Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
1. This week in history: January 5-11
- 25 years ago:
Democrats officially sanction theft of the 2000 US presidential election
50 years ago:
75 years ago:
South Korean forces massacre hundreds of civilians in Ganghwa
100 years ago:
The day after the United States carried out an illegal military attack on Venezuela and kidnapped its president, Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration unleashed a torrent of threats against countries around the world, targeting not only Latin America, but North America, Europe and Asia.
In remarks to The Atlantic on Sunday, President Trump threatened Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, who was sworn in as acting president on Saturday, with a fate “worse” than that of Maduro.
“If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price,” Trump said. “Probably bigger than Maduro.”
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The attack on Venezuela is part of the broader US confrontation with China and Russia. China currently purchases 80 percent of Venezuelan oil exports. By seizing control of Venezuela’s oil industry, Washington aims to deprive its rivals of a major energy source.
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The events since Saturday’s attack have made clear that this conflict is spiraling into a broader war. The claim, repeated by Rubio on ABC’s “This Week,” that this is “a law enforcement operation” rather than a war is a total absurdity.
Eighty Venezuelans—soldiers and civilians—were killed in the assault. US forces destroyed at least five buildings at Venezuela’s largest military base. American warships are blockading the country’s ports. The president of a sovereign nation has been kidnapped and is being held in a Brooklyn jail. And the Trump administration is now openly threatening murder, annexation and further military strikes across multiple continents.
These actions are totally illegal. The military assault on Venezuela violates Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which prohibits “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” The naval blockade constitutes an act of aggression under UN General Assembly Resolution 3314, which explicitly lists “the blockade of the ports or coasts of a State by the armed forces of another State” as aggression. The seizure of Venezuela’s oil resources constitutes pillage under international humanitarian law. None of these actions were authorized by the UN Security Council, and none meet the requirements of Article 51 self-defense, which requires an actual armed attack.
The Democratic Party offers no opposition to this criminal war of aggression aimed at seizing Venezuela’s oil resources. Congressional Democrats have limited themselves to procedural complaints while embracing the administration’s justifications for the attack.
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The working class cannot rely on any faction of the ruling class to oppose this war. Opposition must come from below, from the independent mobilization of workers in the United States, Venezuela and internationally against imperialist aggression.
3. More than 21,000 nurses in New York City and Long Island poised to strike
The New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) delivered 10-day strike notices last Friday to 12 private hospitals in New York City and three in Long Island. More than 20,000 nurses in New York City and 1,000 in Long Island, whose contracts expired December 31, could strike as soon as January 12, which would be the biggest nurses’ strike in the city’s history.
Management at these hospitals has refused to provide adequate staffing or improve protections against workplace violence. The hospitals also want to cut nurses’ healthcare benefits or salaries. About 97 percent of the New York City nurses and an overwhelming majority of the Long Island nurses voted in favor of a strike.
The nurses’ determined stand is the first major act in what will promise to be a major year of the class struggle in the US, as workers fight against mass layoffs and other accelerating attacks. Other major contract struggles in the beginning of the year include 29,000 graduate student workers at the University of California in January, 30,000 oil refinery workers nationwide at the end of February, 50,000 grocery workers in February and March and 84,000 public sector workers in New York in April.
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Nurses must be on guard against any last-minute sellouts or attempts to isolate or limit the strike. To enforce democratic control over the struggle, nurses should establish rank-and-file strike committees to establish workers’ control over the conduct of the strike and all future contract talks.
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Operating under the nurses’ democratic control, these committees will be the means through which the nurse can organize and wage a powerful fight. The New York City and Long Island nurses must unite and appeal to other healthcare workers, who face similar attacks, for support. A genuine and lasting victory will not be won unless this fight becomes a struggle against for-profit medicine and for workers’ control of healthcare.
4. South Africa’s ANC silent after US-led strikes in Nigeria
The Christmas Day US missile strikes on Nigeria were a major escalation of US imperialism on the African continent, carried out under the fraudulent banner of “counter-terrorism” against the Islamist armed group ISIS and justified with fabricated claims of a Christian genocide.
The reality on the ground exposes the criminality of the whole operation. In villages such as Jabo in Sokoto State, missile debris landed meters from a primary health center, terrorizing residents in a community with no known ISIS presence and a long history of peaceful coexistence between Muslims and Christians.
While US-led AFRICOM and Nigerian officials insist there were no civilian casualties, they have provided no transparent accounting of targets or victims. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said there is “more to come”.
Independent data contradict Washington’s claim of a “Christian genocide”, showing that armed violence stems from decades of imperialist-imposed underdevelopment, social collapse, and state repression. Working people of all faiths are the victims, their lives are treated as expendable in US military calculations and by the Nigerian national bourgeoisie.
The invocation of a “Christian genocide” follows a well-worn pattern of imperialist lies covering for economic and geopolitical interests: “weapons of mass destruction” to justify the destruction of Iraq, “protecting civilians” to justify the NATO dismemberment of Libya, the intervention in Syria under the banner of the fight against terrorism. Entire societies have been left in ruins, with tens of millions displaced and more than a million dead.
The same method is now being deployed against Venezuela, where Washington has kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro on fabricated charges of “narco-terrorism”.
Amid this open imperialist criminality, the South African government has remained silent. Led by the African National Congress (ANC), the largest economy in sub–Saharan Africa and a state that routinely postures as a spokesperson for the continent in international forums has refused to issue any condemnation of the strikes on Nigeria.
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Over the past year, the US has put immense pressure on South Africa to fall into line. Trump has repeatedly accused the ANC of promoting a “white genocide” and provocatively provided 59 white Afrikaners with refugee status, even as his administration stripped refugee protections from people fleeing war.
