Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:

1. Three killed in Nebraska biofuel plant explosion: America’s industrial carnage continues

On Wednesday, authorities confirmed that a worker, Dylan D. Danielson of Columbus, Nebraska, and his two children were killed in the massive explosion at the Horizon Biofuels plant the day before in Fremont, 32 miles northwest of Omaha. The two young girls, ages 8 and 12, were reportedly waiting for their father to get off work and take them to a doctor’s appointment, when the plant’s concrete storage elevator exploded in a huge fireball around 11:45 a.m.  

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The plant recycles pallets and wood waste to produce animal bedding and wood pellets for home heating, industrial purposes and smoking food. Officials suspect the blast was triggered by accumulated dust in the elevator and tons of wood waste and alcohol-based materials stored on-site. The company has issued no statement.

The catastrophe could have been worse. The company had only 10 employees, but it is surrounded by other plants like Cargill, Fremont Beef, and Lincoln Premium Poultry, which employ hundreds. Windows were blown out at the Jayhawk Box factory, and homes half a mile away were shaken.

In 2014, a fire at the Horizon plant took over eight hours to put out. Dangers in the wood pellet industry are well known. Dust and gases like methane and carbon monoxide are highly flammable, and large volumes of pellets can spontaneously combust.

A 2018 Environmental Integrity Project report found that 8 of the 15 largest US wood pellet facilities had fires or explosions since 2014. A 2017 fire at the German Pellets facility in Texas burned for two months, killing a worker and forcing residents to seek medical care. Similar disasters occurred in Europe, including a 2010 incident that killed three in Germany. 

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The toll will grow as Trump slashes OSHA. In the next fiscal year, OSHA will conduct nearly 10,000 fewer inspections, face an 8 percent budget cut, and lose more than 12 percent of its staff. A former UPS and Amazon executive has been tapped to head and dismantle the agency. 

2. Trump loyalist Emil Bove III confirmed by Senate to lifetime appointment on US circuit court

Bove’s chief qualification for the federal judgeship is his slavish devotion to President Donald Trump and his fascist agenda. Before Trump returned to the White House, Bove served as one of Trump’s personal criminal attorneys in three major federal cases that were brought against him. These include: The New York “hush money” trial, which concerned Trump falsifying business records in order to make payments to adult film actor Stormy Daniels during the 2016 campaign. Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts, but sentencing was deferred until after his presidency ends. Trump’s hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort. Trump pleaded not guilty to nearly 40 counts, and the case dragged on for over three years until Trump-appointed US District Court Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case. Trump’s election obstruction case. Trump was charged with four felonies related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election in a scheme that involved fraudulent electors and pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to unilaterally reject electors from states Trump lost. In August 2023, more than two and a half years after the January 6 siege of the Capitol, Trump was charged with conspiracy to defraud the government and obstructing an official proceeding. Jack Smith tried to redo the indictment following the July 2024 Trump v United States Supreme Court ruling which granted Trump immunity for “official acts” but eventually dropped the case after Trump won the election.

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Perhaps Bove’s most criminal activity in recent months has been his central role in advancing Trump’s mass deportation operation. According to a well-sourced and documented whistleblower complaint from former DOJ attorney Erez Reuveni, Bove directed DOJ attorneys to violate court orders if they went against the Trump administration.

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That this criminal is not behind bars but instead is ascending to the Third Circuit Court is entirely the fault of the Biden administration and the Democratic Party. The vacancy on the circuit court opened up in 2023 and in November of that year Biden nominated wealthy liberal lawyer Adeel Mangi to the position. Republicans immediately opposed Mangi’s nomination and slurred him as a terrorist supporter because of his Muslim faith. Despite the Democrats holding a 51-49 majority in the Senate in March 2024, Mangi’s nomination stalled for good. That month, two Nevada Democrats, Senators Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto, both of whom are ardent supporters of the genocide in Gaza, announced their opposition to Mangi because of his support for anti-incarceration efforts. That same month West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin (Democrat) announced he would not support any Biden nominee that did not have the support of at least one Republican. In November 2024 Senator Chuck Schumer made a deal with his “Republican colleagues” to drop Mangi’s nomination and three other appeals court nominees in exchange for Republicans allowing the confirmation of a group of district court candidates.

3. Trump administration to eliminate key climate-related environmental regulation

The move comes just days after the International Court of Justice released a unanimous advisory opinion that climate change is “an existential problem of planetary proportions that imperils all forms of life and the very health of our planet.” While ultimately toothless in providing enforcement, the UN agency’s report clearly spells out the scientific reality of the risks posed by climate change.

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To carry out the specific attacks against EPA regulations, Trump installed one of his close allies, Lee Zeldin, who has been a supporter of Trump for years, as head of the agency. Zeldin was one of the 139 Republican House members who voted against confirming Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 federal election in the hours following Trump’s attempted coup on January 6, 2021.

4. New analysis of jail videotape raises questions about supposed Epstein suicide

According to a report by CBS News broadcast Tuesday, the 11 hours of videotape released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation earlier this month, showing the time leading up to the discovery of the body of convicted sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein in August 2019, contradicts statements made by Justice Department officials at the time, as well as more recently.

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The CBS review does not directly disprove the claim that Epstein’s death was a suicide, but it “raises questions about the strength and credibility of the government’s investigation, which appears to have drawn conclusions from the video that are not readily observable,” the report said. 

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The damning questions posed by the CBS report come as the political crisis over the Epstein affair continues to rock the White House and Congress. Trump was repeatedly questioned about the release of the Epstein files and his relationship with the late sex-trafficker during his trip to Britain, and Trump’s responses were angry and dismissive, but also damaging. 

5. Fed rejects Trump’s demand for rate cut

The US Federal Reserve has kept interest rates on hold for the fifth meeting in a row, rejecting pressure from the Trump administration for a major cut. But there were dissenting votes from two Fed governors who both favoured reducing rates by a quarter of a percentage points. The Federal Open Market Committee of 12, which sets rates, is made up of seven governors appointed by the president and five others drawn from the 12 regional Fed branches on a rotating basis. It was the first time since 1993 that there were two dissent votes from governors.

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Apart from the boost that it would provide to speculation on Wall Street, and thereby also to the crypto world, one of the reasons for Trump’s insistent demands for rate cuts is the impact of higher rates on the escalating interest bill on the $36 trillion of US government debt, now approaching $1 trillion a year. Trump has said a major cut in interest rates would reduce it by hundreds of billions of dollars a year. However, in response to a question at his press conference, Powell ruled that out. “We have a mandate and that’s maximum employment and price stability,” he said. “We don’t consider the fiscal needs of the federal government. No advanced economy’s central bank does that. If we did do that, it wouldn’t be good for our credibility nor for the credibility of US fiscal policy.”

6. US, China broker uneasy Thai-Cambodian ceasefire

After five days of fighting over a long-running border dispute, the Thai and Cambodian governments agreed to an immediate ceasefire that went into effect at midnight on Monday. While US President Donald Trump bragged that he had brought about the truce, the Chinese government played a significant role in brokering the fragile ceasefire.

