Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
1. Trump orders federal police mobilization in Washington DC
Trump’s threats to use military force in the streets of the US capital must be taken with the utmost seriousness. This is a government at war with the working class, at home and abroad, seeking to defend the class rule of the billionaire oligarchs who control both capitalist parties, the Democrats and the Republicans.
This war is being waged from a position of desperate weakness and crisis. Trump has already faced the largest mass demonstrations in American history, culminating in the June 14 “No Kings” protests in which more than 10 million people took part. His policies are deeply unpopular, and his approval rating in the polls has plunged below 40 percent.
Only the spinelessness of the Democratic Party and the collaboration of the trade unions allow Trump to proceed as though he were the undisputed ruler of the entire US population and even the world.
It is up to the working class, potentially the most powerful force in society, to prepare the necessary social and political response to the crisis of capitalism and the danger of dictatorship and imperialist war. This means building a mass political movement of working people, based on a socialist program.
2. Israel formally adopts plan to occupy all of Gaza
Israel’s national security cabinet approved a plan Friday to take over Gaza City, effectively occupying the entirety of Gaza in preparation for its annexation by Israel.
“We are erasing the Palestinian state,” said Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Friday in response to the decision. “First in action and then officially.”
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The total occupation of Gaza is the military prerequisite for the US-Israeli plan to transfer the entire population of Gaza to concentration camps in preparation for their forcible displacement to other countries.
In February, Trump declared, “The US will take over the Gaza Strip,” “level it out,” and disperse the Palestinian population of Gaza to “other countries.”
There are more than enough reasons for rank-and-file workers to throw Fain out. The bogus 2023 “stand-up strikes” at the Big Three were a deliberate betrayal that ended in pro-corporate contracts, mass firings, and deadly working conditions. Among the dead are Stellantis workers Antonio Gaston and Ronald Adams Sr.—victims of unsafe conditions sanctioned by the UAW.
Fain’s populist rhetoric about “union democracy”—endlessly promoted by his inner circle of Democratic Socialists of America supporters and the now-defunct “Unite All Workers for Democracy” (UAWD) caucus—was a fraud. The court-appointed UAW monitor recently cited reports that Fain threatened to “slit the f**king throats” of those who opposed his leadership. Fain has suppressed dissent, backed Trump’s trade war policies, and helped prepare the UAW’s alignment with imperialist war, austerity, and repression.
“There is totally legitimate hatred of Fain and his crimes against the rank and file,” said Will Lehman, a Mack Trucks worker and socialist who ran against Fain in 2022. “But a bureaucratic maneuver will not resolve the issue or create democratic control. Only a rank-and-file rebellion to abolish the bureaucracy and transfer power to workers will.”
The effort to remove Fain is no democratic revolt from below. It is a cynical factional maneuver by officials who share full responsibility for Fain’s crimes. Mock and Boyer both ran with Fain on the “Members United”/UAWD slate in 2022 and supported every betrayal. Keller, who lost in the first round of the 2022 elections, promptly endorsed Fain and lobbied for a leadership position. All now posture as defenders of “the membership” to cover for their complicity and reposition themselves for power.
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If two-thirds of the committee vote to find Fain guilty, they can recommend penalties ranging from a reprimand to removal from office. If he is acquitted, the committee decides whether the charges were brought in good faith or with “malicious intent”—potentially punishing the accusers as well. It is a closed loop, designed to exclude the rank-and-file.
Lehman emphasized that Fain’s accusers—Mock, Boyer, Keller—were architects of the betrayals now being blamed on Fain alone. “They backed the ‘stand up’ strike and contracts that led to mass layoffs. They defended the use of scabs at Mack Trucks and remained silent about the deaths of Daulton Simmers, Antonio Gaston, Ronald Adams and others.”
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Will Lehman:
“Fain and the rest of the UAW bureaucrats say the enemy is China. But the real enemy is here: at Stellantis, in UAW headquarters, and on Wall Street. Workers must reject nationalism and unite internationally. We have more in common with Mexican, Canadian and Chinese workers than with any billionaire or bureaucrat.”
