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This is the Global News Podcast.

The former president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, will appear in court today in New York to face drug trafficking and weapons charges.

It will be his second court appearance since US special forces seized him at the start of the year.

In the past three months, Venezuela's government, once hostile to Washington, has begun working with it, opening its oil and mining sectors to foreign investment and releasing some political prisoners.

But beyond the political shifts, what's actually changed for Venezuelans?

Here's our South America correspondent, Ione Wells.

Here off the coast of Sucre, one of Venezuela's poorest states, is where the US military action against Venezuela started.

These strikes on small alleged drug smuggling boats, now responsible for killing more than 150 people, started months before the US special forces raid on Caracas in the seizure of Nicolás Maduro.

Dianis Noriega, a mother of five, tells me her husband Luis was one of them.

At school, the kids were telling my daughter that her dad was blown up on a boat.

She fell into depression.

The US claim those on board were narco-terrorists, but hasn't yet offered evidence.

Dianis tells a different story, poverty pushing ordinary fishermen to take these jobs.

Poverty, she says, that military action can't bomb away.

Since Maduro's arrest, there are already some tangible changes in the nation's capital, Caracas, like the release of some political prisoners.

Jesus Armas, who worked on the opposition's last election campaign, was detained for 10 months before his release in February.

They use plastic bags and put these plastic bags all over my face.