Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
1. This week in history: January 12-18
- 25 years ago:
DRC President Laurent Kabila assassinated
50 years ago:
75 years ago:
France inflicts heavy defeat on Vietnamese liberation forces
100 years ago:
2. The Iranian protests, imperialist aggression and the fight for workers’ power
The World Socialist Web Site condemns the escalating tirade of threats of military action against Iran emanating from the White House. American imperialism’s fascist, would-be dictator president is—according to his own words and the New York Times—preparing an imminent military strike on Iran.
This is to be garishly packaged in the most cynical and absurd of all pretexts: that the US is attacking Iran to “defend the Iranian people.”
Just days after Trump ordered a criminal assault on Venezuela that killed at least 80 people, the kidnapping of its president, Nicolás Maduro, and the seizure of the country’s vast oil wealth, he is, according to numerous reports, just days and possibly hours away from initiating war with Iran.
*****
When Trump held a war council with Israeli Prime Minister at the White House on December 29, he and his aides cited Iran’s nuclear program as reason for the US to again attack Iran. Now with unbridled cynicism he is pointing to the Islamic Republic’s mounting suppression of anti-government protests as justification for attacking Iran, casting himself in Hitler-like fashion as a “liberator.”
Mass protests born of mounting economic distress have convulsed Iran since December 28 and in recent days have reportedly spread to all parts of the country.
Iran’s Shia clergy-led bourgeois nationalist regime has increasingly responded with repression. Since last Thursday evening it has shut down internet and cell phone access, made mass arrests and violently suppressed protests.
*****
Because of the Islamic Republic’s repression—itself an indication of the regime’s ever narrowing social base—and the relentless hostility of the Western corporate media to an Iran not directly subservient to imperialism, it is difficult to get a precise picture of the protests in Iran.
But any progressive tendency in Iran would have to immediately repudiate Trump’s “support,” denounce the threat of imminent US military action and call for the immediate lifting of the punitive sanctions that are strangling Iran’s economy.
There are undoubtedly deep social grievances among Iran’s workers and rural toilers. The Islamic Republic is a repressive capitalist regime. It was consolidated through the violent suppression of all left-wing and independent working class organizations, in the aftermath of the 1979 Revolution that overthrew the tyrannical US-imposed monarchical dictatorship of the Shah.
In recent years, beginning with the mass protests that erupted against poverty and social inequality in December 2017, the Iranian working class has emerged as a combative force. Recent months have seen strikes and protests by miners, oil workers, and health and transport sector workers among others.
However, the current wave of protests were not initiated by workers. Rather, as Ayatollah Khamenei himself acknowledged, they started among the bazaari, that is, shopkeepers and merchants drawn from sections of the Iranian bourgeoisie and petty bourgeois that have traditionally been, to use Khamenei’s own words, a pillar of the regime.
While sections of workers and the unemployed have no doubt been swept up into the protests, the working class has not intervened en masse, and even more significantly as an independent force advancing its own demands and employing its own class struggle methods.
To the contrary, everything suggests that the protests are assuming an increasingly pronounced right-wing character, with reactionary, pro-imperialist forces inside Iran, and outside, in the broader region, Washington and the other imperialist capitals seeking to leverage them.
Iran’s workers and toilers must beware. In 2013 the mass opposition to Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, whose government had proven manifestly unable to meet any of the social grievances that had propelled the 2011 Revolution, was exploited by the most powerful sections of the bourgeoisie and the military to bring to power a savage dictatorship under General el-Sisi that continues to rule to this day.
The Western media is now highlighting protesters’ support for the Shah’s son, the “Crown Prince” Reza Pahlavi. Based in the US since 1978, he has called for opponents of the Islamic Republic to “seize control of city centers” and appealed to Trump to make good on his threats to attack Iran.
There is evidence some of the video clips that purport to show protesters voicing support for the return of a pro-US monarchy have been doctored. Be that as it may, there is no reason to discount that sections of the Iranian bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie long for the return of a tyrannical monarchy, serving as a client of Washington, as under the Shah.
Meanwhile, Kurdish nationalists allied with US imperialism and, in some cases openly Israel, are launching armed attacks.
If these forces prevail, they will bring to power a neo-colonial regime. Such a regime would turn over Iran’s oil to the very imperialist powers, led by the US, that for decades have waged an unrelenting campaign of aggression and economic warfare against the Iranian people; allow Iran to be used as a staging ground for Washington’s military-strategic offensive against China and Russia; and ruthlessly exploit and suppress the working class.
*****
Workers in North America and Europe, for their part, must indefatigably oppose the continuing imperialist aggression against Iran—whether in the form of a direct military attack, covert action and the leveraging of the pro-imperialist factions of the bourgeoisie and clerical-political establishment or the continuing campaign of economic warfare.
All are elements in American imperialism’s drive, in concert with its Israeli Zionist attack dog, to establish through war, state terror and regime-change a “new Middle East” under unbridled US hegemony. This predatory objective, like Trump’s attack on Venezuela and seizure of its oil, is inseparable from Washington’s preparations for war with China and other strategic rivals.
It is the task of the Iranian working class to settle accounts with the Islamic Republic; Trump, his ostensible Democratic Party opponents, and their crowned lackey, Reza Pahlavi, want their enslavement.
*****
For decades the Islamic Republic’s political establishment has been bitterly divided between a faction, led by the late former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, his protégé ex-President Hassan Rouhani, and now the current President Masoud Pezeshkian, eager for a rapprochement with Washington and the European imperialist powers; and an opposed faction, led by the so-called Principlists and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, that favor closer ties with China and Russia to strike a harder bargain with imperialism. Khamenei has acted as a Bonapartist ruler, favoring one faction then other, while trying to maneuver between the imperialist and greater powers and Iran’s workers and toilers.
