Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
1. Warnings of looming systemic financial risk getting louder
At first, it was just a few outlier remarks, but now there is a stream of warnings that the US stock market and the financial system more broadly is a bubble set to burst with potentially very serious consequences.
There are two central concerns: first, that the explosive growth of private credit, largely unregulated, has led to the loosening of standards and is resembling conditions that preceded the crash of 2008; and second, that the surge on Wall Street is dominated by a handful of high-tech and artificial intelligence-based stocks in a way that recalls the dot-com bubble at the start of the century with potentially greater consequences.
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The divorce of US market valuation from the real economy is revealed by the fact that for most of the period since 1970, it has averaged about 85 percent of the country’s GDP. It has now risen to 225 percent of GDP.
This has significant economic implications because, however much stock prices may rise, they remain fictitious capital. That is, in the final analysis, they do not embody real value, but are a claim on the value in the underlying real economy and, above all, on the surplus value extracted from the working class, the producers of all wealth.
The financial oligarchy, which has enriched itself to a historically unprecedented degree via the Wall Street surge—financed to a great degree by the cheap money provided by the Fed—is acutely conscious of this relationship, as evidenced by the tremors that pass through the market whenever there is a significant upsurge in the class struggle.
This objective relationship is the foundation for the now open alliance between the oligarchy and the fascist Trump regime, as it seeks to establish a presidential dictatorship—endlessly railing against “socialism,” “Marxism,” “communists” and “lunatic leftists”— and is an expression of the fear that sooner or later, the collapse of the inflated Wall Street edifice will have massive economic consequences and place squarely before the working class the necessity for the socialist reorganization of the economy.
2. Mass hostility to Trump, anger over economy drove 2025 election results
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Working class living standards, which declined throughout the Biden administration, have continued their downward slide, spurred on by Trump’s tariffs, which have begun to drive up unemployment as well as consumer prices.
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The Democratic Party was the undeserving beneficiary of the mounting social discontent, as Democratic candidates campaigned as advocates of “affordability,” even though they support the capitalist system and its profit-driven attacks on working people just as much as Trump does.
One remarkable fact revealed in recent polls, but little commented on in the corporate media, is that the Democratic Party made gains despite having an even more unfavorable public standing than the Republicans. For most of this year, the Democratic Party was viewed favorably by less than 30 percent of those polled, compared to roughly 40 percent for the Republicans. Yet these same respondents said they would vote for a Democrat over a Republican in the next congressional election.
These figures mean that a sizeable portion of the American population has an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party because it refuses to fight Trump. Faced with a binary choice, under the corporate-controlled two-party system, they hold their noses and vote for the Democrats as the only available alternative to the fascist Republicans.
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The election results only deepen the political crisis of American capitalism, torn by social contradictions that cannot find resolution through a political system tightly controlled by the financial aristocracy, with both parties moving to the right, supporting policies that attack the jobs, living standards and democratic rights of the population.
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The day after the election debacle, Senate Republicans met with Trump in the White House. Trump had already posted on social media his own explanation for the defeat: “TRUMP WASN’T ON THE BALLOT.” He repeated that claim to the senators, telling them, while reporters were still in the room, that his absence from the ballot was “the main reason” Republicans lost.
Given that opposition to the fascist president was the top motivation for voters on November 4, this is rubbish. Moreover, Trump refused to make a single public appearance for any Republican candidate this election season, a tacit admission of his own deep unpopularity.
The other explanation, voiced by congressional Republicans as well as Trump, was that the elections were held in “blue” states—those traditionally voting for the Democrats—and therefore did not constitute a genuine verdict on the performance of the Trump administration. But the anti-Trump vote stood out, not just in heavily Democratic areas, but Georgia, where two Democrats were elected to the state Public Service Commission, for the first time in three decades, and in Pennsylvania, where all three Democratic-supported members of the state Supreme Court were confirmed for new 10-year terms.
Trump also sought to discredit the election process itself, claiming, as usual without the slightest evidence, that the vote results on November 4 were the result of “rigged elections,” particularly focusing on California, where nearly all votes are cast by mail. The purpose of such claims is not only to discredit future elections where the Republicans lose but to prepare the political conditions for putting an end to elections entirely.
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This vision of endless one-party dominance means a Trump-imposed dictatorship.
3. The political and class issues in Mamdani’s victory in New York City
The victory of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) member Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayoral election—a self-proclaimed “democratic socialist” winning in the home of Wall Street, the center of American and global finance capital—is an event of national and indeed international significance.
The election explodes the narrative that any alternative to capitalism is off limits to a population subjected to decades of anticommunism and antisocialism. In reality, the movement of broad sections of workers and youth is to the left, with growing hostility to capitalism and increasing support for socialism. The vote for Mamdani expresses not only disillusionment with the existing political establishment but outrage over the vast concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny elite, the crushing cost of living and the decay of basic democratic and social rights.
The election was a clear repudiation of the political establishment—both the far-right Republicans and the Democratic Party machine—which backed Cuomo and poured over $50 million in dark money into his campaign. Mamdani’s focus on the soaring cost of living, including for rent, childcare and groceries, resonated, as did his rhetorical denunciations of the oligarchs who dominate political and economic life and are rallying behind Trump’s developing dictatorship.
No doubt Mamdani’s election has generated enthusiasm, not only in the United States but internationally. The contrast between Andrew Cuomo—the scion of the Democratic Party establishment, steeped in corruption—and Mamdani, who presents himself as a champion of the oppressed, will encourage illusions that a fundamental change is underway. Yet it is necessary to state certain basic truths, not adapt to illusions, but proceed from the logic of political and social reality.
