Venezuela oil deal: who wins?

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1:11Hello and welcome to News Hour from the BBC World Service. We're coming to you live from London. I'm James Menendez. And coming up later, the face of Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement, Joshua Wong, pleads guilty to foreign collusion. We'll be speaking to his friend and fellow protester. This is an imprisonment of one man, Joshua Wong, a democracy icon, but it's not the imprisonment of the whole generation that he inspired. Also, the Bayer tapestry is soon to go on public display in London, but who were the legions of women who did all the embroidery? There could have been women who lost their homes and livelihoods, and so they had to start over.

1:50But there are also records of women who were engaged in textile production before and after the Norman Conquest. So it could have been the next project that they were involved in. More on that coming up in about 15 minutes. But we are going to begin today in Venezuela, where just a couple of hours ago, the US Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, and the interim Venezuelan President, Delcy Rodriguez, signed a deal handing control of about a fifth of the country's oil to a relatively unknown energy company backed by Washington. Given that Venezuela's proven reserves are the largest in the world, around 300 million barrels, that is a lot of oil moving from state ownership into private hands.

2:32Well, after the signing ceremony in Caracas, Mr. Wright had this to say. Today is a historic day in the transformation of Venezuela and the expansion of the possibilities for the Venezuelan people. President Trump's mission in Venezuela is straightforward. The mission is to bring peace, freedom, opportunity and prosperity to the people of Venezuela. And seated to his left, Mrs. Rodriguez. is. I'm telling you that days in Venezuela seem like years. I'm with the US Energy Secretary Chris Wright. We are making history today with the signing of this important agreement. Given the size of the agreement and the lack of detail so far, it was first announced by President Trump on social media last Friday.

3:26It is proving controversial to say the least. It also comes as two big oil majors, Chevron and Italy's Eni, have signed new deals to invest in Venezuela and increase their production. Other firms have been more hesitant, though, worried about the stability of the government since the capture of former President Nicolás Maduro at the beginning of the year. I've been talking to Luis Pacheco, a former senior executive at Venezuela's state oil company Pedevesa, now at the Baker Institute Center for Energy Studies at Rice University in Houston. So will what has been announced today turn around Venezuela's moribund oil sector.

4:05Well, it's an opportunity for it, but it's unlikely because we still don't know the details of whatever deal they're signed. We don't know exactly how this small company that they're using, the Americans are using, I should say, is going to actually implement the deal. So there is a lot of unknowns around this. And it will take time to even know whether the deal is legal at all. Just give us the context, first of all. I mean, how bad a state is the oil industry in at the moment? Well, ever since Hugo Chavez came into the presidency at the end of last century, the companies started to decline. But if you remember, the high oil prices of the beginning of the 21st century sort of hide that destruction.

5:07It was only until 2014 where the prices started to decline that then we really knew what was happening. So from 3.2 million barrels per day that Venezuela was producing in 1998, by the year 2020, and also because of the pandemic, the country was producing close to 400 ,000 barrels per day. So a decline of about 70-something percent. So that lack of investment, lack of technical wherewithal and all of that. Yeah. So how much investment do you think it will take to get production back up to those levels at the end of the 20th century? I mean, how much time will it take? Okay, the numbers that some people have estimated talk about an investment of in excess of$100 billion for a period of about 10 years to get to more or less the same levels.

6:19Right, so it is a big undertaking. How much then do we know about the company that is getting all these oil rights? And can it bring the sorts of levels of investment that you're talking about? Well, that company is relatively new, started by being owned by an American friend of Mr. Trump, a guy called Harry Sargent. Somehow, and not to bore you with the details, it came into the hands of a Venezuelan businessman. And it's a very small company who has grown because the regime has assigned production blocks to the company. So the company, as of today, has no way of undertaking the challenge that that deal entails.

7:09No way at all. What, it just doesn't have the wherewithal to carry out the investment that Venezuela needs? That is correct. It doesn't have the technical wherewithal either. Right. So what's it going to do then? It's got all these rights. I mean, what's it going to do with them then, do you think? Well, that's a very good question. We don't really know. I mean, if you ask me to speculate that he may subcontract some of it with other companies, but then there's the issue of where the money is going to come from, and then there's the issue of the financial conditions that the Americans have imposed on the deal, You know, buying oil at reduced prices and all other things also bring into question that the deal is actually financially attractive at all.

