Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
The campaign to free the Ukrainian socialist Bogdan Syrotiuk has reached an important turning point with the publication of a forensic linguistic analysis that shatters the fraudulent case against him. Commissioned by Syrotiuk’s defense attorneys, the 65-page report by Professor Yuri Borisovich Irkhin—one of Ukraine’s most prominent criminologists—demonstrates unequivocally that the charge of “state treason” is a political frame-up aimed at outlawing socialist and internationalist opposition to the NATO–Ukraine war against Russia.
Syrotiuk, 26, is a leading member of the Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists (YGBL), the Trotskyist youth movement in Ukraine affiliated with the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). He was arrested in April 2024 and charged under wartime statutes with “state treason,” a crime carrying a sentence of 15 years to life. The “evidence” consists almost entirely of political analyses published by the WSWS and the YGBL—denounced as “Russian propaganda” because they oppose both the NATO-backed war and the capitalist regimes in Kiev and Moscow.
For years, Ukrainian courts have weaponized so-called “linguistic expertise” to criminalize dissent. State-appointed “experts” scour political texts searching for phrases that can be twisted into proof of a supposed crime. In Bogdan’s case, the official expert, functioning as an arm of the Ukrainian Secret Service (SBU), declared that his writings supported Russia’s invasion.
But Professor Irkhin’s independent review is a devastating repudiation of this fraudulent conclusion. From that standpoint it also will be an important tool before the European Court of Human Rights, which accepted Bogdan’s case earlier this year. After examining more than a dozen WSWS and YGBL publications—including articles by Syrotiuk, speeches at the 2023 International May Day Rally and statements on the Gaza genocide—Irkhin concluded:
There are no statements, phrases, sentences, or word combinations that contain public calls aimed at undermining the national security of Ukraine … and NO statements that have signs of propaganda aimed at supporting the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine. (Emphasis in original)
The report’s thoroughness and Irkhin’s stature—he is a widely cited criminologist and former deputy head of the psychological service of Ukraine’s Interior Ministry—forced even a hostile court in Pervomaisk to order a third expert review. This is far from a guarantee of justice, but it constitutes a significant legal blow to the SBU and a major advance for the international campaign demanding Syrotiuk’s release.
The implications of this development extend far beyond Bogdan’s individual defense. From its inception, the prosecution of Syrotiuk has been a political show trial aimed at banning opposition to the war. The SBU’s case rests on the reactionary premise that any critique of NATO, denunciation of the Putin regime from the left or call for the unity of Russian and Ukrainian workers constitutes treason.
In their attempt to criminalize internationalism, the authorities effectively placed the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) itself on trial. This strategy has now exploded in their hands. Irkhin’s report confirms what every honest reader already knows. In analyzing statements produced by Bogdan and fellow YGBL leading member Andrei Ritsky to the 2023 May Day rally, Irkin concluded:
The speeches express the position of the Trotskyist movement, which condemns both the policies of the US and NATO and the actions of Putin’s regime, viewing the war as a consequence of the global crisis of capitalism and imperialist rivalry. The text contains criticism of historical Ukrainian nationalism and the cult of the OUN-UPA, as well as condemnation of Putin’s regime and the Russian oligarchy as heirs to Stalinism. Both speeches contain a call for the unification of the international working class on the basis of the anti-war movement and revolutionary internationalism.
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The timing of this blow to the prosecution is politically significant. The NATO-Ukraine war is in deep crisis. After sacrificing hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian lives and exhausting tens of billions of dollars, the much-heralded NATO offensive has failed catastrophically. Zelensky’s government, which rules on the basis of martial law, is disintegrating under corruption scandals, and he has dismissed his closest confidant, Andriy Yermak. European governments, facing mass opposition at home, openly accuse Washington of strategic betrayal.
These internal fractures are driving both the Zelensky regime and NATO to ever more desperate and reckless measures. The European imperialist powers—above all, Germany and France—are sharply escalating discussions about the deployment of troops to Ukraine, the expansion of long-range strike capabilities and the shift to wartime economies.
