Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado vows freedom for her country
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 11 December 2025
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Nobel Peace Prize winner arrives in Oslo after a clandestine journey from her hiding place in Venezuela. We hear the inside story of how she slipped out of the country.
Also in the programme: French police's crackdown on drug gangs in Marseilles, and a rare public display for Mary Queen of Scots' final letter before execution.
(Photo: Maria Corina Machado waving at her supporters from a balcony in Oslo. Credits: Lise Aserud/EPA/Shutterstock)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:09.2 | Hello and welcome to Newsare. It's coming to live from the BBC World Service Studios in central London. |
| 0:15.2 | I'm Tim Franks. Lots of politicians smile. It's one of the things they do, But something you notice about the Venezuelan Nobel Peace Prize winner, Maria Carino Machado, is that she spends a lot of time absolutely beaming. It seems, as far as you can tell these things, genuinely to be at one with her relentless optimism. Something you'll hear shot through an exclusive interview |
| 0:40.1 | she gave the BBC, and which will bring you in a moment. But first, the drama of her very |
| 0:46.3 | appearance in Oslo late last night, to be honoured by the Nobel Committee. Machado had been in |
| 0:52.8 | hiding for months. The authoritarian government, |
| 0:55.2 | President Nicolas Maduro, had, after all, charged her with treason and terrorism after the opposition |
| 1:00.4 | was widely believed to have won last year's presidential election. After a perilous clandestine |
| 1:06.8 | journey out of Venezuela, Machado only made it to Norway on Wednesday evening, meaning that the |
| 1:12.5 | prize had to be collected not by her, but by her daughter. And when Maria Corina Machado did |
| 1:19.5 | then appear late at night on a hotel balcony in Oslo, she was greeted by an ecstatic crowd. |
| 1:26.6 | Thank you. she was greeted by an ecstatic crowd. |
| 1:43.1 | Valiente, brave, they're chanting as Maria Carina Machado smiles and hugs herself in appreciation. |
| 1:47.0 | And today, that iron optimism I was talking about was on display as she spoke alongside the Norwegian Prime Minister. |
| 1:51.5 | I am very hopeful. Venezuela will be free. And we will turn a country into a beacon of hope, |
| 1:59.0 | an opportunity of democracy. |
| 2:06.0 | And well, we will welcome not only the Venezuelans that have been forced to flee, |
| 2:12.4 | but citizens from all over the world that will find a refuge, as Venezuela used to be, decades ago. |
| 2:18.3 | And what about the more immediate possibility of a direct U.S. military intervention in her country as the Trump administration tries to up the pressure on Nicolas Maduro. |
| 2:22.8 | Venezuela has been already invaded. We have the Russian agents. We have the Iranian agents. |
| 2:29.1 | We have terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, operating freely in accordance with the regime. We have the |
| 2:36.0 | Colombian guerrilla, the drug cartels that have taken over 60% of our populations, and not |
... |
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