4. Australia: Queensland teachers walk off the job for the first time in 16 years
As many as 50,000 public school teachers walked off the job for 24 hours on Wednesday, in what is being described as the largest teachers’ strike in the history of the northern Australian state of Queensland. Teachers are demanding higher pay, increased staffing levels, safe working conditions and a reduction in intolerable workloads.
Up to 30 rallies were held in Brisbane, the state capital, and in regional cities and towns across the state in protest against the state Liberal National Party (LNP) government’s 8 percent pay offer over three years. The strike was the first such action called by the Queensland Teachers Union (QTU) in 16 years.
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The 24-hour strike was backed by wide support from the population. The Murdoch media’s Brisbane tabloid, the Courier Mail, admitted that a majority of its readers supported the teachers’ demands.
In Brisbane, more than 4,000 QTU members attended a one-hour meeting which was live streamed to teachers at venues across the state. They then marched across the Brisbane River to the state parliament house.
While teachers showed every determination to fight the government’s below-inflation pay offer, with nothing on workload or staffing levels, QTU officials are working to contain and dissipate the anger and shut down industrial action.
Inside the strike meeting, QTU president Cresta Richardson declared, to applause: “Today we draw a line in the sand. Today we are making history because it is the right thing to do. Ensuring that Queensland schools have the right numbers.”
Speaking to the media at the strike rally, she claimed: “We want to have in our package, things that are concrete and meaningful and measurable.” All this is completely bogus.
Over the past six months and in the course of 18 meetings with the state education department, the QTU leadership has refused to outline any concrete demands, either on pay or working conditions, in order to create a scenario in which even the most minimal government offer, which will do nothing to stem the ongoing exodus of educators from public schools, can be hailed as a “victory.”
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The Committee for Public Education (CFPE), the educators’ rank-and-file network supported by the Socialist Equality Party, is fighting for a socialist perspective for fully-funded, high quality education with decent pay and conditions for all workers.
In its opening statement for 2025, the CFPE advanced demands that include the following, as the starting point for the widest discussion among teachers and school workers across the country:
An immediate 40 percent pay increase with salaries indexed against inflation, and automatic cost-of-living adjustments.
Maximum class sizes of 15-20. End administrative burdens so teachers can focus on teaching.
A minimum of 8 hours weekly during school hours for planning, assessment and collaboration.
Abolish NAPLAN and other regressive standardized testing measures that legitimize funding cuts for “underperforming” schools.
End the authoritarian imposition of mandatory teaching methods—teachers must have the democratic right to collectively decide on curriculum implementation.
Hire thousands of teachers and support staff to end punishing workloads. At least one support teacher must be employed full-time per class.
Fully funded support services for all students, including those with diverse needs. Employ psychologists in every school.
Initiate a high-quality school construction program in working-class communities. No public funds for elite private schools; invest billions in public education for a free, first-class education for all.
5. Germany supplies Kiev with more Patriot systems, arms for war as it did under Hitler
The official narrative that these deliveries serve solely to repel Russian missile and drone attacks is pure war propaganda. Russia’s reactionary invasion of Ukraine does not alter the fact that the imperialist powers have systematically provoked this war for years. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO has expanded its borders ever further eastwards, in violation of all assurances given to Moscow, encircling Russia militarily. Eighty years after the end of the Second World War, Germany once again finds itself at the forefront of a confrontation with the nuclear power Russia.
As in the two world wars of the 20th century, German imperialism is once again pursuing predatory economic and geopolitical interests: control of resource-rich Ukraine, the subordination of the whole of Eastern Europe to a Berlin-dominated EU, and the subjugation of Russia itself. In a government statement, Chancellor Friedrich Merz (Christian Democrat, CDU) described the Russian leadership as a “criminal regime” that threatened Europe, declaring: “The means of diplomacy have been exhausted.” This amounts, in effect, to a declaration of war—when diplomacy is said to be exhausted, the hour of the weapons has arrived.
