 Hello and welcome to People's Dispatch. I am Prashant and you're watching Around the World in 8 Minutes where we bring you news from working class and popular movements across the globe. At around 9am on Thursday May 16th, police illegally broke into the Venezuelan embassy in Washington DC and arrested the four members of the embassy protection collective. These activists have been safeguarding the embassy for the last 37 days while a permanent protectorate for the embassy is established. Their arrest comes three days after the police from the District of Columbia and agents of the US Secret Service forcibly entered the premises, breaking the chains, locking the doors. They then issued the activists inside the embassy an eviction notice. The embassy protection collective has been safeguarding the embassy with the authorization from the legitimate government of Venezuela and throughout the weeks that they have been in the embassy, they have faced immense harassment and violence from members of the right-wing opposition. The opposition members also blocked the entry of food and medicine to the activists inside the embassy. The arrests of activists has been denounced by social movements and organizations across the globe as well as members of the Venezuelan government. Foreign Minister Jorge Ariasar wrote on Twitter, today our diplomatic property in Washington was taken and invaded by a police operation without precedent. They disrespected their obligations to the Vienna Convention and violated the human rights of the activists that have protected our embassy with our authorization. He continued, the moral of the four activists is more powerful than the repressive force the dozens of armed police that were deployed. The government of Venezuela will evaluate the response in the framework of international law within the recognized principle of reciprocity. Vice Minister for North America Carlos Ron wrote, we denounce the arrest of the embassy protection collective members who are staying in the embassy without permission. We do not authorize any of the coup representatives to the end of the embassy. The activists have vowed that the struggle is not over and that people are calling for a protecting power agreements so that the D.C. embassy and the U.S. embassy in Caracas are protected by a third country. Mobilizations will also be held this weekend to denounce the eviction and arrests. On the 15th of May, close to 13 million Palestinians worldwide, most of them refugees, will commemorate Nakba Day. The Nakba Day honors more than 800,000 Palestinians from more than 1,300 villages in towns who were forced to flee over expelled from their homes and villages by Zionist and Jewish militias during the establishment of the state of Israel and the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. It is also known as the catastrophe. The Zionist forces seized control of more than 78% of historic Palestine and ethnically cleansed and destroyed 530 villages and towns. Thousands of Palestinians are also believed to have been killed. The Nakba ended up forcing out somewhere around 85 to 90% of the Palestinian population to make way for the state of Israel. In many cities like Jerusalem and Haifa, whole neighborhoods were emptied of Palestinians and replaced with Jewish Israelis. The Nakba also didn't stop in 1948, but continued for the next two years. Several Palestinian organizations have released statements marking the occasion. The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine reaffirmed its commitment to the land of Palestine and to the right of right of return of those who were expelled in 1948 and the descendants. The DFLP called for converting the 71st anniversary of the Nakba Day into a total and outright rejection of the Oslo Accords and its obligations, limitations and entitlements. It also called for a rejection of U.S. President Donald Trump's Deal of the Century. This deal is likely to be announced any day and could mark a further blow to the aspirations and statehood of Palestinians. The Palestinian youth organization Voice of Palestinian Students called out Arab countries that are trying to normalize relations with the Zionist entity Israel and are being strong armed by the U.S. into accepting Trump's Deal. On March 30, 2018, the people of Gaza began the Great March of Return with the demand of the right to return of those who were expelled in 1948 and the descendants. These protests were met with heavy repression by the Israelis. On May 15, 2018, the day when the U.S. Embassy in Israel was shifted to Jerusalem, Israeli soldiers killed nearly 60 Palestinians and injured around 1,100 people. More protests are likely to take place at the fence dividing Israel and Gaza today too. In our last story, we take you to Colombia, where more than 50,000 people hid the streets of the city of Bukaramanga in the Department of Santander in defense of water and the Santurban-Paramo ecosystem and against the mining project of the Sosidad Minera de Santander Minesa on May 10. Minesa is a gold mining company of which the United Arab Emirates is a majority stakeholder. The Committee for the Defense of Water and the Santurban-Paramo gave the call for mobilizations. School and university students, workers, activists and trade unionists from all sectors took part in the mobilization. The protesters marched with banners and placards that read, no to mining, less gold and more water. Water is gold and water is right, not a business. Many marched with blue and white balloons wearing t-shirts that read, our gold is water and several participants had their bodies painted. In Colombia, nearly 2 million people rely on the Santurban-Paramo for their fresh water supply. The Paramo, the high-altitude forests and wetlands, absorb moisture from fog and are therefore a natural source of water. They also absorb a large amount of carbon mitigating climate change and provide refuge for hundreds of threatened species. The land in and around the Santurban-Paramo contains gold and other minerals. Gold mining activities in its vicinity will be disastrous as it would lead to the discharge of large amounts of cyanide, mercury and arsenic polluting the water coming from the Paramo. Recently, on May 2, the Colombian Lower House of Parliament approved the new national development plan, PND, which was fiercely criticized by vast sectors of the Colombian society for its anti-people policies as well as for focusing all development on the extraction of natural resources. Although the PND facilitates fracking and mining activities in Colombia, it remains to be seen if the neoliberal government of President Iván Duque will grant the required license, putting the country's ecological system at a serious risk. That is all for this episode of Around the World in 8 Minutes. For more such stories and videos, do visit our website peoplesdispatch.org and follow us on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for watching.