The Ukrainian state’s persecution of Bogdan Syrotiuk is an integral part of this broader war policy. The imperialist powers fear above all the emergence of a conscious, internationalist movement of workers and youth against the war. They intend to silence those who oppose the propaganda lies used to justify the slaughter and who fight to unite the working class across borders.
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The refutation of the frame-up provided by Irkhin’s report places immense responsibility on the international working class. The fight for Bogdan’s freedom is inseparable from the struggle to build a conscious, organized movement against the drive to world war.
As the WSWS wrote when Bogdan was first arrested:
The fight for Bogdan’s freedom must be taken up by workers, students and all those who are committed to the defense of democratic rights and opposed to the escalation of imperialist wars that, unless stopped, threaten humanity with a nuclear catastrophe.
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The fight to free Bogdan Syrotiuk is in essence the struggle to mobilize the working class in Ukraine, Russia and internationally against the war. His defense is inseparable from the struggle to build a global movement of the working class capable of ending the system that is plunging humanity toward catastrophe.
2. Teachers in West Contra Costa speak out: “We need a general strike to fight the oligarchs”
The strike by teachers in the West Contra Costa Unified School District (WCCUSD) in California has reached its fourth day, under conditions of intensifying pressure from the district, the Democrats and the union apparatus to shut it down. Negotiators from the United Teachers of Richmond (UTR) are entering another round of talks tonight.
The Teamsters 856 bureaucracy yesterday ordered 1,500 classified workers back to work and announced a tentative agreement that has not even been voted on. This sellout, almost identical to the deal workers already rejected, has effectively split the strike in half in order to weaken and isolate teachers.
The World Socialist Web Site calls for a resounding NO vote by classified workers, but a NO vote alone is not enough. The central question is how to place the conduct of this struggle into the hands of rank‑and‑file workers themselves. A rejection of the tentative agreement must be tied to demands for the reinstatement of the strike by classified workers, unification with teachers on the picket lines, and the formation of democratically elected rank‑and‑file committees in every school and worksite to take the struggle out of the hands of the union bureaucracy.
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San Francisco teachers voted 99 percent to strike this week, with no date yet announced by the United Educators of San Francisco (UESF) bureaucracy. In Los Angeles and Berkeley, talks have reached formal impasse, with Berkeley facing a steep budget deficit. Other districts statewide confront cuts.
Every immediate demand raised by teachers and classified staff—substantial inflation‑beating raises, full staffing, no cuts, safe and well‑resourced schools—poses the broader question: who controls society’s resources, and in whose interests are they deployed? The working class cannot place any confidence in the Democratic Party or the union apparatus that ties them to the capitalist state. Only the independent political mobilization of the working class, nationally and internationally, can force a massive reallocation of wealth from billionaires and war spending to schools, healthcare and social services.
The World Socialist Web Site spoke with two educators in Northern California on the West Contra Costa teachers strike and the broader conditions facing public education. Karen is a striking English teacher in WCCUSD and Dan is a teacher in Berkeley who lives in WCCUSD (El Cerrito).
3. White House doubles down on September 2 boat strike cover-up
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday reneged on his earlier statement that he would have “no problem” with releasing the full video of the September 2 murder of 11 unarmed civilians in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Venezuela. In a bald-faced lie, he declared, “I didn’t say that.”
Trump now says he has left the decision with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, declaring, “Whatever Hegseth wants to do is OK with me.”
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Trump hurled insults at the reporter who asked about his earlier pledge, calling her “fake news,” “obnoxious” and “terrible” for asking him about his earlier statement that “whatever they have, we’d certainly release no problem.”
Trump’s comments came after NBC confirmed earlier reporting by the Washington Post that Hegseth had given an explicit verbal order to kill everyone on board the boat, claiming that they were on a list of terrorism suspects. Hegseth “ordered the US military on September 2 to kill all 11 people” on board the boat, NBC wrote.
Last week, the New York Times reported that the full video, shown to two congressional committees in closed-door hearings, shows that “two survivors of the US military’s first boat strike on Sept. 2 climbed atop the overturned hull and waved to something overhead.” The people who saw the video told the Times the “most logical explanation was that the two survivors had seen the American aircraft above them and started signaling for a rescue.”
