Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
1. Haaretz report exposes deliberate Israeli policy of massacring aid-seekers in Gaza
Over the past month, Israeli forces have opened fire almost every day at aid seekers collecting food from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the US/Israeli-backed food distribution organization. More than 549 people have been killed and over 4,000 wounded so far, during nineteen separate incidents.
From the start, it was clear that the level of daily mass killing was the result of a deliberate policy of shooting live small arms ammunition, tank rounds and mortars into crowds of aid-seekers, with the aim of turning the food distribution points into killing fields as part of the ongoing genocide.
On Friday, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an in-depth report substantiating the existence of orders instructing Israeli soldiers to fire into the crowds. Internally, the massacres are officially justified as a form of crowd control, with soldiers moving groups of unarmed people from one place to another by shooting at them.
2. Police attack pro-Palestinian protesters in Sydney leaving 1 seriously injured
A participant suffered horrific injuries, with photos showing one side of her face, including her eye, badly wounded. The victim, Hannah Thomas, stood as a Greens candidate in the May federal election, contesting Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s seat of Grayndler.
Thomas was reportedly present at the protest as a legal observer. That, combined with the extent of her injuries, suggestive of an extremely forceful blow to the face, points to the lawlessness of the police attack. Thomas’ family have stated that her injuries are so severe that she may permanently lose sight in her eye.
The protest was held in the working-class south-west suburb of Belmore, outside the SEC Plating factory.
Activists have targeted the company due to its alleged involvement in the global arms industry supply chain. SEC, which provides advanced electroplating and coating, has previously been listed as a participant in Lockheed Martin’s construction of F-35 fighter jets.
The Israeli military has used F-35s to drop bombs on Gaza, as part of its mass murder and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. SEC has told the press that it is not currently involved in any F-35 projects, but the company continues to list defense and aerospace as among the industries it services.
3. US Supreme Court backs dictatorship in ruling on birthright citizenship injunction
The US Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. CASA marks a new milestone in the collapse of American democracy. In a 6-3 ruling issued Thursday, the far-right majority sided with the Trump administration and stripped federal courts of the power to issue universal injunctions—even in cases where government policies are clearly unconstitutional.
The immediate effect of the decision is to permit the government to prepare to implement Trump’s executive order targeting birthright citizenship—one of the most fundamental democratic principles in American law. This principle is enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in the aftermath of the Civil War to guarantee citizenship to all those born in the United States, regardless of race, ancestry or parentage.
4. Cracks opening in long-term bond market
This week, the Financial Times published an article noting that investors were “fleeing long-term US bonds at the swiftest rate since the height of the Covid-19 pandemic five years ago as America’s soaring debt load tarnishes the appeal of one of the world’s most important markets.”
The article did not go into detail about what happened then, but it should be recalled that in March 2020 the Treasury market froze—for several days there were no buyers for US debt, supposedly the safest financial asset in the world. The US Federal Reserve had to intervene to the tune of several trillion dollars to halt a meltdown of the entire US and global financial system.
5. Sly Stone (1943–2025), a funk pioneer who rejected musical and racial boundaries
Stone and his band achieved artistic success and wild popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s with songs such as “Everyday People,” “Hot Fun in the Summertime,” “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” and “Family Affair.” Their music blended rock, soul, gospel and psychedelia in a way that set them apart from their contemporaries. Stone, moreover, was a pioneer of funk whose legacy has influenced generations of musicians. But he is also known as an artist who, under various pressures, including success, became increasingly erratic and ultimately withdrew from public life almost entirely.6. Australia: More than 100,000 patients waiting for elective surgery in NSW public hospitals
Waiting times for elective surgery in New South Wales public hospitals significantly increased in the first quarter of this year, according to the “Healthcare Quarterly” report released by the Bureau of Health Information, a state government funded research body.