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With the announcement of a ceasefire, Trump quickly claimed credit, absurdly declaring on social media, “I am proud to be the President of PEACE!” On the face of it, Trump is waging a tariff war against the world that as in the 1930s is plunging the globe into conflict. Moreover, he is increasingly wielding this economic weapon for overtly geopolitical and political ends. Far from being a president of peace, Trump is fully backing Israel’s genocide in Gaza and wider aggression throughout the Middle East. Late last month, the US in league with Israel carried out unprovoked attacks on Iran—a blatant act of war. Following Israel’s strikes on military targets and civilian infrastructure, as well as the assassination of top Iranian officials, the US carried out its own strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

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If Trump has decided to play the peace card in this case, it could be that he wants to defuse issues that could stand in the way of a summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, which is yet to be confirmed. Last week, Trump claimed to have been invited by Xi to visit China; yesterday on his social media, he declared no invitation has been received and he was not seeking a summit.

7. Rail disaster near Riedlingen, Germany: Why were the tracks not better protected?

The politicians shed their usual crocodile tears. Kretschmann expressed himself as “shaken and deeply affected.” Transport Minister Patrick Schneider (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) spoke of the “force of devastation that has swept through here.” The state transport minister, Winfried Hermann (Greens), told an SWR reporter apologetically that it was “difficult to keep everything under control. ... We must finally protect the climate effectively, not just deal with the consequences of climate change.” But none of them explained how it was possible that the tracks were not better secured against such natural disasters.

8. Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern mega-merger means more corporate attacks on railroad workers

Union Pacific, the biggest freight railroad in the United States by revenue, announced on Tuesday that it had agreed to acquire Norfolk Southern, another Class I railroad. The deal is worth $85 billion and would create the first transnational railroad in the US.

The announcement marks a new stage in the monopolization of the already heavily concentrated freight rail industry. It also underscores the treacherous character of the bureaucrats in the railroad unions, who have almost certainly hidden knowledge about this for months while negotiating sellout contracts with the major carriers.

The new company would be called Union Pacific. Its rail network would span 50,000 miles across 43 states. The company would control about 43 percent of rail freight and have, initially, more than 50,000 employees.

Six major freight railroads currently operate in the US (down from seven after the 2023 merger between Kansas City Southern and Canadian Pacific), and the merger would reduce this number to five. But most of the freight is carried by four companies: Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern, CSX and BNSF

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The announcement of the merger also vindicates the warnings that the World Socialist Web Site made about the current round of negotiations. Departing from long-established tradition, the rail unions negotiated agreements with individual railroads instead of negotiating through the National Carriers’ Conference Committee.

This is a divide-and-conquer strategy, motivated by the unions’ desperate need to prevent another rebellion like the one in 2022, where workers voted down a White-House backed contract and pushed for a national strike. The union bureaucrats avoided this only by stalling for time until Congress was able to pass legislation preemptively banning a strike and imposing the deal workers rejected.

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The rail unions’ silence about Union Pacific’s pending merger with Norfolk Southern, as well as their actions during this round of negotiations, provides further evidence that workers must organize a rebellion against the union bureaucracy. At each step, the bureaucrats seek to suppress workers’ struggles and enforce the requirements of the carriers.

Opposition to Union Pacific’s merger with Norfolk Southern cannot take the form of appeals to the STB, nor will it be led by the union bureaucrats. Instead, a response by the rank and file, organized independently of the unions, must unite all rail workers, regardless of carrier and craft, in a fight against capital.

9. Ronald Adams Sr.: Martyr in the war on the working class

 

Autoworker Will Lehman addresses the attendants of a  public hearing in Detroit on Sunday, July 27, on the death of Stellantis worker Ronald Adams Sr.

10. US-Israeli attack on Iran: German politics and media abandon international law 

The very same voices that day in, day out denounce the Ukraine war as a “Russian war of aggression in violation of international law” do not bother to gloss over the clear breach of international law by Israel and the US. Instead, they rely on the arguments of Nazi jurists like Carl Schmitt to assert that a war can be “legitimate” even when it violates legality. This open disregard for international law, which currently manifests itself as grovelling before the Trump administration, can be understood only against the backdrop of German rearmament and Berlin’s ambition to become “the strongest military power in Europe.” In preparation for future wars of aggression, Germany’s ruling class is abandoning international law.

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Woe betide when Germany is indeed once again the “strongest military power in Europe,” as it currently aspires to be, and itself once again does the “dirty work” against “legitimate targets,” and all that counts is whose side you are on, instead of the law. That will mean world war, genocide and dictatorship are once again the order of the day.

11. Australia: Glencore coal mining workers strike over low wages

The union leadership is seeking to use the legitimate concerns of workers over the future of Mudgee to limit the dispute to one town and to cut miners off from their colleagues elsewhere, who face the same assault on pay and conditions. 

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Mining workers throughout the country and around the world, along with workers in every industry, confront similar attacks on their jobs, pay and conditions. To defeat this, a unified counteroffensive must be built. But this is impossible under the trade union bureaucracy, which isolates workers and prevents such a struggle, using the sort of divisive tactics exemplified by the MEU’s fraudulent claim that the issues in the Ulan dispute are unique to Glencore and to Mudgee.

12. SEP (Australia) opposes demolition of Melbourne public housing towers

In this full report, members of the Socialist Equality Party (Australia) outline a perspective for fighting the demolition of 44 public housing towers across Melbourne.

13. Melbourne public housing residents and workers speak out against Labor government’s demolition plan

“If they are treating people in public housing like this today, they will do it to other workers tomorrow. It won’t matter who you are or where you come from.”

14. Canadian prime minister Carney cynically condemns Israel’s aid blockade while continuing to back Gaza genocide

Carney’s crocodile tears about “starving civilians” and belated concern for “international law” should fool no one. Canada’s Liberal government, under Carney and Justin Trudeau, has funneled millions of dollars in weaponry to Israel to facilitate the genocide for close to two years. It has systematically suppressed opposition to the genocide at home, repeatedly denouncing students and workers protesting Israel’s mass slaughter and Canada’s complicity in it as “antisemites” and giving a free hand to far-right Zionist organizations to intimidate activists. At the UN, Canada has repeatedly voted with the US to block resolutions condemning Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land and rampant violation of Palestinian rights.

World Beyond War Report details Canadian military exports to Israel

15. Buzz Hargrove and the rotten corporatist legacy of the Canadian Auto Workers—Part 1

Basil “Buzz” Hargrove, a career union bureaucrat who steadily rose through the ranks of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) officialdom, ultimately serving as CAW president for 16 years, died last month at the age of 81.

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Upon his death, the Globe and Mail, the traditional mouthpiece of Canadian big business, published an obituary notable only for highlighting the fawning and mendacious tributes from “past and present union associates, business leaders, politicians, community activists and,” or so the Globe claimed, “front-line workers.” Hargrove was, according to these eulogies, “a tireless champion for workers’ rights and human rights, a worthy adversary, a master negotiator and a strategic genius.”

Lana Payne, herself a consummate career union functionary and the current president of Unifor (which was formed through the CAW’s 2013 merger with the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union), proudly proclaimed that the current union is following squarely in the tradition of “the legend” Hargrove.

Of course, the publishers of the Globe, while printing obsequious quotes from auto executives and Hargrove’s fellow union bureaucrats, were somehow unable to find anything worth printing from the “front-line workers” who supposedly also offered their “tributes.” 

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Hargrove’s infamous statement in his 1999 autobiography, Labour of Love: The Fight to Create a More Humane Canada, promoting unions as good for big business and profits, goes far to spotlight the vast gulf that opened up between rank-and-file workers and the CAW officialdom, as well the union’s ever deepening partnership with the auto bosses.

