US and Venezuela agree huge oil deal

**Charlotte Gallagher** (0:00)
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Charlotte Gallagher. In the early hours of Saturday, the 29th of August, these are our main stories. Donald Trump says the US has reached a huge oil deal with Venezuela. Nearly 2,000 people are missing following Wednesday's flash floods and mudslides in Nepal, while Chinese rescuers have arrived in Tibet.
Also, in this podcast, human rights violated but not genocide. Two reports on the forced contraception of women and girls in Greenland have been published.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:41)
And?

**Charlotte Gallagher** (0:49)
We learn more about France's wartime leader in exile.
But we start with the biggest oil deal in world history. Well, that's according to Donald Trump. The president has announced an agreement with Venezuela that he says will more than double US oil reserves and substantially lower petrol prices for Americans. Caracas has welcomed the deal as a historic milestone. The interim leader, Delcy Rodriguez, said the investment will help the nation's revival. Our Latin America expert in Miami, Luis Fajardo, has been telling me more.

**Luis Fajardo** (1:30)
Certainly, we're talking about a very big deal, according to what President Trump said in his social media statement. He mentioned 65 billion barrels. That is estimated to be nearly one fifth of Venezuela's oil reserves. Of course, Venezuela being one of the countries with the biggest oil reserves in the world.
Also, Marco Rubio, the US. Secretary of State, was posting in social media saying that 100 billion dollars in investment would go to Venezuela. This is precisely the amount of money that some experts have suggested would be needed to restore the Venezuelan oil industry, which has suffered terribly in the last decade or even more because of mismanagement and all the turmoil that has confronted Venezuela in the last few years.

**Charlotte Gallagher** (2:16)
So I think this will be probably seen as a win for Donald Trump ahead of the midterms. What do you think Caracas will make of this?

**Luis Fajardo** (2:24)
There's certainly going to be some eyebrows raised in at least parts of the Venezuelan government. This goes against, of course, the entire ideology of the Bolivarian Revolution of Hugo Chávez and Nicolas Maduro.
The people who, like Delci Rodriguez, the president of Venezuela, originally reached government with that movement, which was all about economic nationalism and control of natural resources. This goes in the opposite direction. But on the other hand, there's going to be people in Venezuela saying that these oil resources have been drastically mismanaged in the last decade. This brought economic chaos to Venezuela. And if this oil deal brings prosperity again to the country where certainly people will have a different opinion on that.

**Charlotte Gallagher** (3:08)
Because, I mean, it's definitely true that the US is exerting increasing influence on Venezuela since Maduro was ousted.

**Luis Fajardo** (3:16)
It has, but on the other hand, it has been a delicate balance because in many aspects, the US is working with a government, the Chavista government of Del C. Rodriguez, which still controls a lot of aspects of domestic life in Venezuela. There's still, for example, very big criticism of political prisoners being still in Venezuela. So it is difficult to know up to what point the US government was actually doing or making the decisions in the ground at a micro level, but certainly at the macro level, big decisions like this suggest that the US government has created a huge, huge change in the political priorities and even the national priorities of Venezuela since the military actions of early in 2026

**Charlotte Gallagher** (4:04)
Louise Fajardo, the number of people missing after Wednesday's flash floods in Nepal has doubled to nearly 2,000, including many foreign nationals. More than 570 people are known to have died when a huge torrent of rock, ice and mud was unleashed by the collapse of a glacier in the Himalayan region. And even as rescue efforts continue, there are fears of further sudden floods.
Azadeh Mishiri sent this report from one of the worst hit areas of Nepal.

**Azadeh Mishiri** (4:37)
I've reached army barracks in Trishuli in northern Nepal. And every few minutes, there are helicopters that are landing, dropping off people who have been stranded by the floods, survivors, people who are injured. And on the other side of the gate are just some of the people who are waiting for news of their loved ones. Families who are going up to a wall here with a list published of the names of people the army has recovered so far, people who have been found. One of the people here desperate for news is Sujata Joshi. She tells me four of her family members are missing.