*****
Even after last June’s US-Israeli attack, Tehran redoubled its efforts to reach an accommodation with Trump, only to be spurned at every turn. This fecklessness is rooted in class dynamics: The regime’s greatest fear is the threat from the working class.
To defeat imperialism in the Middle East requires the united mobilization of the working class and oppressed masses—Muslim, Jewish and Christian, Arab, Turkish, Kurdish, Israeli and Iranian—in the fight for social equality and democratic rights for all, against all the capitalist regimes and all the communal and sectarian divides they foster. To say that this cannot be done on the basis of the Islamic Republic regime’s reactionary Islamist appeals and Shia populist ideology is to state the obvious.
3. Trump administration dispatches hundreds more federal thugs to Minneapolis
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Sunday that hundreds of additional armed immigration agents were deploying to the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, in the wake of the murder of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good by an ICE officer last week.
Noem appeared on both CNN and Fox News Sunday morning to defend the killing of Good by Jonathan Ross, a veteran ICE officer, who fired three shots into the victim’s head at point-blank range. She repeated as though by rote the lies spouted by top administration officials even before they knew the identity of Good, a mother of three who was participating with her partner in monitoring the activities of ICE agents in Minneapolis.
Large numbers of federal agents began arriving Sunday, with initial deployments outside ICE facilities in Minneapolis and St. Paul. The dispatch of several hundred more ICE and Border Patrol officers brings the total number of federal agents mobilized across the Twin Cities to well over 2,000, the largest such deployment ever carried out by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Noem made the astonishing claim that Minnesota state and local officials were responsible for inflaming public opinion over the ICE murder, as if the actions of ICE agents had nothing to do with the mass popular revulsion over the summary execution carried out in broad daylight.
*****
One Democrat appearing on Meet the Press, Senator Chris Murphy was asked directly about impeaching Trump. Kristen Welker pointed out that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi—who pushed through Trump’s impeachment over withholding arms shipments to Ukraine—said in December that Trump had not yet crossed the line justifying impeachment in his second term.
Murphy replied cynically, “Well, as you know, I would be a juror in an impeachment trial. So I don’t generally give advice to the House on whether or not they should impeach. But listen, I have common sense. And so I know that this president has committed 10 times more impeachable offenses in his second term as he did in his first term.”
Notably, Murphy did not suggest that Trump should be impeached for illegal actions or defiance of the Constitution, or his mobilization of troops and federal agents to invade American cities, let alone acts of mass murder like the air strikes against Venezuela, Yemen or Iran.
Instead, he continued, “He is stealing from the American people. The amount of corruption that he is involved in, taking a luxury private jet from Qatar, trading national security secrets to a foreign nation in exchange for a $2 billion investment in his cryptocurrency. That is wildly corrupt.”
This is a transparent evasion. The Democrats do not call for Trump’s impeachment, nor do they plan to campaign for it in the 2026 elections, because they want to dampen down the growing popular hostility to this government. They fear that it will develop into an explosive political confrontation that would threaten the foundations of the capitalist system as a whole.
4. United States: Nationwide protests erupt following federal immigration murder of Nicole Good
Mass anger over the killing of Minneapolis mother and wife Renee Nicole Good by immigration agent and Iraq war veteran Jonathan Ross erupted across the United States over the weekend. More than 1,000 protests were held nationwide to demand justice for Good and the abolition of the immigration Gestapo.
In response to nationwide outrage over Good’s murder, the Trump administration has promised to surge more unaccountable federal agents under the command of the aspiring dictator into the city. Rejecting the lies of Trump administration officials who have uniformly supported Ross’s actions and threatened further bloodshed, workers, retirees and youth peacefully marched this weekend in remembrance, but also with purpose.
*****
While the protests were nominally organized by the Democratic Party-aligned 50501 movement, they were not promoted by the party or by the mainstream capitalist press. The front page of the Washington Post on Sunday evening referred only to a protest of “hundreds” against ICE in the city. As of Sunday evening, the only reference to “protests” on the front page of the New York Times referred to Iran. This omission is even more glaring given that one of the largest protests over the weekend was held in New York City.
While protests have been ongoing in the city, tens of thousands marched in the January cold on Sunday to demand an end to federal immigration kidnapping and killing operations. One New York protester interviewed by a World Socialist Web Site reporter about whether a dictatorship is being established in the United States replied, “100 percent.”
*****
Members of the Socialist Equality Party intervened at protests across the country where they advanced demands that include:
• The immediate arrest and prosecution of all those responsible for the murder of Renee Nicole Good
• The withdrawal of all ICE, CBP and DHS forces from Minneapolis and every other city
• The abolition of these Gestapo agencies that terrorize immigrant communities
• The immediate release of all detainees held in ICE custody and an end to all raids, renditions and deportations
• Full legal rights and protections for all immigrant workers and their familiesThese demands cannot be met through the current political setup. Democratic leadership, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senator Chuck Schumer, have already indicated they would not support using an upcoming government funding vote to block funding for ICE. Migrant Insider reported last week that Senate negotiators are “actively pursuing a plan to increase funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by around 10 percent.”
In opposition to the Democrats’ complicity, the Socialist Equality Party is calling for the systematic development of working class rank-and-file defense committees in every neighborhood, workplace and school. These organizations will fight to unite the working class across artificial boundaries and professions in a common struggle against the immigration Gestapo and the capitalist system they defend.
5. 15,000 New York City nurses strike for safe staffing
A strike of nearly 15,000 nurses began on Monday morning at four hospitals in New York City. The walkout is the biggest nurses’ strike in the city’s history.