Hargrove is most indignant when he rails against those “outdated” corporate and political opponents who arrogantly refuse to acknowledge the role that unions play in guaranteeing workers’ acquiescence on the shop floor and in society at large.

“Unions,” he writes, “probably prevent more strikes than they precipitate. Three out of every four workers say they don’t trust their employer. Good unions work to diffuse that anger. ... Unions deflect those damaging and costly forms of workers resistance (low productivity, absenteeism). If our critics understood what really goes on behind the labor scenes, they would be thankful that labor leaders are as effective as they are in averting strikes.” Just look at the Big Three auto companies, asserts Hargrove, those huge profits show that unions provide a valuable service to the corporations.

16. Stalinist provocateur goes unchallenged at Socialist Workers Party’s “Marxism 2025” Russia Course

Despite its rejection of Trotskyism, the SWP has long sought to associate itself with Leon Trotsky as a historical figure. Tony Cliff, the group’s founder, wrote of Trotsky as “a political giant” (Trotskyism After Trotsky: The Origins of the International Socialists, 1999) even as he opposed Trotsky’s analysis of the Stalinist bureaucracy and denied the viability of the Fourth International that Trotsky founded in 1938. Trotskyism was “a cul-de-sac”, Cliff wrote, while “Trotskyists suffered from the psychological need to believe in miracles.”

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In years gone by, the SWP frequently cited Trotsky on the “river of blood” between Stalinism and Bolshevism. But at Marxism 2025, his role as the foremost continuator of Bolshevism and Leninism was airbrushed out. How can this not be seen? The SWP invokes Trotsky’s name as a calling card to attract students to their tendency. But the SWP leadership ensures that this never conflicts with their overriding objective: the subordination of the working class and student youth to pro-capitalist alliances with Britain’s labour and trade union bureaucracy, including its Stalinist wing, palmed off to members as the “united front”.

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Under conditions of global capitalist breakdown and a mass radicalization of the working class and youth, the SWP’s central function, in alliance with the labor and trade union bureaucracy, is to wall off the working class from Trotskyism and the Fourth International. This was on full display at Marxism 2025. Their rewriting of history to deny Trotsky’s leadership of the fight against Stalinism, and their refusal to challenge such outrageous Stalinist slanders during their “Russia Course”, is to condition their organisation to police left-wing and socialist sentiment in the new left party announced by Jeremy Corbyn.

17. Free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk!

 

A Sri Lankan protests the political imprisonment of Bogdan Syrotiuk

Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:

1. Resolution at public hearing on death of Stellantis worker Ronald Adams Sr. demands “end to cover-up of ongoing industrial slaughter”

The International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees calls for all workers in the United States and internationally to take up the fight to end the sacrifice of workers’ lives and limbs on the altar of profit. The time has come to organize, to resist, and to reclaim the right to live and work in safety and dignity. 

2. Starmer government threatens September recognition of Palestinian state, giving Israel time to complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza

The UK government has managed to craft a polite threat directed at Israel, a filthy maneuver that is meant to allow Israel to complete the ethnic cleansing of Gaza while offering Labour an alibi for standing aside while an historic crime is completed. Pontius Pilate would be proud.

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When French President Emmanuel Macron declared, last week, his own plan to recognize a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September, Trump responded, “What he says doesn’t matter. He’s a very good guy. I like him, but that statement doesn’t carry weight.” Further humiliating the French head of state, Trump went on, “Here’s the good news: what he says doesn’t matter. It’s not going to change anything.”

3. Israeli human rights groups call Gaza Our Genocide, say Western leaders are also responsible

On Monday, two Israeli human rights groups, B’Tselem (The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories), and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, published reports concluding that for nearly two years Israel has been committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. They appeal for international intervention to prevent a further loss of life.

Their reports concur with those of other human rights groups, including Amnesty International, the European Center for Human Rights, the International Federation for Human Rights and Doctors Without Borders, as well as United Nations organizations, condemning Israel for carrying out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza.

The report details the evidence—statements by leading politicians showing intent, data, and harrowing testimonies from Gazans—demonstrating Israel’s systematic destruction of Palestinian society and the creation of catastrophic living conditions that render existence impossible, which “is precisely the definition of genocide”. 

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The report states that the Israeli government exploited the October 7 attack and the existential fears it triggered “to advance an agenda of Jewish supremacy, destruction, and expulsion. The lives of all Palestinians from the river to the sea have been rendered disposable, and the situation is only getting worse. People are being shot dead while trying to obtain food, and children are dying of hunger. We will not be able to say, ‘We did not know’”.

B’Tselem warned that the genocide is not confined to Gaza: “The same regime, the same army, and the same leaders and generals are implementing practices of extreme violence in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and within Israel. Israel is already replicating some of its destructive methods in the West Bank—for now, on a smaller scale—and there is grave and growing concern that the genocide may expand to other areas under Israeli control”.

It holds the major powers responsible for the atrocities for failing to rein in Israel, pointing out that it is the responsibility of the “international community” to use every tool available under international law to stop genocide.

4. In cold blood: Israeli settler-terrorist shoots and kills Palestinian who worked on No Other Land

On Monday, according to eyewitnesses and journalists, an Israeli fascist-settler shot and killed Palestinian activist Odeh Hathalin (aka Awdah Hathaleen), who worked on the award-winning documentary film No Other Land in cold blood and in broad daylight. 

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The various videos show an individual, allegedly Yinon Levi, pointing a gun at the unarmed Hathalin and pulling the trigger.

The Guardian reports:

According to activists from Umm al-Khair in the south Hebron Hills, the killing happened after a settler in a bulldozer drove through their land, destroying trees and property. The village sits right below the Israeli settlement of Carmel, founded in 1980.

The report continued:

When a resident approached to ask the driver of the bulldozer to stop, the driver knocked him down with the blade of the bulldozer. Residents began to throw stones, and Levi allegedly emerged from the settlement and began firing, the eyewitnesses said. Awdah Hathaleen, who was standing a distance away from the confrontation, was then struck by a bullet.

In other words, the entire incident was a Zionist-organized provocation aimed at creating a pretext for the violent attack then carried out. Whether Hathalin was the intended target all along cannot be determined at this point.

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At least 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank since October 2023. Some 9,500 have been injured and 6,800 displaced, while 3,232 structures have been demolished by Israeli forces or settlers, working hand in hand.

5. ICE seizes and holds Korean-American scientist and legal US resident incommunicado

On July 21, Tae Heung “Will” Kim—a 40-year-old Korean American scientist and longtime US legal permanent resident—was detained by immigration authorities at San Francisco International Airport.

Kim, who has lived in the US since age five and is currently pursuing a PhD at Texas A&M University focusing on Lyme disease vaccine research, was returning from a two-week visit to South Korea where he had attended his younger brother’s wedding.

Upon landing in San Francisco, Kim was taken to secondary screening and abruptly detained by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and then by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for at least a week.

Despite holding a valid green card and being a legal permanent resident for 35 years, Kim has since been held incommunicado with ICE denying him access to both his attorney and direct communication with his family.

