maduro
© Agence France-Presse/Luis AcostaVenezuela's president, Nicolas Maduro
According to the United Nations, Venezuela has consistently reduced inequality: It now has the lowest income inequality in the region. We have reduced poverty enormously - to 25.4 percent in 2012, on the World Bank's data, from 49 percent in 1998; in the same period, according to government statistics, extreme poverty diminished to 6 percent from 21 percent.

We have created flagship universal health care and education programs, free to our citizens nationwide. We have achieved these feats in large part by using revenue from Venezuelan oil.

Read more at the NY Times