Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
Voices Without Faces is a new series of articles on the World Socialist Web Site. [Its] purpose is to focus on and give a voice to immigrant workers who are isolated from and out of the view of other workers, and the capitalist press, by raising real life conditions as well as, importantly, political issues.
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Patricia, a DACA recipient brought to the United States as a child, shared her story with the World Socialist Web Site. Her experience lays bare the realities of capitalism: decades of hard work, sacrifice, and solidarity, met with constant fear, exploitation and threats of deportation.
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California brands itself a “sanctuary state,” and cities like Los Angeles advertise themselves as safe havens for immigrants. Patricia is not convinced.
“They say California is a sanctuary, but ICE still comes here,” she says. “They raid workplaces, schools, neighborhoods. They coordinate with local police. It’s not protection—it’s a false sense of security.”
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Patricia is deeply frustrated with the political establishment—including Democrats and the growing number of Latino officials who claim to represent immigrant communities but fail to deliver real change.
“There is no voice available for the immigrant community,” she explains. “We have so many organizations, so many lawyers, so many people with good intentions trying to support us. But it’s really, really frustrating when we see Latino identities in the government and the true conversations that need to be had aren’t being had.”
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Patricia sees her community, made up overwhelmingly of immigrant and working class families, as a living proof of collective survival.
“Where we live, people take care of each other,” she says. “If someone’s short on rent, neighbors help. If ICE is in the area, everyone texts each other. That’s community.”
She rejects the capitalist obsession with individualism, where people are pitted against one another for survival. “They teach us to compete instead of cooperate,” Patricia says. “But we survive because we stand together. Without everyone else, we’d have nothing.”
Patricia’s voice sharpens when she addresses the broader political context. “We came here to work. My parents worked themselves to the bone. I’ve worked since I was a teenager. We’re not criminals—we’re the workforce that keeps this country alive.”
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Patricia’s story is one among millions—but it illuminates the stakes for the entire working class. As deportations accelerate and democratic rights are shredded, the alternative cannot be reliance on either corporate-controlled party.
“We’ve learned nobody’s going to save us,” she says. “Not the Democrats, not the Republicans. We have to protect each other.”
2. Famine and mass murder in Gaza: A crime of Zionism and world imperialism
On Monday, the Israeli military carried out two airstrikes, one after another, on Nasser Hospital in the south of the Gaza Strip, killing over 20 people. The second strike deliberately targeted and killed five journalists covering the aftermath of the first strike, including correspondents for Reuters, the Associated Press, Al Jazeera and others.
So far, Israeli troops have killed 192 journalists during the Gaza genocide, most of them directly targeted in precision strikes. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, more reporters have been killed in Israel’s onslaught on Gaza than in any other modern war.
Monday’s deliberate, targeted murder of journalists and medical workers follows the announcement Friday by the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification food monitor that famine has officially set in in Gaza City. The report stated bluntly that this famine is “entirely man-made” and added that “this is the highest number of people facing catastrophic hunger ever recorded by the Integrated Food Security Classification system.”
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Whatever their verbal protestations about one or another massacre carried out by Israel, Washington, London, Paris and Berlin have enabled and defended the Gaza genocide.
Responding to the latest atrocities, UN Secretary-General Guterres said that the deliberate famine is “a failure of humanity itself,” and UNRWA head Lazzarini said, “The world’s indifference and inaction is shocking. Like Hannah Arendt said, ‘The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism.’”
One must be blunt. The crimes being committed in Gaza are not “a failure of humanity,” nor are they the product of “the world’s indifference.”
Billions of people all over the world oppose the Gaza genocide. The US-Israeli campaign to exterminate the Palestinian people has been met by one of the largest—if not the largest—globally coordinated mass protest movements in world history. Countless thousands of students, artists, and professionals have protested the Gaza genocide at grave risk to their careers and personal safety.
What is lacking is neither “humanity” nor “empathy,” but perspective. The Gaza genocide is not “a failure of humanity,” but a crime of capitalism and imperialism. It arises not from the human condition, as a sort of existential barbarism pouring out of the human soul, but from a definite and concrete set of social relations.