The Pentagon’s law of war manual declares that soldiers have a duty to refuse to carry out “clearly illegal” orders, such as killing shipwrecked sailors. “Orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal,” the manual declares.
The Geneva Conventions states that “persons … who are at sea and who are wounded, sick or shipwrecked … shall not be murdered or exterminated.”
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The Trump administration has surged military assets off the coast of Venezuela, approved covert military actions inside the country in October and last month pledged to begin ground attacks “very soon.”
On Tuesday, two US fighter jets, launched from the USS Gerald R. Ford stationed off the coast of Venezuela, circled the Gulf of Venezuela and came within 20 nautical miles of Venezuelan territory. The move follows similar overflights by nuclear-capable B-52 and B-1 bombers.
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Last week, the Trump administration published a new National Defense Strategy that places central emphasis on US domination of Latin America as a supply base in the conflict with China and other states.
The document declares: “We want to ensure that the Western Hemisphere … remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets, and that supports critical supply chains; and we want to ensure our continued access to key strategic locations. In other words, we will assert and enforce a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine.”
The document makes clear that the Trump administration is seeking to reduce Latin America to colonial slavery through war, regime change, economic strangulation and other destabilization operations. The criminality of Trump’s murders on the high seas is just a foretaste of the vast crimes that this administration is hoping to unleash on the people of Latin America.
4. UK inquiry told special forces had “deliberate policy” to “kill fighting-aged males” in Afghanistan
According to material released at the Independent Inquiry relating to Afghanistan, a UK special forces unit had a “deliberate policy” to “kill fighting-aged males... even when they did not pose a threat” during the US-led imperialist occupation (2001-2021). Evidence proves there was a “conscious decision” made by the chain of command to cover it up.
The Inquiry, now in its third year, was established by the then Conservative government to investigate allegations of 80 unlawful killings by UK Special Forces in Afghanistan between 2010 and 2013. This was forced by a July 2022 broadcast of an episode of the BBC Panorama documentary series, SAS Death Squads Exposed: A British War Crime?
Chaired by Judge Charles Haddon-Cave, the inquiry’s hearing began in October 2023. It is specifically investigating alleged extra-judicial killings by the Special Air Service (SAS), the main special forces unit of the British Army. The inquiry opened after years of allegations of unlawful killings, and was pre-empted by a legal challenge made by bereaved family members and media outlets into the conduct of UK special forces (UKSF).
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Among the documents released by the inquiry was a summary of an interview between [a senior officer codenamed] N1466 and the Royal Military Police (RMP) in October 2018.
During the exchange, the officer described an incident where members of UKSF1 went to clear a compound and found a room where some Afghans were hiding under a mosquito net.
N1466 stated, “They did not reveal themselves, so the UKSF1 shot at the net until there was no movement. When the net was uncovered it was women and children.
“The incident was covered up and the individual who did the shooting was allegedly given some form of award to make it look legitimate.”
“I will be clear, we are talking about war crimes,” he said.
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N1466 is the highest-ranking former special forces officer to provide evidence of war crimes. He was the assistant chief of staff for operations in UKSF headquarters.
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In 2021, Boris Johnson’s Tory government enacted the Overseas Operations Act (OOA) which provides the Armed Forces with increased protection against legal scrutiny on overseas activities. The legislation also introduced a “presumption against prosecution” for criminal offences five years after an alleged incident and a time limit on civil claims for torture and murder. Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party refused to oppose the bill, penalizing MPs who voted against. Now in government, Labour has kept the legislation on the books.
While providing more evidence for what is already widely known—that UK forces were involved in a brutal military occupation which saw the murder of many civilians—the current and previous inquiries provide no justice for these crimes.
Operation Northmoor was opened in 2014 to examine allegations of over 600 offenses by British forces in Afghanistan, as well as executions by special forces, including of children. The investigation was terminated in 2019, and resulted in no prosecutions.