The private nonprofit hospitals involved are Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai Morningside and West, Montefiore Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. The nurses’ main demands are safe staffing, fully funded health benefits, protections against workplace violence, and raises. The nurses voted by 97 percent to strike when their contracts expired on December 31.
The four hospitals were among 12 private nonprofit hospitals in New York City where contracts with 20,000 nurses expired on December 31. Contracts for more than 1,000 nurses at three Northwell Health hospitals in Long Island, New York, expired on the same day. These circumstances created the conditions for a massive strike that would have shaken hospital administrators and inspired healthcare workers nationwide, if not internationally.
The conditions are favorable for a mass movement in defense of the social rights of the working class, including the right to high quality healthcare. The strike has large support among the workers of New York City and the country, who are seething against the subordination of every aspect of life to profit by the corporate oligarchy.
But the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) is working overtime to sabotage the struggle and impose pro-management agreements, as it did last time in 2023. It already has withdrawn strike notices at 11 other hospitals without even having achieved tentative agreements.
The nurses must act immediately, independently of the union bureaucrats, to take control of the strike, expand it to all 15 hospitals with expired contracts and use it to fight for quality public healthcare across the city and the country. This means forming a rank-and-file strike committee, composed of nurses, and excluding union officials, to impose democratic oversight of the strike and future contract talks and countermand decisions by union officials which violate the membership’s will. A committee would provide the means through which workers can discuss strategy and agree on “red lines,” beyond which they will not obey any back-to-work order.
*****
Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Socialists of America member, whose election was motivated by deep opposition to inequality among the city’s population, maintained a conspicuous silence in the leadup to the strike, although he paid a visit to the picket lines Monday morning for a photo op. NYSNA endorsed Mamdani after he won the Democratic primary last summer, fanning illusions that he would respond to nurses’ and patients’ needs. Since his primary victory he has spent months courting Wall Street and even traveling to the White House for a friendly visit with Trump.
*****
NYSNA did everything in its power to ensure that such a strike would not happen. Despite overwhelming votes in favor of a strike, the union did not issue the required 10-day strike notices until two days after the contract had expired. Having bought time, it set about negotiating behind closed doors with individual hospitals instead of uniting its members in a fight against them.
*****
Nurses at Mount Sinai Hospital told reporters from the World Socialist Web Site that they were upset that NYSNA had been withdrawing strike notices without having secured tentative agreements and without consulting workers about it in advance. They acknowledged that the union was using a divide-and-conquer strategy against them as it had done in 2023. Nurses learned through bitter experience that those contracts were not the victories for safe staffing that the union claimed they were.
That year, NYSNA bureaucrats refused to unite nurses in struggle against the same 12 New York City hospitals. Instead, it reached agreements at individual hospitals and called off the strike facility by facility. Although the union could not prevent strikes at Mount Sinai Hospital and Montefiore Medical Center, it shut them down after only three days.
6. Mamdani withholds criticism of Trump, slanders anti-genocide protesters
In the first 10 days of his tenure as mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, a Democrat and member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), has, in the face of outrageous crimes by the Trump administration, curtailed his criticism of the fascist president and would-be dictator, slandered pro-Palestinian protesters and further strengthened the authority of the New York Police Department (NYPD). Far from opposing the political establishment, Mamdani is working to deepen his integration into the Democratic Party and the capitalist oligarchy it serves.
After an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in her car in Minneapolis on January 7, Mamdani correctly used the term “murder” to describe the killing. He also added, “As ICE attacks our neighbors across America, it is an attack on us all.”
But what is most significant is what Mamdani did not say: that at the heart of the killing is a brutal and deadly campaign by the Trump administration to establish a dictatorship, one that targets not only immigrant workers, but the democratic rights of all, including native-born citizens.
*****
Mamdani also joined the ruling-class campaign against pro-Palestinian protesters after demonstrators chanted slogans in support of the Islamist organization Hamas at a rally on Thursday in Queens. Rather than defending their right to free speech, Mamdani initially declared that the chants were “wrong and have no place in our city.”
But Mamdani’s statement was too mild and too late for several Democratic politicians and Zionist commentators. They contrasted it unfavorably with the immediate denunciations issued by Governor Kathy Hochul, who responded to footage of the chants by declaring, “Hamas is a terrorist organization that calls for the genocide of Jews… this type of rhetoric is disgusting, it’s dangerous.” Similar statements came from Mamdani’s allies, including Attorney General Letitia James, former Comptroller Brad Lander and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
By Friday evening Mamdani obliged and told the media, “As I said earlier today, chants in support of a terrorist organization have no place in our city. We will continue to ensure New Yorkers’ safety by entering and exiting houses of worship as well as the constitutional right to protest.”
In his statements about the protest, Mamdani said nothing about the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
*****
Mamdani’s talk of a “constitutional right to protest” is belied by his first executive actions. On January 1, he rescinded former Mayor Adams’s directive limiting protests near “houses of worship,” issued after a 2025 demonstration at a Manhattan synagogue that was holding a seminar for an organization that promotes Zionist settlements on the West Bank. Yet Mamdani’s own second executive order reinstated similar restrictions, aimed at keeping pro-Palestinian protesters away from the very types of events he condemned last week.
7. Border Patrol agent shoots two people in Portland amid rising protests
Two people were shot and seriously injured by Customs and Border Protection agents in Portland, Oregon, this past Thursday.
The victims have been identified as 33-year-old Luis David Nino-Moncada and 32-year-old Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras, both Venezuelan nationals. Four days after the shooting, the circumstances surrounding the attack remain unclear.
The couple appears to have been shot outside the Adventist Health Clinic at approximately 2:18 p.m. About six minutes later, police received a report that a man had been shot near Northeast 146th Avenue and East Burnside, roughly eight miles from the clinic.