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The parallels with history are as striking as they are deadly: the same corporations that armed Hitler’s Wehrmacht (Army) in the 1930s are once again rubbing their bloody hands together and raking in billions. The turnover of Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems rose by 16.7 percent in 2023/24 to €2.1 billion. Rheinmetall reported the highest turnover in its history at €9.8 billion, an increase of 36 percent on the previous year, and expects an order potential of more than €300 billion in Europe alone by 2030.
Particularly dangerous is the nuclear component of the rearmament. The F-35 jets will be stationed with Tactical Air Wing 33 in Büchel, which will take over the role of “nuclear sharing.” This means that in the event of a war with Russia, the approximately 20 US nuclear bombs stationed there—each many times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb—could be delivered to their targets by German pilots.
6. From Los Angeles to Ukraine: The continuation of the war raises new horizons for social struggle
(A comprehensive report about social conditions in Ukraine submitted to the World Socialist Web Site by underground journalists there.)
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Since the evening of July 22, for the first time since 2022 political protests involving thousands of people have been taking place in Kiev and a number of regional centers.
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At the moment, the regime is quite tolerant of these protests since the protesters have not encroached on its pillars, i.e., they have not challenged the forced mobilization, closed borders and foreign funding of the war. Rather, they have only been demanding a more effective policy of using the country as a torpedo for NATO.
7. Italian dockworkers block Saudi ship carrying weapons for Israel
On August 7, dockworkers in Genoa mounted a determined blockade against the transit of the Saudi ship Bahri Yanbu, in a direct challenge to Italy’s role in arming Israel and its imperialist allies.
The ship, arriving from Baltimore, Maryland in the United States, was scheduled to load military equipment produced by the Italian arms conglomerate Leonardo, including an Oto Melara cannon bound for Abu Dhabi and possibly tanks or other heavy weapons already staged in the terminal yard.
Refusing to become accomplices in the Gaza genocide, the workers blocked the loading of the cannon and exposed the ship’s cargo—already filled with weapons, ammunition, explosives, armored vehicles and tanks—through on-site inspections at dawn.
8. US imposes 20 percent tariff on Sri Lanka
While the average price paid by American workers for commodities will increase, workers around the world will face deepening attacks on their jobs, wages and working conditions caused by the tariff hikes.
The 20 percent tariff on Sri Lankan exports, which comes into effect on August 7, 2025, is being promoted by President Dissanayake’s government as “more competitive” than other key apparel-exporting countries in the region, such as Bangladesh, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan.
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The US is Sri Lanka’s largest export market, accounting for 40 percent of its apparel exports ($1.9 billion) and 25 percent of its total exports ($3 billion) annually. The apparel industry, which directly employs over 350,000 workers and indirectly supports another 600,000, is particularly vulnerable due to declining sales in the US caused by the tariffs.
Workers in the sector typically earn an average monthly wage of around 35,000 rupees (approximately $116) and are often compelled to work overtime to meet production targets and boost their earnings. Apparel companies are increasingly relying on workers supplied by low-wage labor contracting firms to cut costs and maximize profits.
A decline in garment exports will lead to factory closures, mass layoffs, and deteriorating wages and working conditions. Other export industries such as tea, rubber, gems, and seafood will also be affected.
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The tariff war and its dangerous consequences are not isolated incidents but reflect a deepening global capitalist crisis. Defending jobs, wages, and democratic rights cannot be achieved within the confines of capitalism or a national framework.
To defeat these attacks, workers must take control of their own struggle. This means organizing independently—outside of bourgeois parties and union leadership—through action committees in factories, plantations, other workplaces, and rural communities.
9. Workers internationally state support for IWA-RFC hearing on the death of Ronald Adams Sr.
The World Socialist Web Site is continuing its reporting on the July 27 public hearing of the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees’ (IWA-RFC) investigation into the death of Stellantis worker Ronald Adams Sr. by publishing international statements of support to the investigation.
10. What way forward for postal workers after the rejection of Canada Post’s concessions-laden contract?
A message mail delivery workers from the Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee (Canada):
Canada Post workers have delivered a powerful rebuke to management, the federal government, and the anti-worker Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) bureaucracy. Nearly 70 percent of urban and rural postal workers rejected the company’s final offers in a government forced vote designed to impose sweeping concessions and job cuts upon us.
