Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
US President Donald Trump’s January 3 invasion of Venezuela and abduction of President Nicolás Maduro have drastically intensified the economic and geostrategic crisis facing Canadian imperialism. Washington’s illegal act of imperialist barbarism, aimed at asserting its unchallenged dominance over Latin America as part of banishing all potential “strategic competitors” from the Western hemisphere and controlling its natural resources, governments and trade routes, underlined just how serious Trump is with his declared intention to make Canada America’s “51st state” and seize Greenland.
For over a year, the Canadian bourgeoisie has been groping for a response to Trump’s annexation threats, punishing economic tariffs, and pursuit of an “America First” agenda around the world. The first year of the would-be dictator’s second term in office had already put paid to any hopes in Ottawa that the more than eight-decade-old bilateral military-strategic partnership, upon which Canadian imperialism relied to realize its global interests, could be retained in its existing form. Following January 3, 2026, there can be little doubt on the part of the Canadian ruling class that if Trump has his way, the very existence of the Canadian federal state is threatened, at least as it is presently constituted. Retired politicians and diplomats and editorial writers, if not yet government officials publicly, are using terms such as “vassalage” and “protectorate,” and warning that Trump will seek to leverage the Quebec and Alberta separatist movements.
Trump and his chief henchmen, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and War Secretary Pete Hegseth, have proudly and loudly proclaimed that the seizure of Venezuela’s oil resources and transformation of the country into a US vassal state are to be only a first step in implementing the “Donroe Doctrine” promulgated in last month’s US National Security Strategy. Building on the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine and Teddy Roosevelt’s 1904 “corollary” to it, the Donroe Doctrine proclaims American imperialism’s “right” as the Western Hemisphere’s “pre-eminent power” to seize critical resources and infrastructure, dictate states’ foreign and economic policies, overthrow governments and annex territories from the Arctic Ocean to Tierra del Fuego. By excluding its rivals and asserting unbridled dominance over the entire hemisphere, US imperialism aims to secure its “near abroad” in preparation for “strategic conflict” and war with its great-power competitors: China, Russia and the European Union.
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Ottawa’s eight-decade military-strategic partnership with American imperialism, stretching back to World War II, gave it the ability both to project its imperialist interests around the world and secure a degree of social stability at home. These times are now irretrievably over. Canada’s ruling elite spent the first year of Trump’s second term embracing wide swaths of his far-right social policies. Prime Minister Mark Carney increased military spending last year by 17 percent to reach NATO’s 2 percent target and committed to spend 5 percent of the GDP on war by 2035. To cover the costs of this vast rearmament program, the Carney government has intensified public spending austerity and virtually abrogated the right to strike in order to suppress worker opposition, a model followed by Quebec and other provincial governments.
The trade union bureaucracy and social democratic New Democratic Party (NDP) have done their utmost to cover up this class war by pumping out “Team Canada” propaganda, claiming that workers should join hands with the bosses and government ministers to oppose Trump. This propaganda offensive has helped smother opposition in the working class as the devastating impact of Trump’s tariffs and Canadian counter-tariffs have led to the destruction of thousands of jobs in the auto, steel, forestry and other industries.
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The 1988 Canada-US Free Trade Agreement (subsequently subsumed into NAFTA) secured Canada’s access to the US market amid the breakdown of the post-war equilibrium and the emergence of regional trading blocs. Taking advantage of Canada’s heavy dependence on the US, which is the destination for about three-quarters of all Canadian exports, Trump strong-armed Canada and Mexico during his first term to replace NAFTA with a new agreement, USMCA, that strengthened American economic dominance across the continent.
Exploiting Canada’s economic and geopolitical vulnerability to US pressure, and in accordance with the “Donroe Doctrine” and his call for a “new age” of American territorial expansion, Trump now intends to go far further. He intends to use “economic force” and geopolitical pressure to refashion Canada’s economy in the interests of Wall Street and Washington and press for Canada’s absorption, or at least choice parts of it, into the US.
Canada’s political and media establishment looked upon the impending renegotiation of the USMCA with trepidation prior to Maduro’s abduction. With Washington now making clear that the Donroe Doctrine is its blueprint for its relations with Canada, the ruling class is being compelled to recognize that what it faces is not a trade “negotiation,” no matter how fractious, but something more akin to a mafia shakedown. If Trump does not get his way, he has made clear that he will blow up the agreement altogether.
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The sharpening tensions between the US and Canada, and the predicament facing Canadian imperialism produced by the breakdown of its most important strategic partnership have aggravated longstanding regional cleavages within the ruling class.