The attempted murders occurred one day after Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was gunned down by immigration agent and Iraq war veteran Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
As was the case following the murder of Good, the Trump administration immediately flooded social media with lies and racist xenophobia to justify the attempted killing.
*****
DHS further claimed that after immigration agents “identified themselves to the vehicle occupants, the driver weaponized his vehicle and attempted to run over the law enforcement agents.”
The statement concluded, “Fearing for his life and safety, an agent fired a defensive shot. The driver drove off with the passenger, fleeing the scene.”
No body-camera footage has been released to corroborate any of these claims by DHS or local police. With no direct visual evidence and the dubious circumstances under which the shooting occurred, establishing the factual sequence of events must be taken up by community members and workers.
What is known is that after the shooting, it was the alleged “gang members” who called police, not the federal agents.
When Portland police arrived at the scene, they found Nino-Moncada with a gunshot wound to the arm and Zambrano-Contreras with a gunshot wound to the chest. The pair were transported to separate hospitals. A staff member at Legacy Emanuel Hospital, who requested anonymity, told Oregon Public Radio that FBI agents were present at the hospital following the shooting.
It is not surprising that immigration Gestapo feel empowered to shoot and kill workers and residents, regardless of immigration status. The shooting in Portland took place mere hours after Vice President JD Vance made a televised appearance slandering Good as a “brainwashed” “leftist” engaged in “terrorism.”
*****
There is no question that the Trump administration’s explicit endorsement of extrajudicial killing emboldened federal agents in Portland to act as judge, jury and executioner.
Every day since the shooting there have been protests in Portland calling for immigration Gestapo to leave the city as well as Minneapolis, and for the immigration agencies to be abolished.
In response, Democratic Party officials have called for calm and complacency. Oregon Governor Tina Kotek, local officials and religious leaders held a press conference after the shooting. Speakers repeatedly called for “calm” while laughing and joking among themselves as the microphone was passed around.
These appeals mirrored those of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz following the murder of Good. Walz has since issued an executive order authorizing the deployment of the Minnesota National Guard.
Portland officials urged outraged workers and families to “not give the Trump administration an excuse.” Federal agents are already conducting mass raids and executing people in the streets. They require no excuse.
*****
In response to protests against federal immigration violence, Portland police have deployed in force. Dozens have been assaulted and at least 6 people have been arrested as of this writing.
*****
In the face of nationwide protests held this weekend calling for justice for Renee Good and all victims of immigration police brutality, Democrats have already confirmed they will do nothing to halt wanton state violence against workers and residents.
Appearing on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday morning, Senator Mark Warner (Democrat-Virginia), vice charman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, confirmed he opposed using an upcoming government funding deadline at the end of the month as a leverage point to defund or otherwise constrain the immigration Gestapo.
“Listen, I think we went through the longest government shutdown in American history last year. I don’t think we need to repeat it,” said Warner.
The simple fact is that the Democrats defend the nation-state and the capitalist system and are organically incapable of opposing the police state.
*****
The defense of democratic rights, including the right of workers to live and labor wherever they choose, requires a break from the Democratic Party and a turn to the working class. Independent rank-and-file committees must be built in every workplace, school and neighborhood. They must link their struggles internationally to bring the power of the global working class to bear against the transnational capitalist oligarchy and put an end to imperialist war abroad and police-state murder at home.
This year will see contract expirations for roughly 4,000 workers at auto parts supplier Dana Inc. plants in multiple US states, along with thousands of other auto parts workers, amid a continuing wave of layoffs and cost-cutting across the global auto industry.
Other major contract battles include 2,500 workers at Nexteer in Saginaw, Michigan and 1,200 at Bridgewater Interiors plants in Lansing, Michigan and the Detroit metropolitan area. Another 1,000 workers at five American Axle plants in Michigan, as well as 900 Magna seating workers in Highland Park, Michigan, also face contract deadlines.
Workers are determined to overcome poverty wages and brutal working conditions. Since the 1980s, the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the United Steelworkers (USW) have systematically sold out strikes and suppressed auto parts workers’ wages to boost the international position and profits of the Detroit Three automakers.
*****
Even as attacks on workers intensify, Dana continues to reap profits. Its stock price jumped to $26.69 following the sale of Dana’s off-highway powertrain plants to Allison Transmission for $2.7 billion, a deal that included the Lafayette, Indiana, facility. Dana’s most recent public filing, released in October, reported $162 million in earnings before interest and taxes. Dana CEO Bruce McDonald receives more than $1.3 million annually in compensation, in addition to company stock with a potential value exceeding $9 million.
Behind these figures lies a deepening crisis engulfing the global auto parts industry. As the World Socialist Web Site has warned, the sector faces the prospect of a wave of bankruptcies driven by relentless cost-cutting pressure from the major automakers. Confronted with falling sales, tariffs, rising borrowing costs and intensifying competition, the automakers are seeking to offload the enormous expenses of EV transition and automation onto their suppliers. This has produced a brutal squeeze on margins throughout the supply chain, particularly among highly leveraged Tier 2, Tier 3 and Tier 4 suppliers.
*****
Dana and other parts workers must draw the necessary conclusions: The defense of wages, jobs and lives cannot be entrusted to the UAW and USW bureaucracies. The struggle must be taken into workers’ own hands through independent rank-and-file committees. Because of their central position in interconnected supply chains, Dana and other auto parts workers wield immense collective power. Realizing this power requires the independent initiative of the rank and file.
9. Sarah Friedland’s Familiar Touch: A character study of a woman with dementia
The central character in Sarah Friedland’s Familiar Touch is Ruth, a dignified and well-educated woman in her 80s. Faced with advancing dementia, she must navigate strange new surroundings as she moves from her comfortable and beloved home into the memory care unit of an assisted living retirement community. The subject is treated in a humane and thoughtful fashion.
