SPUTNIK 175: Neil Clarke Interviews Keith Bennett & Dr. Francisco Dominguez

Last June, North Korean state media hailed Donald Trump as a “far-sighted presidential candidate.” It’s unlikely they’re saying the same thing now. Trump’s gunboat diplomacy and the threats of military action against Pyongyang have greatly increased tensions in the region. Could we be heading for a major military confrontation – even World War Three? Or is it all just saber-rattling from a US president keen to gain the approval of foreign policy hawks back home? Who better to invite onto Sputnik than the leading North Korea and China expert Keith Bennett.

And a battle of another kind is being fought on the other side of the world. Under the leadership of Hugo Chavez, Venezuela became a beacon for progressive politics the world over. But the “economic warfare” the US is currently waging against Venezuela is, what award-winning journalist John Pilger called, “a slow-motion coup.” With the country now reeling from street protests against the Maduro government, we invited Dr. Francisco Dominguez, from Middlesex University and secretary of the Venezuelan Solidarity Campaign, into the studio to ask whether that coup is now coming to fruition, or if the Chavista revolution can survive against all the odds.