First of all, it must be said that while he presents himself as a “democratic socialist,” Mamdani is not advancing a socialist program. His proposals—slight tax increases on millionaires, limited rent protections and modest expansions of public services—amount to little more than a mild revival of the liberal reformism of an earlier period.
However, even the most modest proposals will confront the ferocious resistance of Wall Street, the corporate-financial oligarchy, and the state apparatus that defends their interests, in the form of lawsuits, political provocations or more direct action. The financial aristocracy is not about to concede anything. It will resist, with all the means at its disposal, even the slightest encroachment on its wealth and power.
The Trump administration, acting as the political representative of the financial oligarchy, has already responded to Mamdani’s victory by escalating its threats and signaling a readiness to intervene directly in New York City. In an interview with Fox News following Mamdani’s call in his victory speech to “turn up the volume” against Trump, the president warned, “It’s a very dangerous statement for him to make. You talk about danger—I think it’s a very dangerous statement for him to make. He has to be a little bit respectful of Washington.”
Trump’s fascist adviser Steve Bannon likewise told Politico that Mamdani’s election “should be a wake-up call,” adding that “there should be flashing red lights all over.” Bannon declared, “These are very serious people, and they need to be addressed seriously,” before demanding that Mamdani, a US citizen born in Uganda, be deported.
The Socialist Equality Party will oppose these and all other attacks, including the likely deployment of National Guard or other military forces to New York City. However, we will not subordinate our politics to Mamdani and the Democratic Party.
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Many leading Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, refused to endorse Mamdani even after his primary victory. The media mouthpiece of the Democratic Party, the New York Times, published a lengthy editorial Wednesday setting parameters for the new mayor. The editors effectively demanded that Mamdani abandon his campaign promises and govern along the lines of billionaire former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whom Mamdani himself had unsuccessfully sought to court.
The editorial emphasized the need for Mamdani to assemble a cabinet acceptable to Wall Street and the real estate industry, a directive he quickly embraced. On Wednesday, he announced a transition team composed of veteran Democrats from the administrations of the last three mayors: Michael Bloomberg, Bill de Blasio and Eric Adams.
Mamdani’s response to the threats from within the ruling class expresses the politics of the Democratic Socialists of America. His entire perspective is based on the claim that it is possible to reconcile completely opposed class interests—that genuine social change can be achieved through collaboration between the exploiters and the exploited, and that this can be carried out under the aegis of the Democratic Party. This is an illusion without any basis in political or social reality.
At his press conference on Wednesday, Mamdani repeatedly emphasized his willingness to “work with” both Trump and Wall Street. He declared that while he opposed Trump politically, he was “interested in having a conversation with President Trump on the ways in which we could work together to serve New Yorkers,” adding that he was “ready and willing to speak to anyone” if it benefited the city.
Mamdani also announced that he looked forward to meeting JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and “anyone concerned about the future of our city,” praising Dimon and other billionaires who are “invested in the vitality” of New York. These are not the words of a socialist but of a politician assuring the financial elite that their wealth, power and privileges will remain untouched.
As the World Socialist Web Site noted at the time of the June primaries, “The ramparts of Wall Street will not crumble beneath the pressure of electoral oratory.” The response of the markets to Mamdani’s election underscored this point. Far from showing concern, the financial oligarchy greeted the result with equanimity. The major indices on Wall Street all rose on Wednesday.
In his victory speech, Mamdani invoked the name of the great American socialist Eugene V. Debs. Yet he omitted Debs’ essential conclusion: “The working class will never be emancipated by the grace of the capitalist class but only by overthrowing that class.”
The experience of the past decade is replete with examples of parties and individuals whose claims to represent a radical break with the political establishment were shipwrecked on the realities of capitalist rule. In Greece, the Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza) came to power in 2015 promising to end austerity, only to impose the most brutal social cuts at the dictates of the banks and the European Union. In Germany, Die Linke (the Left Party) has participated in state governments that deport refugees and enforce austerity. In Britain, the Corbyn movement within the Labour Party capitulated to the right-wing establishment, paving the way for the return of open reaction.
In class terms, these tendencies express not the interests of the working class but those of the upper middle class—a privileged social layer seeking not a fundamental restructuring of society but a more comfortable position for themselves.
There is no doubt that many workers, having voted for a socialist, will see Mamdani’s election as a signal to take action and advance their own demands. But what will Mamdani do when workers enter into struggle? Inevitably, the logic of class interests will assert itself. Mamdani will bow to the demands of the financial and political establishment. Whatever he claims, the ultimate purpose of his campaign is to preempt and contain the growing movement of the working class.
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Nothing can be achieved without a direct assault on the wealth of the ruling class. The fortunes of the billionaires—rooted in their control of the banks, corporations and real estate monopolies—must be expropriated and transformed into publicly owned utilities under democratic workers’ control.
The critical question is leadership and perspective. We call on all those who are drawing revolutionary conclusions from these events to join the Socialist Equality Party and help build the leadership needed to transform the mounting social anger into a conscious struggle for socialism.
The 2025 federal budget that Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne delivered to parliament Tuesday marks a decisive lurch right by Prime Minister Mark Carney, his Liberal government and the Canadian ruling class as a whole.