8:03Yeah, and there's been a lot of talk today about how this is all going to bring prosperity to Venezuelans in the future. Will it? well that's that's a very thoughtful question because even if the deal comes in the the royalty money the tax money which is the the one that the country is supposed to to use for you know benefiting the population will be handled as of today by the same people who destroy the country and how that is that going to work is it's a very large question That was Luis Pacheco, who's a former senior executive of Venezuela's state oil company, Peda Vesa. We did request an interview with the US State Department.

8:47They said they couldn't offer anyone to speak to us today. But I have been speaking also to Elliot Abraham, US Special Representative for Venezuela during the first Trump administration. He's now a senior fellow at the think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations. So is this a good deal for the US? In some ways it is because the U.S. is getting something for nothing. Roughly 60 billion barrels of oil in essence handed to the U.S. The U.S. is not paying for that benefit. There are other benefits in the deal. The ability to buy at the cost of production with no profit for the Venezuelan side at all, 20 % of the output.

9:31output. So in that sense, it's a good deal for the US. You might call it theft from Venezuela, but it's a good deal for the US. I mean, would you call it that? I mean, it seems from the outside like a sort of rather old fashioned bit of colonial capitalism. Is that how you see it? Yes. You remember President Trump said the problem with the war in Iraq was we should have simply taken their oil. No one even knew what that meant. But now we, in a sense, see what it means. The deal is being done with Adelcio Rodriguez, in essence, I think, to win favor in Washington. She wants Washington to keep her in power.

10:12And so she's willing to give away a lot of the Venezuelan patrimony. We heard the Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, talk about it being the deal being about Venezuela's freedom. Is there a danger, though, that this will entrench the current interim government? I think there is that danger, because Trump has about two, two and a half years to go. If he wants a government in Caracas that will absolutely keep this deal, that is the government that's there now. If you have a free election next year, it may well be that whoever is elected will say this is a bad deal. It was never agreed to by an elected government.

10:53It was never approved by the National Assembly. It's unconstitutional. So that gives the president, President Trump, that is, an incentive to try to keep Delcey Rodriguez in place. I mean, there is the danger, too, that it may get overturned by a different U.S. administration in a few years. It may even get overturned by U.S. courts because it isn't clear that the Department of War has the right to be involved in this. It is, I think, unprecedented. But yes, a follow-on government in the U.S. might say, look, these terms are unworkable. And that government would come in in January 2029. By then, this deal may not look so good.

11:39It depends on a lot of foreign investment. And we haven't seen any foreign investment this year, really. So we'll see. Chevron has announced plans to invest today, announced plans to invest $7 billion. But again, you know, announcements are cheap. We haven't seen any money move. Yeah. And given the sort of long term project that refurbishing, renovating Venezuela's oil industry, I mean, you know, we talked about a period of possibly 10 years, huge levels investment. I mean, one wonders whether this will ever come to fruition. And if there is doubts about that, whether this deal is worth the paper it's written on.

12:22Well, this is what's very sad, because had this been developed honestly, openly, privately with oil companies, approved in the right way by a democratic government of Venezuela, it would have been the right path to take. they do have these mammoth reserves, a deal that would benefit the government and people of Venezuela, and that would produce another, say, million barrels a day, would be good for them and be good for everyone. But this is not the way to go about it. So has it gone the wrong way around? I mean, we heard again today from President Trump saying that Venezuela wasn't ready for elections.

12:58But if the political transition had been done before any oil deal, Would it have more chance of sticking then? I think absolutely. And I think it's really tragic that the president is saying things like that. They are ready for elections. Not this year. It would take about nine months. But they have had free elections in the past. They're absolutely able to have a free election. The problem is, from President Trump's point of view, I guess, that Delcey Rodriguez has a popularity rate of about 10 or 15 percent. she will lose a free election. That's why she doesn't want one. And that was Elliot Abrams, US Special Representative for Venezuela during the first Trump administration.

13:44You're listening to NewsHour from the BBC World Service.

14:08It's time to come on the programme. A group of American sailors stuck on an aircraft carrier for longer than they were expecting due to the Iran conflict are finally docked at a resort in Thailand. Our correspondent is there too. There are cannabis shops, there are restaurants, there's a Turkish ice cream man, don't know where he came from. There are women sitting in negligees where you can throw balls at them and if you hit a certain target, they fall into a bowl of water. I mean, it's an absolutely bizarre thing going on. More on that coming up in just over 15 minutes. Our main headlines, once again, the US and Venezuela, as we've been hearing, have signed a deal which surrenders control of a fifth of Venezuela's oil reserves to a Washington-backed company.

