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Dr. Sidhwa made a second deployment to Gaza where he worked at Nassar hospital from March 6 to April 1, nearly becoming a casualty in the March 23 attack on that hospital by Israeli forces.Dr. Sidhwa:
"It has taken over 18 months to desensitize the world and have everybody resign themselves to the idea that everyone in Gaza, including a million children, are going to be killed. That’s where we are. Israel is continuing to do what they said they were going to do, and with unequivocal support from the United States."
2. Rescinding COVID-19 vaccine recommendations, RFK Jr. escalates assault on science and public health
Fascist Argentinian president and quack US Health and Human Services Secretary wield golden "cost-cutting" chainsaw
The removal of guidance protecting society’s most vulnerable— infants and expectant mothers— from COVID-19 will condemn countless lives to suffering and death. The consequences of undermining access to and public trust in vaccines will be disastrous. Mass vaccination campaigns aimed at eradicating an array of diseases, including measles, smallpox and polio, were one of the great advances for humanity in the 20th century. Now diseases like measles are making a resurgence in the US under Kennedy at the helm of public health.
In an extraordinary video released Tuesday, three of the Trump administration’s top health officials announced a major rollback in vaccine access in the US, stating that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would no longer recommend routine COVID-19 shots for healthy children and healthy pregnant women.
4. Teamsters for a Democratic Union seeking reelection alongside pro-fascist union head Sean O’Brien
O’Brien was one of the earliest union bureaucrats to line up behind Trump. Since then, other figures, such as the United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain, have followed suit. Their embrace of the would-be dictator and führer is the sharpest expression of the social chasm separating rank-and-file workers from the union bureaucracy, which is joined at the hip with management and the political establishment.
5. Housing crisis hits home for 20,000 residents of Rochdale Village co-operative in New York City
Genuinely affordable housing— apartments whose monthly costs amount to no more than one-third of household income— is currently estimated at less than one percent of housing stock in New York City. Much of Manhattan and northern Brooklyn has become home to the very wealthy, along with sections of the upper middle class. On “Billionaires Row” on West 57th Street in Manhattan, multimillion-dollar units are left vacant and used as investment vehicles.
6. Genocide in Gaza: Chancellor Merz gives himself an alibi
Pro-government media labeled it a “turning point in German Israel policy.” In fact, Merz’s statements are nothing of the sort. The chancellor is trying to create for himself an alibi for a crime against humanity that he has supported more unconditionally than almost any other German politician for a year and a half—without changing his policies in the slightest. The German government is not even prepared to stop supplying weapons to the Israeli army.
7. Trump administration launches witch-hunt of Chinese international students
This latest attack draws from the filthiest corners of the history of anti-Chinese chauvinism, from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, to the violent anti-Chinese pogroms which followed. In addition to promoting division in the working class and diverting anger away from the oligarchs, this move seeks to prepare public opinion for war with China.
The ruling this month by the most senior judge at London’s Central Criminal Court that the police raid on British journalist Asa Winstanley’s London home on October 17, 2024 was unlawful is a blow against the Starmer government’s efforts to criminalize opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.4. Detroit Opera production of The Central Park Five takes aim at TrumpThe fact that audience members had to pass through metal detectors and clear security to enter the theater was a reminder of the heightened social and political tensions.
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The staging of an opera is a costly and complex undertaking. The Detroit Opera, formerly the Michigan Opera, has struggled financially over the years as have arts organizations at all levels nationwide. The opera suffered a near financial collapse with the withdrawal of corporate funding in the wake of the 2008 financial crash and also suffered during the pandemic. The generally abysmal level of public funding for the arts in the US and the coming to power of the new Trump administration, which plans to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts, pose further challenges.
Several Dundee workers have recently come forward and provided detailed testimony for the independent investigation into Adams’ death.
Videos posted of the raid showed dozens of police vehicles, white school buses and heavily armed and masked agents descending on the construction site. Many of the Gestapo thugs had their faces covered and virtually all were wearing body armor, even though it appears none of the workers were armed or wanted for violent crimes.
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The massive raid drew a crowd of distressed onlookers and family members. Videos posted on social media quickly went viral, with thousands condemning the arrests of the workers.
11. Reciprocal tariff negotiations directed against China
The central target of Trump’s economic war is China because its economic advance, especially in the area of high-tech, is regarded as an existential threat to the global dominance of the US.*****
The central aim of the US is to tear countries, especially those in southeast Asia, away from their economic dependence on China with the aim of ending their attempted strategic balancing act between Washington and Beijing.
But the US has a major problem in that it has nothing to offer those countries economically, under conditions where a break from China will result in economic devastation, threatening to set off major social upheavals and possibly sparking retaliatory action, of which Beijing has warned.