3. Trump issues executive order to prepare military intervention in multiple US cities
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday morning instructing the Pentagon to prepare for nationwide military operations by National Guard troops modeled on the military-police occupation of Washington D.C., now two weeks old. The flagrantly unconstitutional and illegal order is a further step in the establishment of authoritarian rule in the United States.
In comments following the signing of the orders, Trump mused that his critics were accusing him of being a dictator, adding, “A lot of people are saying maybe we like a dictator.”
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Trump’s latest executive order establishes the framework for military operations throughout the United States, in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, which forbids the military from assuming police functions except in circumstances of a complete breakdown of a local or state government.
Those who wrote this order know full well that the Democratic Party will do nothing but file a few lawsuits, which will wend their way through the court system for months if not years, while Trump’s “volunteers” and “specialized units” rampage through American cities.
In his comments, alongside declaring that people “like a dictator,” Trump reiterated his threat that the next target of federal military-police takeover could be the city of Chicago. He claimed, “Chicago is a killing field right now,” a designation he has never applied to Gaza, where the killing is being perpetrated on a massive scale by Israeli forces armed, financed and egged on by Washington.
4. Trump administration re-imprisons Abrego García, initiates plans to deport him to Uganda
Less than three days after Kilmar Abrego García was released from a Tennessee prison, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained the Maryland father and union worker during a check-in at the Baltimore field office Monday morning. The Trump administration has made clear its vindictive intention to deport Abrego García to Uganda, a country he has never been to and with which he has no connections.
On Monday afternoon, however, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis temporarily blocked the deportation, citing due process concerns and ordering that Abrego García be given a fair hearing before any removal can proceed.
Since March, the 30-year-old Abrego García has been subjected to public and private torture at the hands of the US government and its proxies.
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Abrego García is a union apprentice with the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART) Local 100 in Maryland. While SMART bureaucrats and AFL-CIO President Liz Schuler have released statements of “support,” none of them has threatened strike action to protect Abrego García.
The union bureaucracies have refused to call strike action in response to Trump’s attacks on Abrego García and the democratic rights of the entire working class because it would immediately call into question the policies of the Democrats, who fully support ICE and “border security.”
SMART, like every AFL-CIO affiliate, is bound up with the Democratic Party. The union apparatus funnels dues money into Democratic campaigns and maintains its “seat at the table” by promising to contain and police the workers it purports to represent.
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Abrego García, unlike the president of the United States, has been convicted of exactly zero felonies. Trump, a serial con man, liar and fascist currently overseeing genocide in Gaza, has been convicted of 34 felonies.
Support for Trump and his fascist immigration policies remains well underwater in the United States. A July 2025 Reuters/Ipsos survey found Trump’s overall approval rating and approval on the issue of immigration both sat at 41 percent.
5. France summons US Ambassador Kushner over claim its call for Palestinian state is antisemitic
Yesterday, the French Foreign Ministry summoned billionaire convicted felon and US Ambassador to France Charles Kushner to protest his remarks condemning the French government’s statement of support for the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
Kushner, the father of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, denounced this statement for allegedly inciting antisemitic violence. In a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron published in the Wall Street Journal, Kushner wrote: “Public statements haranguing Israel and gestures toward recognition of a Palestinian state embolden extremists, fuel violence, and endanger Jewish life in France. In today’s world, anti-Zionism is antisemitism—plain and simpl
Kushner’s comment exposes the reactionary content of the attempt to falsely equate opposition to Israel’s Zionist regime with antisemitism. It means criminalizing opposition to genocide, charging any statement of support or sympathy for the Palestinian victims of the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza with being antisemitic. This includes even entirely empty statements by the French government—a close ally of the Israeli regime that has, like Washington, pursued a criminal policy of arming Israel during the genocide
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The French Foreign Ministry’s summoning of the US ambassador to deliver a protest amounts to official confirmation that an unprecedented crisis in US-French relations is underway. Indeed, since the end of the Nazi occupation of France in World War II, France has never summoned the US ambassador to France to protest. Moreover, the US government’s contemptuous response to the French summons of Kushner makes all the more clear the collapse in US-French relations.
Washington first issued a statement solidarizing itself with Kushner’s statement and making clear that Kushner was speaking in line with US policy. “We stand by his comments,” said US State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott. “Ambassador Kushner is our US government representative in France and is doing a great job advancing our national interests in that role.”