Economic warfare has followed. Trump imposed two waves of tariffs on South Africa and threatened a third. The first included a 10 percent universal baseline tariff, a 25 percent automotive tariff and a 50 percent steel and aluminum tariff. The second imposed a 30 percent reciprocal tariff on all South African exports, replacing the baseline tariff.
Trump then allowed African Growth and Opportunity Act benefits to expire in September, so that goods that had previously entered the US market duty free were subjected to standard World Trade Organization rates or the reciprocal tariff.
The US has also imposed $436 million cuts to HIV-related assistance through USAID and programs linked to PEPFAR. The cuts, combined with funding withdrawn from the World Health Organization, have led to the loss of more than 8,000 health worker jobs, the closure of specialized clinics, and a significant decline in services such as viral load testing, seriously undermining HIV treatment in the country with the world’s largest population living with HIV.
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The ANC’s silence reflects a fear that condemning the attacks in Nigeria would provoke further retaliation from Washington. The Democratic Alliance (DA), traditionally the most openly pro-US faction of the ruling elite and a key coalition partner of the ANC in the Government of National Unity, has refrained from defending the strikes, aware that ANC silence renders such a statement unnecessary.
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Looking to China and BRICS as a counterweight to imperialism and alternative to the G7 and NATO is a politically bankrupt perspective. The US will not accept decline peacefully. Washington has responded with continuous wars and interventions across Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and beyond. Africa has become a central arena in this struggle, as capitalist powers seek to secure resources and strategic positions.
Imperialism and military violence cannot be fought by turning to the African bourgeoisie or the Chinese ruling class, but only through the struggle of the international working class against capitalism and the nation state system which make war inevitable. Workers in South Africa and across the continent must build independent political parties based on socialist internationalism, rejecting all illusions in capitalist states, continental institutions or rival powers. This requires the founding of new sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International.
5. Mass protests erupt in Iran over mounting economic distress
Large protests against mounting economic distress have occurred in many parts of Iran over the past week and have continued in the face of increasing state repression.
There are conflicting reports as to the numbers killed in encounters between protesters and security forces, but the figure is likely 10 or more. On Saturday, the state-affiliated Mehr News Agency reported that a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and two protesters were killed in Malekshahi, a town in western Iran with a large Kurdish population, allegedly when protesters tried to storm a police station.
The protests, the largest since 2022, are of a socially and politically heterogeneous character.
They are fueled by deep-rooted social grievances among Iran’s workers and rural toilers over soaring inflation, mass joblessness, ever-growing social inequality, collapsing public infrastructure and pervasive repression by a bourgeois nationalist, clerical-led regime that is terrified of any form of working-class self-organization.
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The North American and European imperialist powers have been quick to seize on the protests to justify and amplify their campaign of aggression against Iran. This aggression dramatically intensified in 2025, first with the Israeli-US war on Iran and then the “snap back”—at the instigation of Britain, Germany and France—of crippling economic sanctions. The latter action was justified on the grounds that Tehran had failed to comply with the 2016 UN-sponsored Iran nuclear accord, although it was the US that repudiated the agreement in 2018 and then pursued, under Trump and then Biden, a campaign of “maximum pressure” aimed at crashing Iran’s economy and precipitating regime change.
Early Friday morning, Trump directly threatened Iran, farcically presenting himself as a defender of democracy and human rights. In a tweet on his Truth Social platform, he vowed the US “will come to their rescue” if Iran “violently kills peaceful protesters.” He then menacingly added, “We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”
America’s would-be dictator-president issued his war threat after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, December 29 to discuss the next steps in the American imperialist-led drive to create a “New Middle East”—including possible further military action against Iran—and as the Pentagon was finalizing preparations for the attack on Venezuela that it mounted that evening. Dispensing with any attempt to camouflage American imperialism’s predatory appetites, Trump baldly declared the next day that the US was seizing Venezuela’s oil wealth and would govern the country for the foreseeable future.
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Years of punishing sanctions; the Iranian bourgeoisie’s pursuit of its selfish class interests; last year’s twelve-day war with Israel, which concluded with a US strike on Iran’s civilian nuclear facilities; the “snap-back” of still more extensive sanctions last October; and the fall in the price of oil have all had a devastating impact on Iran’s economy and the living standards and lives of ordinary Iranians.
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Iran’s clerical-led bourgeois-nationalist regime consolidated its power in the aftermath of the anti-imperialist upsurge that toppled the Shah’s tyrannical regime in February 1979 by ruthlessly suppressing the left and the independent organizations the working class forged at the revolution’s height.
Nevertheless, it felt constrained to maintain certain social concessions made to the working class and rural toilers in the revolution’s immediate aftermath. Over the past 15 years, what little remained of these concessions has been under systematic attack. Successive Iranian administrations, whether led by IMF-aligned “reformers” or so-called anti-US, religious “hardliners” (the Principlists), have implemented “pro-market reforms,” from privatization and subsidy cuts to the promotion of precarious contract-labor employment.
As a result, the regime’s base of support among the urban and rural poor has largely eroded. Mass working-class protests erupted across Iran in late 2018, and the country was again roiled by mass protests in the fall of 2022 sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the custody of Iran’s “morality police.”
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Events have demonstrated the bankruptcy of all factions of the Islamic Republic’s political establishment and Iranian bourgeoisie, the hollowness of their claims to fight imperialism, their hostility to the working class and organic incapacity to mobilize the masses of the Middle East across all religious and ethnic lines in a common struggle against imperialist oppression.
The Iranian regime responded to Trump’s return to the White House by pleading for negotiations, and it continued to do so as he threatened Iran with war and intensified US support for Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza. For all their bluster about standing up to the US, the leadership of Iran’s national-security apparatus walked eyes-open into the trap US imperialism and its Israeli attack dog laid for them, with Trump feigning that negotiations would continue with Iran on the eve of Israel’s June 13 attack, which began with a successful decapitation strike on much of Iran’s military leadership.