None of the factions engaged in bitter squabbles over their policies towards Trump and the European imperialists, or how state borders and the spoils should be distributed in the event of a breakup of the Canadian federal state, has anything to offer the working class in the struggle against Trump and all he represents—fascist dictatorship, imperialist war and the impoverishment of the working class.
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The eruption of imperialist barbarism epitomized by Trump’s Donroe Doctrine urgently demands an independent political response from the working class in Canada, the United States and around the world. Canadian workers cannot fight Trump and his program of fascist dictatorship, imperialist war and social misery for workers at home in alliance with any faction of the Canadian bourgeoisie. To the extent that they “oppose” Trump, the Canadian ruling class does so merely from the standpoint that he threatens its core interests by refusing to recognize their “right” to brutally exploit the Canadian working class and enforce their own imperialist ambitions on the coattails of Washington. All of the warring factions agree on one thing: the working class must pay the price for Canadian imperialism’s crisis.
The only basis to combat war, dictatorship and austerity for Canadian workers is in the closest fighting unity with workers in the United States, Latin America and beyond. This struggle requires a socialist and internationalist program to put an end to capitalism, the decrepit social order that has produced Trump and the embrace of his policies by ruling elites around the world. The working class must be politically mobilized through the construction of rank-and-file committees in opposition to the trade union bureaucracies and the foul Canadian nationalism they peddle. The struggle to unify the working class internationally and put the interests of the vast majority before those of private profit must find expression in the fight for workers’ governments committed to the socialist reorganization of society.
2. Stop the ICE reign of terror in Minnesota!
In the week following the January 7 murder of Renée Nicole Good by an agent of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Minneapolis has been placed under occupation by thousands of federal paramilitary forces operating under the direction of the president.
The situation was starkly outlined in an extraordinary address on statewide television Wednesday night by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Walz condemned what he called “a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government.”
The Democratic governor and 2024 vice presidential nominee gave the following account of conditions in the state:
News reports simply don’t do justice to the level of chaos and disruption and trauma the federal government is raining down upon our communities. Two to three thousand armed agents of the federal government have been deployed to Minnesota.
Armed, masked, undertrained ICE agents are going door to door, ordering people to point out where their neighbors of color live. They’re pulling over people indiscriminately, including US citizens, and demanding to see their papers.
And at grocery stores, at bus stops, even at schools, they’re breaking windows, dragging pregnant women down the street, just plain grabbing Minnesotans and shoving them into unmarked vans, kidnapping innocent people with no warning and no due process.
Walz noted the resignation of a half dozen career prosecutors at the US Attorney’s office in Minneapolis, because the Department of Justice designated Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who killed Renée Good, as the victim, and proposed to investigate Becca Good, Renée’s wife, for alleged ties to anti-government groups.
And he cited Trump’s declaration on social media that for Minnesota “the day of retribution and reckoning is coming.” Walz called this “a direct threat against the people of this state, who dared to vote against him three times, and who continue to stand up for freedom …”
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Far from pulling back after the murder of Renée Good, the Trump administration has drastically intensified its violent rampage. The scale of the assault is staggering: The nearly 3,000 federal officers are double the manpower of the Minneapolis and St. Paul police departments combined.
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One ICE atrocity has followed another. On Wednesday night, a federal officer shot a man in the leg during a confrontation in which DHS claims the individual attempted to flee arrest and later struck an officer with a “shovel” or “broom handle.”
A local pastor was detained and threatened at gunpoint by ICE, only to be released with the comment, “You’re white and you wouldn’t be any fun anyway.” In Richfield, Minnesota, two Target workers—both US citizens—were slammed to the pavement, detained in an unmarked SUV, and later released facing federal charges of assaulting an officer.
An immigrant from Honduras, Mauricio Henríquez Serrano, was dragged from his car unconscious as bystanders screamed in horror. He is now reportedly imprisoned in a Texas detention center. On Tuesday, just two blocks from where Good was killed, armed and masked ICE agents smashed through a disabled woman’s car window, sliced her seat belt and dragged her from the vehicle, ignoring her screams that she was autistic and trying to go to the doctor.
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And it is not just Minnesota. On January 9, in Santa Ana, California, 21-year-old Kaden Rummler was blinded and nearly killed by a “less lethal” round fired by a DHS officer, an assault that left Rummler hospitalized with shrapnel still in his body.
There is a glaring contradiction in Walz’s address. He describes a state of occupation by paramilitary forces sent by the Trump administration. But his proposed remedy is that the people of Minnesota avoid provoking Trump in their protests and wait for “accountability,” which he claimed would come “at the voting booth and in court.”
First of all, the ICE violence that took the life of Renée Nicole Good was not provoked by her or anyone else protesting in defense of immigrants. It was intended and deliberately encouraged by Trump and his fascist cabal. Their response to the murder of Good was to denounce her as a “domestic terrorist” and “paid agitator,” while Vice President JD Vance claimed that ICE agents had “absolute immunity.” Trump’s top fascist aide, Stephen Miller, sent a message to all ICE officers that “no one—no city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist—can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duties.”