Then, in a rare gesture calculated to inflame tensions, Kushner refused to heed the French summons to the Quai d’Orsay—sending a lower-ranking diplomat, the chargé d’affaires at the US Embassy in Paris, Karen Enstrom, in his place. Enstrom met with two French diplomatic officials, one tasked with security affairs and another with American and Caribbean affairs, who reportedly stated that Kushner’s statement unacceptably interfered in French internal affairs.
Whether or not the French Foreign Ministry ultimately decides to declare Kushner persona non grata and expel him from France on this basis, the Trump administration has clearly set out to provoke and stoke a diplomatic incident with France.
6. Germany’s warmongering Greens demand more weapons for Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians
The latest comments by Bundestag (Federal Parliament) Vice President Omid Nouripour (Greens) once again make clear that the Greens are among the most aggressive warmongers in German politics. After Christian Democrat Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently announced a purely symbolic “partial halt” to arms exports to Israel, Nouripour railed against this gesture and warned that Germany must not deviate one iota from its military partnership with Israel.
“The decision to stop arms deliveries to Israel sounds understandable given the devastating situation in Gaza, and many in my party also think it is right. But it is short-sighted,” Nouripour told the Funke Media Group. German weapons played no role in the Gaza war, he claimed. This was “symbolism for the domestic audience” and did not help “any child in Gaza.” Instead, he emphasized that Germany was “very dependent on Israel” in matters of military and intelligence cooperation. “In these matters, we need the Israelis more than they need us. That is the brutal reality,” he said.
Nouripour’s claim that German weapons play no role in Gaza is a blatant lie. Germany is Israel’s largest arms supplier after the US, and numerous German components are used in the weapons deployed in the genocide in Gaza.
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Significantly, Nouripour’s statements came on the same day that the UN-affiliated Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) officially declared a famine in Gaza City for the first time. The IPC stated that “this famine is entirely man-made.” Over half a million people are living in catastrophic conditions of hunger, misery, and death. By mid-2026, at least 132,000 children under the age of five will suffer from acute malnutrition.
The famine is a direct consequence of the Israelis’ starvation blockade, which Berlin and the other imperialist powers fully support. For months, Israel has systematically halted aid deliveries and expelled aid organizations. Instead, with US help, it established a “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” that uses food as bait to lure crowds into deadly traps.
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The transformation of the Greens from a pacifist protest party into a militaristic state party is an expression of fundamental social processes. They represent the wealthy, academic petty bourgeoisie, which in recent decades has benefited from social attacks on the working class, and rising stock and property prices. Today, this milieu defends its privileged position through militarism, rearmament and complete identification with the predatory interests of German capital.
The Greens’ shift toward war is thus not a “mistake” or a “break” with their origins, but the logical consequence of their petty-bourgeois character. As early as the 1990s, they played a central role in the return of German militarism with their human rights rhetoric. Three decades later, they belong to the most aggressive wing of the ruling class and are prepared to openly justify any genocide and any war of aggression if it serves the interests of German imperialism.
7. Australia: Western Sydney University announces deep job cuts after deal with unions
After months of threatening to do so, management at Western Sydney University (WSU), one of Australia’s largest and predominantly working-class universities, this week formally announced the destruction of nearly 250 jobs—almost 10 percent of its workforce.
In an all-staff email on Monday, WSU vice-chancellor George Williams said 238 jobs would be eliminated overall, with a vague “aim” of achieving about 70 percent of that cut via “voluntary redundancies” or “VRs.”
The true figure is higher than 238. Williams stated that more staff members would be affected by having their positions “disestablished,” which basically means they will be forced to compete with their colleagues for reclassified jobs, possibly at lower grades and wages.
Significantly, Williams made the announcement shortly after reaching an agreement with the campus trade unions to head off votes by their members for industrial action and to help impose the cuts via cosmetic “organizational change proposals” in union-management enterprise bargaining agreements.
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The developments at WSU show how far the union leaders will go in their partnership with managements and the Labor government across the country. This must be stopped by the formation of new organizations of struggle, that is rank-and-file committees, independent of the compliant union apparatuses.