14:49And Spaniards have been demonstrating across the country in protest at the government's handling of July's mass trespass into Ceuta, a Spanish territory in North Africa. We'll have more on this story in about 20 minutes.

15:08This is James Menendez with News Out Live from the BBC. Tension is rising once again in the Middle East after the biggest exchange of fire between the US and Iran since July. Iran says it launched missiles and drones at American allies across the region, including Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan, a response, it said, to intensifying American missile strikes. Those were launched, according to the US military, to stop Iran laying more mines in the Strait of Hormuz. The media in Iran has also been reporting that one US missile or part of it struck a building where a wedding party was taking place, killing, they say, at least four people, including a child.

15:46Well, footage of the aftermath is something that BBC Verify has been examining. Merlin Thomas has been telling me more. Iranian media on the ground have said that one particular building where these wedding celebrations were taking place was hit. Now, they've released lots of different pieces of footage and we've been able to verify some of these. And they show lots of different bits of this building complex. Now, they take a walk through the courtyard and interiors and you can see metal debris falling from the roof, walls caved in, blood spattered shoes, dust all around the floor. And in Iranian media, they're saying that dozens and dozens of people have been injured as a result of this.

16:30and four people, at least four people have been killed, including a child. We're still waiting to verify the details of who exactly has been killed. And just to be clear, you talked about the US putting some videos out of it hitting those targets. You don't think that what has been shown in the Iranian media is also shown in their videos, if you see what I mean. CENTCOM have released footage that shows various targets being hit. You can see what looked like missile launchers, a communications tower being hit. We've also been able to verify another area in the city of Kohistak that has been hit, and that is a communications tower.

17:04And we can see the aftermath of that as well. We can see a tower that's collapsed, as well as debris and damage to buildings surrounding it. Now, neither the building where the wedding celebrations purportedly took place, nor the communications tower where we verified footage, are seen in the CENTCOM footage that we looked at. So they don't appear to match the same things. And just to be clear, these two areas of damage, the communications tower and the building, are about 130 metres away. Now, we're still looking out for more footage that might help us understand how many strikes there were in this area.

17:39Were there more? And that's something that will help us understand exactly what happened here. We did go to the US military and ask them about all of this. We put our findings to them and they said the US are aware of reports which originated from Iranian state media. but it says that the US military never targets civilians unlike the IRGC. And that was Merlin Thomas of BBC Verify. King Charles and Queen Camilla have been getting an early preview of a new exhibition displaying the Bayer Tapestry, which is in Britain for the first time in about a thousand years. The 70-metre-long medieval artwork is on loan from France.

18:16President Macron was also there at the British Museum a few hours ago. The exhibition opens to the public next week and demand for tickets has been huge. The work tells the story of a pivotal moment in British and French history, the conquest of England by the Normans in the year 1066. But many questions about its origins remain. I've been talking to Emily Winkler, medieval historian at the University of Oxford, who has a book about the biotapestry coming out imminently. So who actually made it? It's very likely that the biotapestry was made by women in southern England. Any kind of textile work embroidery was generally done by women.

18:55Almost all of the primary sources from the Middle Ages, if they start talking about women's work, the first line or two will be about weaving or spinning. So we can be pretty sure that that's the army of embroiderers that you're speaking about. exactly where they were and who they were are still mysteries because there would have been women at every level of society working on textile work. So there could have been a lot of less wealthy women as well as some very noble and high status women involved in the whole process. And I suppose we should say at this stage, although it's called a bio tapestry, it isn't a tapestry, is it?

19:32That's right. It's only a tapestry in the general sense of the word as an ornamental wall hanging, but it's actually an embroidery. So we have these linen strips onto which coloured wool yarn has been stitched. A variety of different stitches were used to create different three-dimensional effects, but it's not actually a woven pattern. So we don't have the coloured threads interlinking with each other to actually form the fabric. Now, is it possible that some of those who were making it were fleeing the very Norman conquest that it depicts in part. Yes, it's certainly possible. I think I would still hang on to this idea of mystery about who made it because there could have been people from many walks of life involved.

20:15So there could have been women who lost their homes and livelihoods, a number of high status women essentially lost their lands because their husbands were killed in the Norman conquest in the Battle of Hastings. And so they had to start over. But there are also records of women who were engaged in textile production before and after the Norman Conquest. So it could have been the next project that they were involved in. So in that sense, when we ask the question, what story is it trying to tell? Perhaps it is just telling the story of what happened. Absolutely, yes. So there are a number of scenes and sequences in the visual tapestry that match perfectly well with English and Norman versions of events.