At the end of March, 100,678 people were awaiting elective surgery, 348 more than in the June quarter of 2020, when many such surgeries were suspended due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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There is strong opposition to the worsening public health crisis among staff throughout the sector, but their attempts to fight back have been repeatedly sabotaged and shut down by the health unions:
- Nurses and midwives carried out several mass strikes last year demanding a pay increase of 15 percent. This was shut down by the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association (NSWNMA), which agreed to uphold a nine-month ban on industrial action imposed by the Industrial Relations Commission (IRC).
- More than 200 staff psychiatrists threatened to resign en masse earlier this year over low pay and chronic understaffing, in a stunt promoted by the Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation (ASMOF).
- More than 5,000 public hospital doctors stopped work for three days in April, their first strike in 27 years, demanding a 30 percent pay increase to bring their wages in line with other states, and an end to understaffing and unsafe working conditions. ASMOF shut down further action, agreeing to a three-month strike ban and arbitration before the IRC.
Health workers across the country, including mental health staff in Victoria and nurses in Queensland, are also trying to fight back against similar attacks. But they cannot take their struggle forward within the framework of the unions, which have collaborated with one government after another over decades to enforce the erosion of public health.
Rank-and-file committees, democratically controlled by workers, not union bureaucrats, must be built in hospitals and other health facilities. Through such committees, staff from all corners of the health sector can prepare a unified struggle for good pay and conditions and a high quality public health system, free and accessible to all.
President Donald Trump and his fascist Republican allies have escalated their racist, Islamophobic and anti-socialist attacks on Zohran Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the winner of this week’s Democratic primary for mayor of New York City.
Speaking from the White House on Friday, Trump denounced Mamdani as “this communist from New York.” Trump added, “That’s a terrible thing for our country, by the way. He’s a communist! We are going to go to a communistic city. That’s so bad for New York, but the rest of the country is revolting against it.”
Far from “revolting against it,” the 432,305 first-choice votes cast for Mamdani in Tuesday’s election is the largest raw turnout for a self-identified democratic socialist in New York City history. It is also the highest vote total for any Democratic candidate in a mayoral primary since the 1973 runoff, when Abraham Beame received over 547,000 votes.
Mamdani is neither a communist, Marxist, nor revolutionary socialist. But the ruling class is terrified that even his mild criticisms of capitalism—and his open identification as a “democratic socialist”—received overwhelming support in Tuesday’s primary, held in the heart of global finance capital: New York City, home to Wall Street.
The rural carriers are among the most heavily exploited workers at USPS. They work on a form of piece-rate where they are paid according to the “value” of their routes as arbitrarily assigned by management. A new program, the Rural Route Evaluation Compensation System, led to two-thirds of rural carriers losing income, many over $10,000 and as high as $20,000 a year.
Service in the country’s rural areas is particularly targeted by a major restructuring program, Delivering for America, given the higher percentage of post offices in these areas, which management complains are “unprofitable.” But the post office’s mandate since its founding during the American Revolution was to provide mail as a public service, not to make money.
This has been eroded over many decades, since then President Richard Nixon demoted it from a cabinet-level department to an independent agency with no taxpayer funding. Now, the series of bipartisan attacks on the post office are reaching their culmination.
The USPS Workers Rank-and-File Committee is holding an online public meeting this Sunday, June 29, at 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time, “For a rank-and-file investigation into the extreme heat deaths of two USPS workers!” Register here to attend.
9. Kennedy’s hand-picked ACIP elevates anti-vaccine pseudoscience into US public health policy
Despite overwhelming evidence of ongoing public health threats, earlier this month Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dismantled this vital independent body, replacing credentialed vaccine experts with ideologically aligned appointees, a move widely condemned as an assault on science and public health infrastructure.10. “World Wealth Report 2025”: Social divide deepens in Germany
In anticipation of the foreseeable social explosion, everything possible is already being done to divide the working class. That is the real reason for the agitation against migrants and refugees, spearheaded by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and implemented by governments at federal and state levels. The poorest of the poor are being scapegoated for a financial crisis that is, in reality, the result of the orgy of enrichment of the super-rich.