8. Artificial Intelligence in the entertainment industry and the necessary socialist response
The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in the entertainment industry as elsewhere has been and will continue to be inexorable. The issue of AI has been thrust into prominence by two interrelated developments.
First, the impact of AI on entertainment industry employment has been widely recognized as potentially massive....
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Second, as an inevitable response, in a number of lengthy strikes and struggles carried out by actors, writers, below-the-line workers and video game performers, the fight for AI protections has been a central question.
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The resistance of actors, writers, voice performers, animators and others is entirely legitimate and the plans of the entertainment industry employers, although unstated, are clearly aimed at wiping out vast numbers of positions. The fight against the job destruction has already been going on for several years now. Under the present union leaderships, which accept the profit system and the “right” of management to do whatever it likes, the fight has gone nowhere. None of the contracts and their “pledges” are worth the paper they are written on. How can this disastrous situation be reversed?
9. Clairton workers expose conditions behind fatal blast as USW officials defend US Steel
Steelworkers continue to contact the World Socialist Web Site to expose the unsafe conditions that led to the August 11 explosion at US Steel Clairton Coke Works, which killed two workers and seriously injured 10 others.
Their statements underscore the need for an independent workers investigation into the disaster to prevent US Steel, United Steelworkers and state officials from covering up the real causes of this disaster. To protect workers from retaliation by company and USW officials, the World Socialist Web Site is not revealing the identity of the workers speaking out.
10. Britain’s ruling elite set out to create a fascist movement
A concerted campaign has been launched, openly backed by the Conservative Party, Reform UK, the police and the courts, to create a mass fascist force in Britain, capable of being used not only against immigrants and asylum seekers but the entire working class under conditions in which class conflict is escalating.
It is proceeding under the supportive political umbrella provided by the Starmer Labour government’s escalating assault on asylum seekers and refugees.
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The same fascists organizing demos outside asylum seeker accommodation have now begun an adjacent “Raising the Colours” campaign, illegally putting up thousands of England Saint George’s cross flags and Union Jacks on lampposts. Pedestrian crossings have been defaced with flag images and even roundabouts on roads. These have targeted areas with a large Muslim population, with no action taken against the perpetrators and several councils declaring support for the flags campaign.
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In Leon Trotsky’s seminal work, Where is Britain Going? (1925), he predicted that if a fascist movement in Britain was to eventually get off the ground in Britain, it would not be primarily through the efforts of the scum which comprises far-right groups, but as a result of the “development of fascist tendencies on the right-wing of the Conservatives”. Farage joined the Conservatives as far back as 1978—leaving it in 1992 to set up Reform UK’s predecessors (UK Independence Party, and Brexit Party).
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As was prefigured by the emergence of Oswald Mosley’s New Party as a split from Labour in 1930, which became the British Union of Fascists in 1932, fascistic tendencies will also arise from today’s Labour Party.
Every shift further right by the major parties is justified by claims that this is what is required to win back a constituency now backing Farage, who is leading both parties and has a 10-point lead over Labour.
This confirms that combating the rise of the far-right is not possible simply by staging counter-protests, as advocated by Stand Up to Racism, and its pseudo-left advocates such as the Socialist Workers Party. It means breaking with and mounting a political struggle against the Labour government, its local representatives, and backers in the trade union bureaucracy— whose betrayals have allowed the fascists channel social discontent against migrants and whose own racist, anti-migrant policies create the fertile ground for asylum seekers—to be scapegoated for every social ill produced by capitalism.
The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (PFT) announced a tentative contract agreement for its 14,000 members on Sunday night, just before the first day of classes, in a transparent effort to disrupt any movement of the working class amid a growing wave of struggle. In June, the members voted by 94 percent to ratify a strike if the school district did not offer them a tentative agreement before contract expiration.
None of the details of the TA have been shown to members. An internal email sent to PFT members simply tells them “the PFT and School District of Philadelphia have reached a tentative contract agreement, and school will open on time.” It informs members they will “receive several emails over the next few days with details about the agreement, and the date and time of the ratification meeting.”
Philadelphia teachers must join and build the Philadelphia Workers Rank-and-File Strike Committee to avoid the betrayal that is being carried out. Only through independent rank-and-file action can educators defend their wages, working conditions and dignity against the austerity imposed by union bureaucrats and city officials.
