AMERICA TO GOVERN VENEZUELA AFTER MADURO REMOVAL

The American president, Donald Trump, has announced that the United States will take control of Venezuela and run the affairs of the country until what he describes as ‘a proper transition’ takes place.

The dramatic announcement came just hours after two equally dramatic developments rocked Venezuela - and the world - overnight.

Venezuela’s capital was literally rocked by a series of bombing raids said to be on military installations carried out by US military forces, followed by a social media announcement by Mr Trump that the Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife had been ‘captured’.

During a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on Saturday, Mr Trump stated that his administration will now effectively be running Venezuela.

“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition. We don’t want to be involved with having somebody else get in, and we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years,” the US president declared.

The US president also stated that it was unlikely that Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado would be installed as leader as “she doesn’t have the support" needed to run the country following the capture and ouster  of President Maduro.

He disclosed that the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had spoken with the current Venezuelan Vice President, Delcy Rodriguez, who was sworn in after Mr Maduro was captured. He said she was  "willing  to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again.

According to Mr Trump, American oil companies will play a major role in fixing what he described as Venezuela’s broken infrastructure and “start making money for the country, for themselves, and for the United States. He also claimed that Venezuela’s oil industry was mainly built by US interests, which had been deprived of their investments by successive Venezuelan governments.

Meanwhile, Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, on his way to the United States as a captive, was expected  to appear in a New York court on charges related to drug trafficking and “narco-terrorism’ against the United States.