美国有线新闻 CNN 委内瑞拉经济崩盘 局势加速恶化（在线收听）

Venezuela has been in the news a lot this year. Massive protests have been taking place since cities across the country, including Caracas, the Venezuelan capital. Since April, more than 120 people have died in protests against the government. Why?

The Venezuelan economy has practically collapsed. Its government gets almost half of its revenue from oil. It nationalized or took over Venezuela's oil industries in 1976.

But when oil prices dropped in recent years, so did Venezuela's revenue and that led to extreme inflation, a recession that's lasted for years, an unemployment rate of 25 percent. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro blames his political opponent and the United States for his country's economic problems.

A vote last month allowed President Maduro to replace his country's legislative branch. It used to be controlled by a political party that opposed him. The new one is filled with people who support him.

The president says the constituent assembly will help bring peace to a divided Venezuela. But his opponents, as well as other countries like the U.S. called the vote a sham, and America put economic penalties on President Maduro. He faces growing crises at home and abroad.

PAULA NEWTON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Venezuelan politics have always been complicated and temperamental. But even more so now, as the crumbling economy has plunged this country into a very dangerous political stalemate.

In 1999, Hugo Chavez was elected president and he turned to his very specific and personal brand of socialism, Chavismo. He gave out free flats, television sets, refrigerators, fixed prices for basic things, like flour and eggs.

And that made many people in Venezuela happy. It totally brought up the standard of living in the middle class. The problem was there was no way to pay for these things.

When Hugo Chavez died in 2013, his handpicked successor, Nicolas Maduro, was elected president. He continued with Chavismo. The problem was that the price of oil collapsed from $100 a barrel to less than $50. The economy has never recovered. One in four Venezuelans is unemployed. Inflation could hit 700 percent this year and there are shortages of very basic things like that flour, that medicine, even things like toilet paper.

In the meantime, President Nicolas Maduro was being encouraged by the international community to sit down with the opposition and negotiate an opposition that he continues to try and undermine. The opposition here won elections in 2015 for the national assembly, an assembly that Nicolas Maduro continues to undermine.

As of now, the international community would like Nicolas Maduro to release hundreds of political prisoners, trying to stabilize his economy and come to some kind of peace with the opposition.