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On Sunday, as Philadelphia teachers were being informed about the TA, SEPTA initiated the first wave of service cuts to its system. These include the axing of 32 bus routes, a 20 percent reduction; and reduced frequency across all rail lines. In September, the system will enact a 21.5 percent fare hike, leaving the system teetering on the edge of collapse.
This occurs as 5,000 SEPTA employees will see their contract expire in November. As the Philadelphia Workers Rank-and-File Strike Committee states, “Our struggles are deeply intertwined and the need to join forces has never been greater… Our strike has the potential to ignite a regional and national movement of public workers confronting similar crises.”
12. Denver teachers vote on new contract as opposition mounts to union concessions
Teachers in Denver, Colorado have been voting this past week on a new contract for 3,000 educators covering the next three school years. Their current labor agreement is set to expire on August 31.
The new contract is based on a tentative agreement reached in June between the school district and the Denver Classroom Teachers Association (DCTA). Announcing the June agreement, DCTA president Rob Gould stated that “this agreement was made possible because our members showed up every single week and fought tirelessly to win a contract that respects, pays, and values the amazing work they do to support students every single day.”
However, as it soon became clear, the tentative agreement provided no meaningful provisions to meet teachers’ demands. The agreement is, in fact, only the latest in a years-long series of drastic cuts and austerity to public schools; including the notorious late 2024 decision by Denver Public Schools (DPS) to close seven public schools, displacing 1,087 students and dozens of teachers.
13. How teachers can fight to defend public education
The Educators Rank-and-File Committee, affiliated with the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC), issues an important statement to teachers, parents and students as the new school year begins:
We urge educators to reject the capitulation and collusion of the Democratic Party and trade union bureaucracies with the Trump administration. Educators must take the lead in a working-class counter-offensive against the fascist president’s attack on democratic and social rights.
The urgent task is to form independent rank-and-file committees in every school and district and prepare for a nationwide general strike. Only through organizing on this basis can we mount the unified struggle needed to defend our rights and the future of our students.
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This school year unfolds under the shadow of unprecedented assaults. Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to Washington, D.C., and threatened use of forces in Chicago, New York and other cities marks a calculated move toward dictatorship. Immigrant families are being rounded up, detained and deported.
The corporate-financial oligarchy knows its policies are deeply unpopular. It relies on repression and war to maintain its grip on wealth and power. Tariffs drain workers’ incomes, while trillions are cut from food stamps, Medicaid and other vital programs.
Public education is a prime target. The aim is to roll back generations of social progress, suppress opposition and stamp out critical thought and culture. Defending the right to free, high-quality education requires a conscious struggle against capitalism and imperialist war—not futile appeals to the courts or the Democrats.
14. Australian workers and youth denounce Israel’s genocide in Gaza at mass protests
On Sunday, hundreds of thousands of workers and young people took part in dozens of protest marches across Australia against Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Demonstrators expressed their hostility not just to the Zionist regime of Benjamin Netanyahu, but to all its imperialist backers worldwide, including the Australian Labor government. A full report on the rallies is published here.
World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) reporters spoke with protesters at several of the marches.
15. Former Sri Lankan President Wickremesinghe arrested
Former Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe was arrested last Friday by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on charges of misusing public funds during an overseas trip. He was remanded in custody until a second hearing today.
Wickremesinghe’s arrest, which is unprecedented in character, has taken place amid intensifying political crisis confronting the government of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, compounded by growing popular opposition to its devastating International Monetary Fund (IMF)-dictated austerity program.
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The government’s decision to arrest Wickremesinghe, who was president from 2022 to 2024, on flimsy charges of corruption is a desperate attempt to divert public attention from its ruthless attacks on the social and democratic rights of working people.
Wickremesinghe is accused of misusing public funds to attend his wife’s graduation ceremony in London after an official visit to the US. The allegations barely rank on the scale of corruption that is rife in the Colombo political establishment, even if proven true.
Wickremesinghe has been singled out because he is widely despised by working people for initiating the IMF austerity program in 2022 and cracking down on popular opposition to his government’s measures. He was, however, installed in office with the assistance of all the parliamentary parties, including the JVP, which also agreed on the need for IMF assistance amid the country’s deep economic and political turmoil.