20:58even though some of the English stories favour Harold and some of the Norman stories favour William. So I think there was this attempt to show familiar events, but not necessarily to pass judgment on the interpretation. The other thing that's amazing, of course, is that it survived. How? It's partly survived because for hundreds of years, nobody really knew about it. So initially, I think it was well looked after. As a textile, it's durable, flexible, transportable. So it was made to endure. The stitching is really very good, and it's partly why it survived. But then over time, we lost a record of what happened to it.

21:39It appears in a record in a chest in Bayeux Cathedral by the end of the 15th century. And then it was displayed for a long time, once a year in Bayeux Cathedral. and I think that curators have been taking care of it since then. There are some interesting examples of it being displayed at one point, I think, in the 20th century on a reel so that visitors could come up and reel it to the scene that they wanted to see. We can't expect to happen in the exhibition at the British Museum. And is it right that Himmler wanted to take it back to Nazi Germany? He tried to get his hands on it, is that right?

22:15Yes, yes, and actually there was a very detailed study and research programme conducted by German scientists during World War II, during the occupation of France. And there was a mix of scientific interest, attempts to draw and record and preserve it, but also this interest in seeing how the story of the tapestry could be modified and adjusted to support the Nazi regime as well. Just finally, it refers to such a specific point in history, and a point in history that's obviously very important to people in Britain and to people in France, although there's some suggestion that to a lesser extent, there's been less interest.

22:54Why is it such an important piece in global terms, would you say, as an artifact? There's really nothing like it of that size and scale that survives. It's special for that reason. It offers a window into medieval storytelling. But I also think it's important because it's visual. There's this immediacy about the figures. They seem to come to life when we look at it. And that's actually something that commentators whom we think might have seen it soon after it was made, also commented on the lifelike essence of the figures. So in that sense, I think it's important because it connects us with people in the past and offers a reminder of how immediate and emotional the experience of seeing it can actually be, it can bring us closer to a narrative of warfare and loss as well as victory and political change.

23:43And that was Dr Emily Winkler, a medieval historian at the University of Oxford, talking about the Bayer tapestry due to go on public display for the first time in a millennium at the British Museum next week. You're listening to News Out, do stay with us. Lots more coming up.

24:36We'll be right back. Save big money at Menards. Get more with BBC Podcasts wherever you listen. Be the first to listen to your favourite shows like Evil Genius, Good Bad Billionaire and You're Dead to Me with a subscription to BBC Podcasts Premium on Apple Podcasts. You can also enjoy a range of our podcasts ad-free with an Amazon Music subscription.

25:01Welcome back to NewsHour. When the sailors on board the USS Abraham Lincoln departed from San Diego in November last year, it was meant to be a seven-month assignment, but it turned out to be a record-breaking time at sea, more than 250 days, as the US war with Iran extended their deployment. Well, now the carrier, with about 5 ,000 service members on board, has finally docked in Thailand, allowing the crew to relax on land for the next few days. The carrier, which is huge, 20 stories high and as long as three football fields, was dogged by reports of poor conditions and mental stress on board.

25:37Well, today this sailor spoke to reporters. First time visiting. Excited, yeah. I'm excited to see around, what the culture's like, go see some temples, go relax. Well, it's docked in the port of Pattaya, which has a reputation for some pretty loose nightlife. Our correspondent Jonathan Head is there. So I've come to Pattaya's walking street because they've literally just now in the evening blocked off all the traffic. The bars are cranking up as you can hear. They've got everything from the traditional go-go bars with scantily, exotically dressed women dancing, probably a lot of other stuff as well.

26:14There are cannabis shops, there are restaurants, there's a Turkish ice cream man, don't know where he came from. There are women sitting in negligees where you can throw balls at them and if you hit a certain target they fall into a bowl of water. I mean it's an absolutely bizarre thing going on. You know, I think for a lot of the US sailors, many of whom probably haven't beaten someone like Thailand before, it will be pretty extraordinary. And in many ways, I suspect the commanders of the USS Abraham Lincoln figured, look, this is probably what they need after this very stressful assignment in Iran that went on much longer than expected.

26:49There have been all these reports of real mental stress on board, of deteriorating conditions. Four days here in Patia, they really can decompress although I will say there have been some rules applied there are certain notorious streets in Patia where the sex industry which is pretty much everywhere in the city is much more visible where they've been told they can't go but there's only a few places they can't go we've seen them walking around looking a bit dazed being very conspicuous in their sort of navy t-shirts and often carrying big backpacks and they will be here for a while now the city authorities are fairly confident.