representing barely 10% of the gdp when back in the year 2010 it exceeded 40% of the total economy. venezuana president nicholas maduro, he has highlighted the development of what he calls 18 productive engines to ensure that the country can produce everything the venezuelan household needs. these productive references

um are for various sectors, some of them include agriculture, tourism and manufacturing. and of course revitalizing the uh petrochemical sector and expanding investments in gas production uh is another thing that uh is involved in this. let's bring back our guests uh for the in-depth section and see what they think. uh rejoining us is jill clark gulub who's an activist for peace and latin american solidarity and several organizations. jill welcome back uh we are looking at the us obsession when it comes to regime change uh in particular in venezuela it's been going on for quite some. time and uh of course the natural oil and gas reserves is at the core of it, maybe, but uh, hasn't the push for regime chain been so extreme that it has backfired not only uh in terms of venezuela and us aspirations, but also other latin american countries that look at this negatively, what do you think? uh, yes, certainly this is true, and i think that

we see this not only with venezuela, but in general when the united states tries to impose sanctions around the world, we saw this in the response to the the russian operation in ukraine, when the united states used the united nations to have votes about imposing sanctions on russia, and um so many countries of the world did not vote against the united states resolutions, but did not vote for them either, and we can see... that majority of the world's population lives in countries that is not going long with the united states sanctions on russia and other countries um and so yes, i think that this is leading countries to find alternatives such as the bricks, such as the shanghai cooperation organization and latin american

countries as well are taking notice. i think that the progressive governments of mexico and honduras in particular are very wary of the united states and their votes in the organization of american state. dates show that even though these um recent vote in the oas a couple of weeks ago about um wanting to punish venezuela and somehow venezuela is no longer member of the organization of the american states but it was very interesting to see the vote and honduras and mexico are two of the countries most of the countries of the caribbean also refused to go along with united states they all abstained or were not present for the vote so that the resolution could not pass and i think um for the countries of brazil and colombia who are on tremendous under tremendous pressure from the

united states to do as the united states wants are have to think a lot before doing this. unfortunately there are countries such as argentina, the cou government in peru, the government of ecuador that are going along with the us agenda. but i think that um and and those are part of the new fascist wave that we see not only in latin america but in europe um and and that's very unfortunate, but the countries that um value their sovereignty are very much uh disillusioned with uh the united states telling them how to run things. all right, thank you, thank you for that. uh, let's... bring back maria fernanda bareto who is a venezuelan-based writer and director. maria, welcome back uh to economic divide. i'd like to continue with the train of uh thought here uh, which is the

us sanctions regime. obviously leveled against venezuela, it has impacted its economy uh to very high degree, and my question to you is uh whether other latin american countries actually are taking note the us approach. using the sanctions as a a weapon against countries and how that maybe have uh to have backfired against the us, do you think that has been the case? well - maybe um not other governments, but obviously other peoples, the people of other countries are looking at that kind of pressure that usa are making against. venezuela and now venezuela have more uh support of the people of other countries, also the countries of

africa, of the countries of middle east, because i think now so many people who doesn't understand what it really happened in venezuela knows and cool see by their own eyes ' that usa really really are - try to control our destiny and and don't uh respect our sovereign, no, i think it could be um really important for the people of the global south to support venezuela uh in this moment, and i think all the... actions, the terrorist actions that usa has been uh doing against at uh cool show that, show the true to the

people of the global soul, the negative role that you sanctions of had on venezuela is impossible to ignore. the us government barred oil purchases, froze government bank accounts, prohibited the country from issuing new debt and sees tankers bound for venezuela. one would think that it should be self-evident that any account of venezuela's economic contraction would place economic sanctions in a central role. venezuela's economy has been highly dependent on oil, which accounts for more than 90% of exports and more than half of fiscal revenue.

when oil revenues rise, regardless of whether it happens as a result of increased production or prices, the economy expands, when they tank, so does the gdp, but just like the opposite effect the sanctions have had on certain countries like iran, us sanctions helped venezuela develop its domestic capacities. one example is in the field of agriculture, where it has expanded and helped venezuela provide many of its basic food supplies. there is no reason for venezuela's economy not to flourish, as we have seen, it has somewhat rebounded from its loads of stackflation and hyperinflation. now with joining a grouping of countries like iran, russia and china and the likes, it can move past these illegal us sanctions and truly get what it deserves, economy for the

people. that does for this edition of the program, thank you for being with us and for watching it, um, if you liked it, do send us a comment, and more importantly, if you didn't, contact information is here, uh, tell us what you think, from ecover tapway and the team here at economic divide, it's goodbye, until the next program. the press of coverage of this assassination of passam suleymani now entering its uh uh fourth day we're looking at some uh

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