This was no ordinary ratification vote. It was the latest move in a coordinated campaign by the Liberal government, Canada Post management, and the CUPW apparatus to break our resistance, destroy our jobs and working conditions, and impose a brutal restructuring of the postal system. After 18 months of struggle, the message from the rank and file is resounding: We will not be sacrificed on the altar of profits!
But let us also be clear: the contract rejection, as necessary and defiant as it was, is not enough on its own to halt this assault. As we argued before the vote began, it must become the launching pad for a renewed fight based on an entirely new strategy—one that breaks the stranglehold of the CUPW bureaucracy and mobilizes the immense social power of the entire working class in a political class struggle.
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We must face the facts: CUPW has colluded with the government-management conspiracy every step of the way. When we delivered a 95 percent strike mandate in fall 2024, the union leadership refused to call any action for weeks. When a nationwide strike was finally called in November, only under pressure from the rank and file, it quickly gained momentum and broad support across the country. But the Liberal government intervened in December, using a fraudulent reinterpretation of Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code to ban the strike outright.
CUPW’s response? Total capitulation. Without organizing a vote or consulting the membership, the leadership ordered an immediate return to work, refusing to challenge the illegality of the ban or mobilize the widespread sentiment among workers to defy it.
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Postal workers are engaged in a political struggle. We confront not simply a rogue employer or “out-of-touch” management. We are facing a ruling class determined to make an example out of us by carrying out a sweeping restructuring of the postal system—at the expense of jobs, wages, and the very principle of universal public service.
11. Probe into US ICE abuse exposes crimes authorized by Congress
Among the most serious documented cases are 41 instances of physical or sexual abuse, 14 of mistreatment of pregnant women, and 18 involving abuse or medical neglect of children, including US citizens. The findings provide further evidence that the Trump administration is carrying out a coordinated campaign of repression and intimidation against immigrants, including asylum seekers and children.
At the same time, while confirming only a fraction of the abuse taking place within the US immigration system, the report functions as a damage-control operation aimed at preserving the legitimacy of the agencies and institutions responsible.
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For decades, the Democratic Party has supported every major expansion of ICE, border militarization, and surveillance. The militarization of the US–Mexico border began under the Clinton administration and escalated under “Deporter-in-Chief” Barack Obama and his then–vice president, Joe Biden.
As president, Biden continued Trump’s use of Title 42 to block asylum seekers and immigrants from entering the United States, even as his administration dismantled COVID-19 protections. During her election campaign, Kamala Harris positioned herself as a more “effective” border enforcer than the erratic Trump, even promising to continue construction of his border wall.
The abuse of immigrants in US detention facilities is the outcome of a conscious and bipartisan policy aimed at criminalizing migration, instilling fear in the working class and reinforcing the mechanisms of state repression.
12. South Africa’s ANC government arrests 1,000 miners
The African National Congress (ANC) government has launched a mass police operation to arrest 1,000 migrant gold miners. The miners are working without permits near Barberton, a town in the northeast of the country, close to the borders with Eswatini and Mozambique.
The operation is an extension of the ANC’s violent Operation Vala Umgodi (Plug the Hole) that began with the Stilfontein massacre in January, where 90 miners, mostly undocumented migrants, died after police surrounded an abandoned mine, cutting off food supplies and forcing them to the surface. The horrific crime highlighted the ANC government’s brutal response to the explosive social conditions developing in South Africa.
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The ANC’s barbarous actions are a devastating indictment of bourgeois nationalism and all the forces which have backed the ANC historically, above all the South African Communist Party (SACP).
Official unemployment rate reached 33 percent in the first quarter of 2025, with 8.2 million people unemployed. The expanded unemployment rate, including discouraged work-seekers, rose to 43 percent. Youth unemployment stands at 46 percent among those aged 15–34. 55 percent of the population live below the upper poverty line of R1,634 (approximately $88) per month, and 25 percent live below the food poverty line of R796 (approximately $43) per month.
