Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
[Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba] Murkomen’s words were chilling: “Our security agencies exercised remarkable restraint amid extreme provocation. To our brave officers injured while protecting Kenya against rioters and no doubt hired thugs, we feel your pain and sacrifice that embody the truest expression of patriotism. Thank you for a job well done; you have my full support. There is no police officer who committed any excesses.”
Wednesday saw a powerful nationwide protest led by hundreds of thousands of Kenyans, predominantly youth, who flooded the streets across major cities and towns in the country to commemorate those slain by police violence and to voice their opposition to the authoritarian rule of the Ruto government, IMF-driven austerity, and skyrocketing costs of living. Demonstrations erupted across at least 27 of the country’s 47 counties.
The police were deployed to terrorize the population by killing, maiming, and teargassing unarmed protesters. To conceal their actions, many officers wore masks, hoods, and civilian clothing, while others operated without name tags—clear violations of the law.
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Ruto, Odinga, and Atwoli are part of a universal phenomenon. In all imperialist countries and their former colonies across Africa, bourgeois governments are rapidly rearming, embracing authoritarian methods of governance, and stoking reactionary forces to preserve their rule—driven by the mounting crisis of global capitalism.
2. NATO summit sets the stage for world war and dictatorship
The NATO summit held this week in The Hague marks a dangerous turning point in world politics. Seventy-five years after its founding, the imperialist alliance of 32 member states has pledged to spend at least 5 percent of GDP on the military. This buildup is directed not only against Russia and China—it targets the working class in every country.
The summit took place just days after the illegal US-Israeli bombardment of Iran and in the midst of the ongoing genocide in Gaza. It coincided with NATO’s escalating proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and mounting preparations for military confrontation with China. Behind the cynical rhetoric of “defense” and “deterrence” lies the reality that NATO is preparing for global war and the violent redivision of the world.
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The implementation of these war plans and budgets requires a massive redistribution of wealth from the working class to the capitalist oligarchy and the military-industrial complex. Trillions of euros and dollars are being funneled into armaments, while public services are systematically gutted. Healthcare, education, pensions, housing, and other basic social protections are to be destroyed to pay for war.
This agenda cannot be carried out democratically. To suppress the inevitable opposition from workers and youth, authoritarian forms of rule are being prepared and implemented across all NATO member states.
3. Andor: Encouraging and reflecting anti-establishment, anti-authoritarian sentiment
What makes Andor remarkable is not its visual effects or action sequences, but the extent to which it portrays the ravages of imperialist violence and encroachment. The scenes and characters in Andor are not allegorical, they speak to contemporary conditions and processes.
4. AFT President Weingarten exits the DNC amidst deepening crisis of Democratic Party
The exact issues involved behind Weingarten’s resignation are difficult to say with certainty, but what can be said is that there are no issues of political principle involved. A member of the DNC since 2002, Weingarten is a creature of the state and intelligence agencies. She is a leading Zionist and supporter of the wars of US imperialism, crisscrossing the world in support of US-backed wars in Gaza and Ukraine. The latter has brought her in contact with Ukrainian neo-Nazis, and underscores the cynicism of her joining in the slander of opponents of Zionism as antisemitic.
In the aftermath of Zohran Mamdani’s decisive victory in Tuesday’s Democratic mayoral primary in New York City, politicians from both capitalist parties have lined up to denounce the Democratic Socialists of America member and his very modest reform proposals.
Republicans in New York and nationally have responded with overtly racist rhetoric and fascistic threats to “denaturalize” and deport Mamdani. In a letter sent Thursday to Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, Tennessee Republican Congressman Andy Ogles urged the Department of Justice to “open an investigation into whether Zohran Kwame Mamdani… should be subject to denaturalization proceedings on the grounds that he may have procured US citizenship through willful misrepresentation or concealment of material support for terrorism.”
6. Australia: Victorian mental health workers strike against Labor government pay offer
As is the case throughout the public health system, [Victoria's] mental health sector is in a deepening crisis. Chronic understaffing, lack of resources and low wages, due to decades of government funding cuts and a privatization drive, has left many mental health workers burnt out and considering leaving the sector.