As for lawsuits, a regime that is operating with complete lawlessness will not recognize the courts, and it has no intention of losing elections. Trump has already begun hinting that elections should not even be held in 2026, and if they take place, they may well be held at gunpoint, with military occupation of selected cities.
The force that can and must be brought to bear against Trump’s drive to dictatorship is the working class. It produces all of society’s wealth and holds the potential to shut down the machinery of repression and exploitation.
The only serious and effective response to Trump’s attack on Minnesota is the organization of a general strike by the entire working class, both in Minnesota and nationwide. The organized industrial action of the working class can paralyze the operations of ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, and all the repressive agencies that Trump is deploying against immigrant workers and, sooner rather than later, against the working class as a whole.
Airline workers can block the transportation of federal agents into the Twin Cities. Logistics workers can cut off their supply chains. Hotel workers can deny them lodging—as one suburban hotel did last week, setting off a right-wing panic.
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Workers in Minnesota itself have a history of political struggle against state repression and violence. It was in Minnesota that truck drivers, under the leadership of the Trotskyist movement, carried out a successful general strike in 1934 that defeated the combined repressive forces of the local police and the Citizens Alliance, the mouthpiece for big business in the Twin Cities.
The events of the past week mark a new stage in the Trump administration’s conspiracy to establish a presidential dictatorship. Over the past year, as this conspiracy has unfolded step by step, the Democratic Party has done absolutely nothing to stop it. As a party of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus, it is far more terrified of the emergence of a mass movement of the working class than it is of dictatorship. Such a movement would not stop with Trump but threaten the entire capitalist system.
The Socialist Equality Party calls for the formation of rank-and-file committees in every workplace, school, and neighborhood. These committees, independent of the corporatist trade union apparatus, must become centers of resistance to the Trump dictatorship.
These committees must rally workers across all industries—healthcare, education, transit, logistics, manufacturing and beyond—into a unified counteroffensive against the Trump administration and the capitalist oligarchy it serves. They must demand the arrest and prosecution of Renée Nicole Good’s killers; the immediate withdrawal of ICE, Customs and Border Protection and Department of Homeland Security forces from Minneapolis and every other city; the abolition of these paramilitary agencies; and the release of all detainees.
The fight to stop dictatorship must be linked to the fight against the capitalist system itself. The massive fortunes accumulated by the ruling class must be expropriated, the major corporations and banks transformed into public utilities under the democratic control of the working class, and social resources redirected to meet human need, not private profit. The SEP advances this program as the basis for the political mobilization of the working class to put an end to fascism through the fight for socialism.
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The incident on Tuesday gives political form to the cultural backwardness, brutality and violence of the corporate and financial oligarchy that rules the United States. Trump and the social interests he represents fear and hate all expressions of popular opposition, above all from the working class, which they correctly see as an existential threat to their wealth, power and rule.
The World Socialist Web Site calls on workers at Ford and throughout the auto industry to establish rank-and-file committees to demand the immediate reinstatement of Sabula and any other workers victimized. The defense of basic rights must be connected to a broader working class counteroffensive against the capitalist oligarchy and the Trump administration’s conspiracy for dictatorship.
3. Texas A&M censors Plato in massive course purge
With the spring semester beginning at universities across the United States, faculty members at Texas A&M have revealed that more than 200 courses in the College of Arts and Sciences have been flagged or canceled for including material on race and gender. One of the courses was flagged for including a passage from Plato. The instructor, Martin Peterson, was given an ultimatum to remove the content or be assigned to a different course.
Plato is a foundational figure in Western philosophy whose writings have shaped political thought, ethics and conceptions of justice for more than two millennia. That even his work is now deemed unacceptable exposes the fraud of a government that claims to defend “free speech” while enforcing ideological conformity.
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This is the first semester since amendments to A&M’s Civil Rights Protection and Compliance and Academic Freedom, Responsibility and Tenure policies were approved by the university system board in the fall. The anti-democratic measures, aimed at prohibiting the “advocation” of “race and gender ideology,” mandate per-semester reviews of syllabi for core courses and have reportedly relied on AI to flag material for noncompliance.
The policy changes at Texas A&M are rooted in the passage of Texas Senate Bill 37, adopted last year as part of a sweeping restructuring of higher education governance in the state. The law strips faculty of meaningful control over curriculum, centralizes authority in politically appointed boards and administrators, and explicitly empowers them to police classroom content, providing the legal framework now being used to flag and cancel courses deemed politically unacceptable by the state.