6.  “Everything is on the table”: Budget crisis deepens in Chicago as educators are laid off, denied back pay

The looming crisis in the school district, which coincides with “doomsday” planning of 40 percent cuts to the regional transit system, is part of a massive nationwide funding crisis affecting almost every large city in America. This crisis has been generated artificially by the cutoff of federal funding under Biden and Trump. Together with the massive cuts to federal Medicaid and food stamp funding under the “Big Beautiful Bill,” it is part of an all-out attack by the corporate oligarchy on all government programs benefitting the working class.

Meanwhile, the US military budget has ballooned to $1 trillion a year, and the super-rich have been gifted trillions in tax cuts. The role of Democratic Party city administrations shows this is a bipartisan attack.

Without the intervention of the working class, Chicago and other cities face a catastrophe. A working class movement must be built against both capitalist parties as well as the management stooges in the union bureaucracy. Earlier this month, 9,000 city workers in Philadelphia waged a powerful strike, which was sold out by the AFSCME union with a sellout deal.

7. UK and Australian Labor governments sign anti-China military treaty

In Australia on Saturday, the defence ministers of the UK and Australian Labor governments signed what they called an “historic” 50-year military pact, directed against China.

The treaty marks an escalation of the preparations for war against China, accompanied by an aggressive reassertion of the role of British imperialism in the Indo-Pacific region, where it once ruled and exploited lucrative colonies, from Africa and India to Australia and the Pacific. 

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The treaty involves the development of war economies in both countries. The statement claims it would “create thousands of jobs, build our respective submarine industrial bases and supply chains, and provide new opportunities for industry partners.”

Marles declared: “AUKUS will see 20,000 jobs in Australia. It will see, in building submarines in this country, the biggest industrial endeavour in our nation’s history, bigger even than the Snowy Hydro scheme.”

This means that workers and young people will increasingly have their employment prospects tied to military industries and weapons manufacturers—a scenario already backed by the trade union apparatuses that will enforce the resulting wartime-like working conditions.

8. Missouri governor signs law enabling landlords to reject renters on public assistance

In a direct assault on the working class and the most vulnerable sections of society, Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe signed legislation earlier this month nullifying local ordinances that protected tenants from discrimination based on their source of income. The bill, House Bill 595, gives landlords across the state the explicit right to refuse tenants who pay rent using Section 8 housing vouchers, Social Security, child support, disability payments or tipped income, which will lead to an increase in homelessness and housing instability across the state.  

This reactionary law overrides limited tenant protections enacted in cities like Kansas City, Columbia, St. Louis, and Webster Groves. With a single stroke of the pen, Missouri’s ruling elite has sided decisively with real estate investors, property management corporations and landlord lobbying organizations, all of which pushed hard for the bill in the name of “property rights.” 

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The Democratic Party, for its part, has done nothing to seriously oppose the measure. In cities like Kansas City and St. Louis, where Democrats dominate local government, they offered only symbolic protest, opposing any strategy to mobilize the working class against the state’s escalating assault.

The defense of housing rights cannot be entrusted to either party of big business. It requires the independent political organization of the working class, acting in its own interests, through rank-and-file committees and mass mobilization.

What is required is a socialist program that expropriates the landlords and financiers who treat housing as a speculative investment. Decent, affordable housing must be guaranteed to all as a social right—not doled out according to market logic. This means a massive expansion of high-quality, publicly owned housing—free from private profiteering—and a rational reallocation of resources based on human need, not corporate gain. The wealth hoarded by corporate landlords and financial institutions must be expropriated and redirected to guarantee safe, affordable housing as a social right.

9. Over 200 meat processing workers in Iowa face immediate deportation following revocation of work visas

Over 200 workers at the Ottumwa, Iowa JBS pork processing plant are facing immediate deportation after the Trump administration, supported by the US Supreme Court, revoked temporary protected status for workers from Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela, Guatemala and Nicaragua earlier this year.

Throughout the US, over half a million Cubans, Haitians, Guatemalans and Nicaraguans who began arriving in the US in October 2022 are at risk of being detained and deported, following the termination of the CHNV (Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela) parole program. 

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As of 2024, roughly 24,000 people lived in Ottumwa, located in southeastern Iowa, making the JBS plant, which employs roughly 2,500 people, by far the largest employer in town.

In response to the visa revocations, the United Food & Commercial Workers, which has 1.2 million members in the US, many of whom are immigrants, has remained completely silent. As of this writing it has issued no statement on social media in opposition to the firings and attacks on immigrant workers, much less called for strike action to defend jobs and democratic rights. 

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In 2025, meat processing remains one of the most dangerous and deadliest jobs for workers in the United States. Workers are routinely exposed to sharp blades, slippery floors, hazardous chemicals and company-ordered speedup that induces not only psychological but physical trauma from repetitive motions. A recent lawsuit by a former JBS safety worker in Colorado alleges extensive harassment for attempting to bring safety violations to management’s attention.

10. Official backing for crypto creating conditions for financial crisis

In the past month Wall Street has been gripped by a new speculative binge. High value tech stocks have hit new records, with Nvidia becoming the first $4 trillion company by market capitalization, while the so-called meme stock frenzy of 2021 has made a comeback.

Retail investors have been pouring money into the low-priced stock of low-profit and even loss-making companies such as the doughnut chain Krispy Kreme, the digital camera maker GoPro and the real estate platform Opendoor Technologies.

The companies targeted are those which have been heavily shorted. Shorting is a process in which investors borrow shares which they sell and then buy back at the lower price to honour the loans, pocketing the difference.

But if enough retail investors buy the stock, pushing the price up, the short sellers can be forced to buy the shares in order to meet their commitments and exit a losing trade. 

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On top of the present round of speculation, the passage of the Genius Act has prompted warnings that a major crisis is in the making. The Act purportedly sets up the regulation of stablecoins, providing a path for big money to enter the market for crypto coins.

Stablecoins are a crypto asset. But unlike the myriad of crypto coins that have been created, of which Bitcoin is the most prominent with its price recently passing $120,000, they are supposedly backed by an asset, either dollars or US government bonds.

Their chief function is to provide the link between the financial system and the crypto world by providing easier and anonymous access outside the regular banking system. 

There is an unusual feature of the passage of the Genius Act which reveals its essential function.

Normally, the so-called libertarians who promote crypto rail against any regulation. But on this occasion, they pressed for its passage, spending hundreds of millions on lobbying campaigns directed at both sides of the Congressional aisle to secure legislative support for crypto.

They wanted government approval for crypto stablecoins, in the guise of regulation, to reassure major companies, banks, financial institutions and small investors that it is safe, thus ensuring the inflow of more money. 

For crypto this is an existential question. Having no intrinsic value, the price of coins can only increase, and profits made, provided new investors and their money are pulled into the market—the same mechanism as any other Ponzi scheme.

At the same time, the related Clarity Act is being sent through Congress to ensure that regulation passes out of the hands of the Securities and Exchange Commission to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission which is regarded as more “crypto friendly.”

The new legislation opens the way for banks and major corporations to issue their own stablecoins. Herein lie the seeds of a major financial crisis.

11. Capitulation at Columbia: The Democrats enable Trump’s assault on free speech

Last week’s capitulation by Columbia University to the Trump administration marks a major milestone in Trump’s effort to assert control over major American institutions. It underscores the cowardice and complicity of the Democratic Party establishment, whose guiding principle in the face of authoritarianism is surrender.  