*****
The acting in Familiar Touch is uniformly good. Carolyn Michelle Smith is effective as the aide who must walk a fine line between watching over Ruth but also befriending and reassuring her. H. Jon Benjamin has the task of conveying the sadness and anxiety of Ruth’s son, amid the painful realization that she no longer knows who he is.
Kathleen Chalfant stands out, as she must, considering the theme of the movie. Now 81 years old, she is known for decades of work in film, television and especially theater.
*****
Familiar Touch is the debut feature of 34-year-old Sarah Friedland, who is also a choreographer and has already made several short films on dance subjects. Friedland received some attention in 2024 when the present film won several prizes, including Best Debut Feature and Best Director for Friedland, at one section of the Venice International Film Festival. When she accepted the prize for Best Debut, Friedland said:
As a Jewish American artist working in a time-based medium, I must note, I’m accepting this award on the 336th day of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and 76th year of occupation. I believe it is our responsibility as film workers to use the institutional platforms through which we work to redress Israel’s impunity on the global stage. I stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine and their struggle for liberation.
Friedland is also, along with Chalfant, one of the thousands of signatories of the pledge launched four months ago by filmmakers and cinema workers to boycott Israeli film institutions “implicated in genocide.”
Given these powerful stands, it is perhaps not surprising that Friedland, who also wrote the script for Familiar Touch, has, with the important acting contribution of Chalfant, made a film noteworthy for its empathy and social awareness.
*****
... It would be wrong for viewers of this film to conclude that all or even most of those with Alzheimer’s and other dementias retain as much of their personality as does Ruth. To recognize dementia as an illness, usually with tragic dimensions, does not of course mean that those afflicted should not be treated with the utmost dignity and without any condescension.
Related to this issue is Ruth’s upper-middle class background. Without her resources, residence at such an upscale community as Villa Gardens would be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. Familiar Touch is the most recent in a series of films on this subject that are confined to the middle classes. Clearly, the filmmakers are drawn to the topic but are also staying close to their own milieu. This doesn’t invalidate what Familiar Touch has to say, but there are other issues that continue to be ignored, above all the warehousing of working class patients with dementia in nursing homes where they usually get minimal attention.
These issues or caveats notwithstanding, Familiar Touch is an empathetic look at the problems of aging, and of living with dementia in particular. The film is well worth viewing.
10. Germany: Mass factory closures in Hesse require an international, socialist response
With the end of 2025, production ended at the long standing Buderus steelworks in Wetzlar in the German state of Hesse. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Several plants northern Hesse are in the process of being shut down, including Goodyear in Fulda and the Continental sites in Wetzlar and Schwalbach/Taunus. As a result several thousand jobs are being lost in the region.
The mass job cuts, caused by a growing crisis of the global capitalist system, require a political perspective in order to defend every job and place key industries in the hands of the working population. The current wave of plant closures is not just a case of ‘regrettable isolated cases,’ but rather an expression of a systematic restructuring by big business in the interests of profit. Without regard for social impact, unprofitable plants are being shut down and thousands of jobs destroyed.
*****
IG Metall has helped organize the shutdowns tab at every stage. It has gone along with all of the management demands, including Mutares’ withdrawal of Buderus from the industry-wide collective bargaining agreement (such agreements are the norm in Germany). For a long time, IG Metall pinned its hopes on subsidies from the federal government to save the site.
*****
The justifications put forward for the closures, which the trade union bureaucrats accept, are the same everywhere: low-wage competition, rising energy prices, Trump’s tariffs, etc. This obscures the deeper reasons: the brutal capitalist logic of maximizing profits and the fact that the gap between rich and poor is constantly widening because a super-rich elite is clinging to its own privileges. This class of shareholders, board members and their clientele, most of whom in western Germany are based in the nearby Frankfurt banking district and the affluent Taunus area, will stop at nothing to get what they want.
For the working population, this means factory closures, layoffs, precarious employment, casual work, falling real wages and child poverty.
11. Jobs cull in UK retail industry set to continue in 2026
In the first days of this year, high street retailer Claire’s—a favorite for children aged 8-12 for its bright accessories—and the Original Factory Shop—a discount department store chain established in 1969—announced they were going into administration, threatening 2,500 jobs. Modella Capital, which owns both, blamed low Christmas sales, “government fiscal policies... and inflation,” with stiff competition from Chinese online retailers among others.
Modella only recently took over Claire’s remaining 154 stores in September, after it previously went into bankruptcy with the loss of 145 stores and 1,000 jobs. It bought out the Original Factory Shop earlier last year and now its 140 stores are at risk.
Modella is a predatory investment firm, scouring the industry for buyouts. Last year, it took ownership of high street stationery chain WHSmith’s and arts and crafts Hobbycraft stores.
*****
So many jobs have gone in the industry that Helen Dickinson, Chief Executive at the British Retail Consortium, said in December: “The number of retail jobs is now at a record low, and more have been lost in the last year than are employed in the fishing and steel manufacturing industries combined.”
There were just over 2.8 million jobs in retail in September 2025, 74,000 fewer than the previous year.
This followed a dismal 2024 which saw the closure of major high street names including Lloyds Pharmacy, Carpetright, Homebase, The Bodyshop and Ted Baker. The redundancy fallout totaled 172,485 job losses as 13,639 stores shuttered, meaning almost 400,000 jobs have gone in the sector in just two years.
Many of the store closures are in the retail fashion sector. Between 2024 and 2025, Zara closed over 100 stores across the globe including its Swansea and Old Trafford locations in England, to concentrate on online sales. The rise of online shopping has had a devastating impact on the high street, which has the added costs of rental, in-store staff and, at the higher end, maintenance of glitzy interiors.