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The crackdown on so-called “race and gender ideology” is, in reality, an assault on all critical thought. Texas has served as a spearhead for a broader nationwide, and increasingly global, offensive by capitalist governments against academic freedom. On September 10 last year, labor historian Tom Altar was fired from Texas State University for participating, in a private capacity, in an online socialist conference. In the aftermath of the killing of Charlie Kirk later that month, teachers and academics across Texas and the country were threatened with termination for social-media posts critical of the dead fascist.
When the Nazis seized power in Germany, they imposed Gleichschaltung, a policy of “synchronization” aimed at bringing all aspects of social and intellectual life into line with the needs of the regime as it prepared the population for war. The process entailed the mass firing of academics and the enforcement of ideological conformity across the universities.
The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service sought to purge public institutions of political dissidents and racial minorities. Article 4 ordered the dismissal of “civil servants who, after their previous political activities, cannot be relied upon by the Party to execute its wishes.”
The humanities are not only useless to the depraved, bloodthirsty criminals running the U.S. government, they are dangerous. In this context, the assault on academic freedom is aimed at chilling opposition within the working class, “the enemy within,” in Trump’s words, and strangling any oppositional sentiment.
As the World Socialist Web Site wrote when Harvard and other Ivy League universities caved to Trump’s demands to crack down on dissident students, “Without even the threat of SS troops, university administrations are facilitating Trump’s demands and functioning as junior partners.”
The Democrats are doing nothing to oppose the assault on freedom of speech by the Trump administration and in fact laid the groundwork for it through the Biden administration’s brutal repression of protests against the genocide in Gaza. They represent the same financial oligarchy as Trump and are far more afraid of opposition from below than of the threat of fascism. Meanwhile, the nationalist and militarist union apparatus, including the UAW, which represents teachers and academics, issues empty and belated statements while refusing to mobilize opposition within the working class, functioning instead as an arm of the corporations and the capitalist state.
The orientation of students and all progressive elements in society must be toward the independent political mobilization of the international working class. Rank-and-file committees must be formed in every workplace and school to unify struggles across sectors, regions, and national boundaries and prepare for a general strike to disrupt the war machine. Only in this way can the democratic rights and social needs of the working class and all of society be defended against the imperialist drive to subjugate the world.
4. Outpouring of support for Ford Rouge worker victimized for opposing Trump
The thuggish character of the Trump administration was on full display this week during President Donald Trump’s visit to the Ford Rouge Complex in Dearborn, Michigan. The appearance was carefully stage-managed, with Trump touring the Dearborn Truck Plant alongside Ford executives and CEO Bill Ford Jr., intended to provide a propaganda backdrop for Trump’s claims of a “booming” auto industry and a revival of American manufacturing.
As Trump passed on an elevated walkway above the factory floor, a Ford worker shouted denunciations at the president, including calling him a “pedophile protector,” a reference to Trump’s long-established association with the late Jeffrey Epstein and efforts by the political establishment to bury the full truth about Epstein’s connections. The worker was later identified as Thomas “TJ” Sabula, a 40-year-old assembly-line worker and member of United Auto Workers Local 600.
Trump responded with rage. He twice shouted “Fuck you” at Sabula and, as he walked away, raised his middle finger in the worker’s direction. The exchange was recorded on video by another Ford worker, quickly circulated on social media, and broadcast on national television.
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Sabula was suspended without pay pending an investigation, in clear retaliation for publicly confronting the president. Reports also circulated that the worker who filmed the incident was disciplined or fired, underscoring the atmosphere of intimidation inside the plant and management’s role in enforcing political conformity on the shop floor.
Sabula publicly defended his actions. In an interview with the Washington Post, he said he had “no regrets whatsoever” and warned that he was being “targeted for political retribution” for “embarrassing Trump in front of his friends.” Sabula explained that he was roughly 60 feet away and that Trump could hear him “very, very, very clearly.” His remarks, he said, were directed at Trump’s handling of the Epstein matter and the broader culture of impunity surrounding the political elite.
“I don’t feel as though fate looks upon you often, and when it does, you better be ready to seize the opportunity,” Sabula said. “And today I think I did that.”
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Will Lehman, the Mack Trucks worker and socialist autoworker who ran for UAW president in 2022, issued a statement sharply denouncing the retaliation against Sabula.
I categorically denounce the suspension of Ford Rouge worker TJ Sabula for exercising his basic democratic right to free speech during Donald Trump’s visit to the Dearborn Truck Plant. This act of retaliation is a warning shot aimed at the entire working class. Every worker must rally to Sabula’s defense and demand his immediate and unconditional reinstatement.