An investigation by the RMP, Operation Cestro, resulted in just three soldiers being referred to the Service Prosecuting Authority. None were prosecuted.
5. China trade surplus tops $1 trillion
In the first 11 months of this year China’s trade surplus reached $1.08 trillion beating the previous record of $993 billion for 2024 with still a month to go. The Wall Street Journal characterized it as a “remarkable figure, never before seen in recorded economic history.”
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Southeast Asia is a crucial destination for Chinese exports, some of which are aimed at skirting around the imposts imposed on its goods by the US. The Financial Times (FT) reported over the weekend that Chinese exports to this region “are growing at almost twice the rate of the past four years, as Donald Trump’s trade war pushes Beijing to tighten trade links with its neighbors.”
In the first nine months of this year Chinese exports to the six largest economies in the region—Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia—have risen by 23.5 percent for the first nine months of this year.
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China has been accused of “dumping” its products in the region but... “much of what they are exporting is actually pro-growth.” As much as 60 percent of exports were components for products manufactured in the region that were exported to other countries. In other words, Chinese exports are part of the operation of a global supply chain, rather than finished products.
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One of the fastest growing areas in finished goods is cars which is hitting Japan. The market share of Japanese companies in the region’s auto market has fallen from 77 percent in the 2010s to 62 percent in 2025, with car buyers shifting “in droves” to more affordable electric vehicles made by the Chinese company BYD, according to the FT.
Apart from the superiority and lower cost of Chinese manufacturing in a range of products from pharmaceuticals, steel, solar panels, EVs and a vast array of high-tech products, Chinese exports have benefited from what is considered to be the undervaluation of its currency, the renminbi, possibly by as much as 30 percent.
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Plans for restrictions by the EU are already well under way. A draft law is due to be submitted today under which the EU is considering setting a “made in Europe” content of up to 70 percent for certain products, including cars.
According to a report in the FT, the policy would cost EU companies more than €10 billion annually by pushing them to buy more expensive European components.
The plan is being overseen by Stéphane Séjourné, France’s executive vice-president for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy at the European Commission.
Students in Oregon and Minnesota walked out of class this week to protest ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) kidnapping operations in their communities and across the country. Following the mass walkouts in North Carolina last month, the actions this week reveal widespread revulsion and opposition to attacks on immigrants among large sections of youth.
On Tuesday morning, hundreds of students at Burnsville High School, located about 15 miles south of downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, walked out of class to protest ICE raids in their community. Video shows students carrying signs and chanting, “No more ICE! No more ICE!”
The walkout was triggered in part by a raid on a multi-family home in Burnsville this past weekend. On December 6, more than a dozen heavily armed immigration agents raided the home, shattering doors and breaking locks in the process. In the course of the raid, immigration agents disappeared four people, three of whom left behind children.
Speaking to local media, a family living upstairs was able to prove their citizenship to prevent being kidnapped, but a young couple living downstairs were taken by immigration thugs when they returned home from the grocery store, leaving their 7-year-old child behind. According to an attorney representing the parents, the father of the 7-year-old has a valid work permit yet was still taken by ICE.
During the same raid, ICE agents also arrested two other men, one of whom leaves behind a pregnant wife. Speaking to NBC KARE 11 in Spanish, the pregnant mother said, “They opened the door for me, when I went out, they were pointing their guns at me. My daughter was with me, and I had the little boy asleep on my shoulder.”
Hundreds of students also walked out of class on Monday morning across high schools in Washington County, Oregon, to protest ongoing immigration raids in their community and across the country. Of the over 611,000 people that call Washington County home, some 105,000 were born outside the United States. Major cities in the county, located to the west of Portland, include Hillsboro (110,000), Beaverton (98,000), Tigard (55,000) and Forest Grove (27,000).
Walkouts occurred Monday at high schools located in Beaverton, Hillsboro and Forest Grove. Students carried signs that read: “Education not deportation” and “Stop separating families.”
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In addition to terrorizing longtime community members and separating families, ICE thugs continue to illegally detain and assault US citizens. Early Tuesday morning, a 55-year-old American citizen was taken by ICE while she was filming them in north Minneapolis. Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) News reported that Susan Tincher was taken by ICE after she responded to an alert from a local group she is a part of that ICE was conducting operations in the Willard Hay neighborhood.
