 Hi, and welcome to Around the World in 8 Minutes, a show at People's Dispatch where we bring in stories from working class struggles from across the world. Buenos Aires, where hundreds are participating in the mobilization of solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution and President Nicolás Maduro. Hours ago Juan Guaido de Venezuela announced he appointed himself interim president of Venezuela and went to explore the council of transition. His declaration was welcomed by the United States, Canada, Colombia, Paraguay, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, who all declared their support of Guaido. And for more news, we head back to the studio. Thank you Zoe. After US President Donald Trump's recognition of leader of National Assembly Juan Guaido as Venezuela's president, tens of thousands of Venezuelans came out on the streets in support of President Nicolás Maduro. Speaking to the people on Wednesday afternoon from the Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Maduro denounced the actions that attempt to violate the will of the people. In a major declaration, he said that Venezuela will cut all diplomatic relationships with the United States and the personnel have 72 hours to leave the country. On Wednesday, nearly two weeks after swearing in of the democratically elected President Nicolás Maduro, Juan Guaido unilaterally declared himself interim president of the country. According to experts, this action is invalid as the Venezuelan Supreme Court has taken over the legislative power of the National Assembly for contempt of court in 2017. This move came after the swearing in of three lawmakers who had been suspended by the court over alleged electoral fraud. The recent development comes in amid a minor mutiny attempt against the Venezuelan government. On Monday, the Ministry of Defense announced that the Bolivarian Armed Forces of Venezuela contain an attack on the facilities in Caracas by a group of defecting soldiers from the Bolivarian National Guard. Many believe that this was orchestrated by Venezuelan far-right elements with support from the United States. Presidential elections were held in Venezuela in May 2018 and were called for by the National Constituent Assembly. Ahead of the elections, a sector of the far-right opposition called for a boycott of the elections and was supported by the U.S. and the conservative Latin America allies of the Lima Group. On May 21, 2018, with over six million votes cast in his favor, Nicholas Maduro was re-elected as president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Henry Falcon, the main opposition candidate, came in second place with 21 percent of the votes and Javier Berthoussi and Evangelical Pastor came in third with 10 percent of the votes. Despite the high levels of participation from all sectors of Venezuelan society, the U.S. and their allies remained firm in the rejection of the elections and reported that they would not respect Maduro's term beginning on January 10. On August 4 last year, an attempt was made to assassinate Maduro using drones loaded with explosives, which were later neutralized by Venezuelan forces. Few days before that, Maduro publicly denounced that a coup attempt was being planned against him with support from Colombia and the U.S. He further noted that hundreds of right-wing paramilitaries were being trained on the Venezuela-Colombia border for launching attack against Venezuela. Despite the latent coup threat, tens of thousands took to the streets of Caracas and across the region to show their support for Maduro and their support for the Bolivarian Revolution. Mobilizations were also organized in several cities across Latin America, such as Lima, Peru, Buenos Aires, San Jose, Costa Rica and elsewhere. Terming the decision by the United States as imperialistic, people's mobilizations in the region in support of Venezuela chanted, Yankees go back. In our next story, we look at the civil society resistance against the attempts at the World Economic Forum 2019 in Davos to launch negotiations for a plurilateral agreement on e-commerce. Terming the move as digital colonization, the organizations have said such a move is in favor of global multinational corporations. World Economic Forum is a platform for the global ultra-rich and corporates to interact with leaders of various countries. Though WEF is called as an international institution for public-private corporations, the forum is basically a lobbying arena for the global rich. To know more about the issue of e-commerce and its effects on people, we talked to Beni Kuruvela, a researcher at the Transnatural Institute. The World Economic Forum that is currently convening in Davos is yet again trying to entrench the power of the global elite in this time by attempting to launch negotiations on e-commerce. Global negotiations on e-commerce have been very controversial, especially at the World Trade Organization. The WTO has been unable for the last few years to move forward on this as many developing countries oppose to yet another new set of trade rules that are stacked against them. This agenda for e-commerce rules is pushed by tech giants such as Amazon, Google and Facebook along with the US and EU governments. What they want is complete market access to developing countries, insulation from national regulation on the digital economy, with no taxes on digital transactions that could be crossing borders and free flow of data to their servers. And the WFEF idea is that a coalition of willing countries in Davos will launch these negotiations and then coerce other countries to join and then sooner or later it will become a global agreement under the WTO. In our last story for this episode we take you to India where hundreds of thousands of civilian defense employees are on a three-day strike against the anti-working class measures being employed by the far-right government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. More than 400,000 workers are striking against this government's privatization rampage and disinvestment in defense public sector undertakings. The strike which began on Wednesday has been declared a complete success as army workshops, naval dockyards, station workshops, army depots etc across the country witnessed a complete shutdown. C. Sri Kumar, General Secretary of all India Defense Employees Federation told People's Dispatch that in all major defense units in Delhi, Chennai, Pune, Jabalpur, Kanpur, Mumbai etc and other units which are in isolated areas the strike was a success. He said the strike will go on till 6 a.m. on January 26th and has brought all the government control defense industries to a standstill. The other two unions, Indian National Defense Workers Federation and Bhartya Pratiraksha Mazdoor Sangh along with the AIDEF are the major defense employees federations under which the 400,000 defense civilian employees are on strike. In a press release issued by the AIDEF prior to the strike, the union stated that under the guise of the government's much-hyped policy of making India, the authorities are giving defense manufacturing contracts to private and multinational corporates. 100% foreign direct investment in defense has also been introduced for this purpose but these products were already being manufactured by public sector ordinance factories whose fate has now become uncertain. The striking workers are also demanding their right to pension which has been taken away under the national pension system. Under the NPS, employees are only receiving mega pension amounts of rupees 1000 to rupees 2000 as opposed to the minimum amount of rupees 9000 plus a daily allowance under the defined pension scheme. That's all for this episode of Around the World in 8 Minutes. To know more such stories of people's movements and struggles, log on to our website peoplesisfast.org and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.