Lehman continued:
Sabula committed no offense. He voiced what millions of workers think and feel about a president who embodies corruption, repression and violence. Trump’s response—screaming profanities at a worker and raising his middle finger—was a political statement. It was the instinctive reaction of a thuggish representative of the oligarchy who answers opposition with intimidation and barely concealed threats of violence.
Lehman added, condemning the UAW apparatus:
This makes all the more criminal the role of Shawn Fain and the UAW apparatus. Fain’s embrace of Trump’s tariffs and economic nationalism is a conscious alignment with a reactionary and increasingly authoritarian regime. His silence in the face of Sabula’s suspension exposes the UAW leadership as an auxiliary of management and the state, hostile to the democratic rights of workers.
Lehman concluded:
The defense of democratic rights cannot be entrusted to the corporations, the courts or the union bureaucracy. It requires the independent mobilization of the working class through rank-and-file committees. An attack on one worker is an attack on all!
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Unable to ignore the outpouring of support, UAW bureaucrats finally roused themselves to comment on the victimization of Sabula Wednesday afternoon, more than 24 hours after the incident. In a perfunctory statement, Laura Dickerson, the head of the UAW Ford Department saying, “The UAW will ensure that our member receives the full protection of all negotiated contract language safeguarding his job and his rights as a union member.”
This is worthless drivel. The UAW routinely sanctions the victimization of workers by management. It has done nothing to defend the jobs of workers laid off at Ford’s Rouge Electric Vehicle Center or the nearby GM Factory Zero plant, where the second shift was eliminated earlier this month, cutting 1,100 jobs, largely due to Trump’s cancellation of EV consumer credits.
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Having embraced Trump’s tariffs and economic nationalism, the UAW apparatus has aligned itself with the core of Trump’s economic program, aimed at dividing workers internationally while enforcing corporate restructuring and layoffs at home. Trump entered Rouge confident that the union bureaucracy would suppress opposition, police dissent on the shop floor and collaborate with management and the state to maintain “order.”
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The incident on Tuesday gives political form to the cultural backwardness, brutality and violence of the corporate and financial oligarchy that rules the United States. Trump and the social interests he represents fear and hate all expressions of popular opposition, above all from the working class, which they correctly see as an existential threat to their wealth, power and rule.
The WSWS calls on workers at Ford and throughout the auto industry to establish rank-and-file committees to demand the immediate reinstatement of Sabula and any other workers victimized. The defense of basic rights must be connected to a broader working class counteroffensive against the capitalist oligarchy and the Trump administration’s conspiracy for dictatorship.
Ford workers at the sprawling Rouge Complex in Dearborn, Michigan, are speaking out in defense of Thomas “TJ” Sabula, an assembly line worker who was suspended without pay after denouncing President Donald Trump during the president’s visit to the plant on Tuesday.
As Trump toured the factory floor, Sabula shouted denunciations at the president, including calling him a “pedophile protector,” a reference to Trump’s long-established association with Jeffrey Epstein and efforts by the political establishment to bury the full truth about Epstein’s connections.
Trump responded with rage. The president shouted obscenities at Sabula and, as he walked away, raised his middle finger in the worker’s direction. The exchange was recorded on video by another Ford worker, quickly circulated on social media, and broadcast on national television.
There has been an outpouring of support for Sabula, a 40-year-old assembly-line worker and member of United Auto Workers Local 600. As of Wednesday night, two GoFundMe pages set up on his behalf have received more than $800,000 in donations from over 30,000 contributors.
After the flood of support, the UAW was forced to break its silence and issue a statement more than 24 hours after the incident claiming the union would “ensure that our member receives the full protection of all negotiated contract language safeguarding his job and his rights as a union member.”
William, a Ford Rouge worker, told the World Socialist Web Site that Sabula’s stand expressed sentiments shared widely among workers.
“TJ Sabula has stood up to Trump more than any of our elected officials. They won’t stand up. I mean both the Republican and Democratic parties. I might as well add the UAW union officials who bend over.
“I find it disgusting the way the media and the Trump administration is spinning the ICE murder of Renee Good. We are told not to believe what we see! I think the mask is coming off. I feel very strongly that a general strike is key.”
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Another DTP worker described the conditions surrounding Trump’s visit and the atmosphere inside the plant.
“Nobody told us that Trump was coming to the plant. All we got was a text that the plant was going to be locked down between 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Nobody was supposed to leave their workstation during that time. They were talking about canceling the shift."
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A young Dearborn Truck worker emphasized the broader political meaning of the response to Sabula’s suspension.
“People in the plant and beyond are ready to fight. You can see that from the response to the GoFundMe page. There is a growing and very widespread anti-Trump sentiment. The working class is primed and ready to fight. Workers are standing up for one another.