Now, the Labor government is seeking to impose a 3 percent per annum nominal pay rise for all non-nursing staff, which would effectively lock in another four years of real wage cuts. While the official inflation figure is currently 2.4 percent, the cost of living is rising far more rapidly for working-class households, driven by the soaring cost of housing, utilities and fuel.
7. Striking Australian mental health workers speak about wages and conditions
One worker:
“No one is in public health because they want to get rich. It is because we are passionate and we think that there is value in providing service to the population and it is disappointing that our government is not getting behind us and helping us to do that. We’re all going above and beyond. We get out late. People work through their lunches because work needs to get done. And asking for that to be fairly compensated is not unreasonable.”
8. Engineers’ contract narrowly passed at CSX, while US railroads push for mergers, deregulation
[Union] officials have tried to put the best face on the new deal, claiming it represents an 18.77 percent “compounded” wage increase and a 21.4 percent total increase in wages and benefits. But in reality, the agreement amounts to a real wage cut under conditions of continuing inflation, particularly for a workforce that has suffered massive job losses, deteriorating working conditions and longer hours under “Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR).”
The deal is effectively the same one which the rail unions are attempting to ram through across all six Class I railroaders in the US. Having barely avoided an all-out rebellion and national strike three years ago, the union bureaucrats are now forcing workers to vote on dozens of separate bilateral deals—albeit with near-identical language on economics—between each union and each railroad.
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The growing unrest among railroaders is taking place amid renewed speculation in financial circles over massive cross-country mergers between the Class I carriers. Reports in Barron’s and other business publications have floated scenarios in which Union Pacific, the largest carrier in the western US, would merge with either CSX or Norfolk Southern, forming one half of a transcontinental duopoly. The remaining carrier would then likely be absorbed by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, which owns BNSF Railway.
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Behind the drive for mergers is the impact of Precision Scheduled Railroading, pioneered by the late CSX CEO Hunter Harrison and implemented across nearly every major railroad. PSR has slashed tens of thousands of jobs, destroyed rail infrastructure, shuttered yards and maintenance shops, and forced the remaining workforce to work longer hours with fewer safety protections.
Now, after cutting operations to the bone, the carriers see mergers as a means of continuing profitability through monopoly control of the national freight network.
The USPS (US Postal Service) Workers Rank-and-File Committee is holding an online meeting this Sunday at 3 p.m. EDT, “For a rank-and-file investigation into the extreme heat deaths of two USPS workers!”
10. Australia: Educators rally against Victorian Labor government’s school funding cut
In a major attack on public education, the state Labor government of Premier Jacinta Allan secretly slashed more than $2.4 billion in promised school funding over the next six years.
The cuts also impact federal funding arrangements, which are matched to the state allocation. That brings the total withdrawal of desperately needed school funding to $3 billion.
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Justin Mullaly, the Australian Education Union (AEU) state branch president, called for the government to “fix your funding mess now. We have this problem because of active decisions of the government.”
Contrary to Mullaly, the Allan government’s cuts are not an aberration or an accident. They are a deepening of decades of underfunding to public education, presided over by successive governments at the state and federal levels, Labor and Liberal alike.
This offensive has deliberately created a two-tier educational system that is semi-privatized and socially segregated. Students from privileged backgrounds attend lavish private schools, that continue to receive substantial public funding.
11. SEP/IYSSE public meetings in Sri Lanka: Oppose US-Israel war on Iran!
The Socialist Equality Party and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality in Sri Lanka are holding two public meetings titled “Oppose US-Israel war on Iran.”
The first is an online event via Zoom on Sunday July 6 at 7 p.m.; the second is an in-person public meeting on Tuesday July 8 at 3 p.m. at Veerasingham Hall in Jaffna.
12. China continues to seek move away from US dollar
China is continuing to chip away at dollar dominance of the global financial system and is seeking to enhance the role of its currency, the renminbi (yuan), by easing restrictions on its movement and by touting a major expansion of its internal market that will prove attractive to foreign investors.
