Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