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The main opposition parties have denounced Wickremesinghe’s arrest, declaring it to be “undemocratic” and a “petty act of political vengeance.” All these parties, including the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) and UNP, have long track records of anti-democratic actions. All of them are committed to IMF austerity program, but they fear that the arrest will undermine the necessary unity of the political establishment against the working class in troubled times.
The working class, however, must take a serious warning from Wickremesinghe’s arrest. If the JVP/NPP is prepared to arrest and make an example of a prominent member of the political establishment, of which it is an integral part, then it will stop at nothing to impose the demands of the IMF and big business. It has already shown that it is ready to mobilise the military against postal workers and threaten them with mass sackings.
16. Federal court strikes down Texas “Ten Commandments” law
On Wednesday, a federal court struck down Texas Senate Bill 10, a law passed in May and set to go into effect September 1 that would require Texas school districts to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom across the state. The court ruling was limited to the 11 school districts from which plaintiffs reside, including Houston and Austin.
Texas State Attorney General Ken Paxton vowed to appeal the ruling, absurdly declaring, “The Ten Commandments are a cornerstone of our moral and legal heritage, and their presence in classrooms serves as a reminder of the values that guide responsible citizenship.”
Texas Senate Bill 10, which requires schools to display the poster, sized at least 16 by 20 inches in every classroom, was signed into law by Texas Governor Greg Abbott in May. This prompted immediate lawsuits arguing that the law violates the Establishment Clause contained within the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
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The attempt to demolish the First Amendment’s clear language is an assault on decades of jurisprudence and precedents, as well as the original intent of its drafters.
The First Amendment to the US Constitution begins: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Thomas Jefferson made clear the intent of the amendment in an 1802 letter: “The Establishment Clause erects a wall of separation between Church and State.” With the ratification of the post-Civil War Fourteenth Amendment, the federal prohibition of the establishment of religion was extended to bind state governments.
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The attempt by the far right to introduce religion into schools comes as part of a broader effort in recent years by Republican-dominated state governments to force through legislatures a rash of reactionary and antidemocratic laws targeting transgender students and teachers, ending abortion rights, and promoting the censorship of books, as part of a coordinated fascistic attack on public education and democratic rights.
The shift by the ruling class towards the destruction of democracy follows a certain logic: In the current epoch of the breakdown of American capitalism and the rise of class struggle by millions of workers, the ruling class is terrified of an independent revolutionary movement by the working class. Arising from this, the ruling elites seek to violently head off the coming social revolt.
17. Worker deaths at Enaex and Bridgestone expose brutal working conditions in Brazil
On the morning of August 12, nine workers were killed in an explosion at Enaex Brasil in Quatro Barras, in the metropolitan region of Curitiba, capital of the southern state of Paraná. The victims worked as production operators at the company, which is a leading manufacturer of explosives for mining and civil construction. The workers were mostly young, many with small children.
The explosion occurred as workers were preparing to start their shift, shortly before 6 a.m. They were in one of the plant’s 25 units, a small building less than 30 square meters in size, where pentolite, a highly destructive substance, was being packaged. The workers’ bodies were fragmented. The structure collapsed completely, leaving a crater at the site. The explosion destroyed other structures at the plant and was felt almost 20 kilometers away. In addition to the noise and tremors, it damaged homes and businesses in the surrounding area.
Production has been suspended since the accident. Forensic teams are still trying to determine how the explosion started.
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Enaex is a transnational corporation based in Chile and part of the Sigdo Koppers conglomerate, which has been denounced for maintaining subhuman working conditions. Presented on its website as “the largest rock fragmentation company in Latin America and the third largest in the world in the production of explosive-grade ammonium nitrate,” Enaex Brasil claims to have as its purpose the “humanizing of mining,” but hides a history marked by death and destruction. Some of the most serious incidents were reported by the Latin American press:
- 2000 (Brazil): Three workers died, and four others were injured after an explosion at Britanite Indústrias Químicas (the former name of Enaex Brasil).
- 2004 (Brazil): another explosion at the same plant killed employees José Leandro Brazau, 25, and Pedro Prestes de Oliveira, 43, who were burned to death; a third worker suffered the amputations of his hands.