*****
Food chains are also affected. Leon will close 20 of its restaurants in the new year. Ubiquitous coffee shop chain Starbucks began a jobs cull with the closure of 10 cafes in October. The same month, Pizza Hut announced 68 of its restaurants would shutter plus 11 delivery sites—1,210 redundancy threats.
The assault on jobs in the retail industry is just one piece of a broader unemployment crisis. In its new year outlook report, the Resolution Foundation (RF) think tank warned that job losses are set to rise across different sectors this year due to interest rates at 3.75 percent, rising energy prices and a pitiful increase in the minimum wage (to £12.71 an hour for over 21s). Overall unemployment reached 5.1 percent in October.
Rising unemployment in Britain is part of a global restructuring by corporations, using AI and new technologies to cut labor costs and drive-up profits.
On December 5, 55,000 students in more than 90 cities across Germany went on strike against the reintroduction of conscription. The strike day was a powerful statement against militarism and war, and it shows that young people are not willing to sacrifice themselves for the interests of the wealthy. At the same time, the central question remains unanswered: How can this struggle be won, and what kind of perspective does it need?
Tamino Dreisam, national spokesperson for the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE), addressed these questions in the introductory presentation of the online discussion "How to proceed with the school strike against conscription?" on Thursday, January 8. A lively discussion followed.
13. Al-Qaeda-rooted HTS regime escalates its oppression of the Alawite minority in Syria
Following the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024 in an imperialist-backed regime change war, the Damascus government led by Al-Qaeda-rooted Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has escalated its crackdown on the Alawites, estimated to make up 10 percent of the population.
HTS, which has the support of Türkiye and the Gulf states, is simultaneously moving towards a security agreement with Israel under US auspices. The Islamist regime of former Al-Qaeda leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, who was hosted in Ankara last year and later at the White House, is completely incapable of resolving fundamental democratic and social issues and resorts to violent repression to consolidate its power.
At the same time, the bourgeois leaderships of various minorities are trying to secure a place within the new Syria through demands for autonomy. Druze forces, concentrated in the south, have significant support from Israel.
Kurdish forces in the north and east (Syrian Democratic Forces, SDF) rely on the military and political power they have gained as the main proxy of the US in the country. HTS is simultaneously conducting “integration” talks with the SDF and carrying out military operations against its forces.
The Arab Alawite population, concentrated along the country’s western coastline and in major cities, finds itself defenseless against the new regime’s naked violence. Integrated into the state during the Assad regime, they did not develop their own autonomous armed forces during the civil war. Now they face murders, bomb attacks, arbitrary arrests, and forced displacement.
*****
After the fall of the Assad regime, Alawites, branded the “social base of the old regime”, became the target of systematic attacks backed by the regime. Attacks by the new regime’s security apparatus and sectarian militias became intertwined.
In March 2025, large-scale massacres were carried out against Alawites in the provinces of Latakia, Tartus, and Hama. According to an extensive investigation by Reuters, approximately 1,500 Alawite civilians were killed in over 40 settlements in just a few days. A significant portion of the killings took place when armed groups entered villages and neighborhoods, going door to door, questioning people about their identity and sect, and then executing them. Women, children, and the elderly were not spared.
Reports published by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights revealed that these murders were targeted. According to witness statements, the attackers killed civilians after asking them, “Are you Alawite?” Homes were looted, vehicles were set on fire, and villages emptied. Amnesty International and United Nations agencies have explicitly defined these actions as “war crimes.”
*****
Following the mass killings in coastal areas in March 2025, investigative commissions were established. Despite hundreds of witness statements and detailed documentation from international human rights organizations, they systematically ignored the role of security forces and did not touch high-level political and military officials. The policy of impunity not only covered up past crimes but also served as an open encouragement for new attacks.
Responsibility for the persecution of Alawites in Syria also lies with US-NATO imperialism and its regional allies, including Türkiye, which have supported Al-Qaeda-linked militias since 2011 and brought them to power in 2024. Seeking to establish complete hegemony in the Middle East and eliminate the influence of Iran, Russia, and China, the US has carried out numerous military interventions in the region since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, encouraging sectarianism and provoking civil wars.
The genocide launched in Gaza in October 2023, the war waged against Hezbollah in Lebanon, regime change in Syria, the bombing of Yemen, and the imperialist-Zionist attack on Iran last June are part of the US drive to establish a “new Middle East” together with Israel. The HTS regime’s attack on the Alawites and the competition for power and influence in Syria, which has brought the regime to the brink of all-out war with the SDF, are a consequence of this broader imperialist war.
14. Sri Lankan government cynically evades US criminal assault on Venezuela
The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna/National People’s Power (JVP/NPP) government in Sri Lanka and the JVP as a party issued two separate statements on US imperialism’s invasion of Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. These two statements expose the hypocrisy and subservience of the JVP and the government it leads to US imperialism.
After weeks of mobilizing a massive armada, destroying boats and imposing an oil blockade, the US launched military strikes on defense installations in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, on January 3 and kidnapped President Maduro and his wife on bogus allegations of drug trafficking. This military aggression, which nakedly violates international law and Venezuela’s sovereignty, is openly aimed at seizing control of the country’s oil resources and reimposing colonial domination over Venezuela, Latin America and beyond.
The JVP formed in 1966 on the basis of Maoism, Castroism and Sinhala populism to wage the “armed struggle” has all but abandoned its claims to be Marxist as it integrated itself into the Colombo political establishment in the 1990s.
Before coming to power in 2024, the JVP hailed the government of Hugo Chávez—Maduro’s predecessor—and later defended the Maduro government itself against US oil embargoes and geopolitical threats.