These were the central themes of an address by Chinese Premier Li Qiang to the World Economic Forum’s summer meeting—sometimes referred to as the “summer Davos”—held in the north China city of Tianjin this week.
While not directly referencing the US and the actions of the Trump administration, Li said China would “open its doors still wider to the world,” and warned of the “fragmentation” of global supply chains, casting China as a stabilizing force in the global economy.
He said policymakers were growing the nation “into a mega-sized consumer powerhouse on top of its solid foundation as a manufacturing power,” and this would bring “vast markets to enterprises from all countries.”
13. Israel closes crossings into northern Gaza, as massacres of Palestinians at aid sites continue
Civilians are forced to walk long, exposed routes to reach the distribution centers, only to be targeted by military vehicles, drones, helicopters and artillery shells. Those who survive the journey often receive only a meager amount of food that is below minimum survival needs.
The repeated killings at aid sites have created an atmosphere of fear and desperation. This has led to widespread terror and the collapse of social cohesion, as people are afraid to leave their homes or seek assistance. The Israeli strategy is not only to starve the population but to break its will to resist and to herd it into tightly controlled zones and out of Gaza entirely.
14. Cadiz metalworkers reject Spanish union sellout contract
Workers marched in protest against a sellout the social-democratic UGT union bureaucracy attempted to impose on them to call off strikes.
15. State bill proposes massive cuts at University of Michigan and Michigan State University
Michigan's public universities face an escalating crisis, the culmination of decades of state disinvestment. At the forefront of this assault is Michigan House Bill 4580 (HB 4580), introduced by Republican Representative Greg Markkanen on June 5, 2025, and passed on June 12. The bill, the House response to Senate Bill 167 (SB 167), passed May 13, focuses on appropriations for higher education for the fiscal year 2025-2026.
The bill intertwines funding with partisan cultural policies, targets Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, requires universities to list their employees who work remotely, and demands universities certify students’ immigration status. The bill has since been transmitted to the Senate, where it awaits negotiations with the Democratic-controlled body and Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
Grenfell Uncovered traces the events and decisions in political and corporate circles that led to the 2017 inferno in London’s Grenfell Tower that took the lives of 72 people.
A call for long-denied justice, the Netflix documentary is directed by Olaide Sadiq and features heart-rending testimony from bereaved family members and survivors. Sadiq knew Khadija Saye, a victim of the fire. Khadija, a photographer who had exhibited at the Venice Biennale, was just 24 when she died alongside her mother, Mary Mendy.
17. Philadelphia sanitation workers and educators push for strike action
Approximately 9,000 Philadelphia municipal workers in AFSCME District Council 33 are set to go on strike when their current contract expires at midnight on June 30. The union includes sanitation, water, airport and other essential workers, whose labor keeps the city functioning.
At the same time, 14,000 educators in the city’ school district have voted to authorize a strike. The public school system faces a $300-$400 million funding gap in the coming fiscal year. Meanwhile, the school district projects a $2 billion gap over the next five years.
A similar situation exists in the public transit system, where a $213 million structural deficit threatens to create a “death spiral” for commuters who rely on the trains, once the new fiscal year begins, also next week. Other cities as well, such as Washington, D.C. ($1.1 billion); Chicago, Illinois ($1.1 billion); Denver, Colorado ($50-$200 million this year and next) and Austin, Texas ($33.4 million), face substantial financial deficits.
In November 2021, Presiding Judge [Wilfried] Peters rejected the complaint filed by the Socialist Equality Party against the federal Interior Ministry and Verfassungsschutz (Secret Service), ruling that the party should also bear the full costs of the proceedings.
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The German intelligence service is notorious and widely despised for its right-wing bias, which reaches back to the Nazi era. Last year it was revealed that the federal Verfassungsschutz had classified its former head, Hans-Georg Maassen, as a “suspected right-wing extremist.” This amounts to an admission that the agency was led for eight years by a far-right extremist.
19. Free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk!
Bogdan Syrotiuk