11. New Zealand government refuses to condemn illegal US bombing of Iran
A few hours before US President Donald Trump announced the attack, New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon—who was in Europe to attend the NATO war summit—called for “diplomacy” to end the Israel-Iran war, stating: “more military action [is] going to make the region more destabilised and cause more catastrophe and more human suffering.”
Afterwards, however, on June 23, Luxon echoed the fraudulent pretext for the US-Israeli bombardment. He told a media conference, “We do not want to see a nuclear armed Iran. But now there is an opportunity, as we look forward from these strikes, to actually get around and use diplomacy and dialogue and negotiation to actually get a political solution in place.”
Luxon did not explain how unprovoked acts of war by the US—in addition to Israel’s murderous bombardment of Iran and assassinations of top officials and scientists—created an “opportunity” for peace. The opposite is the case.
Twenty-five men have been sent to their deaths in the first half of 2025, the same number executed in all of last year. Executions took place in 10 of the 27 states, along with the US military and federal government, that still have capital punishment on the books. Four of these states—Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee—carried out their first execution in multiple years.
All states but one, Arizona, that carried out executions so far in 2025 have Republican governors. They have been emboldened by President Donald Trump’s Inauguration Day executive order, “Restoring the Death Penalty and Protecting Public Safety,” which directed the US attorney general to “pursue the death penalty for all crimes of a severity demanding its use.” The blood-thirsty order came in response in part to the Biden administration’s commutation of the death sentences of 37 federal prisoners.
13. Sri Lankan government and IMF celebrate “success” of austerity program
On June 16, the Sri Lankan government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) held a high-profile event at the Shangri-La Hotel in Colombo titled “Sri Lanka’s Road to Recovery: Debt and Governance.”14. Postal workers must take advantage of deepening crisis over “USO reform” at Royal Mail
The invitation-only gathering attended by government ministers, IMF officials, and the corporate elite was a celebration of the IMF’s vicious austerity program—hailed cynically as a “success story” and a “model” for other countries in crisis.
Behind the stage-managed optimism at the Shangri-La Hotel lies the brutal reality that this “recovery” is built on the backs of workers, the poor and youth, who continue to bear the catastrophic consequences of a debt-repayment regime designed to serve international creditors and Sri Lanka’s capitalist elite.
Pushing through “USO reform” following the takeover of Royal Mail and parent company International Distribution Services by billionaire Daniel Křetínský’s EP Group has hit major problems.
This presents fresh possibilities for postal workers to oppose the brutal restructuring agenda—resistance blocked until now by the collusion of the Communication Workers Union leadership with the Starmer Labour government and Křetínský.
“Reform” is a codeword for dismantling Royal Mail’s statutory obligations which remained after privatization in 2013: the Universal Service Obligation to deliver mail to every UK address six days a week at a fixed price.
15. Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
Bangladesh:
Garment workers demand unpaid entitlements
Government workers demonstrate against “black law”
India:
Hyundai Motor assembly workers in Tamil Nadu serve strike notice
Tamil Nadu rubber factory workers campaign for inclusion in state benefits
Uttar Pradesh power corporation workers protest arbitrary transfers
Haryana: Outsourced workers still on strike at health and science university
IT workers in Bangaluru protest Karnataka government’s 12-hour work-day law
Pakistan:
Police tear gas protesting government employees
Balochistan government workers protest provincial budget
Australia:
South Australia’s public hospital doctors strike for pay rise
Public hospital health and disability support workers’ bans continue in South Australia
Getinge electricians still locked out in Queensland
Peabody coal mine workers in New South Wales locked out
CDC bus drivers in Victoria to strike again over pay
Epworth Medical Imaging nurses walk out again for higher pay
Royal Hobart Hospital medical imaging nurses take action over staff shortages
Westmead Hospital nurses in Sydney protest neonatal staffing
New Zealand:
Hospital theatre nurses strike over pay
16. Free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk!