Tincher, armed with a cell phone and standing 5 foot 4 inches tall, said she approached what appeared to be an ICE agent standing on the sidewalk across the street from a house that was being raided. Tincher said she asked the person if they were with ICE. The person did not identify himself but simply yelled, “Get back.”
Tincher did not move, at which point multiple agents descended on her. She told MPR News, “Pretty soon they were throwing me on the ground and handcuffing me and then putting me in their unmarked truck.” She guessed the whole interaction happened in a matter of seconds. “There were other watchers, who were asking me what my name was and everything,” she said, “so I identified myself to them, then I started yelling, ‘Help!’ because I was being kidnapped.”
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While Tincher was handcuffed in the vehicle, ICE thugs menaced and threatened her saying that if she did not “watch herself,” they were going to pull over and pepper spray her. Jim Tincher, Susan’s husband, told the outlet he did not know where his wife was for hours. He said it is “incredible” to see that the “government can do this, arrest somebody for doing nothing illegal, and throw her down, handcuff her.”
He added that seeing video of his wife being thrown down to the ground and handcuffed “was chilling.”
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Even after being illegally detained, Susan Tincher told MPR News she will not stop supporting immigrants. “I’m just so concerned about our neighbors, our peaceable neighbors being abducted and the worries their families are going through,” she said. “I just don’t want this to be happening in our country.”
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The raids in Minnesota are part of a fascist and racist campaign launched by the Trump administration aimed at stoking fear and dividing the working class. Since the shooting of two National Guard soldiers in D.C. last month, Trump has embarked on a concerted campaign to paint all people from Somali as uniquely criminal and subhuman. Minneapolis-St. Paul is home to the largest Somali diaspora outside of Africa and is also represented in Congress by Democratic lawmaker Ilhan Omar, the first Somali American elected to Congress.
At a tiny fascist rally in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, President Donald Trump again attacked Somalis and Omar. Speaking on the former, Trump grunted, “They oughta get ‘em the hell out of here. They hate our country.”
Referring to Omar, he said, “And she hates our country and [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] hates our country. They all do.” Trump later mocked Omar’s “little turban” and accused her of doing “nothing but bitch.” He again accused her of being in the country “illegally,” prompting the small crowd of human dust to chant, “Send her back!”
7. More than 1 million people in Germany without housing
According to a press release issued in November by the Federal Working Group on Assistance for the Homeless (BAGW), the number of people without housing in Germany has, for the first time, risen to at least 1,029,000 in 2024. This increase directly reflects the policies of the federal and state governments, which are driving through savage social cutbacks to finance insane levels of military rearmament.
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Of the more than 1 million people currently without housing, around 840,000 are accommodated within the so-called “emergency housing assistance” system, that is, in municipal shelters. Seventy-four percent—around 765,000 people—are adults. Around 26 percent are children and young people, who are mostly housed together with their parents. In total, around 820,000 people affected do not hold German citizenship.
War refugees from Ukraine make up the largest group, accounting for around 25 percent. While the federal government is doing everything to escalate the war against Russia, deporting ever more Ukrainians and sending them back to the slaughter of war, refugees here are forced to live under miserable conditions.
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Facilities for people without housing are increasingly being used by people in work. Almost 15 percent now have a job, an increase of 2 percentage points compared to 2015.
The bold declarations from federal and state governments that homelessness and rough sleeping in Germany will be “overcome” by 2030 are sheer cynicism. Berlin’s Senate administration recently stated that the so-called “needs forecast” for accommodation, which currently stands at around 55,000 places, will rise to more than 85,000 by the end of 2029. This corresponds to an increase of 55 percent.
In 1995 there were still 2.7 million social housing units in Germany. Thirty years later, fewer than 1 million remain. In Berlin, the number of social housing units fell from 340,000 in 2000 to around 85,000 today—only a quarter of the original stock—as a result of selloffs by state governments of the SPD and the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) or its successor, the Left Party. In 2024 there were 2,495 forced evictions in Berlin, an increase of 5.3 percent compared to 2023, when there were 2,369. Across Germany, the number of forced evictions rose over the same period from 32,669 to 35,028 in 2024 (an increase of 7.2 percent).