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Columbia administrators did not wait for the agreement to be formalized before putting it in practice. In the days leading up to the deal, the university suspended nearly 80 students for participating in a May anti-genocide teach-in. Now it plans to launch an indoctrination program using “training materials to socialize all students to campus norms and values more broadly.”

Under the settlement, the Trump administration will have authority to monitor course content and oversee university admissions and hiring. Columbia also agreed to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s definition of antisemitism, which equates all political opposition to Zionism and Israel’s oppression of Palestinians with antisemitism. 

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[US President] Trump is reckoning with the deteriorating economic position of the United States, its massive indebtedness, the growing threat to the dollar, and unsustainable levels of social inequality. This intensifying political crisis is speeding up Trump’s moves to dispense with decades, if not centuries, of institutional norms.

Trump’s attempts to assert absolute control over academic and cultural life reflect a ruling class that has reached an impasse. It is at war with science, culture and all progressive thought. Above all, it is at war with the working class.

At Columbia, the administration’s capitulation stands in stark contrast to the views of the vast majority of students and faculty, many of whom have taken courageous action against dictatorship and war, risking their academic careers and personal safety. 

12. Relatives of the “missing” from Sri Lanka’s communal war speak out

A mass grave containing human bone fragments was first discovered on February 20 at Sittupatthu cemetery in Chemmani on the outskirts of Jaffna with excavations beginning on May 15. It was another chilling reminder of the country’s brutal 26-year civil war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The war, which ended in May 2009 with the defeat of the LTTE, claimed the lives of an estimated 100,000 people with thousands—mainly ethnic Tamils in the North and East—forcibly disappeared.

13.  The US’s Turkey-backed “economic corridor” plan in the Caucasus targets Russia and Iran

On 11 July, Tom Barrack, US Ambassador to Ankara and Special Envoy for Syria, proposed at a briefing in New York that operation of the planned “Zangezur Corridor”, set to pass through Armenian territory between Azerbaijan and Turkey, be leased to the US for 100 years. According to Middle East Eye, the proposal to award the operation of the corridor to a “private company” came from Turkey.

In the briefing, Barrack said: “They [Armenia and Azerbaijan] are arguing over 32 kilometers of road [in reality, 43 kilometres.], but this is no joke. It’s been going on for a decade—32 kilometers of road. So what happens is, America comes in and says, ‘Okay, we’ll take it over. Give us the 32 kilometers of road on a 100-year lease, and you can all share it.’” 

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Both Russia and Iran view the growing influence and potential military presence of the US in the region as a serious threat. This initiative comes at a time when Armenia is reducing Russia’s military presence in the country. 

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Workers in the Caucasus and around the world need to be alert: Under the guise of an “economic corridor”, preparations are being made for bloody wars that will devastate the region’s peoples as US imperialism pushes forward its predatory plans. The regimes in Turkey and Azerbaijan are supporting these plans.

Last week, Periodista Digital, published in Spain, claimed to have obtained a secret agreement approved by the US, Azerbaijan, and Armenia from “anonymous” sources in the Armenian diaspora in France. According to the agreement, the planned corridor is referred to as the “Trump Bridge,” and the website’s editors claim that this agreement has caused Armenia to move away from the influence of France and the rest of the European Union and come under the control of the US and Turkey.

According to the report, the corridor will be operated by a US “private company” for 100 years. Furthermore, 1,000 American mercenaries will be deployed to the region under the pretext of “ensuring security.” It adds:

This private military company, which is currently estimated to comprise 1,000 fighters, will be responsible for securing the transport corridor. ...

Initially, the border will be controlled by unarmed soldiers. However, for the army, this will mean that there will no longer be any distance between Iran and the United States, the arch-enemy of this Islamic republic. This situation carries with it the danger of a major war breaking out in the region stretching from the Mediterranean to the South Caucasus. 

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The plans being developed in the South Caucasus amid imperialist aggression against Russia and Iran demonstrate how this region could also become a battleground in the emerging global conflict. The capitalist regimes in Russia and Iran, which are pursuing agreements with US imperialism, are incapable of providing a progressive response to this encirclement. The only way forward is to unite and mobilise the working classes of the Caucasus, the Middle East and beyond in a revolutionary movement for workers’ power against imperialism. 

14. Australia: Labor seeks to ban pro-Palestinian march across Sydney Harbour Bridge

The Labor government in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) has declared that it will ban a march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge this Sunday, opposing Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza.

Labor Premier Chris Minns has couched the edict in terms of the disruption to the public and threats to safety that the rally could cause. That is cynical and threadbare. In reality, the ban is the latest action of a government that has throughout its tenure attacked the right to protest in general, and public demonstrations of support for the Palestinians in particular. 

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Last month, NSW Police carried out a brutal assault on a small pro-Palestinian protest in the Sydney suburb of Belmore. The demonstrators were gathered outside the SEC Plating factory, which they allege is complicit in the genocide through its involvement in the global supply chain of F-35 fighter jets.  

Police, without any grounds, demanded the dispersal of the protesters. A cop punched Hannah Thomas, a legal observer and former Greens candidate in the face. Minns responded to the news that Thomas may be permanently blinded from the assault by insisting that protests could not hinder commercial activities.

That statement and the declaration that a rally on the Harbour Bridge would be an “inconvenience” is a rationale for a dictatorial police-state, where any expression of popular opposition is deemed beyond the pale.

15. United Kingdom: resident doctors speak from the picket line at Portsmouth and Southampton hospitals: “You can’t expect people to do more for less.”

World Socialist Web Site reporters spoke to resident doctors on the picket line at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth and Southampton University Hospital about why they are striking against the Starmer Labour government. The doctors, who are demanding a 29 percent pay increase after years of pay cuts, completed a five-day national strike on Wednesday.

17. Support the Resident Doctors’ Strike! Defeat Starmer’s war on the NHS!

The strike by 50,000 resident doctors in England to reverse the erosion of their pay, terms and conditions is a confrontation with Keir Starmer’s Labour government.

Labour faces the first national strike since coming to office last July. It views the resistance shown by resident doctors as a threat to pay restraint throughout the National Health Service (NHS) and its plans for further cuts and privatization.

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The resident doctors strike is a decisive battle—not just over wages, but for the future of the NHS. They are confronting the Starmer government, the political establishment, and the media on behalf of the millions they serve in their frontline NHS role.

18. United Kingdom: Bradford University strike: Campus staff resist job cuts and course closures under “Transformational Change” plan

The events at Bradford are part of a broader offensive against Higher Education in Britain, with 10,000 jobs threatened nationally at half of all institutions, driven by austerity, marketization and profit. Universities across the country are imposing brutal cuts to courses and staffing levels, with or without formal redundancy programs. The UCU branch at Queen Mary University of London compiles a live record of the nationwide cull under the heading UK HE Shrinking. It reports on “All the redundancies, restructures, reorganizations, and closures taking place across the UK Higher Education (UKHE) sector.”

It notes, “Many universities are shrinking staff by not renewing fixed-term contracts, reducing hours of fractional contracts, or failing to implement agreed pay rises. These cuts are not as visible but are equally impactful, reducing programs, stretching remaining staff, and delaying support for students.”

19. Free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk!

Bogdan Syrotiuk and Leon Trotsky

Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:

1. “Workers Lives Matter!”: IWA-RFC holds initial hearing on death of autoworker Ronald Adams Sr.