Mining in abandoned pits takes place in South Africa due to the social havoc wrought by the shuttering of much of the country’s mining infrastructure and the broader poverty fueling a huge informal sector, with a workforce preyed upon by criminal syndicates. Another factor exacerbating the crisis is competition from lab-grown diamonds to South Africa’s diamond mining industry.
Around 300 Jewish public figures have delivered a scathing indictment of the Labour government’s complicity in Israeli war crimes and its authoritarian crackdown on protest at home. Their open letter begins with the powerful declaration, “Proscribe genocide, not protest.”
Addressed to Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, the letter is a response to the unprecedented move on July 5 to proscribe Palestine Action (PA) as a terrorist organization. The Terrorism Act (2000) makes it a criminal offense for a person to belong to, invite support for, recklessly express support for, or arrange a meeting in support of a proscribed organization—carrying a maximum sentence of 14 years imprisonment.
The letter denounces the ban as “illegitimate and unethical” and declares, “Opposing the brutality of genocide, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing taking place in Gaza and the West Bank, including taking direct action, is not antisemitic. Nor is it terrorism.”
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The letter published by Jewish public figures speaks to the sentiments of millions who refuse to be cowed by the authoritarianism of the Starmer government. But the criminal actions they indict cannot be stopped simply through the application of mass pressure.
The bitter experience of nearly two years confirms that the genocide against the Palestinians can only be stopped as part of a broader fight against war, including the three-year NATO proxy war in Ukraine against Russia and the ongoing redivision of the Middle East, including a threatened military assault against Iran, all ultimately targeting China.
14. Poor classroom air quality endangers students and educators in Australia
Classroom air quality in Australia is a growing concern. Studies indicate that many classrooms have inadequate ventilation and exceed recommended levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other toxic substances.
Governments, state and federal, are overseeing a situation in which classrooms have become dangerous vectors responsible for likely poor health outcomes for teachers, students and their families.
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Anyone who has worked or studied in the education sector knows, often through bitter experience, how schools and childcare centres are notorious settings for infectious disease outbreaks. Experts have said this is not surprising, given the limited monitoring, ventilation and filtration of the inside air.
In Australia there are no requirements for sensors to monitor air quality and ventilation. Consequently, enforceable performance standards are lacking in schools, as is investment in ventilation and air purification.
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Governments, Labor and Liberal alike, and the teacher union leaderships are well aware of the dangers of poor air quality in classrooms, yet they have done nothing to ensure the safety of students and staff in their schools. This indifference to public health is starkly revealed in the record of the ongoing COVID pandemic.
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Classroom air quality is not just a concern in Australia. Studies by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for example, indicate that indoor pollutant levels in the US are five times higher than outdoor air levels, and that indoor air pollution is one of the five major environmental risks to public health.
While exact figures are not known, according to the National Center for Education Statistics there are almost 99,000 public K-12 schools in America, and the average school building is at least 42 years old. Of these, 30 percent reported heating systems, air conditioning systems and ventilation/filtration systems that were rated as being in fair to poor condition.
15. New Zealand government legislates to restrict voting rights
New Zealand’s far-right government has introduced legislation to sharply restrict voting rights in time for the 2026 election. The changes to the law target layers of the population, particularly the working class and youth, who are likely to be hostile to the government, and more broadly, the entire political establishment.
The Electoral Amendment Bill passed its first reading in parliament on July 29, supported by the governing coalition parties: National, NZ First and Act. The government claims the current legislation is “outdated and unsustainable” and its changes will “support the timeliness, efficiency, integrity, and resilience of the electoral system.”
In fact, the restrictions echo moves elsewhere, in particular by the US Republican Party, to systematically suppress voting rights. They could disenfranchise over 100,000 New Zealand voters. The amendments include closing voter enrollment 13 days before Election Day, reinstating a ban on prisoners voting and prohibiting anyone from offering purported inducements, such as free food, drink or entertainment within 100 meters of a voting station.
The bill’s most contentious provision is to end “same day” enrollments. Since 1993, voters have been able to enrol to vote during the two-week advance voting period and, more recently, on Election Day itself. The government wants to close enrollments before the 12-day advance voting period begins.