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For the beginning of 2026, the municipal housing companies in Berlin have announced substantial rent increases for around 99,000 households, between 2.5 and 5.5 percent.
The practices of unscrupulous property corporations are further fueling the precarious situation on the housing market. The property giant Vonovia has been forced to withdraw recent rent increases of 15 percent. The blue-chip company, listed on the DAX stock index, had justified this brutal increase in tens of thousands of cases by inventing fictitious features not provided for in the local rent index. Recently, the Berlin Regional Court ruled that this practice was unlawful. However, as Vonovia has pointed out, tenants must accept the unlawful rent rise if they have already agreed to it.
8. Legendary Stax Records guitarist Steve Cropper (1941-2025)
The widely influential guitarist Steve Cropper self-effacingly and all too modestly told Guitar Player Magazine in 2024, “My playing has always sucked, but it sells … I keep it simple, I guess. I’m not a guitar player. I never took the time.” By that time, he was early into his ninth decade and had been in the forefront of the Memphis soul-rock scene for a full six of them.
Cropper died in a rehabilitation facility on December 3 at 84. He was well-renowned as a soul rock music icon among millions of fans. It can be safely assumed that many who love his music may not even know him by name. As Booker T. & the MGs’ guitarist, he contributed to an informal jam session which was recorded and became a top hit nationally in 1962. “Green Onions” has since become an early soul rock classic.
Eschewing flashy guitar solos and pretentious showmanship, Cropper was known for “playing for the song.” In a 2021 interview on guitar.com, he said “I’ve always thought of myself as a rhythm player … I get off on the fact that I can play something over and over and over, while other guitar players don’t want to even know about that. They won’t even play the same riff or the same lick twice.”
He told Total Guitar Magazine in October 2024, “In the early days when I was playing guitar, I knew the world didn’t need another B.B. King, Chet Atkins or Les Paul. So, what are you gonna do now? I thought, ‘Just be yourself and do your thing. Don’t go changing.’”
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Special note must be taken of his work with Otis Redding. He described working with him (also in 1984) at Stax: “Otis was one of those type of people that really walked around with a guitar full, or a handful, or a suitcase full of songs. He always had 10, 12, whatever, how many ideas, running around of unfinished things. And usually when he came to town, it was a very short stay. I mean, it was never longer than, like, a couple weeks.
So we really had to burn the midnight oil, so to speak, in the first two, three days he was here. And I just sort of, he’d throw this at me, and I’d throw something at him that I’d been doing. And we just sort of, together, collaborated on certain ideas, and I just sort of picked the best of it.
And I think, of course, I was very fortunate to be working with somebody like Otis Redding, who was so talented, but he really influenced me, and the funny thing that I, every time I look back on it, I used to write, if anybody ever listens to the songs themselves, a lot of the songs that we wrote together.
“Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay” was cowritten and produced by Cropper. It was released in 1968 after Redding’s untimely death at the age of 26 in an airplane crash.
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Money was tight at Stax in those early days. “I get asked sometimes, ‘How come there was only one guitar player on those records?’ I tell them, ‘Because they couldn’t afford a second guitar player!” And that’s why. Stax couldn’t even afford me! In fact, I think I did a lot of those sessions for nothing.”
From starting out producing country music tunes in a garage in North Memphis, the label transitioned to recording black artists. It’s first hit on the Satellite label #101 was “Fool In Love” by the Veltones in 1959.
What was striking about collaboration at Stax Records is that it was interracial. Memphis was completely segregated at the time Cropper and Stax started out, but inside the studio, “there was no color.” Cropper described it as “family.” When doing tours, there were issues “which we had no control over.”