Promoted under the nationalist slogan of “Canada Strong,” the budget is being cast as a demonstration of the government’s readiness to take “tough decisions” in the name of defending the nation. In reality, it lays out a program of rearmament and corporate enrichment to be paid for through the slashing of public sector jobs, the evisceration of public services, and other sweeping attacks on working people.
Introducing the budget, Champagne reiterated Carney’s repeated pledge that “Canada’s new government will spend less so that we can invest more.” The meaning of this formulation is unmistakable. The Liberals aim to spend less on healthcare, housing, education, public services and social supports—so they can funnel tens of billions more into weapons procurement, corporate tax incentives, resource extraction infrastructure projects, and the expansion of Canada’s military-industrial complex.
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While the trade war launched by President Donald Trump and the Liberal government’s retaliatory tariffs hammer workers in key sectors on both sides of the border, including steel, aluminum, lumber and auto production, the focus of the Canadian bourgeoisie is how they can use Trump’s actions and annexation threats as political cover to carry out a radical restructuring of class relations in the interests of Canadian capital and at the expense of the working class. The 2025 budget is a blueprint for girding Canadian imperialism for trade war and global war. Increased worker-exploitation to enhance corporate “competitiveness” and the diversion of social resources to fund the biggest military build-up in more than seven decades are at its heart.
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Military spending and the buildup of Canada’s war-making capacity are the central priorities of the budget, with the government detailing plans to increase military spending by $84 billion over the next five years.
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The budget explicitly recommits Canada to a lead role in the US-NATO-instigated war against Russia. It declares, “As the world grows more volatile and dangerous, now more than ever, Canada must be ready and able to defend our territory, our people, and our values to secure our sovereignty and to protect and uphold our commitments to our allies. This includes helping to counter Russian aggression and to uphold Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity to ensure security across the Euro-Atlantic region.”
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The budget allocates billions to expand weapons production, munitions manufacturing, drone warfare systems, naval shipbuilding, cyberwarfare capabilities and space-based surveillance.
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At the same time, to pay for this massive rearmament the government has initiated a sweeping program of cuts and restructuring across the public sector.
The most immediate and devastating measure is the planned elimination of 40,000 federal public service jobs by 2028. The government plans to use attrition and buyouts, but has already signaled that it will invoke the public sector “workforce adjustment” clause to impose layoffs where voluntary measures fall short.
The consequences will be far-reaching: reduced access to income support programs, longer processing times for immigration and citizenship applications, deteriorating workplace safety enforcement, weakened environmental monitoring and the erosion of federal capacity in health, science, transportation and infrastructure. The goal is not to improve efficiency, but to shrink public services so that resources can be diverted to the military and corporate sector.
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Embracing the type of immigrant-bashing associated with the fascist US President Donald Trump and far-right Tory leader Pierre Poilievre, the Liberals included in their budget a series of vicious attacks on immigrants. Under the targets announced in the budget, temporary-resident admissions, including temporary foreign workers and international students, will be almost halved from 2024.
Asylum-seekers and refugees, that is the most vulnerable sections of the population, will henceforth face copays for medicines, vision-care and other health services. This goes hand in hand with the Liberals’ deepening of their collaboration with Trump, through the strengthening of the Canada Border Services Agency and further restrictions on who can apply for refugee status contained in Bill C-12.
The government is pairing austerity with nationalist propaganda aimed at rallying public support around patriotic sacrifice. The working class is being told that hardship is necessary to defend the nation’s future. This rhetoric is not new. It is the language used by every imperialist ruling elite as they prepare for shooting wars to defend their economic interests.
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Meanwhile, the trade union bureaucracy is already moving to enforce working class compliance with the budget. The Canadian Labour Congress issued a statement calling on the big business parties in Parliament to come together to “strengthen this budget” by taking stronger action to protect jobs and public services. This is a signal of their intent: the unions and their allies in the New Democratic Party (NDP) will facilitate passage of the budget while posing as critics.
At the unions’ behest, the NDP has propped up minority Liberal governments under Trudeau and now Carney as they have shifted ever further right. This has included: enforcing a murderous profits-before-lives policy at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic; massively increasing military spending; waging war in all but name on Russia; backing Israel’s genocidal assault on the Palestinians; and unilaterally arrogating the power to illegalize strikes of railway, port, Air Canada and Canada Post workers.
Prior to Tuesday’s announcement, the Liberals needed at least three opposition votes—or abstentions—to secure a majority. In the hours following the budget, Conservative Nova Scotia MP Chris d’Entremont crossed the floor to join the Liberals, reducing the threshold to just two votes. With the other opposition parties all indicating their intention to vote against the budget, the NDP’s votes (or abstentions) are likely to prove decisive in ensuring the budget’s passage.
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Carney’s budget must be understood within the context of global capitalist breakdown and imperialist war preparations. Across North America and Europe, ruling classes are dismantling what remains of social welfare structures in order to funnel public resources into military buildup. The movement toward authoritarian rule—enhanced police powers, the outlawing of strikes, ever-wider restrictions on the right to protest, intensified border controls—is part of the same process.
The working class faces the same enemy and the same struggle in every country.
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The choice posed by Carney’s 2025 budget is not one of fiscal strategy. It is between capitalist barbarism and socialist transformation. The working class has the power to stop the assault now unfolding. What it requires is organization, political perspective and independent leadership through the building of the Socialist Equality Party, the Canadian section of the International Committee of the Fourth International.
On Tuesday, US immigration lawyer Eric Lee appeared on Middle East Eye’s YouTube program “MEE Live,” where he delivered a stark analysis of the political crisis engulfing the United States.