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There is widespread popular opposition to the suppression of the right to vote, as well as the ACT Party’s blatant anti-working class rhetoric and anti-Māori dog-whistles.
Whatever differences exist on the law change within the political establishment are of a tactical, not fundamental character. The Labour Party agrees with deepening attacks on democratic rights—including censorship of the internet, boosting the intelligence agencies, and attacking free speech in the name of stopping “foreign interference.” The ruling classes internationally are resorting to ever more authoritarian measures to advance its agenda of austerity at home and war abroad.
16. German actors, musicians demand Chancellor Merz take action to prevent Israeli atrocities in Gaza
The list of signees includes some of Germany’s best-known actors, such as Daniel Brühl, Sandra Hüller, Peter Lohmeyer, Benno Fürmann, Heike Makatsch, Anna Thalbach, Meret Becker, Jürgen Vogel and Armin Rohde, film directors Fatih Akin and Ari Folman and many more. Musicians include Joy Denalane, Yvonne Catterfeld and the bands Blond, Mighty Oaks and Querbeat.
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The artists’ appeal and open letter undoubtedly reflect the shock and horror of millions in Germany and layers of society in Israel. But such appeals to the German chancellor will have no effect. Merz is not, as the letter states, “one of the few who can persuade Israel to change course after all.”
After the administration of Donald Trump, the German government has been the chief enabler of Israel as it moves to the next stage of its goal of establishing a “Greater Israel” on the bones of the Palestinian people. Germany, as well as Britain and France, has continued normal trading relations with Israel, most notably supplying the country with all the weapons it needs to continue its illegal, homicidal war.
17. Trump imposes 50% tariff on India, demands radical downgrading of its ties to Russia
Relations between New Delhi and Washington are rapidly deteriorating, with US President Donald Trump threatening to single India out for exemplary reprisals unless it radically downgrades it economic and military-security ties with Russia.
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After lashing out against India, Trump at one point declared on his Truth Social media network, “They (Russia and India) can take their dead economies down together, for all I care.”
The fascist billionaire president also boasted about a newly-inked deal with Pakistan, with which India came to the brink of all-out war in May, to jointly develop that country’s oil resources. Rubbing salt on the wound, Trump declared, “Who knows, maybe they’ll be selling oil to India someday!”
Successive US administrations, including his own, have aggressively courted India, with the aim of harnessing New Delhi to Washington’s drive to strategically encircle China and thwart its rise, including through war if necessary.
Trump is supposed to travel to New Delhi in the coming weeks for the annual leaders’ summit of the Quad— the unofficial, anti-China, Indo-Pacific military-security alliance that unites India with the US and its two principal Asia-Pacific treaty allies, Japan and Australia.
But this has not deterred Trump from provoking a crisis in Indo-US relations, just as he has with Washington’s European NATO partners and its northern neighbor, Canada, which Trump has vowed to make America’s 51st state.
In a desperate bid to arrest the rapid erosion of US imperialism’s global economic and geopolitical power, Trump is threatening, bullying and attacking Washington’s ostensible allies, no less than those it has long identified as its strategic adversaries.
18. Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
Asia:
India:
Haryana government doctors and healthcare workers protest electronic tracking system
Conservancy workers in Chennai, Tamil Nadu strike against privatization
Karnataka commuter transport workers’ union calls off indefinite strike
Telangana: Telugu film industry workers on strike for better wages
Pakistan:
University workers demand unpaid wages and pensions
Power loom workers protest Punjab government’s minimum wage
Australia and the Pacific:
KONE elevator technicians in NSW strike again for industry standard pay
Schindler Lifts technicians in NSW strike for pay increase
National industrial action by Qantas engineers enters second month
Confluence Water utility workers in Sydney strike for wage rise
CBH Kwinana grain terminal workers in Western Australia strike for better pay
Queensland Department of Transport engineers give notice to strike
West Australian court security workers strike again over low pay and safety
19. Free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk!
Bogdan Syrotiuk and Leon Trotsky