- 2020 (Chile): Four were killed in Santiago; an investigation found that the company did not have the proper license to operate.
- 2021 (Chile): Two workers were injured in an explosion at the Calama plant.
- 2022 (Argentina): Three workers were killed in an explosion at the Olavarría plant in Buenos Aires.
These so-called “accidents” have happened repeatedly for years and becoming a common practice for Enaex. These accidents are so destructive that investigations almost always end up inconclusive. This lets the company get off without any serious charges.
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In a more recent case, on August 19, 37-year-old worker Daniel Silva Saraiva was killed at Bridgestone in Santo André, a city in the traditional industrial region of ABC, in Greater São Paulo. He was performing maintenance on a machine when he was killed.
Shortly after the incident, the Rubber Workers Union (Sintrabor) held a meeting in front of the plant.
“When the union director arrived at the site, the company already had a cleaning crew there to clean up the area, and that cannot be done,” reported Sintrabor president Márcio Ferreira.
But this action by Bridgestone – a Japanese multinational corporation that is among the world's largest tire manufacturers – which should be investigated as attempted fraud for altering the scene of a possible crime, was immediately covered up by the union president himself: “I want to believe it was a mistake, not bad faith,” he said.
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The industrial murder of Daniel Silva Saraiva at Bridgestone is very similar to that of Ronald Adams, an American worker at Stellantis, which has been extensively reported by the World Socialist Web Site. Also, the explosion at Enaex Brasil resembles the explosion that occurred the day before in the United States, at the U.S. Steel plant, which killed two workers and injured ten others.
The similarities are not a coincidence. The generalization of so-called “workplace accidents” is inherent to the capitalist mode of production and is already factored into companies’ cost calculations. As one worker summed up in her comment on the Bridgestone case: “For them [Bridgestone], it is cheaper to pay compensation than to restructure the entire assembly line.”
In the mid-19th century, Friedrich Engels concluded in The Condition of the Working Class in England that capitalism kills not only through weapons, but also through misery and working conditions, in what he defined as “social murder.”
18. President Sheinbaum minimizes growing US threats to bomb Mexico
In response to continuing US threats to bomb drug cartels in Mexico, President Claudia Sheinbaum has issued unconvincing and toothless denials that they will ever be carried out.
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Within the Trump administration, figures such as Vice President Vance, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have been pushing for direct intervention against the cartels in Mexico. There is growing political consensus in Trump circles for an outright invasion of Mexico. Mexico is even denounced as a US adversary along the lines of Iran, China and North Korea in MAGA circles.
“We will not be intimidated and we will keep America safe because of President Trump’s leadership. Not only against Iran, but also against Russia, China and Mexico,” Bondi said in response to questions by Republican Senator Lyndsey Graham. “In the face of any foreign adversary, whether it tries to kill us physically or by overdosing our children with drugs, we will do everything in our power, thanks to his [Trump’s] leadership, to keep America safe,” she concluded.
The U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), which oversees Pentagon operations across North America, including Mexico, already was involved in combating cartels as part of a “military-to-military relationship between the United States and Mexico” that is “robust and expanding,” according to testimony to Congress from U.S. Air Force general Gregory Michael Guillot. But it had previously been “sidelined” in direct operations involving Mexico.
Sources recently told journalist Ken Klippenstein that NORTHCOM has now been directed to manage the Mexico attack plans and have them ready by the middle of September. The Special Operations Command (SOCNORTH) that is part of NORTHCOM is being asked to prepare potential strike targets and “direct action,” smaller attack operations, against the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels, among others, including air and drone strikes.
This action would be unilateral, meaning it would not involve the Mexican government, and would be conducted without its approval.
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US imperialism seeks to return to the 20th Century when Washington carried out dozens of military interventions in Latin America, including invasions, regime change operations, and military support and assistance to dictatorships.
The Trump administration’s openly stated goal is the concentration of US forces for a global war against China, in which Latin America constitutes a major battleground. What begins nominally as a fight against drug trafficking can evolve into the overthrow of targeted governments and a war between great powers for control of strategic resources and chokepoints.
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The Mexican ruling class watches carefully Trump’s ongoing coup attempt to establish a fascistic dictatorship, and itself considers using such measures domestically.