Lee stated that the Trump administration is carrying out a deliberate conspiracy to abolish democratic rule, warning that “something that has never happened in this country before” is now unfolding. He described the president as “engaged in an active, aggressive conspiracy to establish a dictatorship,” marking what he called a “qualitative shift” toward a “military-style police state dictatorship.”
While underscoring the brutality of the mass deportations targeting immigrants, Lee explained that this campaign is merely the “tip of the spear” in a far broader drive to destroy democratic rights and consolidate authoritarian rule. The executive branch, he noted, is “flouting court decisions left and right” while deploying the military domestically in open violation of posse comitatus. The Trump administration is threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act—pushing the country “to the brink of martial law.”
Meanwhile, the systematic criminalization of dissent, under the guise of fighting “domestic terrorism,” has become a central instrument of repression. Lee cited the case of a DACA recipient detained merely for posting criticisms of US foreign policy on social media, as part of the government’s effort to use immigration law to “suppress all opposition.” He detailed how ICE’s vast expansion—its anonymous armed agents, unmarked vehicles and soaring budget for weapons and chemical agents—has created the infrastructure of an unaccountable domestic security force.
Lee also made clear that no section of the political establishment is opposing this descent into authoritarianism. He denounced the Democratic Party’s complicity, explaining that it has “essentially done nothing to oppose this attack on democratic rights” and in fact is “ready to collaborate with Trump.”
The Democrats, Lee observed, have confirmed administration officials leading the assault on free speech and democratic rights, while refusing to mobilize any genuine opposition. The political crisis, he warned, “cannot be resolved in the courts,” and those who look to the existing institutions of government for salvation are being led to disaster.
Lee concluded with a call to action, stressing that the defense of democracy can come only from the mass intervention of the working population itself. The only force capable of halting Trump’s drive toward dictatorship, he said, is “the mass action of hopefully millions of people in this country” prepared to fight against the oligarchy and its assault on democratic rights.
The initiative by General Inspector Carsten Breuer, the most senior officer of the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces), to fully reintroduce conscription marks a new stage in the aggressive war preparations of German imperialism. In an interview with the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland, the highest-ranking German officer demanded in the future to “examine entire year groups” in order “to know who is available and who we could draw upon in the event of defense.”
Behind the bureaucratic language lies an appalling program: The ruling class wants once again to screen whole generations for their suitability as cannon fodder in future wars. Breuer speaks openly of “growth potential” and “personnel reserves” that need to be created to “reinforce our troops quickly if required.” He calls for building a reserve of 200,000 conscripts—a step that is part of a comprehensive war mobilization.
Breuer cynically claims that the issue is “deterrence for peace.” In reality, as his entire interview shows, it is about active preparations for war. “What matters is that our soldiers are well trained and possess the capabilities that allow them to survive in combat,” the general states.
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Breuer repeatedly emphasizes the element of time: “By the end of the decade we must not only have a strong active force, but just as strong a reserve—to be ready for defense and to be able to deter.” In doing so, Breuer clearly names the target which the government and NATO have long since set: Germany and Europe must be capable of waging war against Russia by 2030 at the latest.
This deadline appears verbatim in the “Defense Readiness 2030 Roadmap” adopted at the most recent EU summit, which provides for building a comprehensive war economy in Europe. As the World Socialist Web Site warned in its commentary on the summit, this “roadmap” means nothing less than the mobilization of the entire continent for a great war against Russia.
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Breuer’s intervention, as de facto Chief of the General Staff, into the conscription debate shows how far the “Bundeswehr of the future” has already become reality. The militarisation supported by all parties in the Bundestag (parliament) is inseparable from growing social inequality and authoritarian tendencies. As the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party, SGP) and its youth and student organisation, the IYSSE, have repeatedly emphasised, the “war-readiness” of the Bundeswehr is not compatible with democracy. It requires, as in the past, the suppression of the working class and the establishment of dictatorial forms of rule.
The reintroduction of conscription means subjecting youth to the war interests of capital, and it must be fought on the basis of a clear political perspective. The IYSSE explains in its statement “For a socialist perspective against the reintroduction of conscription”:
War does not simply arise from the bad intentions of individual politicians at the top of society but from the objective contradictions of capitalism itself. The contradiction between a world market, on the one hand, and its division into rival nation-states, on the other, inevitably leads to the struggle for markets and resources—in the form of wars.
As long as capitalism exists, there will be war. This means that a “peaceful Bundeswehr” is impossible and a dangerous illusion! Decisive conclusions must be drawn: The struggle against conscription is the struggle against war and against its root, capitalism.
The alternative to conscription, militarism and war, repression and the political dominance of the generals is the conscious building of an international socialist movement of the working class. Only through expropriating the armaments and financial oligarchy, dissolving NATO and the EU as imperialist military alliances and establishing the United Socialist States of Europe can a new world war be prevented.
7. Australia: Queensland teachers overwhelmingly reject sellout agreement
Public school teachers in the Australian state of Queensland last week voted by 67.6 percent to reject a union–state Liberal National Party government sellout agreement. The deal promised only a nominal 8 percent pay rise over three years and did nothing to address intolerable workloads, workplace safety and teacher retention.
The government’s “offer” was another real wage cut compared to the latest inflation figures, showing prices resurging nationally by an annual rate of 5.2 percent in the September quarter, and even higher for housing, electricity, food and other necessities.