On Sunday, July 27, approximately 100 workers and youth attended the first public hearing held by the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC) as part of its investigation into the death of autoworker Ronald Adams Sr. The 63-year-old skilled trades veteran was killed on April 7 at the Stellantis Dundee Engine Complex when an overhead gantry crane suddenly activated and crushed him. 

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The hearing was a powerful response by rank-and-file workers to the months-long silence from Stellantis, the United Auto Workers (UAW) and state safety officials. It concluded with the unanimous adoption of a resolution to continue and expand the investigation, support other victims of workplace hazards, and build rank-and-file committees to enforce safe working conditions as part of an international campaign to end the sacrifice of workers’ lives for profit. 

Lawrence Porter, a leader of the Socialist Equality Party and former autoworker, chaired the meeting. He denounced the capitalist system for treating the annual deaths of 140,000 US workers from traumatic injuries and occupational diseases as a mere “cost of doing business.” He compared the death of Ronald Adams to other preventable tragedies, including the killing of Antonio Gaston at the Toledo Assembly Complex and 19-year-old Brayan Canu Joj, killed in a meat grinder at a burrito factory in California.

These deaths, Porter said, were “casualties in a class war,” effecting workers of all races, nationalities and genders. “We are here to sound the call: Workers’ Lives Matter!” he declared, to audience applause.

2. The Thane of Bluster greets sycophants Starmer and Von der Leyen in Scotland

“So foul ... a day I have not seen.” The line belongs to Shakespeare’s Macbeth, but it might as well describe the fog of vanity and menace surrounding Donald Trump’s latest visit to the United Kingdom. Less a tragic figure out of Shakespeare than a swaggering mob boss from a Scorsese gangster flick, Trump held court on the manicured moors of his Turnberry golf course in Scotland—his personal Dunsinane, outfitted with sand traps and taxpayer-funded Secret Service villas.

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However, such grotesqueries must not conceal the importance of the issues discussed between Trump, von der Leyen and Starmer, which pose a grave threat to working people all over the world.

Trump’s 40-minute meeting with von der Leyen was used to announce a US-EU trade deal that was a ruthless assertion of US imperialist interests over its rivals. 

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The US president’s grand tours and the fawning of various heads of state and the media will continue. He will soon return to the UK for an unprecedented second state visit, where he will be flattered by the company of the decrepit King Charles III. What is fundamental for the working class is to see through such masquerades.

No diplomatic manoeuvres will halt the ever deeper descent into trade and military war by imperialist governments, whose brutal agenda is being written in the blood of the Palestinians. This depends on the independent political mobilization of a unified European, American and international working class in a socialist anti-war movement. 

3. UFCW blocks Northern California Safeway strike with sellout deal

In the early hours of Sunday, July 27, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) announced a tentative agreement (TA) with Safeway, a subsidiary of Albertsons, aimed at blocking a strike by 25,000 grocery workers in UFCW Locals 5, 648 and 8-Golden State in Northern California.

The strike, scheduled to begin the same day, would have marked the first regional walkout against Safeway in nearly 30 years. The previous contract expired April 12 after more than five months of fruitless “negotiations” that the union deliberately prolonged to prevent any genuine mobilization.

Workers at Safeway, like their brothers and sisters at other chains, are demanding substantial wage increases, expanded healthcare coverage, secure scheduling and stronger job protections. They face soaring rents, food prices and utility costs in one of the most expensive regions of the country, while corporate profits hit record highs. (Safeway’s 2024 adjusted net income was $1.38 billion.)

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Many Safeway workers are immigrants, now facing intensifying threats under the Trump administration’s stepped-up deportation campaigns. In recent weeks, workers have reported incidents inside stores—provocations orchestrated by management to create fear and disrupt organizing. The UFCW has remained silent, refusing to defend its own members from harassment and intimidation.

4. Anti-corruption protests shake the Zelensky regime in Ukraine

The protests were the largest to take place in Ukraine since the beginning of the NATO-backed proxy war with Russia that began in February 2022 and defied the country’s ongoing martial law status. In contrast to earlier and smaller protests by relatives of soldiers demanding that their husbands, brothers and sons be allowed to return from the front, these protests were widely covered in the pro-imperialist media, which made no reference to the immense human toll of the war.

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Zelensky, a former comedian with no military background, is viewed with disdain by Ukraine’s far-right who play an essential role in the Ukrainian state and especially in conducting the country’s ongoing war with Russia. Should Zelensky completely alienate the educated middle and upper-middle classes and his EU backers, it may well be the final nail in the coffin of a regime already in profound crisis. 

5. Ontario, Canada government seizes control of four school boards to ruthlessly enforce austerity measures

The government has made no secret of its intention to use the takeover of the boards to ramp up its drive to gut public spending. In a statement, it declared that it is concerned with “growing deficits, depleting reserves and mismanagement,” while conceding that there is no question of any financial malfeasance on the part of the boards or the elected school board councillors.

Education Minister Paul Calandra accused the four boards of running “unsustainable deficits,” and warned the government is prepared to seize control of other boards to slash spending. “All school boards across the province should be put on notice,” he declared.

The Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives noted in a report that the Ford government has cut public education by $6.3 billion since coming to power in 2018. The TDSB alone has faced cuts just shy of $900 million since 2018, according to the same report. Billions more in cuts are planned by the end of this decade.

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The destruction of public education is happening across Canada. The chauvinist, “Quebec first” CAQ government of François Legault has taken greater control over public schools by eliminating elected school boards and replacing them with regional “school service centers”. The CAQ regime has also demanded hundreds of millions in cuts for the 2025-2026 school year, which will devastate students and staff.

The attacks on education and other public services at the provincial level are a key component of the ruling-class onslaught on social spending to pay for imperialist war. At the beginning of June, the federal Liberal government announced a massive 17% increase in military spending, so as to reach NATO’s minimum 2 percent of GDP military-spending target in the current fiscal year. Since that announcement was made, NATO’s heads of government, including Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney, have agreed to raise the target to 5 percent. This would mean, Canada spending $150 billion each year on the military. These vast sums must be squeezed out of the working class through stepped-up exploitation and the destruction of public services on which workers depend.

6. Minnesota cops delayed an hour after witnessing Democrat lawmaker shot by Trump fascist

New reporting from the Star Tribune and Minnesota Reformer concerning the targeted shootings of Minnesota state legislators last month by far-right Trump supporter Vance Boelter have raised serious questions about the police response to the assassinations.

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The refusal of the police to pursue Boelter allowed him to evade capture for some 43 hours. For nearly two days, the north Minneapolis suburbs surrounding the shootings and Boelter’s rural home in Green Isle were placed on lockdown by authorities as heavily militarized police and federal units searched for the fascist assassin.

In statements that point to a massive cover-up, Brooklyn Park Police Chief Mark Bruley claimed that the reason the cops did not pursue is because they thought the shooter was “holed up” and “barricaded” inside the residence. This is the same lying justification Uvalde and Texas police trotted out to cover for their inaction during the Uvalde school massacre.

In a show of utter contempt for the population, Bruley claimed in an interview with the Minnesota Reformer earlier this month the reason police did not pursue was because to do so would go against “their deescalation training.” 

7. World court’s “advisory opinion:” States obliged to prevent climate change harm

The ICJ’s opinion affirmed that to live in a “clean, healthy and stable environment” is a basic human right, laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The “urgent and existential threat” to humanity posed by climate change is undermining this right, it stated.