These contradictions will further compound the economic damage already caused by Trump’s constant threats of tariffs, mass deportations, military intervention, and the taxes on remittance payments from Mexicans residing in the US, which became a reality a couple of months ago.
Sheinbaum’s responses to the onslaught of American imperialism have been entirely chauvinistic and reactionary. These attacks cannot be stopped nationally, or by supporting negotiations between the ruling elites, but only through the unification of workers in the US and Latin America on the basis of replacing capitalism with international socialism.
In a Detroit federal courtroom on August 19, Chengxuan Han, a 28-year-old Chinese doctoral student at the University of Michigan (U-Mich), entered a plea of nolo contendere, or “no contest,” to politically motivated federal charges. This decision comes just days after Han’s defense team filed a motion to suppress statements obtained through egregious violations of her Fifth Amendment rights.
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In a parallel case at U-Mich, postdoctoral fellow Yunqing Jian faces similar charges, sensationalized as “agroterrorism,” over the transport of the common fungal pathogen fusarium graminearum. Jian is reportedly negotiating a plea deal, with a hearing set for September 18. Both Han and Jian have been held without bond in federal custody since early June.
The charges are a pretext to scapegoat Han and Jian, criminalizing the routine and harmless international exchange of biological materials. This is part of a broader campaign by the American ruling elite to poison public opinion against China. Trump administration officials, including FBI Director Kash Patel, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, have inflamed the situation with unsubstantiated allegations of “agroterrorism,” transforming a minor customs infraction into an alleged national security threat.
This legal witch-hunt is part of the ideological preparations for war, aimed at cultivating a political climate of fear, nationalism, and xenophobia. By portraying Chinese scientists and students as spies and threats, the state is attempting to sever international scientific collaboration and whip up anti-Chinese prejudice.
20. German military prepares the municipalities for war
For several weeks now, the Bundeswehr (German armed forces) have been paying visits to mayors and district administrators to prepare the various municipalities for the growing possibility of war on German soil. This emerges from investigations by nonprofit investigative journalism newsroom CORRECTIV. According to this inquiry, numerous towns and districts have in recent weeks been visited by high-ranking Bundeswehr officers to hold classified talks aimed at preparing the municipalities for the expansion of their “war capability.”
The talks between the Bundeswehr and local authorities focused on identifying critical infrastructure—such as key junctions, bridges or emergency wells—and presenting “homeland security concepts” to “intercept saboteurs” or prevent attacks. The restoration of civil defense facilities and bunkers was also discussed. The planning is to be completed by autumn of this year so that implementation of the security measures can begin in spring 2026. In many municipalities, secret political committees are already meeting to coordinate the planned emergency measures.
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The scale of this development must not be underestimated: Germany is comprehensively preparing for war with Russia. Roads, bridges, railways, production sites and entire municipalities are to be subordinated to war preparations. Germany is to be put in a position to relocate and supply hundreds of thousands of soldiers to the eastern front at very short notice. The parallels to the massive rearmament before the Second World War are unmistakable, when virtually every aspect of public life was likewise subordinated to militarism.
As then, this is not about “defense.” The Russian invasion of Ukraine is indeed reactionary, but the war was provoked and prepared by Germany and other NATO powers, which supported the 2014 coup in Kiev, rearmed the Ukrainian regime and expanded NATO to Russia’s borders. Germany is once again pursuing the geopolitical aims it did in two world wars: to assume the leading role in Europe, exploit Ukraine and weaken and ultimately subjugate Russia.
21. Workers Struggles: The Americas
Argentina:
Strike wave hits Milei administration policies
Canada:
Dalhousie University faculty in Nova Scotia locked out
Dalhousie University faculty in Nova Scotia locked out
Toromont strike near Toronto in eighth week
Chile:
Santiago, Chile bus drivers strike
Paraguay:
Teachers march and rally in Asunción
United States:
Tentative agreement for University of Minnesota service workers heads off strike
GE Aerospace workers in Kentucky and Ohio cast solid strike vote
Teamsters order Iowa dairy workers back to work after announcement of tentative agreement
22. Demand the freedom of Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist Bogdan Syrotiuk!
Bogdan Syrotiuk and Leon Trotsky