Despite the Queensland Teachers Union (QTU) trying to ram the deal through by telling teachers that the only alternative was a protracted arbitration process, the ballot saw the highest participation in such a vote in the union’s 136-year history.
This followed the 50,000 teachers taking their first statewide strike in 16 years in August to oppose virtually identical sub-inflationary pay offers, only to have the QTU call off further action in order to negotiate with the government.
Last week’s vote was a blow to the QTU bureaucracy, which, as the World Socialist Web Site warned from the outset, only issued its first strike call since 2009 to contain teacher anger while it prepared another sellout, as it did for years under previous state Labor governments.
Confronted by teachers’ opposition, the union leadership has reluctantly threatened another one-day strike, sometime in the next three weeks, but only to appeal for a revised deal with the government to head it off.
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The QTU, like its state counterparts, works to keep teachers isolated as they plead with governments to return to the bargaining table in order to cobble together rotten agreements that pose no threat to the political establishment or corporate profits.
New organisations of struggle, rank-and-file committees, independent of the trade unions, are required in every school, democratically controlled by teachers themselves. These committees can unite with teachers, health workers and all public sector workers in the fight against the state and federal government agenda of austerity and war preparations.
As we discussed at a public meeting on October 26, called by the Committee for Public Education (CFPE), the educators’ rank-and-file network, and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE), this agenda is part of a wider and deeper offensive against educators and students.
While starving public schools and universities of funds, the Albanese Labor government is pouring billions of dollars into military spending for the AUKUS pact against China, while backing the Gaza genocide and the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine.
8. Samia Hassan, the Butcher of Tanzania, sworn in as president amid escalating repression
Behind the walls of a heavily guarded military compound in Dodoma, President Samia Suluhu Hassan took the oath of president following a fraudulent election, organised by the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) regime to continue its sixty-four years in power.
Monday’s ceremony, held under tight military control, unfolded in an atmosphere of fear. In Dar es Salaam, petrol stations and grocery shops were shut and the streets almost empty, while in Dodoma, most residents stayed indoors. Schools and colleges across the country closed, public transport was suspended, and even church services were cancelled. The event was broadcast live by the state-run Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation, the only media outlet allowed to cover it. The public was excluded, and internet and social media access were cut nationwide.
The extraordinary security measures were an attempt to project an image of stability by a deeply isolated ruling class clinging to power through police-state violence. The state was reeling from four days of unprecedented nationwide protests that had developed into a mass popular uprising. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of workers, youth, and the unemployed defied curfews, army patrols, and live ammunition to reject the stolen election.
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The inauguration took place with the streets of major cities still stained with blood. As internet services gradually return following a six-day shutdown, reports are surfacing of mass killings. CHADEMA estimates that more than 1,000 people have been killed. Diplomatic sources told the BBC of at least 500 deaths. Charles Kitima, secretary general of the Tanzania Episcopal Conference which has long backed the regime, acknowledged that “hundreds” had died, citing reports from communities across the country.
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Hassan has sought to blame the uprising on “foreign agents”. Speaking during her coronation, she claimed that “some of those arrested for causing disturbances came from outside the country” and vowed that security forces would “restore peace.”
These claims are entirely unfounded. They target Kenyans and other East Africans in a bid to whip up xenophobia and distract from the fact that the protests were led by Tanzanians themselves, driven by massive poverty, inequality and state violence. Kenyan media has reported that Tanzanian security forces are now explicitly targeting Kenyans. The Standard observed:
“Severe measures will be taken,” the police statement warned […]. For hundreds of Kenyans and East Africans living and working in Tanzania, the message was unmistakable that they were the target. The directive was followed within hours by increased police presence on highways and at all major border posts. Monday evening, security forces mounted additional roadblocks and intensified surveillance at crossings including Namanga, Holili and Lungalunga–Hororo, effectively sealing off escape routes for those trying to flee.
Hassan’s accusations mirror the propaganda deployed by Kenyan President William Ruto during last year’s mass demonstrations. As millions of youth and workers took to the streets against International Monetary Fund (IMF) dictated austerity, tax hikes, and police killings, Ruto claimed the protests were orchestrated by the Ford Foundation. “We ask the Ford Foundation to explain to Kenyans its role in the recent protests. We will call out all those who are bent on rolling back hard won democracy,” Ruto declared as he gunned down protestors. The claim was absurd and no evidence has ever been produced to support it.
Despite the attempt to whip up anti-Kenyan sentiment, Hassan is not in conflict with Ruto. She is working alongside him. Across East Africa, the regimes of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania are coordinating repression and sharing security operations against opponents.
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This developing security alliance recalls Operation Condor in Latin America in the 1970s, when US-backed dictatorships coordinated to suppress, kidnap and eliminate opponents across borders. Confronted with rising unemployment, a burgeoning urban youth population and IMF imposed austerity that has made life intolerable for millions, the fear of the stooges of imperialism is not of “foreign interference” but of workers starting to see that their struggle transcend colonial borders.
Washington, London, Brussels and Ottawa issued carefully worded statements of “concern” over the killings and the six-day internet blackout. Their real priority is to safeguard profits, trade corridors and resource concessions.
Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam port is a strategic hub for the export of minerals, agricultural goods, oil and gas, and serves as a transit artery for Zambia, the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Malawi and Uganda. Roughly 70 percent of the port’s transit cargo is destined for neighboring countries, amounting to nearly a quarter of total throughput. Shell, Equinor and ExxonMobil are also vying for control of offshore gas and LNG export infrastructure central to Western energy interests, their war against Russia in Ukraine and preparations for war against China.