“The UAW is supporting Trump every day. I see the lives of people are being hurt. They are starving. They are facing hardship and they are tired of it. The unions do not fight for the people by organizing workers as a class independent from the capitalist class and their hangers on. Our job is getting people to understand what it is. They have to fight. We have to set out a program for a struggle for power by the working class, not reforms.
“My fiancée has a job in social services where her responsibility is to find the resources that people need. The cuts are so bad that all she can do is offer rooms for them to sit down and cry. That hurts so much.”
The suspension of TJ Sabula is not an isolated disciplinary action but a warning aimed at the entire working class. Trump’s tirade, carried out with the backing of Ford management and enforced by the UAW bureaucracy, exposes the reality of “free speech” under conditions of growing authoritarianism.
The mass response in Sabula’s defense demonstrates the depth of opposition to Trump and the political establishment and the immense social power that exists among workers. The decisive question posed by the events at the Rouge plant is how this opposition can be organized independently of the corporations, the political parties and the union bureaucracy, which functions to suppress rather than mobilize workers’ struggles.
This means building rank-and-file committees in every factory, under the direction of the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees, to demand the reinstatement of Sabula with full back pay and the defense of the democratic and social rights of all workers.
6. After 7 months in DHS custody, 18-year-old Habiba Soliman speaks out from Texas detention center
In a powerful statement released on January 6, 2026, 18-year-old Habiba Soliman has detailed the ongoing illegal detention of her family at the hands of the Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Habiba, along with her mother and four siblings—including 5-year-old twins, a 9-year-old, and a 16-year-old—have been held in a Texas detention facility for seven months following an attack carried out by her father in Boulder, Colorado on a pro-Israeli hostage rally on June 1, 2025.
Habiba’s statement provides a devastating exposure of the Trump administration’s use of collective punishment in violation of fundamental democratic rights. Habiba says, “To the authorities, we are guilty only by association. They don’t see us as individuals with our own dreams. We are six innocent people-including five-year-old twins-trapped in a nightmare we didn’t create and punished for our father’s actions.”
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The “nightmare” began when her father, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, a 45-year-old Egyptian national and Uber driver, carried out a firebombing attack on a pro-Israel demonstration in Boulder. Using a homemade flamethrower and Molotov cocktails, Soliman targeted a group called “Run for Their Lives,” focused on Israelis taken captive by Hamas.
The attack left approximately 12 to 15 people injured, some with severe burns. According to court documents and video footage, Soliman shouted “End Zionists” and “Free Palestine,” later telling authorities he “hated this group and needed to stop them from taking over ‘our land.’”
The World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) has consistently opposed individual acts of violence such as that carried out by Mohamed Soliman and explained that they serve only to disorient the working class and provide the state with a pretext to escalate police-state repression.
Habiba herself condemns the violence in her statement, writing:
We believe that what happened to the victims of the attack is dreadful. That no one ever should experience what they have experienced. Violence is never justified. And we condemn every one that uses violence including my father.
She emphasizes that her family had no knowledge of his plans, noting that her father was a “man of few words” who “never changed and ... never opened up to anybody.” Despite their innocence, the Soliman family was seized by ICE on June 3, 2025.
Habiba describes the terrifying treatment by DHS officers during the transition from their home to the Dilley detention facility in Texas:
Just like other people, we were lied to by DHS and ICE agents. On the third day, they told us that staying in the hotel was dangerous and that we should go to another hotel for our safety. ... We drove for an hour to Florence still believing that we were going to a hotel. To our surprise we arrived at a place in the middle of nowhere.
We drove into a garage and watched it close behind us. We felt trapped. We thought we got kidnapped. ... The ICE agents didn’t show their badges or identify themselves at all until we got inside and saw the holding cells. They took our phones and all of our property, and we stayed for more than 8 hours in a cold cell. It was the beginning of the end.
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The detention of the Soliman family is a flagrant violation of democratic principles and constitutes “collective punishment,” a practice that is a hallmark of police-state dictatorships.
Eric Lee, an attorney for the family, told the WSWS that the Trump administration’s actions echo the methods of Nazi Germany, specifically the use of kin punishment, or Sippenhaft, to intimidate the population. Though federal judges in Colorado and Texas issued temporary restraining orders (TROs) to block the family’s immediate deportation, the administration has continued to hold them without a fair trial.
Habiba describes the mockery of justice they faced in court:
After waiting for 7 months, we didn’t even get a fair trial. ... [The judge] denied our request for more time and forced us to proceed ‘pro se’ violating our right to due process. ... To deny our case for a minor error, without a lawyer present, is not the justice we were promised.
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The assault on the Soliman family is directed against both immigrants and those who actively oppose the assault on immigrant rights. The shooting death by an ICE agent on January 7 of Renee Nicole Good—a 37-year-old mother who actively opposed the attacks on immigrants in Minneapolis—is the deadliest in a series of assaults by federal agents on political opposition.
