Vice President Maduro now Interim President of Venezuela; Chavez to be Embalmed
HOLMES: And let's take you to Afghanistan right now. The new U.S. defense secretary visiting American troops.</s>WHITFIELD: Chuck Hagel making his first war-zone visit since becoming defense secretary. He says his number one job today is to thank the soldiers and marines in person.</s>HOLMES: He's also meeting with the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai. NO doubt there'll be plenty to talk about there. Meanwhile, President Obama says he will not engage in any kind of, what he calls, chest beating over Iran's nuclear program.</s>WHITFIELD: Sources say Mr. Obama made the remarks last night during a meeting with Jewish-American leaders ahead of his trip to Israel. He says the U.S. will continue to work towards a diplomatic resolution to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.</s>HOLMES: He repeated that no options were off the table, and that includes military ones.</s>WHITFIELD: Onto Venezuela now. The Vice President Nicolas Maduro will be sworn in tonight as the country's interim president.</s>HOLMES: Maduro is going to hold the office for 30 days. This is according to the constitution. There needs to be new elections by then. Maduro, of course, replaces Hugo Chavez who died Tuesday of cancer at age 58. He was in office for 14 years.</s>WHITFIELD: Chavez's funeral is under way right now in Caracas. We're learning more details about how long the former president will lie in state and what will happen with his body ultimately.</s>HOLMES: Let's go to CNN Shasta Darlington. She has been following all of this from Caracas. Let's talk about what's happening now. Bring us up to date on that. And also what happened to the body. It's going to be around for a while.</s>SHASTA DARLINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Exactly, Michael. Right now what we're seeing is the official state funeral. It's a fairly formal affair, as you can see. There are some 30 heads of state from around the world. We have the Iranian president, Ahmadinejad, but they're mostly from Latin America. And that's because this is a type to recall and reflect back on Hugo Chavez and his legacy. He's the man, this charismatic but controversial leader, who tried to unite leftist revolutionaries around the world and particularly in Latin America. Every president in the region has come through Venezuela in the last three days. We've heard the national anthem. A lot of presidents stood up and did sort of a guard of honor next to the casket. Now we're hearing more music and prayers. This is just a way for them to recognize, even if they don't agree with him ideologically, all of the dreams that he had for this region, Michael. Now this is just the beginning of the funeral proceedings and ceremonies will actually continue. He will continue to lie in state for another seven days. They had to extend this because so many people turned out. Tens of thousands of Venezuelans turned out to say good-bye. They ended up waiting in the hot sun for up to 12 hours at a time, sleeping outside. It became so worrisome that they decided to extend this period. And then the big announcement came. They decided to embalm his body. So, in fact, what the vice president Nicolas Maduro said is they want him to be able to be seen for the rest of eternity. Just like the rest of the revolutionary leaders. So he will be embalmed and placed in a glass case inside the revolutionary museum, Michael.</s>WHITFIELD: And for how long then, Shasta this is Fredericka for how long then on display, so to speak?</s>DARLINGTON: Well, Venezuelans can line up to see him for the next seven days, but the embalming, he said for eternity. He will be on display for eternity in the museum. Just as we've seen in other countries. The idea being also that this would be a way for the leaders taking over to prolong his legacy and show that the Boliverian revolution as it's known won't die. They really need to fire up the bases and try to keep all of the support that Hugo Chavez had in Venezuela, that he built over these 14 years as the president. They want to maintain that support. And Maduro isn't this charismatic leader like Chavez was. So they're relying on a lot of things like the idea of embalming his body to fire up the bases, Fredericka.</s>HOLMES: And he had a fractious relationship with the United States and others, but this is a man who was a politically effective leader but economically a disastrous one in many ways. Will the culture of Chavizmo (ph) as it was known, survive with new leadership there?</s>DARLINGTON: Well, there are going to be a couple of issues here. On the one hand, the way that Hugo Chavez funded all his socialist policies, going into the barrios, building schools, building health clinics, providing jobs and education and free houses was through oil revenues. This is a very oil rich country. Luckily for Maduro, who is likely to win the next election, he will still have access to those oil resources. On the other side, over the last 14 years there has been a problem that Hugo Chavez has used the resources to fund these projects and instead of reinvesting them, the oil industry has been depleted. It's really been stripped. So what you've seen is the oil production has fallen and Maduro will have to deal with this. He won't have the same resources over the next year that Hugo Chavez had. And so he's going to have to hael with rising inflation, unemployment, a terrible issue in the black market. The Bolivar (ph) is traded on the black market instead of the real market. These are all issues he's going to have to deal with. And he won't have the same resources, Michael.</s>HOLMES: Shasta, thank you so much. Shasta Darlington there. Yes, currency is devalued like, I think, 90 percent over the last decade. And for an oil-rich country, the economy is really shattered. Hyperinflation, everything is a bit out of control.</s>WHITFIELD: Well, yes, this devotion still.</s>HOLMES: Yes, you wouldn't want to inherit that, really.</s>WHITFIELD: No, you wouldn't. All right. Well, a group of Chinese immigrants living in New York being kicked out of their homes.</s>HOLMES: Yes, a sad story, this, we'll tell you why next.