This is the real map of class struggle now taking shape. The Tanzanian working class has shown extraordinary courage in confronting state repression. Their struggle reverberates in Nairobi, Kampala, Kigali and Lusaka. The fight against dictatorship and exploitation cannot be won within national boundaries. It requires the unified, international mobilisation of the working class on a socialist programme, directed against imperialism and the local elites who uphold it.
The future of East and Central Africa lies not in the rival national security states, but in the fight for a United Socialist States of Africa.
9. Middle East leaders agree to police Gaza on behalf of US and Israel
Last month’s obscene scene at Sharm el-Sheikh represents an ever more disgusting link in the chain of the Middle East regimes’ decades-long history of betraying the Palestinians.
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Not one of the Middle East regimes lifted a finger over the last two years to oppose Israel’s genocidal war and ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Turkey and Jordan ensured that oil supplies and other vital goods reached Israel via their territory. The Gulf States refused to implement an oil boycott on Israel and its backers, much less end their close diplomatic, economic and military relations with Israel. This continued even after Israeli missiles targeting Hamas leaders struck Qatar on September 9, just three days after all of them had taken part in joint military exercises with the US.
They colluded every step of the way with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s gang of fascists, settlers and religious bigots committed to Jewish Supremacy “from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea”—covering their treachery with hand wringing, vacuous appeals to the US-dominated UN Security Council and calls for a ceasefire.
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The agreement at Sharm el-Sheikh was not signed or even attended by Israel and Hamas, the grossly unequal protagonists in Israel’s war of genocide and ethnic cleansing that has all but obliterated Gaza. Netanyahu pulled out of the ceremony at the last minute when it became clear that his presence threatened to derail the event. Hamas, who was told to accept the deal within six days or else face “all hell”, was not even invited.
Instead it was Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who did sign and who had put massive pressure on Hamas to accept Trump’s terms. Other Arab leaders in attendance included King Abdullah of Jordan, Oman’s Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and representatives from Bahrain, Kuwait, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. Saudia Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), who are expected to fund the International Stabilization Force, and Oman sent lower-level officials to signal their disapproval that Hamas would be allowed to remain as a political organization in Gaza.
Leaders from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Europe, India, Indonesia, Kenya, New Zealand, South Africa and the UK rushed to Sharm el-Sheikh to back a wretched deal that makes permanent the colonial subjugation of the Palestinian masses and gives a fig leaf of legality to the ongoing genocide. Above all, they were there to make a public show of their backing for Washington and Tel Aviv in the coming conflicts under the banner of Gaza’s “reconstruction.”
Hailed as the beginning of a new chapter in Gaza, the ceasefire has enabled Israel to take control of 58 percent of the territory, now entirely ethnically cleansed, behind the “Yellow Line” in the east where it is constructing fortifications, while more than 2 million Palestinians, mostly barely surviving in tents, are crammed into the remaining 42 percent. This is the start of the permanent partition and occupation of Gaza, while the daily mass killing and the deliberate starvation of the population continues.
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The terms of the ceasefire agreement
Trump’s 20 point agreement retains many of the features of the GREAT Trust, drawn up by the Boston Consulting Group in consultation with the Tony Blair Institute.
The first phase includes an immediate and total ceasefire, the return of the 48 Israeli hostages, including 28 deceased hostages, held in Gaza, 1,968 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons and 15 Palestinian bodies for every deceased Israeli hostage handed over by Hamas, the partial withdrawal of Israeli troops and 600 aid trucks per day allowed into Gaza, to be coordinated by international organisations, including the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Crescent.
The ceasefire will be monitored by the signatories to the deal—the US, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey—with the US guaranteeing to enforce it. Ever since, all four signatories have done nothing to stop Israel continuing its daily attacks on Gaza and withholding aid.
Under the second stage, Hamas’s weapons, tunnels and military infrastructure will be dismantled, Hamas would be offered an amnesty, with members refusing to disarm or commit to peaceful co-existence with Israel allowed to go into exile. All this would be supervised by a temporary International Stabilization Force (ISF), made up of US, Arab and European personnel, that would also train a Palestinian police force to “ensure long-term stability and peace”.
Under the third stage of the agreement, a temporary, technocratic committee that would include some Palestinians, supervised by a “Board of Peace” headed by Trump and including former UK prime minister and unindicted war criminal Tony Blair and other international figures, would govern Gaza, organize its reconstruction and hand over to the PA at some point in the future after completion of an unspecified “reform” program.
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A key element of the US plan for a “New Middle East”, launched by the Biden administration at the G20 summit in New Delhi in 2023 and backed by Netanyahu, is the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor. This is the transport, energy and data corridor linking South Asia, the Gulf and Europe, via Israel set to become a vital logistics hub and its northern port of Haifa, now owned by the Indian port operator and logistics company, Adani Ports and SEZ. A reconstructed Gaza would host low-tax “special economic zones” synonymous with low-wage, exploitative labor conditions.
The Abraham Accords were initiated under the first Trump administration and have already served to increase economic and military cooperation between the US, Israel and the Gulf petrostates, providing a counterweight to China’s Belt and Road Initiative and bypassing Iran by tying in India and the Gulf to Washington. It builds on Israel’s increasing integration into the wider region via its offshore oil and gas fields in Eastern Med that are part financed by the UAE. Israel’s Leviathan field is set to feed Egypt’s LNG plants for the next 15 years, with 130 billion cubic meters of gas under a $35 billion deal that re-exports Israeli gas to Europe, and powers Jordan’s electricity grid.