Since Soliman’s violent attack in June, the Trump administration has seized on it not only to punish an innocent family, but to slander all opposition to its policies—and the US-backed genocide in Gaza—as “antisemitic.” In the case of Good, her murder by ICE has been justified on the grounds that she was a “domestic terrorist.”
In the final portion of her statement, Habiba emphasizes the importance of the truth and the necessity of speaking out against the Trump government’s attack on the family’s rights:
I don’t know when or how our detention will end. I don’t know if it’s a happy or a sad ending. I don’t know how we will deal with the effects that this place imposed on us. ... But I know one thing: the truth never dies. We just need more people who are willing to spend the time and effort to find it.
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As the WSWS has warned, if the US government is permitted to impose collective punishment based on the actions of a relative, there is nothing to prevent the state from using these same powers against strikers, protesters and all political opponents of the regime. The fight for the freedom of the Soliman family is the fight for the democratic rights of the entire working class.
7. New York City nurses defiant on Day 3 of strike: “Everybody deserves health insurance”
The strike has become the first major class battle in 2026. The nurses are pitted against multimillionaire CEOs, who have the backing of Wall Street and the corporate political establishment, including Trump and, in spite of their posturing to the contrary, the Democrats. Millions of workers throughout the New York area understand this and have given wholehearted support to the nurses’ struggle.The New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) made last-minute deals with 11 out of 15 hospitals, but the anger of nurses is such that they have not been able to prevent the strike entirely. Negotiations have been at an impasse, but on Wednesday night the New York-Presbyterian Hospital System, the largest hospital in the country, announced that it would resume discussions with the NYSNA on Thursday.This raises the likelihood that the NYSNA will try to shut the strike down prematurely, as it did in 2023 when it shut down a strike after three days with bogus language on staffing ratios that has done nothing to change things in the hospitals.The nurses’ strike must develop into a far wider confrontation. This is because the issues at the heart of the strike—safe staffing, healthcare and living standards—can only be resolved through a direct challenge to the power of the capitalist oligarchy and its representatives in the Trump administration and the Democratic Party that refuses to fight it.*****One nurse told the World Socialist Web Site: “I’m fighting for healthcare. I’m fighting for the rights of every nurse. I’m fighting for the safety of every patient, and I’m fighting for a fair wage. And I think it’s only right. We put our lives on the line every day that we come in. We face workplace violence, and we have to just get through our day the best way we can. And we take the best care of our patients, so I think it’s only right that Mount Sinai help us to take care of all of that.”
8. Uganda goes to the polls under the shadow of repression and the backdrop of US attack on Venezuela
Uganda is holding presidential and parliamentary elections on Thursday under conditions of sweeping state repression. The purpose is to secure yet another five‑year term for 81‑year‑old Yoweri Museveni and the National Resistance Movement (NRM), whose social base has steadily eroded amid deepening economic hardship, mounting social tensions and Kampala’s participation in regional wars.
Since independence in 1962, political power in Uganda has changed hands only through rebellions or military coups. Museveni is no exception. He has ruled the country with an iron fist since 1986, when his rebel movement seized Kampala under the banner of anti-tribalism, land distribution and a “no-party democracy”.
He implemented a neo-liberal regime at the service of international capital, for which he was rewarded with “development aid” and praised as a “beacon in the Central African region” by former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
Museveni has twice amended the constitution—removing term limits and later the presidential age cap—to ensure his continued hold on power, while repeatedly jailing opponents. Violence, intimidation and electoral manipulation have characterised every election held under his rule.
Museveni and the NRM are urging voters to “protect the economic gains” of recent decades and to “make the leap into high middle-income status.” Central to this narrative is the promise of future oil wealth, with Museveni banking on revenues from the newly established oil industry, associated infrastructure and the pipeline linking Uganda’s Lake Albert oilfields to the Tanzanian port of Tanga—the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP)—which is scheduled to enter commercial production in July this year.
That such wealth would be shared with the population is a fiction. The only people with “gains” to defend are the financial and business elites around the state and military apparatus—including Museveni’s own family. Uganda’s richest 10 percent receive 35.7 percent of national income, while the poorest 10 percent survive on just 2.5 percent.
The social crisis is most acute among young people, who make up more than 70 percent of the population. More than half of those aged 18 to 30 are not in employment, education or training, according to the UNDP, with young women disproportionately affected. Only 90,000 graduates—around 13 percent—secure formal‑sector jobs each year. For the vast majority of young people, the only options are unemployment or precarious and hugely exploitative work in the informal economy, without contracts, benefits, or job security amid a soaring cost of living crisis.