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Cropper’s last days at Stax coincided with the financial insolvency of the label. He went on to form his own label and moved on to other ventures. In 1978, he and Duck Dunn appeared in the cast of the film starring two Saturday Night Live veterans, John Belushi and Dan Akroyd, called Blues Brothers. Not a great film, but it was successful at the box office due to featuring popular music stars Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Chaka Khan, Cab Calloway and others. A 1998 sequel, Blues Brothers 2000 also featured Cropper and Dunn with many of the same artists in addition to B.B. King, harmonicist John Popper and many others.
Cropper was known widely as humble and unassuming. Later in his career, he played with many of the most renowned popular music artists in the world. He performed, recorded and gave interviews until recently. His last album was released in 2024 called Friendlytown.
9. Former deputy Australian prime minister defects to far-right One Nation
Barnaby Joyce’s decision to join the far-right party is another expression of the crisis of the conservative Liberal-National Coalition and the lurch to the right by the entire political establishment.
10. Mount Sinai Hospital disciplines New York nurses who raised safety concerns
Management refused to tolerate nurses discussing how to improve security after an attempted shooting in the emergency room.
11. German government’s drug commissioner advocates restricting medical care for the elderly
Drug commissioner Hendrik Streeck (CDU) has underlined the inhumane and de facto murderous measures the ruling class is prepared to take by proposing drastic cuts to medical care for the elderly.
12. Mobilize to stop GM layoffs at Factory Zero in Detroit – Build Rank and File Committees
The layoffs at GM are part of a growing global jobs massacre by a money mad ruling class.
Denmark’s Social Democrat-led government has used its six-month chairmanship of the European Union (EU) Council to expand the country’s cooperation with fascist Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, especially in the fields of immigration and refugee policy.
This strategy culminated Monday with the decision by EU interior ministers to adopt a hardline package escalating the persecution of immigrants, including by expanding the list of countries that people can be deported to and clearing the way for the establishment of “return hubs” outside the EU.
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Copenhagen has long pursued a hardline approach on immigration, which the Social Democrats have spearheaded by embracing wholesale the far right’s policy demands. The “Danish model,” formerly held up by liberal reformists to bolster their claim that capitalism could be “humanised,” now inspires far-right parties and governments across the continent.
In May this year, Prime Minister Mette Fredriksen joined Meloni to initiate a letter ultimately signed by nine EU states that called for a break with the European Convention of Human Rights. The letter also demanded the curtailing of the European Court of Human Rights’s ability to enforce basic rights like the right to asylum and right to residency. The document advanced the typical arguments of Europe’s far right, demanding “more room nationally to decide when to expel criminal foreign nationals.” It denounced ECHR decisions that have “in some cases limited our ability to make political decisions” and insisted, “There is much more to be done before Europe regains control of irregular migration.”
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Meloni, an admirer of the fascist dictator Mussolini, heads a government that is notorious for systematically blocking efforts by private humanitarian organizations to rescue refugees in the Mediterranean, where thousands drown every year due to the EU’s “Fortress Europe” policies. Italy is working to set up a “return hub”for asylum seekers in Albania, where applications would be processed outside of the EU’s borders.
The fact that Frederiksen and Denmark’s Social Democrats solidarize themselves with this record and demand that Europe’s governments go even further exposes the hostility to basic principles of international law throughout Europe’s entire political establishment, in both its nominal “left” and right flanks.
Denmark has pursued one of the strictest anti-immigrant courses in Europe for over two decades. When governments want to launch crackdowns on migrant rights, like Keir Starmer’s Labour government in Britain, they cite Denmark as a model.
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These developments underscore how the fight to defend the rights of immigrants, who are a key component of the working class across Europe, is inseparable from the struggle to mobilise the working class continent-wide against militarism and war, and the attacks on wages, public services, and jobs imposed by the ruling elites.
Workers in Denmark, Italy, and throughout Europe disgusted by the sharp shift to the right of official politics and the witch-hunt against immigrants, which recalls nothing so much as the rabid antisemitism of the Nazis and other fascist regimes of the 1930s, must take this struggle forward on the basis of a socialist and internationalist program.
14. Free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk!
The fight for the Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist's freedom is an essential component of the struggle against imperialist war, genocide, dictatorship and fascism.