In the months since, Iran has pursued the same strategy, continuing to offer to bargain with Trump and open the Iranian economy to large-scale US investment, while seeking to reconstruct its civilian nuclear facilities to pressure Washington to the bargaining table.
Tehran has reserved much of its anger for the European imperialists. It long counted them as more “reasonable” and amenable to a rapprochement than Washington, only to have Britain, France and Germany initiate the “snap back” of UN sanctions last fall, so as to curry favor with Trump and punish Iran for its limited military support to Russia amid the Ukraine war.
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The entire history of modern Iran—from the failure of the Constitutional Revolution at the beginning of the 20th Century and the overthrow of Mosaddegh’s nationalist regime in 1953 through the hijacking and suppression of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the 47 years of the Islamic Republic—demonstrates that the only viable strategy for the Iranian working class is the strategy of Permanent Revolution. First formulated by Leon Trotsky, the strategy of Permanent Revolution animated the 1917 Russian Revolution and the struggle against the nationalist Stalinist bureaucracy, that usurped power from the working class under conditions of the revolution’s isolation, and ultimately restored capitalism. It establishes that in the imperialist epoch the democratic tasks associated with the historic bourgeois revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries—including national independence and unity and the separation of church from state—can only be realized through the establishment of workers’ power and as part of the fight for world socialist revolution.
Workers in North America and Europe, for their part, must indefatigably oppose the continuing imperialist aggression against Iran, which is an integral part of the US-led imperialist drive to repartition the world through global war.
The scenes that unfolded an hour and a half after the start of the new year in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana resembled an apocalypse. Burning figures, disfigured beyond recognition, staggered out of the blazing bar “Le Constellation.” For many, any help came too late.
The preliminary toll is 40 dead and over 119 seriously injured. Most of those identified so far are under 26 years of age. The burns are so severe that the specialised hospitals in Lausanne and Zurich, to which the injured were flown by helicopter, did not have sufficient capacity. Fifty have since been taken to hospitals in Italy, France, Germany and Belgium.
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The fire spread rapidly through the two-story bar, which can hold 300 guests but was possibly overcrowded. Guests in the basement, where the fire broke out, had little chance of survival. The narrow staircase leading upstairs was blocked in the ensuing panic. An emergency exit was apparently not marked and was blocked by furniture and stored items.
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The immediate cause of the fire appears to have been largely clarified. So-called party fountains, which emit a bright flame from above, set fire to the sound insulation on the ceiling of the basement. Numerous cell phone photos and videos circulating on the internet show waiters bringing champagne bottles decorated with burning party fountains into the room, guests waving them near the ceiling, and the fire finally breaking out.
After a short time, a so-called flashover occurred. This is when heat accumulation and the associated formation of gases in heated and burning objects trigger a fireball that sets everything on fire at once. A self-ignition mechanism is created that acts extremely and very quickly, raising the temperature to 1000 degrees Celsius. Escape is then impossible.
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Everything that is known so far about the cause of the fire confirms that the disaster was not a tragic accident, but consciously permitted manslaughter by the dozen. The “Le Constellation” bar was a highly flammable firetrap in which a New Year’s Eve party should never have been allowed to take place.
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Crans-Montana has changed significantly since doctors sent patients to the village high above the Rhone Valley at the end of the 19th century to recuperate in the fresh air. It has become a fashionable ski resort frequented by the wealthy and famous, where lavish winter sports events are regularly held.
The ski area now belongs to the US corporation Vail Resorts, which two years ago bought all the lift facilities, the associated mountain operations, including four retail and rental stations, the ski schools and 11 restaurants from a Czech investor for 118.5 million Swiss francs. Vail Resorts, which already operates ski areas in the US and Andermatt-Sedrun in Switzerland, hopes to generate an annual profit of 30 million Swiss francs after initial investments in Crans-Montana.
There is a lot of money to be made from the wealthy clientele who can afford to vacation in exclusive Swiss ski resorts. But tourism is a tough business. Financial ruin is never far off. The business is dependent on the weather and the season, even though snow for the ski slopes is now produced artificially. The ski season lasts only four, at most five months, and the summer season is much less lucrative.
Bars, restaurants and hotels that want to hold their own in this harsh environment dominated by a major investor have to fight hard. And they need good connections to the relevant authorities.
Swiss federalism, which shifts numerous decisions and control functions to the cantonal and municipal levels, may appear democratic to the outside world. But it also means that “everyone knows each other.” A friend or relative in the government or in an authority can work wonders when you need a permit or want to circumvent regulations.
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Jacques Moretti renovated and converted the bar in Crans-Montana himself ten years ago, as older photos on Facebook show. Experts suspect that he used cheap polyurethane plastic as noise insulation in the basement to save money. Polyurethane is cheap, easy to work with and has good insulating properties, but it is highly flammable. If it catches fire, it burns fiercely within a very short time and develops toxic gases. It is therefore prohibited in catering establishments. However, fire-resistant insulation materials are much more expensive.
If this suspicion proves to be true, the question arises as to why the fire safety inspectorate did not intervene, even though, according to Moretti’s own statement, it inspected the premises three times in ten years. The authorities are stonewalling on this issue.
At an internationally broadcast press conference on Saturday, at which representatives of the Valais cantonal government, the police, the public prosecutor’s office, hospitals and emergency services provided information, not a word was said about this. Even the question of when the last inspection of the burned-down bar had taken place was not answered. When journalists asked critical questions, the representatives of the government and police dropped their friendly facade and reacted brusquely and dismissively.
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Clearly, there is much to hide. Given the large number of victims and the scale of the disaster, the public prosecutor’s office may be forced to extend its investigation somewhat in order to minimize the damage to the tourism industry. But this will not change the fundamental problem that led to the disaster in Crans-Montana: the disregard for human life in the interests of profit.