Trump’s plan is the most naked expression of imperialism: creating a de facto corporate body appointed by the US president which he himself will chair as ruler over Gaza after his regional attack dog has pulverized it on his behalf.
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The Middle East powers are fearful of the opprobrium that their participation in such a criminal imperialist operation will generate among their own working class. Following their demands for a UN mandate that would set out the ISF’s goals, powers, subordination and methods of operation in order to legitimize their suppression of the Palestinians, the Trump administration has submitted a draft resolution to the UN Security Council. It would give the US and other participating countries a broad two-year mandate to disarm Hamas, govern Gaza and be in charge of security, while performing “additional tasks as may be necessary in support of the Gaza agreement”.
Crucially, it will be established and operate “in close consultation and cooperation with Egypt and Israel” and work under the broad remit of Trump’s “Board of Peace” that would govern the enclave till such time as the Palestinian Authority was deemed fit to govern.
It resembles nothing so much as the 1922 League of Nations mandates to the colonial powers Britain and France to control Palestine and Syria, with the US and Israel as the colonial powers. If agreed, it would constitute the first time the Arab regimes had contributed their own troops to a UN mission.
While Turkey has offered to send troops—subject to a UN mandate—such are the tensions with Israel over its hosting of Hamas’s political bureau, its designation of Hamas as a legitimate resistance group and its opposition to Israel’s efforts to keep Syria weak and divided that Netanyahu has refused to allow Turkish or Qatari forces into Gaza. He has “completely rejected” the deployment of Palestinian Authority security forces trained by Egypt and Jordan in Gaza.
These corrupt regimes, all of whom rule with an iron fist over impoverished masses, have made a Faustian bargain: their open participation in the forceful suppression of the Palestinians and any resistance to Israel and US imperialism in return for Washington’s commitment to back their “security” in the event of a new “Arab Spring” or mass movement to unseat them, and to wage war against Iran, which has backed opposition forces to their rule, as part of its preparations for war on China.
10. 74-year-old Australian postal worker killed in Perth crash
[Theena] Barton had worked for Australia Post (of which StarTrack is a subsidiary) for two decades. She was described by colleagues and friends as a “very loved, loyal, hardworking (and) kind lady.” Her husband, who also worked for Australia Post, told local media that she was the light of his life. Family members said she was a giving person who only wanted “laughter, happiness and love.”
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Neither the Transport Workers Union (TWU), which covers StarTrack workers, nor the Communication Workers Union (CWU), the main union covering Australia Post, have said a word about Barton’s death. There are no reports on any of the unions’ websites or their Facebook, Instagram or TikTok accounts.
The unions’ silence is especially conspicuous when even management has launched a media campaign highlighting the dangers faced by Australia Post workers on the road. Early last month, the company released a video containing dash camera footage of numerous vehicle collisions in which Australia Post workers had been injured.
The video revealed that, in the year ending June 2025, 280 postal workers were seriously injured on the roads. In other words, more than one postal worker every weekday is involved in a road incident that leaves them with broken bones, concussion or other serious injuries.
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The growing safety dangers confronting Australia Post workers are part of an international process. On October 18, United States Postal Service worker Steven Marks was killed on the job when his van was struck by an alleged drunk driver. A month earlier, 43-year-old UPS driver Shelma Reyna Guerrero was crushed to death while loading packages into a cargo trailer in California.
These are not just isolated accidents, but the result of the ruthless drive for speed-ups and deepening exploitation of workers by postal services—and big business in general—all over the world.
Barton’s death also fits into a broader pattern in Australia. In 2024, 54 workers were killed on the job in the “transport, postal and warehousing” sector, among the total of 188 workplace fatalities reported by Safe Work Australia.
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The silence of the CWU and TWU over Barton’s death and the Queensland chemical exposure is deafening and should be a stark warning to workers across the country, at Australia Post and more broadly: Organizations that are unmoved by the death of a worker on the job have no legitimate claim to represent workers. How can they possibly be trusted to defend workplace health and safety in any circumstance, let alone fight for job security, wages and conditions?
The answer is that they cannot. Workers need to take matters into their own hands. Rank-and-file committees must be established at Australia Post and StarTrack facilities across the country as the means through which postal workers can democratically fight for workplace safety, as well as for real improvements to wages and working conditions.
A group of Australia Post workers have established the Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee as a central body to fight for this perspective and assist postal and delivery workers in building rank-and-file committees in their own workplaces.
11. The assassination of Comrade Tom Henehan
Josh Andrews delivered this second part of the lecture “The Security and the Fourth International investigation deepens” at the 2025 Summer School of the Socialist Equality Party (US). The first part was delivered by Evan Blake.
The death toll has risen to 12, including one child, in Tuesday’s horrific crash of a UPS cargo plane in Louisville, Kentucky. Sixteen people remain unaccounted for as of this writing.
On Tuesday afternoon, a team of investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) arrived on the scene. In a press conference, officials confirmed that the plane’s left engine caught fire and separated from the aircraft during takeoff. The cargo plane, carrying more than 200,000 pounds of jet fuel for its scheduled flight to Hawaii, plowed through a dense industrial district south of the Louisville airport, setting off an inferno that was visible for miles.
The prospect of finding any more survivors is poor. One investigator told reporters that there was not much left of the fuselage that was recognizable because of the intensity of the fire.