The JVP political bureau did issue a limited statement on January 3 stating that the party “strongly condemns the United States of America’s military aggression against the independent and sovereign state of Venezuela” and the abduction of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife.
It continued, “no powerful country has the right to violate this [sovereignty] principle” and that “modern society and governance should be more civilized... Democracy, human rights, sovereignty and freedom of states are universally accepted principles.” Therefore, military aggression violating “these principles cannot be justified… under any circumstances.”
The statement, aimed at appeasing the widespread hostility to the blatant US act of aggression including in the JVP’s own social base, was a pro forma declaration that did not refer to the Trump administration and its predatory economic motives, or its wider threats against other governments in Latin America or elsewhere.
The following day, however, a cowardly and grovelling official government statement from the Ministry of External Affairs did not even include a token condemnation of the US actions.
Its four short paragraphs simply state that it is “deeply concerned about the recent developments in Venezuela,” without saying what these “developments” were. It does not name the US or the Trump administration or even refer to the kidnapping of Maduro and his wife.
The statement simply declares “the need to respect principles of international law and the UN Charter,” but without saying who had breached international law. It concludes with, “it is important that the United Nations and its organs such as the UN Security Council be seized of the matter and work towards a peaceful resolution.”
The appeal to the UN is meaningless. The fascist Trump administration has repeatedly insisted that it does not care about international law, UN rules or charters. It has not only threatened Latin American governments and Iran but warned that it will seize Greenland from its NATO ally Denmark by military means if necessary.
*****
The government’s refusal to reference, let alone condemn, the criminal actions of the Trump administration is not just an act of utter cowardice. The JVP came to power with the backing of important sections of the Sri Lankan ruling class to implement the IMF’s savage austerity agenda.
*****
The government has fully embraced the IMF program, committing itself to deeper austerity, fiscal consolidation, and so-called “structural reforms” demanded by global lenders, enforcing these attacks directly against workers and the poor.
Above all, the President Anura Kumara Dissanayake regime knows full well that Washington’s global hegemonic plans are directed primarily against China. Its onslaught on Venezuela is part of these global military plans.
The Dissanayake government has maintained and expanded cooperation with the US through defence dialogues, intelligence sharing and participation in US-led Indo-Pacific security frameworks, while pretending to maintain a “non-aligned” stance.
Its response to US aggression against Venezuela is similar to its evasive attitude to the US-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza. Even as tens of thousands of Palestinians were slaughtered and entire cities reduced to rubble, Colombo limited itself to abstract calls for ceasefires and humanitarian access, avoiding any reference to Israel or its chief sponsor, the US. The statements treated the aggressor and the victim as moral equals, reducing genocide to a “conflict” requiring restraint on “all sides.”
A similar statement was issued by the Colombo government following the US military strikes on Iran in mid-2025. Again, the JVP/NPP government expressed “concern” and urged de-escalation while refusing to identify Washington as the aggressor.
15. New Zealand government refuses to condemn Trump’s Venezuela intervention
The day after the US Trump administration’s military invasion of Venezuela and abduction of its President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters issued an evasive statement that tacitly supported the illegal takeover.
Peters briefly posted on X on January 4 that New Zealand was “concerned by and actively monitoring developments in Venezuela and expects all parties to act in accordance with international law.” In a thinly veiled endorsement of right-wing opponents of Maduro, Peters added that New Zealand “stands with the Venezuelan people in their pursuit of a fair, democratic and prosperous future.”
This was said after the US military had bombed Venezuela, killing about 100 people as part of its kidnapping operation. Peters did not explain how such actions are consistent with “international law” and “democracy.”
Approached by NZ media for a “higher level” comment, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s office simply referred journalists back to Peters’ tweet. Amid the blanket silence in Wellington, the international situation rapidly escalated with Trump declaring the US would “run” Venezuela and seize its oil.
Peters’ statement echoed that of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who similarly refused to condemn Washington. Albanese said his government was “monitoring developments.” He called on “all relevant parties” to support “dialogue and diplomacy,” and backed “international law and a peaceful, democratic transition” in Venezuela that reflected the “will of the people.”
This is said even as the fascists in Washington are abandoning any pretense of adhering to “international law,” dialogue and diplomacy. Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller dismissed “international niceties” and declared the Hitlerian “iron law”—that might makes right—now applied not just to former colonies but even the territories of European powers.
As Trump renewed his threats to annex Greenland, a territory of Denmark and a NATO ally of the US, throwing the European Union into crisis, the NZ government remained silent—despite New Zealand having close military-strategic ties with NATO.
*****
Trump’s actions have created a crisis for governments internationally: they cannot pretend to be supporting “democracy” in Taiwan or Ukraine if they openly endorse the blatant criminality of US imperialism in Venezuela. Meanwhile US allies refuse to denounce Washington for fear of the negative ramifications for their long-standing strategic and commercial partnerships, particularly following Trump’s use of retaliatory tariffs.
At the same time, there is palpable nervousness among the ruling elites in New Zealand about widespread anti-war sentiments in the population, as seen in ongoing protests against the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Sections of big business are also concerned about repercussions for New Zealand’s relationship with China, NZ’s biggest trading partner.
*****
Labour and the Greens are positioning themselves to head off and derail emerging popular opposition. Moralizing about Maduro’s legitimacy and so-called “crimes” is already repeated by pseudo-left groups. At a rally in Wellington on Friday, Valerie Morse from Peace Action Wellington told Radio NZ the government’s response had been “pathetic,” but emphasised: “We are not in favor of a violent dictatorship, and that’s what Maduro’s regime was. There’s nobody here supporting Maduro.”
Some corporate media commentators, while nominally opposing the actions of the Trump administration, continue to denounce China, the main target of the relentless US-led warmongering.