7. Behind the ruling class demands for a Royal Commission into the Bondi attack
Over recent weeks, demands for a Royal Commission into the December 14 terrorist attack at Bondi Beach have grown to a crescendo.
Every day, the major corporate publications, led by the Murdoch outlets, are publishing a stream of articles insisting that the federal Labor government must immediately call such an inquiry, with some suggesting that Anthony Albanese’s prime ministership hinges upon
The push for a Royal Commission encompasses broad sections of the ruling elite. Industry groups, such as the Business Council of Australia, have issued statements, as have some of the wealthiest individuals in the country. The opposition Liberal-National Coalition has made the demand the centrepiece of its campaigning. Leading Israeli government figures, implicated in war crimes, have insisted on a Royal Commission, as have Australia’s Zionist lobby groups.
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The terrorist atrocity, claiming fifteen lives and injuring dozens at a Chanukah celebration, has horrified masses of people. There are also widespread suspicions over the official narrative of the attack and the role of the security agencies.
One of the gunmen, Naveed Akram, was investigated by ASIO, the domestic spy agency, for six months in 2019 over connections to the prosecution of an Islamic State terrorist. Despite that, his father Sajid, the other perpetrator, was granted a gun license, and the two were able to plan and prepare the attack without hindrance.
No answers have been provided to the questions raised by those facts, and many people correctly fear a cover-up. Under those conditions, calls for a Royal Commission may resonate.
The ruling class campaign for such a Commission, however, has nothing to do with probing the role of ASIO and other state agencies. Instead, it is a cynical attempt to exploit the attack to deepen a massive assault on democratic rights, centering initially on a bid to outlaw all opposition to Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza.
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The assertion that peaceful political protest is responsible for violent terrorism is drawn straight from the playbook of dictatorships and can be used to outlaw all opposition.
Concretely, in the case of the Bondi attack, its perpetrators were apparently motivated by the reactionary, communalist ideology of the Islamic State terror group. A sectarian Sunni outfit, it is not only antisemitic but has a homicidal hostility to large numbers of Muslims, including all of those adhering to the Shia school, as well as to secularism, socialism and democratic rights. The suggestion of any connection between the protest movement and the shooters is therefore an inversion of reality.
Undeterred, those calling for a Royal Commission are pressing ahead. They are insisting that it should examine, not only the street protests, but opposition to the genocide among university students and academics, in the cultural sector and virtually everywhere else. What is being demanded, in other words, is not an examination of the Bondi attack, but a protracted witch-hunt against mass opposition to war crimes.
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The push for a Royal Commission reflects frustration with the Albanese government from powerful sections of the ruling class. For the past two years, it has supported Israel’s genocide and has attacked popular opposition, including through the passage last year of sweeping “hate speech” laws which could potentially outlaw strident condemnations of Zionism.
But more is being demanded. The inability of the government to shutdown the protest movement is seen as a failure in establishment circles. The issue is not simply suppressing opposition to the genocide, but of how the government will deal with broader social and political opposition, above all from the working class.
That is a crucial question, given the crisis of capitalism in Australia and globally, and the reactionary agenda being imposed by governments everywhere.
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The broader context of the campaign for a Royal Commission underscores the need for workers to take an independent standpoint, opposed not only to the Labor government, but to the entire political and media establishment. Revealing the truth about the Bondi attack, opposing all forms of communalism and racism and defending democratic rights are all entirely dependent on building a socialist movement of the working class.
8. Australia: At least 1 dead as heavy rain and floods hit northern Queensland
The far north of the Australian state of Queensland was hit with over a week of high rainfall and flooding over the new year holidays. At least one man is confirmed dead, and the extreme weather has once again exposed the unpreparedness of the state and federal governments for such events.
Some regions across northern Queensland have received rainfall equivalent to an average year’s worth of precipitation in just a few days. This has been due to an unusually active monsoon trough and associated low-pressure systems, which have delivered prolonged heavy rain across both coastal and inland areas.
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Many residents have reported severe anxiety about the most recent downpour, especially given the experience many of them have been through in previous years. Northern Queensland has been hit by a succession of severe floods that illustrate a clear, worsening pattern. The devastating 2019 Townsville floods killed five people and inflicted enormous damage across the region’s grazing and agricultural districts, producing massive livestock losses and causing sharp financial strain on rural communities already squeezed by the cost-of-living crisis.
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The Queensland floods are not an isolated event, but rather an entirely predictable event that society has the resources to properly deal with. Those resources must be taken out of the hands of the capitalist class and used for social need, to ensure that working people are protected from the impacts of extreme weather events and to implement a rapid transition away from fossil fuels to mitigate further climate change. This is only possible through a fight by the international working class for the overthrow of the capitalist profit system and its replacement with socialism.
The comments of the various artists are principled but of a politically limited character for the most part, expressing a disgust with Trump largely as an individual “nightmare.” They undoubtedly speak to much wider and angrier popular disaffection.
In fact, the administration’s policies, although cruder than those of the Biden or Obama governments, reflect the objective needs of the crisis-ridden and besieged American ruling elite as a whole: that art and culture—and every aspect of public life—must be rigidly subordinated, Nazi-like, to the “national interests,” i.e., the aims and ambitions of the billionaire oligarchy.
10. German court convicts student for criticizing the military
As Germany’s Armed Forces, the Bundeswehr, prepare for a comprehensive war against Russia through the reintroduction of conscription, and seek to militarize society as a whole, anyone who opposes this right-wing policy is dealt with brutal severity. In mid-December, 19-year-old former Freiburg pupil Bentik was sentenced to 15 hours of community service for allegedly insulting an officer.
In February 2025, a youth officer gave a presentation at the Angell-Gymnasium high school in Freiburg as part of a so-called “democracy project day.” The slogan was: “Defending democracy—but how?” focusing on alleged “foreign threats.”