Thus, countries had an obligation under international law “to prevent significant harm to the environment by acting with due diligence and to use all means at their disposal to prevent activities carried out within their jurisdiction or control from causing significant harm to the climate system and other parts of the environment.”

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Last year, the ICJ ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestine was unlawful, that countries must not “render aid or assistance in maintaining” the occupation. In a separate ruling, it stated that “Israel must immediately halt its military offensive” in Gaza and cease actions that “inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

The imperialist powers, led by the United States, have flatly ignored these rulings as they continue their support for Israel’s genocidal rampage in Gaza. Moreover, they have openly participated in or supported the illegal US and Israeli attacks on Iran, alongside the advanced plans for ethnic cleansing in Gaza.

With this in mind, the closing sentence of the ICJ’s advisory opinion—that it hopes “its conclusions will allow the law to inform and guide social and political action to address the ongoing climate crisis”—is an illusion. International law has not prevented the capitalist classes from enabling the mass murder in Gaza, and it will not stop them from continuing to profit from fossil fuel emissions that are threatening the planet and its people with increasing climate disasters.

8. Stellantis Sterling Stamping worker buried as questions remain over work-related death

Little has been made public about the accident or how exactly Tom [Thomas Eugene Cornman Jr.] was injured, due to the stony silence maintained by the company and the United Auto Workers union. UAW Local 1264 officials posted a death notice and funeral information on their Facebook page last week without the slightest suggestion that it was work related.

But as any veteran autoworker can confirm, statements from company and union officials should be treated with more than a healthy dose of skepticism. One worker with 20 years of experience, who knew Tom, told the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter, “When something like this happens, the company tries to brush everything off like it’s not their fault. It’s a shame what the union allows them to get away with... They don’t have our backs at all.”

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After high school, Tom joined the military. When he returned from his deployment, he picked up the nickname “Airborne” in reference to his time as a paratrooper in the US Army. He then pursued a career as an assemblyman in the automotive industry, which allowed him to build a life and a home in Michigan. Cornman was well-liked and respected by his co-workers. He was known for having an infectious smile and a kind word to offer for everyone.

Pastor Myra Moreland, who gave the eulogy at Tom’s funeral, suggested that his nickname was an appropriate way to characterize his contagious joyful nature, which was also “airborne.”

*****

When introducing the three union executives who were present at Cornman’s funeral, Pastor Moreland awkwardly referred to them as “his coworkers.” This was perhaps an honest mistake, since the relationship between union officials and rank-and-file autoworkers is unclear to many outside the auto industry. But experienced autoworkers are increasingly seeing their union “reps” for what they are: management’s enforcers of job-cutting, the slashing of benefits, exhausting hours, line speed-ups and unsafe conditions. 

When addressing the memorial, Barrymore said, “For six years of me being Tom’s steward, [my phone] never rang for a problem or an issue” with Tom. This may have been because, as one of Tom’s actual co-workers told us, “If you complain to a committeeman, nothing really changes.” 

9. Automotive supplier Segula files for insolvency: The tip of the iceberg

On July 9, Segula Technologies GmbH, based in Rüsselsheim, Germany, filed for insolvency in self-administration with the Darmstadt Local Court. This means that a further 500 jobs for engineers, technicians and developers are at risk.

Segula only came to Rüsselsheim eight years ago, when Opel was taken over by the French PSA Group. The French engineering service provider took over both the Opel development center in Rüsselsheim and the traditional test site in Rodgau-Dudenhofen.

Two years later, when the merger between PSA and Fiat-Chrysler created the third-largest global group Stellantis, Segula, with the support of IG Metall, promised to permanently secure 2,000 jobs, but this never materialized: At most, just under 900 people were employed at Segula before it rushed to downsize again.

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The Segula insolvency is also the tip of the iceberg for the entire German automotive and supplier industry. Automotive service providers such as Bosch and ZF have announced massive job cuts, and groups such as VW and Mercedes are cutting jobs. Daimler Truck—just one of the more glaring examples—plans to cut 5,000 jobs in the sites in Wörth and Gaggenau, which will also affect hundreds of jobs on the French side of the border. Just since the beginning of 2025 the employers' association Gesamtmetall has recorded a reduction of 60,000 jobs in the metal and electrical industries.

And as is usual in the entire automotive and metal industry, the so-called “employee representatives” from the IG Metall union are indispensable when it comes to job cuts. They have helped to draw up and then signed the redundancy plans practically everywhere they represent workers, often before even informing the workforce, and see their most important task as preventing any expression of resistance from workers during implementation. The Segula insolvency again throws a spotlight onto role the unions play in this.

10. Israel’s Netanyahu claims there is “no starvation” in Gaza

The series of lying statements by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that there is “no starvation” in Gaza has produced a powerful backlash by masses of people around the world who are horrified by the evidence that more than 100 Palestinians—the majority children—have died from lack of food and nutrition.

On Sunday, Netanyahu denied the starvation in Gaza while speaking at a Christian conference in Jerusalem. Speaking at an event hosted by Trump supporter and prominent evangelical pastor Paula White, Netanyahu declared:

There is no starvation in Gaza—and there is no policy of starvation in Gaza. We facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid throughout the duration of the conflict. If not, there would be no Gazans left. The sole entity obstructing the flow of humanitarian aid is Hamas. They are reversing the truth.

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These denials by the fascist Israeli prime minister are directly contradicted by Gaza health authorities and international agencies who track hunger deaths daily. As of Monday, Gaza’s Ministry of Health reports at least 147 Palestinians—including 88 children—have died from malnutrition and starvation since the beginning of the genocide in October 2023.

Al Jazeera reported Monday that in the last 24 hours, 14 more people, including two children, perished from hunger and malnutrition. Health officials warn the true toll is likely far higher due to communication breakdowns and the isolating chaos imposed by ongoing strikes.

Global organizations, including the World Health Organization, have described the growing mortality toll as “mass starvation,” with over 2 million still at risk as food supplies remain throttled by the Israeli blockade and bureaucratic hurdles. Testimonies from Gaza highlight desperate families unable to find food, with malnourished mothers unable to produce breastmilk and fatal shortages of baby formula.

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The severity of the public outrage over the starvation of Palestinian babies has also forced hypocritical statements from leading representatives of the imperialist countries who have backed the genocide in Gaza since it began.

While visiting Scotland, President Donald Trump unconvincingly said, “Those children look very hungry. That’s real starvation, and you can’t fake that. The kids need to be fed.” Vice President JD Vance also feigned sympathy saying, “the United States aims to ensure that starving children receive nourishment.”

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron jointly referred to the “egregious” actions in Gaza but took no action to stop them. Starmer’s government has even claimed in court that there is “no serious risk of genocide in Gaza.”

In its own public relations maneuver, Israel announced on Sunday a “tactical pause” in its military campaign. The army said it would suspend combat operations for 10 hours each day in three areas—Gaza City, Deir al-Balah, and Muwasi—to “facilitate” aid delivery.

*****

As images and reports of starvation in Gaza continue to circulate, the world’s population is becoming aware of these events which recall the crimes perpetrated by the Nazis in the 20th century during World War II. The crimes against humanity now being committed by Israel in Gaza, with the complicity of leaders like Trump, Starmer and Macron, will be remembered as harbingers of revolutionary struggles by the working class that will overthrow the world capitalist system. 