The outcome, at least so far, is that rather than a break from Beijing, US actions are pushing more countries into its orbit because they have nowhere else to go....
12. Appeals court orders a stay on ruling against Trump’s tariff war
The appeals court did not rule on the legal merits of the decision but ordered a temporary stay “until further notice.” The decision opens the way for the Trump administration to appeal the decision, possibly securing a rapid hearing in the Supreme Court.
“He’s a very sweet kid,” his teacher said. “And very much still a kid. He’s not a student who’s getting in trouble. This is a student who wants to graduate high school. And he has a lot of friends. People love him! He arrived in the US about two years ago and only recently turned 18. So he was a minor when he arrived and he had no control over coming here.”
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These arrests are part of the Trump administration’s ongoing mass deportation operation and are an attack on the democratic rights of the entire working class. The fact that high school students are now being targeted exposes the right-wing lies that immigrants are violent criminals and a threat to society.
14. Worsening poverty and social misery in New Zealand
Asked by a TV New Zealand interviewer why the government had not done more in the budget to address child poverty, Finance Minister Nicola Willis declared: “there is not actually a magic money tree that allows me to show such generosity that I can solve every problem at once.”
Year after year, successive Labour and National Party governments have trotted out this refrain, even as they have handed tens of billions of dollars to the corporate elite through tax cuts, subsidies and bailouts, and spent billions on the armed forces.
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Nationwide 500,000 people, one tenth of the population, relies on food banks on a regular basis.
Homelessness continues to become more visible in every major centre. The government has boasted about reducing the number of emergency housing places from 4,000 in September 2023 to around 500 in December 2024—despite the 2023 census finding that 112,496 people, or 2.3 percent of the population, are “severely housing deprived” (up from 99,462 people in 2018).
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Growing social misery and hopelessness is reflected in an unprecedented surge in the use of dangerous drugs. In Northland, the poorest region, as well as Southland and Otago, wastewater testing shows methamphetamine use has tripled in the past year. Nationwide, the amount of meth consumed between October and December 2024 was 78 percent higher than the average over the previous 12 months.
There is also a profound mental health crisis, particularly affecting young people. A May 14 report by UNICEF revealed that New Zealand had the worst youth suicide rate of the 36 countries in the OECD, with 17.1 suicides per 100,000 people aged 15 to 19 (based on data from 2018–20).
UNICEF appealed to the government to increase welfare payments for families with children and to address food insecurity by expanding the provision of free school lunches. The government has made cruel cuts in both areas.
15. Strike by 950 nurses in Madison, Wisconsin over workplace safety and wages
The fact that SEIU Wisconsin called a mere five-day strike shows the union bureaucracy is not willing to wage a protracted struggle on behalf of workers. Nor has SEIU Wisconsin published on its website the specific wage increases and staffing ratios, if any, that it is seeking. It could therefore declare victory on any changes at all, no matter how insignificant.
16. Former leading Ukrainian political operative assassinated in Spain
[Andriy] Portnov was a former member of the Ukrainian parliament and deputy head in the administration of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was toppled in a US- and EU-backed coup in February 2014. His assassination adds another name to the long list of Russia-aligned political figures from the Ukrainian ruling class who have been killed in targeted assassinations following the full-scale outbreak of the NATO-backed proxy war between Kiev and Moscow in February 2022.
17. Australian construction union boss steps down as Labor-appointed administrator tightens screws
Zach Smith’s resignation as national secretary of the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union is an attempt to bolster his credibility with workers, as he continues to serve as a lackey of the administrator.
18. Workers Struggles: Europe, Middle East & Africa
Greece:
Strike by bank cashiers against sudden sackings
Rail workers in one-day stoppage for improved pay and conditions
Teachers in Asturias, Spain strike for improved pay and working conditions
Over 200 chemical workers in stoppage for living wage
Care workers launch first national walkout in Scotland for a decade over pay and broken promises
Drivers at Scottish bus company begin series of walkouts over unacceptable pay offer
Further stoppages by academic staff at Dundee university, Scotland, over job cuts
Strike by health center cleaners in northwest England over pay delays
Spreading nationwide strike by truck drivers has severe impact
Doctors in three Kenyan counties on indefinite strike over pay and conditions
University of Ghana staff on strike over working conditions
Nigeria:Teachers in nation's capital continue strike, demand payment of arrears
Unemployed workers in Johannesburg demonstrate for jobs at Eskom
Residents of an informal settlement in Cape Town protest state demolition of homes
14. Free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk!
The sign says: "Peace for the world! Down with war!"