One week later, Bentik posted on his Instagram account two edited images of the officer, which were later circulated by a student newspaper. In the first meme, the youth officer stands in front of a blackboard bearing the words: “Burning young people at the Eastern Front—but how?” Underneath it reads: “So children, who among you would like to die at the Eastern Front?” The second meme shows the youth officer receiving a call from a so-called “SS-Siggi.”
Extensive investigations were launched against Bentik. The files show that the police requested data from the US corporation Meta to identify the user of the Instagram account. In addition, the Bundeswehr department responsible for military security and protection dealt with the case. This department normally handles the defense and security of the armed forces, protecting against threats, espionage and sabotage, and safeguarding military facilities and personnel.
The school management threatened the pupil with disciplinary measures, including expulsion.
The treatment of a 19-year-old student whose only “crime” was to satirically express his opinion shows how the ruling class is nervously reacting to the growing movement against conscription and the militarization of education with police-state methods.
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Bentik rejects the court’s reasoning. “I found the ruling partly factually incorrect,” the former pupil told broadcaster SWR. The aim had not been to attack the officer personally, but to criticize the Bundeswehr as an institution. The 19-year-old pointed to the numerous neo-Nazi networks within and around the Bundeswehr.
According to media reports and information provided by the Bundeswehr, youth officers have delivered several thousand lectures at schools and universities every year for some time. In 2022, more than 4,000 lectures were held; in 2023, around 3,600 were held at schools alone. Bundeswehr stands are also increasingly present at career fairs.
This propaganda and recruitment campaign aims to expand the armed forces to 480,000 soldiers and reservists in the coming years.
The fact that the Bundeswehr is taking legal action against a pupil’s satirical criticism illustrates the severity with which it is responding to the growing resistance of young people to militarism and conscription.
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One is reminded of the famous scene in the 1930 film All Quiet on the Western Front, in which a teacher, in a patriotic speech, urges his class to sacrifice their “personal desires on the altar of the fatherland” and volunteer for the front. He lures them with promises of heroism and denounces opponents of war as cowards. Almost the entire class lose their lives to German great-power ambitions.
Today, however, the horrors of two world wars are deeply ingrained in public consciousness, and opposition to war is widespread. Through their protest and rejection of war, young people threaten the Bundeswehr’s plans to once again sacrifice them for the predatory interests of German imperialism. To intimidate and discipline youth, the state is responding with repression.
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At places of education—where young people should be learning to question power relations and draw historical lessons—the Bundeswehr is invited in and critical discussion suppressed.
Instead of encouraging debate on war and political history, pupils are intimidated, and criticism is punished and banned. Once again, the reactionary spirit of German militarism is to take hold in the minds of a new generation.
While the ruling class is rearming on a scale not seen since Hitler and is systematically attempting to subordinate society to its policies of rearmament and war, schools, colleges and universities are being gutted by austerity measures. Berlin’s universities alone must cut €145 million this year. As a result, around 25,000 study places (10 percent) are being eliminated, expiring professorships are not renewed, and social services for students are being cut.
The Bundeswehr deliberately exploits the material and staffing crisis of educational institutions to gain better access to pupils. It finances projects, internships and paid bus trips for excursions—cooperation agreements that allow it to gain a foothold in political education. Pay is also intended to lure working class youth into the Bundeswehr, as years of cuts in real wages have driven them increasingly into poverty in civilian working life.
Bentik’s conviction is therefore also a message to all young people. Anyone who publicly opposes Bundeswehr visits, rearmament and possible forced recruitment must expect personal consequences. The extent to which schools, police and the Bundeswehr are prepared to access an individual’s personal data is an additional warning.
Yet this must not intimidate us. On the contrary, the actions of officers, judges and politicians only demonstrate how great is their fear of our resistance. But this resistance can only succeed if it is international and based on the working class. In their recently published statement “What next in the school strike against conscription?” the International Youth and Students for Socialist Equality writes:
The movement against conscription must not orient itself towards the capitalist parties and trade unions but must fight for the independent mobilization of the working class. The strikes and protests by students are very important, but we must not stop there. The school strike movement must be the starting point for igniting a strike movement throughout the entire working class, directed against war and capitalism. Such a movement must be based on the following principles:
• It must be international and counter growing nationalism with the international unity of the working class.
• It must be independent of all capitalist parties and trade unions and rely on the immense power of the working class.
• It must be socialist and directed against the root cause of war: capitalism.
We call on all young people and workers who want to take action against conscription and preparations for war to discuss this perspective with us online on Thursday, 8 January, at 6:30 p.m. Register now to take part.
11. Debanking: How German banks suppress fundamental democratic rights
In Germany, debanking is increasingly being used as a weapon to deprive left-wing parties, aid organizations, publishers and critical journalists of their livelihoods, even though they have not broken any laws or been formally banned.
Financial institutions are terminating the accounts of those affected, although they have often been customers of the banks for years or decades. They are then no longer able to pay their bills, collect membership fees and donations or, in the case of solidarity organizations, provide assistance to those persecuted by the state. When they ask for a reason, they are refused an answer on the grounds of business secrecy. Opening a new account at another bank is only possible after a lengthy search, costly legal proceedings, or not at all.
Basic democratic rights protected by the Constitution—such as freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and freedom of association—are thus undermined and eliminated without the public knowing about it or being informed of the reasons. Banks, intelligence agencies and government representatives are working hand in hand behind the scenes. Donald Trump’s government is also involved, using sanctions against alleged “terrorists” and the dominance of American financial service providers to put pressure on German financial institutions.
Far-right organizations and journalists are also affected and were originally used to justify debanking. Now, however, it is increasingly the left that is being targeted. The closure of bank accounts belonging to left-wing organizations is part of an authoritarian shift that is taking place not only in the US, but in Germany and throughout Europe as well. Any critical voice against armament, war, social cuts and layoffs is to be intimidated and silenced.