11. Trade deal between the EU and US: Another stage in an escalating trade war

The trade deal agreed to on Sunday by US President Donald Trump and European Union (EU) Commission President Ursula von der Leyen marks a further stage in an escalating trade war that is being waged on the backs of the working class and dragging the whole world into the abyss.

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The US will impose tariffs of 15 percent on most goods from the EU, while imports from the US into the EU will remain duty-free. The existing US tariff of 50 percent on European steel and aluminum will remain in place. Only a few goods will be exempt from the tariffs. According to von der Leyen, these include aircraft and aircraft parts, certain chemicals, generic medicines, agricultural products and critical raw materials.

Exact details are not known, as the text of the agreement has not been published. It is also unclear whether pharmaceutical products, which account for a significant portion of European exports, will be subject to the 15 percent tariff or charged at a higher rate.

*****

Contrary to the hopes of its supporters, the agreement between Trump and von der Leyen will not slow down the trade conflict with the US. This is not only due to Trump’s capriciousness, someone who can change his position at any time, but also to the deep crisis of US and world capitalism. As in the First and Second World Wars, the struggle of the imperialist powers for raw materials, markets and profits is once again taking on increasingly extortionate, destructive and military forms.

Trump is not the cause but the consequence of this development. The rise of the fascist-minded gangster from the real estate and casino industry to the top of the American state is a consequence of the rottenness of US and world capitalism—the unbridgeable gap between the ruling oligarchs and the masses of the population, the subordination of all social needs to the profit interests of a parasitic minority. 

Europe is not a victim of the US—on the contrary. The old imperialist powers of Britain and France, as well as Germany, which tried to become the ruler of Europe in two world wars, have never resigned themselves to playing second fiddle to the US. They have supported all the crimes of US imperialism—from the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya to the recent genocide in Gaza and the attack on Iran. They are working hard to regain their military independence.

*****

One reason why von der Leyen agreed to a deal with Trump, apart from fears of an uncontrollable escalation of the trade war, is the continuation of NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine. The fear that Trump could reach an agreement with Putin over their heads in order to focus more on the conflict with China has been haunting the European powers for months.

12. Australian Labor government threatens Signal encrypted messaging system

Meredith Whittaker, the president of the foundation for widely-used global Signal encrypted messaging app, has said it will shut down the system in Australia if forced to hand over its users’ encrypted data to the country’s political surveillance agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organization.

*****

The Labor government’s moves are now threatening the existence of a vital encrypted communications platform. Signal, a free, open-source service, is used by millions of people worldwide to protect their privacy and free speech, shielding their communications from government, spy agency and corporate surveillance and data collection.

*****

ASIO and the other Australian intelligence agencies, with their US, UK, Canadian and New Zealand partners, operate as part of the global “Five Eyes” mass surveillance network. This worldwide web is now focussed on the Trump administration’s aggressive trade and military confrontations, especially with China, which Washington regards as the major threat to US hegemony.

As the thousands of secret US documents published by US National Security Agency (NSA) whistle-blower Edward Snowden and by Julian Assange via WikiLeaks showed, the Five Eyes partners intercept the communications of millions of people around the globe, routinely exchange data about each others’ citizens, and also supply cyber warfare facilities and targeting information to their militaries.

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The real overriding fear in ruling circles is that working people worldwide use encrypted messages to discuss and organize, free of government eavesdropping, amid mounting anti-genocide and anti-war opposition, social unrest and political disaffection. 

13. Australia: NTEU volunteers job cuts at Western Sydney University

Last Thursday, Western Sydney University (WSU) management unveiled a “voluntary redundancy” scheme as part of its plan to eliminate up to 400 academic and professional jobs, or more than 13 percent of the university’s full-time workforce.

Not accidentally, the announcement came just one day after the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) revealed that it had made a similar proposal.

NTEU branch president David Burchell informed its members at the university, via an email, that in backroom negotiations it had suggested a “modest” voluntary redundancy “exercise” to Vice-Chancellor George Williams to cut jobs in “a decent and humane manner.”

This must be a warning of the wider readiness of the NTEU leaders to partner with university executives across the country. They are desperate to quash staff and student outrage over the current mass destruction of jobs—totaling more than 3,000 nationally so far.

This assault is being driven by the Albanese Labor government’s reactionary cuts to international student enrollments and other measures, with a definite agenda: to transform tertiary education to satisfy the requirements of the corporate elite and the development of a war economy.

14. Sri Lankan government’s phony “eradication of rural poverty” program

Earlier this month, Sri Lankan President Anura Dissanayake and Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya ceremoniously unveiled its Prajashakthi (Community Power) policy, declaring it would “eradicate rural poverty.”

This program—part of Thriving Nation–A Beautiful Life, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna-led National People’s Power (JVP/NPP) election manifesto that promised to transform Sri Lanka into a paradise—was to hoodwink the masses.

The manifesto acknowledged that 5.7 million people live below the national poverty line, 55.7 percent suffered from multidimensional poverty and promised to change all this. It included pledges to increase financial aid for the needy, and hollow phrases such as “social empowerment.”

Notwithstanding its populist slogans, Prajashakthi is yet another Dissanayake government fraud, its real directives dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). 

*****

The immediate and real agenda of the Dissanayake government is to impose all the IMF’s brutal austerity measures, including restructuring state-owned enterprises, further cuts to education and health spending expenditure, the downsizing of public sector and the further limiting of financial assistance to the poor.

Contrary the government’s claims, these measures will not alleviate poverty but will increase it even more sharply. The root cause of poverty lies within the capitalist system itself, where production is organized for profit, not for human need. 

15. Spanish far right intensifies anti-immigrant assaults under PSOE-Sumar government

In Spain, far-right groups are continuing the offensive against immigrants under the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE)-Sumar government.

For two consecutive weekends, fascist groups have mobilized across towns in Spain to assault migrants. From July 12 to 15, several hundred far-right militants attacked Moroccan migrant workers living in the town of Torre Pacheco, in the region of Murcia. Armed with baseball bats and pepper spray, they assaulted residents, smashed vehicles, and vandalized immigrant-owned businesses such as kebab shops.

*****

The trigger for the fascist assault in Torre Pacheco was a report of a beating of a local resident by individuals of North African origin who were passing through the town. The attack was condemned by townspeople, including local Muslim residents.

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The far right’s claim that crime has increased due to immigrants at the CAED is completely false. Since its opening in October 2023, the 7,000 people who have passed through the center have committed 17 crimes, compared to 14,500 committed by the rest of the local population.

16. Workers Struggles: The Americas

Argentina:

Argentine pensioners and incapacitated people march against Milei

Protest in Argentina’s Neuquén Province over fracking plans 

Brazil: 

Landless workers and peasants in Brazil demand the redistribution of land 

Canada: 

British Columbia government workers prepare for strike vote

Mexico: 

Mexico City police attack health workers’ protest

Peru: 

Workers demand the resignation of Peruvian President Dina Boluarte

United States: 

Baltimore Ascension Saint Agnes nurses carry out one-day strike to protest unsafe staffing

Teamsters extend picket lines across 11 states on behalf of strikes by workers in Ohio and New Jersey

Hawaii concrete workers strike over grueling work schedules

17. Free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk!

Bogdan Syrotiuk and Leon Trotsky