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More information will emerge as to the circumstances leading to the disaster. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the plane, which was 34 years old, had undergone repairs for a cracked fuel tank in September. The model, the MD-11, has the second worst safety record of any commercial aircraft still in service. UPS and FedEx still operate dozens of them, though both companies have begun to phase them out.
What can be said for certain, however, is that ruthless cost-cutting and profiteering by the capitalist ruling class make such disasters inevitable.
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The US aviation industry is at the breaking point. While there is no indication that air traffic control issues contributed to this particular crash, the National Airspace System as a whole is stretched to the limit. Generational understaffing among air traffic controllers has been greatly worsened by the month-long government shutdown. Controllers have been compelled to take leave to find paying jobs rather than work without a paycheck.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced at a news conference Wednesday that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will reduce flights by 10 percent at 40 of the country’s busiest airports as early as Friday if no shutdown deal is reached.
In a bitter irony, the NTSB investigators dispatched to Louisville are carrying out their crucial work without pay. Only a week ago, NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy warned that the shutdown was causing strain on the agency’s employees and appealed to the public to identify “resources” (i.e., food pantries and other forms of charity) to assist them. According to the website Flying, the NTSB furloughed 100 people, or 25 percent of its workforce, at the start of the shutdown.
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The Trump White House is asserting sweeping powers over regulatory agencies. Earlier this year, Trump fired Alvin Brown, the board’s vice chair, without explanation—a move widely seen as politically motivated. Last month, the Senate confirmed Trump’s choice for head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA): former UPS safety executive David Keeling. Plans are also underway to shut down the Chemical Safety Board entirely next year.
These moves are part of the broader social counterrevolution aimed at overturning all the achievements won by the working class over more than a century of struggle. This is the social content of Trump’s drive toward dictatorship. During the government shutdown, Trump has refused to release food stamp funding and threatened to deny back pay to furloughed federal workers.
The corporate oligarchy is simultaneously carrying out a massive jobs bloodbath. Only last week, UPS boasted that it had eliminated 48,000 positions, including 34,000 management jobs. CEO Carol Tomé bragged that the company was “positioned to run the most efficient peak in our history” and that it would “find new opportunities to bring costs down.”
The layoffs are part of UPS’s automation-driven restructuring program, the “Network of the Future,” which introduces new technologies capable of eliminating up to 80 percent of warehouse jobs. In 2023, the company opened its “Velocity” hub, employing 3,000 robots and only 200 human workers.
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The role of the union bureaucracy has been to help enforce these layoffs. UPS executives have pointed to the “labor certainty” provided by the 2023 Teamsters contract—passed under false pretenses—as key to their restructuring drive. While the Teamsters bureaucracy has largely maintained silence since then, General President Sean O’Brien has emerged as one of the most vocal supporters of Trump among union officials, who have broadly rallied behind “America First” nationalism.
13. Australia: Rio Tinto threatens to close Tomago Aluminum smelter, destroying over 1,000 jobs
Last week, Tomago Aluminum announced it is preparing to shut down its smelter, north of Newcastle, by the end of 2028, destroying more than 1,000 jobs and devastating the region. Management insists the plant cannot remain viable once its 40-year electricity contract with AGL’s Bayswater power station expires, pointing out that power makes up more than 40 percent of total costs.
Located about 160 kilometers north of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales (NSW), the threatened closure could result in a further 5,000 job losses through flow-on effects to local businesses and manufacturing. The regional economy has already been gutted by decades of industrial closures and layoffs.
Rio Tinto, one of the world’s largest mining conglomerates worth around $180 billion, holds the majority stake in Tomago through a joint venture with CSR Limited and Hydro Aluminum, a subsidiary of Norway’s state-linked Norsk Hydro.
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Aluminum smelting is among the most electricity-intensive industrial processes. The Tomago plant operates around the clock, consuming roughly 10 percent of the entire NSW electricity grid. It produces around 600,000 tonnes of aluminum each year, some 37 percent of Australia’s total output, worth an estimated $2 billion annually.
The threat of closure is being used by Rio Tinto to leverage further concessions from the Australian government. A joint federal–state Labor offer of $1 billion has been rejected by the company, with Dozol indicating that only a long-term deal that secured cheaper power prices would be accepted.
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In response to last week’s announcement, Industry and Innovation Minister Tim Ayres declared that the government was “open to every option” to keep Tomago open, including changes to ownership and further subsidies. Labor clearly fears a further collapse of support in the region, which has already been hit hard by closures and job losses.
Ayres appeared at a press conference alongside four Labor MPs from the Hunter region, assuring workers that the Albanese government was “committed to keeping the plant operating.” Asked how much taxpayer money would be provided, he said he would “exhaust every opportunity,” adding that the process of making Tomago “self-sustaining” would involve government support “for years.”
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What is happening at Tomago follows a well-worn pattern. For decades, major corporations have used the threat of closing down and moving their operations elsewhere to extract government subsidies and financial assistance to the tune of billions of dollars, and, in league with the trade unions, to demand ever-greater productivity from fewer and fewer workers in the name of “international competitiveness.” It is a never-ending process that has ultimately ended in devastating closures and job losses.
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Workers at Tomago should place no faith in Rio Tinto, the state and federal governments or the unions, whatever the immediate outcome of the present discussions. To fight the closure, workers need to establish a democratically elected rank-and-file committee, independent of the trade unions, to discuss, plan and execute their own industrial and political campaign.
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.