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The Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (SGP), the German section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), was the victim of debanking as far back as summer 2024. After more than 50 years of smooth business relations, Postbank terminated the party’s account. A year later, Mehring Verlag, the leading publisher of Trotskyist writings in Germany, was also affected. Postbank gave no reasons for the terminations, but it was obviously a case of political censorship.
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Individual critical journalists are also affected by debanking. In December, Sparkasse Karlsruhe terminated the account of freelance journalist and YouTuber Flavio von Witzleben, who considered the measure an “attempt at intimidation.” Back in February, Commerzbank subsidiary Comdirect terminated a donation account belonging to publicist and filmmaker Gaby Weber, which she used to collect funds for court cases to enforce the Freedom of Information Act. Among other institutions, Weber had sued the Federal Chancellery, the foreign intelligence service BND, and the Deutsche Bundesbank for access to files for the purpose of journalistic research.
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After Postbank closed the accounts of the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei and Mehring Verlag, the WSWS warned:
German banks have long been trying to silence unpopular voices by closing their accounts. While this was initially directed primarily at organizations from the far-right, anti-establishment and coronavirus-denier spectrum, left-wing, socialist and pacifist organizations are now increasingly being targeted.
This warning has been confirmed. Cooperation between banks, police and secret services is being systematically expanded. And the German government has criticized neither Trump’s sanctions nor the current account closures.
Last but not least, the EU has failed to extend its Blocking Regulation, which protects European companies from the effects of extraterritorial US laws and sanctions and prohibits them from complying with these sanctions.
12. Madrid covers up complicity in illegal US invasion of Venezuela
The blatantly illegal US invasion of Venezuela aiming to plunder its resources is thoroughly exposing Spain’s Socialist Party (PSOE)-Sumar coalition government. Even as anger builds among workers in Spain and internationally against the war, Madrid is cynically lining up behind Trump’s war lies. Opposing the onslaught on Venezuela urgently poses the task of mobilizing the working class independently of the union bureaucracies and pseudo-left parties orbiting around the Spanish government.
To be sure, now that the US regime change operation is underway, and President Nicolás Maduro has been abducted to New York City, Madrid is calling for peace. “Spain calls for de-escalation and moderation, and for all actions to be carried out in respect of international law and the principles of the UN Charter,” the Spanish Foreign Ministry declared in a statement over the weekend.
However, its statement made no criticism of US aggression against Venezuela, instead offering its diplomatic services to help carry out Washington’s regime change operation: “Spain is disposed to offer its good services to reach a negotiated, pacific settlement to the current crisis. Spain recalls that it has not recognized the result of the [last Venezuelan elections] of July 28, 2024, and has always supported initiatives to reach a democratic solution for Venezuela.”
Spain’s calls for “moderation” are a disgusting attempt to verbally distance Madrid from Washington’s illegal war, which faces mass opposition in the Spanish working class, while positioning Madrid to grab a share of the oil and mineral resources, should Trump’s regime change war have initial successes.
*****
Spanish capital aims to continue drawing profits from a country where more than 100 Spanish companies once operated, and where Spain’s direct investments exceeded €20 billion. Latin America accounts for over 30 percent of Spain’s outward foreign direct investment stock—roughly equivalent to its total investment in the European Union—while also representing 8 percent of inward foreign direct investment. Spanish oil firm Repsol, banks like BBVA and telecoms giant Telefónica stand to lose billions of dollars, should US companies control Venezuela.
Madrid’s response reflects fears within the PSOE-Sumar government of the eruption of mass anti-war opposition in workers across Europe and the Americas. More than 4 million people living in Spain were born in Latin America. Opposition to decades of US- and European-backed coups and dictatorships in Latin America are deeply rooted in the international working class. But it is impossible to oppose Trump’s attempt to plunder Venezuela through any of the parties of capitalist rule in Spain, such as Sumar or Podemos.
13. Former CDC epidemiologist Dr. Fiona Havers speaks on the collapse of evidence-based vaccine policy
The World Socialist Web Site interviews a prominent scientist who quit the CDC in protest after Trump-appointed Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. removed every member of the Advisory Community on Immunization Practices.
Dr. Havers:
"State and local health departments no longer trust the CDC. Historically, the CDC’s central role was to support them—providing technical expertise and rigorously vetted guidance. Vaccine policy went through transparent, evidence-based review processes that health departments could rely on.
That trust is gone. The medical community doesn’t trust the CDC. The scientific community doesn’t trust the CDC. State and local health departments don’t trust the CDC. And large portions of the public who once relied on CDC guidance no longer do, because the agency is now producing unscientific outputs.
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This administration is doing enormous harm to scientific, medical and public health institutions, and it will cost lives. Secretary Kennedy must be removed. If he remains in this role, more Americans will die, and we risk the return of diseases we have not seen in decades.
If another pandemic were to occur now, the consequences would be catastrophic."
In the wake of a 43-minute “investigative” report published last month by fascist propagandist Nick Shirley, the Trump administration has paused federal funding for child care centers in Minnesota and ordered a review of all 50 states. The pause in funding comes even though several allegations made by Shirley in the video have been proven to be false.
Shirley claimed in his video that locked doors was evidence of fraud. In an interview with CNN last week, Shirley claimed that he thought daycare centers would open their doors for unannounced visitors accompanied by a film crew and masked men acting as “security.” One of the centers Shirley alleged was fraudulent because it was not open actually operates in the afternoon and evening, not the morning. Another center he claimed was closed is in fact operational.
Minnesota Star Tribune reporters were allowed inside four of the 10 facilities featured in Shirley’s propaganda video. While Shirely asserted all of the centers were fraudulent the local reporters witnessed children napping and playing under adult supervision.
