A Month After Maduro’s Seizure, Venezuela Shifts Little (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: It's been exactly one month since the U.S. carried out military strikes in Venezuela and seized its president Nicolás Maduro. So what has changed since then? Well in practice many of the same people are still in charge. Nicolás Maduro's vice president, Delsi Rodríguez, has been sworn in as the country's interim president and many of his key ministers are still in post. Publicly they still say they're loyal to him but they're under a lot more pressure to comply with what the U.S. wants. Those in power know that the U.S. is watching closely and it's warned that it could act again if they don't cooperate. One major area of U.S. influence is Venezuela's oil industry. Venezuela's lawmakers have voted to open up the sector to private investors and the U.S. has urged private companies to invest there again. The U.S. has also eased some sanctions on Venezuelan oil saying that it plans to oversee the sale of it, claiming that the money will be used to benefit ordinary Venezuelans. The government has also released some political prisoners and announced plans to close a notorious prison in the country where it's alleged that torture took place. But rights groups say progress has been too slow and hundreds of people remain behind bars. There's still no obvious path though towards free and fair elections and the judicial system and electoral system remain government-controlled. So the future of Venezuela's democracy still looks uncertain.