Robert Patman from Otago University told Stuff that the New Zealand government had run a “softly softly” approach with the Trump administration, which had proven to be unsuccessful. The problem, he declared, “is that it could embolden China to step up its efforts to forcibly reunify, or unify, Taiwan with China.” This turns reality on its head. Trump’s Western Hemisphere takeover strategy is to further advance US preparations for war against China over Taiwan—an agenda that the likes of Patman do not oppose.
The positioning of all factions of the ruling establishment highlights their complicity with imperialist aggression. The plunge into world war and fascist barbarism cannot be countered by making moral appeals to the imperialist governments or parties, or to the UN. Such appeals—put forward repeatedly by the middle class organizations that have led the Gaza protests—have proven to be completely futile.
The only way forward is the mobilization of the international working class, in opposition to all the capitalist parties and their pseudo-left backers, based on a socialist program to put an end to imperialist war by abolishing the capitalist system which is the source of war.
16. US attack on Venezuela exposes Japan’s remilitarization agenda
The criminal attack on Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president, Nicolás Maduro, by US imperialism at the beginning of the new year has thoroughly exposed all the phony claims that Washington defends “international law.” In doing so, this attack has also undermined the fraudulent rationale for war preparations and remilitarization in Japan.
For the past decade and a half, Tokyo has drastically ramped up its remilitarization alongside Washington, claiming that the two were standing up for the “rule of law” in the Indo-Pacific region. The Japanese political establishment falsely claimed that Tokyo needed to rearm in order to “defend” allies, above all against so-called Chinese “aggression.”
Tokyo is reliant on its alliance with Washington and this phony “defense” narrative to justify its militarist agenda and to circumvent the Japanese constitution which, in Article 9, explicitly bars Japan from maintaining a military or waging war overseas.
At her first press conference of the year on January 5, far-right-wing Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi backed the attack on Venezuela by avoiding any clear public assessment of Washington’s actions.
She declared, “While cooperating closely with the relevant nations, we will proceed with diplomatic efforts to stabilize the situation and restore democracy to Venezuela.” This echoed remarks she made the previous day on social media, in which Takaichi also claimed that “Our country has traditionally respected fundamental values and principles such as freedom, democracy, and the rule of law.”
Tokyo’s position therefore is that working with Washington will result in “democracy” in Venezuela and that US imperialism can be relied upon to uphold the “rule of law.” At the same time, the Takaichi government’s response shows the nervousness within the political establishment and sections of the financial and industrial ruling class that Washington’s actions cut across Japan’s own imperialist interests and exposes the true nature of its remilitarization agenda.
*****
Washington has declared that it will “run” Venezuela with the attack aimed at securing access to the latter’s vast oil supply while, in the words of US officials, forcing Caracas to “kick out China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba and sever economic ties.” Trump has also proposed attacking other nations and territories, again threatening on Friday to seize Greenland “whether they like it or not.”
Tokyo does not stand for the “rule of law” any more than Washington, but regurgitates this phrase to cover up its true agenda: the reemergence of Japanese imperialism as a military power, able to project its strength throughout the Indo-Pacific region in an attempt to offset the crisis of capitalism that it faces.
Japanese imperialism is working to secure supply chains to meet its industrial needs as well as export markets overseas. Like other imperialist powers, it also hopes to exploit the Chinese working class as an even cheaper labor platform than that currently offered by the Stalinist bureaucracy in Beijing.
To carry out this agenda and to confuse anti-war sentiment, which is widespread in Japan, Tokyo regularly accuses China of trying to change the “status quo” in the region through force. Yet the actions of the Trump regime are precisely those that Tokyo attributes to Beijing in regard to Taiwan and disputed territories in the East and South China Seas.
*****
Since Trump took office a year ago, tensions between the US and Japan have grown, particularly over trade and the tariffs Washington imposed on Japanese exports to the US. Sections of the ruling elite are chafing at the economic demands placed on Japanese big business. As former senior trade official Masahiko Hosokawa stated last September, “It’s a mistake to think that America will just ask for something and Japan will just give it. Japan did not become America’s ATM.”
The comments by officials like Onodera therefore reflect the potential for conflict between the two imperialist powers.
At the same time, Tokyo is no doubt concerned what effect the attack on Venezuela will have in Japan. Successive governments have used the so-called “China threat” or “North Korea threat” to paint imperialist Japan as a victim to justify the increasing militarization of the region in line with the US and other allies like South Korea, spending trillions of yen for war even as prices for the working class increase while wages remain stagnant or falling.
In 2014, the government of Shinzo Abe, Takaichi’s political mentor, pushed through a so-called “reinterpretation” of the constitution to allow Japan to participate in collective self defense; that is, to wage war overseas so long as it is done in conjunction with an ally. This was codified through military legislation the following year, rammed through parliament in the face of massive public opposition and protests.
*****
In addition, alongside Washington, Tokyo has steadily challenged the One China policy over Taiwan, including by regularly exchanging high level delegations with Taipei, and provocatively dispatching Maritime Self Defense Force (Japan’s navy) vessels through the Taiwan Strait in the name of “freedom of navigation,” which Japan did for the first time in September 2024.
*****
he attack on Venezuela is not some aberration or sudden departure from previous foreign policy for US imperialism. It is the continuation and escalation of a decades-long record of wars of aggression, from Iraq and Afghanistan to Libya and Syria. The Biden administration’s full throated support for Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza and the US-instigated war against Russia in Ukraine demonstrate the real barbaric nature of the US agenda. All of these wars have been backed by Tokyo in the vicious pursuit of its own imperialist agenda.
17. Free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk!
Bogdan Syrotiuk and Leon Trotsky
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.