This has not stopped the Trump administration from using Shirley’s bogus video to wage war on the working class. In Minnesota alone, some $185 million in federal child care payments to the state under the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) has been halted. CCAP funding subsidizes child care services for about 23,000 low-income families in the state, affecting some 30,000 children. Health and Human Services spokesperson Andrew Nixon said last week that all 50 states, even those not suspected of fraud, must submit additional paperwork and verification to receive funding.
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Allegations of child-care and welfare fraud in Minnesota go back decades, and specific federal fraud prosecutions into organizations such as Feeding Our Future began during the Biden administration. The current right-wing fervor over Shirley’s videos is a concerted campaign organized by Republican Party operatives, in league with the fascists in the White House, to strip all federal funding from social programs that benefit workers and their families.
In Shirley’s video, which has been shared widely by Trump administration officials and Elon Musk, Shirley visits several Somali-run child care centers with someone he identifies only as “David.” The Minnesota Star Tribune and the Intercept have confirmed that “David” is in fact David Hoch, a longtime lobbyist and Republican operative. The 65-year-old previously ran for governor in Minnesota as a member of the Resource Party, followed by a 2010 run for Minnesota attorney general as a Republican.
*****
Under conditions in which Trump’s popularity continues to collapse, Trump is spreading a new fascist conspiracy theory against his political opponents. In a January 3, 2026 post on Truth Social, Trump shared a video that featured the headline “Did Tim Walz really have (D) Melissa Hoertman (sic) assassinated???”
In the video, the speaker falsely asserts that Vance Boelter, currently facing murder and stalking charges in connection with the murders of former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, along with the shooting of Minnesota State Senator John Hoffman, his wife Yvette and the attempted shooting of their daughter Hope, was an aide of Walz. In fact, Boelter was a Christian nationalist and Trump supporter.
The shootings took place the morning of June 14, the date of the massive “No Kings” protest against the Trump administration, and the shooter specifically targeted Democratic lawmakers. Following a multiday manhunt, police located Boelter and his vehicle, which had a hit list including 70 other Democratic Party officials and abortion providers.
Erasing his right-wing and pro-Trump politics, the video shared by Trump claimed Boelter “worked for Walz” and that Hortman was killed after she voted to “take away healthcare from illegal immigrants.” The rest of the video is an AI voice repeating the same lie, that Boelter worked for Walz and that Hortman was “unalived” after she voted against “a multibillion-dollar money laundering fraud.” As the AI voice makes the claim that the alleged fraud “heavily implicated illegal aliens,” footage of Shirley in front of a day care center is shown.
Shirley himself has boosted the bogus video. In a January 3 post on X targeting Walz, Shirley wrote: “Why was she killed after speaking out against illegal migrants? Was she a threat to you and your fraudster scheme? RIP TO MELISSA HORTMAN.”
15. Part Two: 85 years since Finland’s alliance with Nazi Germany
It is a striking testament both to the effectiveness of the censorship and the contempt of politicians for the Finnish public’s ability to understand events that doubts about the necessity of the war were publicly denounced as communist subversion. Modern claims that Finland democratically entered into an alliance with Nazi Germany have to be understood in the context of this government conspiracy to exclude the public from even basic knowledge of Finland’s real international condition.
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It was only once the Soviet Union turned back the German advance and pushed westward that Finland sought a separate peace. The Red Army liberated the Majdanek concentration camp in Poland on July 22, 1944. Finland concluded a ceasefire with the Soviet Union in September. As part of the peace agreements, Stalin extracted additional territorial concessions and reparations from Finland but left the Nazi collaborationist government and legislature in place and opposed any class struggle against it. Finland was the only Nazi ally to maintain continuity of government institutions after the war.
*****
The Stalinist bureaucracy never pushed for a clear reckoning with the Nazi collaborators and allowed a completely absurd nationalist cult of historiography to emerge in the postwar period. The crimes of the Finnish Waffen-SS soldiers were hidden for decades, with three different Waffen-SS veterans going on to serve as government ministers over the years. It was only in 2008 that a doctoral student uncovered the records of Finnish police working closely with the German Einsatzkommandos to sort through Soviet prisoners of war for deportation to concentration camps and participate in “anti-partisan” activity in the occupied Soviet Union.
Eighty years on, the Finnish ruling class is once again attempting to mobilize the population as cannon fodder in an imperialist war of plunder to the East. While Helsinki’s enemy during World War II was the Soviet Union, today’s Finnish ruling class wants to serve as a tool of the fascist-minded President Trump and a resurgent German imperialism in the subjugation of Russia and China to semi-colonial status. To this end, the entire political establishment stampeded the public into NATO membership, transforming the country’s 1,300-kilometer (808-mile) border with Russia into a new front for a US- or European-led war of aggression.
The social character of the capitalist-restorationist regime under Putin has nothing in common with the degenerated workers’ state Finland attacked in alliance with Nazi Germany in 1941, but the ideological justifications for war remain largely unchanged. Like their Social Democrat and Shachtmanite predecessors, today’s SDP and pseudo-left parties portray Finland as a small “democratic” paradise confronting Russian and Chinese imperialism. As the Helsinki government signs agreements to supply American imperialism with icebreakers for war in the Arctic, Trump is threatening to seize Greenland and Canada by force and preparing to invade Venezuela.
*****
As in the 1930s and 1940s, the only viable way forward for workers in Finland to oppose war is by rejecting nationalism and unifying their struggles with the working class across Europe, which is beginning to move against the continent’s imperialist powers’ mad drive to impose the full cost of militarism and war on the backs of the workers. As Trotsky and the Fourth International insisted in the early stages of the Second World War:
The Fourth International builds its policy not on the military fortunes of the capitalist states but on the transformation of the imperialist war into a war of the workers against the capitalists, on the overthrow of the ruling classes of all countries, on the world socialist revolution. The shifts in the battle lines at the front, the destruction of national capitals, the occupation of territories, the downfall of individual states, represent from this standpoint only tragic episodes on the road to the reconstruction of modern society.
Independently of the course of the war, we fulfill our basic task: We explain to the workers the irreconcilability between their interests and the interests of bloodthirsty capitalism; we mobilize the toilers against imperialism; we propagate the unity of the workers in all warring and neutral countries; we call for the fraternization of workers and soldiers within each country, and of soldiers with soldiers on the opposite side of the battle front; we mobilize the women and youth against the war; we carry on constant, persistent, tireless preparation for the revolution—in the factories, in the mills, in the villages, in the barracks, at the front, and in the fleet.
16. Homelessness worsens in New Zealand
As the new year begins, millions of working people in New Zealand face an increasingly severe social crisis: rising unemployment and poverty, soaring living costs, and widespread, deeply entrenched homelessness.
On December 16, the Salvation Army and Community Housing Aotearoa released the results of a recent survey, which found that in Auckland, the biggest city, the number of people living without shelter more than doubled between September 2024 and September 2025 from 426 to 940.
This surge is the direct outcome of the National Party-led government’s brutal austerity measures, designed to make the working class pay for the deepening economic crisis and to divert more public money to the military to prepare for war.
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The burden of homelessness falls hardest on Māori and Pacific Island communities—who are among the most exploited workers—and on young people. Nearly half of those experiencing severe housing deprivation are under 25 years old.
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The government is preparing more draconian and punitive measures against the homeless. Speaking to Newstalk ZB on December 1, Luxon confirmed that he wants to give police officers the power to issue “move on” orders to rough sleepers, particularly in central Auckland.
While a government statement declared that under the plan rough sleepers would get “mental health, addiction, and housing support,” it only promised “207 additional social houses” in Auckland. This is a drop in the ocean compared with the level of need, even if the houses are actually built, which is far from guaranteed.
The real attitude of the ruling elite was expressed by Auckland’s right-wing mayor Wayne Brown, who told the New Zealand Herald on November 8 that “scruffy-looking” homeless people were causing “economic damage” and should be transported “out into the countryside” away from areas frequented by tourists.
*****
None of the capitalist parties offers any solution to the crisis facing working people. Putting an end to homelessness requires the mobilization of the working class based on a socialist program, to expropriate the banks, big businesses and major landlords. The wealth and resources accumulated by the super-rich—as well as the billions of dollars wasted on military spending—must be redirected to guarantee high-quality housing for all and to put an end to poverty and inequality.
17. New evidence of the possible coexistence of two separate early human species
The analysis of dental remains from Dmanisi in the Republic of Georgia has important implications regarding the balance and connection between biology and culture in human evolution.
18. Maoism offered as a bogus alternative to ‘African Socialism’ and Pan-Africanism—Part 1
Across the African continent, a wave of Gen-Z–led protests has shaken multiple countries, from Kenya, to Nigeria, Madagascar to Tanzania, expressing mounting anger at mass youth unemployment, poverty wages, corruption and police state rule.
Millions are being thrust into struggle against regimes descending from Pan-Africanist leaders and national liberation movements which promised that the carving up of states on inherited colonial borders and based on capitalism would open a new historical era. Independence, it was claimed, would translate into social equality, universal education, comprehensive healthcare and economic development.
Instead, in Tanzania, Mozambique, and Angola, the CCM, FRELIMO, and the MPLA, once synonymous with the struggle against colonial rule, now preside over brutal and corrupt dictatorships imposing International Monetary Fund (IMF) austerity. In South Africa, the African National Congress rules over levels of inequality that surpass those of the white supremacist apartheid era, while in Kenya just 125 individuals control more wealth than the country’s remaining 42 million people combined. Across the continent, civil wars and recurring humanitarian crisis continue, as imperialist powers once again scramble for Africa’s resources, drawing the continent into yet another front of an emerging third world war.
Drawing a balance sheet of post-colonial rule is indispensable. Clarifying which leaderships and programs failed, why they failed, and whose class interests they ultimately served is the starting point for meeting the challenges of the new period of revolutionary struggle. It is this that Revolutionary Movements in Africa: An Untold Story (2024), published by Pluto Press, blocks.
Edited by Ndongo Samba Sylla, Leo Zeilig and Pascal Bianchini, the volume presents an eclectic array of movements from the 1950s to the early 1990s, grouping Stalinists and Maoists aligned with Beijing or Moscow, Third World guerrilla currents, Pan Africanists, feminists, Arab nationalists and various petty bourgeois formations, across Senegal, Mali, Tanzania, South Africa and beyond, into a single, amorphous “left” tradition.
Central to this project is the editors’ sweeping definition of an “orientation to the left” that “implies a position in favour of equality, not only in terms of rights or opportunities for the individual, but also as an organising principle of society, especially at the socio-economic level. It also refers to progressive values opposed to conservative, traditionalist, jingoist conceptions.” As for revolutionary, it means any “radical change in the social order,” from “the idea of taking up arms as a response to the one party state and dictatorship” to the emergence of “radical democratic movements” that appeared revolutionary only “in the broad sense of the expression”.[1]
Such definitions stand in direct opposition to socialism, which is the conscious, revolutionary overthrow of capitalist rule and the transfer of the means of production into the collective, democratic control of the working class. Revolution, as understood by socialists, is inseparable from the abolition of wage labor and the capitalist state, and from the reorganization of society on the basis of meeting social need rather than private profit interests. This transformation requires the independent mobilization and seizure of power by the working class, linking its struggle to the international fight against imperialism, and can be realized only through a revolutionary Marxist party.
This perspective finds its continuity today in Trotskyism, embodied in the program of the Fourth International and carried forward by the International Committee of the Fourth International against all tendencies that subordinate workers to nationalism and capitalism.
19. Workers Struggles: Asia and Australia and the Pacific
Australia:
Bangladesh:
India:
New Zealand:
South Korea:
Sri Lanka:
20. 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.