Access to healthcare has collapsed. The termination of US funding to USAID and the World Health Organization—programs that supported HIV, malaria, Ebola and maternal and child health services—led to thousands of health workers losing their jobs.
US foreign assistance to Uganda totals around $710 million annually, most of it for HIV/AIDS treatment, supporting more than 700,000 people. This is nearly double the Ugandan government’s entire health budget for 2024/25, underscoring the fragility of the system and its dependence on external funding.
Aware of his fragile support, Museveni has launched a savage repression on the main opposition party led by the 43‑year‑old National Unity Platform (NUP) leader Robert Kyagulanyi, known as Bobi Wine. In the 2021 election, he won 35 percent of the vote in the 2021 election to Museveni’s 58 percent, with the NUP securing 57 parliamentary seats. When Wine rejected the results as fraudulent, his supporters faced violent repression, with dozens killed and thousands detained.
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Museveni shut down internet from Wednesday to Sunday. The blackout is intended to facilitate rigging of the election, prevent possible protesters from coordinating, and give the security forces free rein to carry out a bloodshed. Similar tactics were employed in neighboring Tanzania, where an internet shutdown was imposed after mass protests, leading to mass killings of hundreds, potentially thousands; and in Kenya, after the Gen-Z protests erupted against austerity measures.
No one doubts that the results of Uganda’s presidential and parliamentary elections will be a win for Museveni and his cronies. Through bribery, coercion and administrative exclusion, NUP candidates—especially outside Wine’s central strongholds—have been induced to defect, withdraw or been disqualified to ensure ruling-party candidates run unopposed. In parallel, the regime has poured millions into vote-buying among informal-sector workers in central Uganda to undermine Wine’s urban support.
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Museveni has enjoyed the backing of US imperialism and the European powers for decades. Washington has poured more than a billion dollars over the last 20 years into military aid, training the units responsible for torture, abductions and disappearances at home and abroad.
Uganda has more than 15,000 troops stationed in Somalia, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic, where they serve as a proxy force protecting the grip of the imperialist powers and their corporations over the region’s vast mineral resources, while looting resources in their own interests.
Last year, in bid to curry favor with President Donald Trump, secure trade concessions, and pre-empt any US criticism of the elections, Museveni agreed to accept migrants from third countries deported from the US.
Museveni, however, can no longer take US backing for granted. In recent years, as he has deepened ties with Washington’s rivals, including China, Russia, and Iran, the US has moved to downgrade its economic relationship with Kampala. Uganda was removed from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), ending its preferential duty-free access to US markets, in 2023. Earlier this year the Trump administration imposed a 15 percent tariff on Ugandan exports, hitting coffee, vanilla, cocoa, and petroleum products particularly hard.
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The NUP opposition, however, offers no alternative. Wine’s support is concentrated among young people and the frustrated middle-class layers in Kampala and the Buganda and Busoga (west and east of Kampala respectively) that want a greater share of the cake. He has no perspective to win the support of the rural poor who constitute around 70 percent of Uganda’s population.
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In foreign policy, the most striking feature of the NUP’s program is what it omits. There is no opposition to Uganda’s role as a regional military proxy for the imperialist powers, nor to the deployment of the security apparatus to defend strategic and corporate interests at home and abroad. The manifesto is silent on Uganda’s military interventions in Somalia, South Sudan and the DR Congo.
Wine, himself a millionaire, is positioning himself as a more acceptable, youthful and “reform-minded” manager for imperialism and factions of the Ugandan bourgeoisie.
He has a long track record of appealing to US and British imperialism to impose sanctions on Museveni’s inner circle, appealing to the very powers that have sustained his dictatorship for four decades. Significantly, Wine’s rallies have been marked by the prominent display of US flags, amid the backdrop of Washington’s attack on Venezuela. These are a clear appeal to Washington.
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Wine is now calling for mass Gen-Z style protests if there is, as expected, electoral fraud.
However, the experience of the Gen-Z protests across Africa provides a decisive warning. In country after country, mass eruptions of youth anger against rigged elections, austerity and repression—from Kenya and Tanzania to Mozambique and Angola—have demonstrated immense courage and determination is not enough. These movements have been channeled behind pro-capitalist opposition parties, and met with brutal repression, paving the way to the consolidation of authoritarian rule. Without a clear break from all factions of the ruling class and their imperialist backers, spontaneous protests are contained, diverted or drowned in blood.
Uganda will be no exception. Calls for “Gen-Z style” mobilizations under the political leadership of the NUP and other factions of the Ugandan bourgeoisie subordinate the social demands of youth and workers to a program that leaves capitalist exploitation, imperialist domination and the repressive state apparatus intact.
The key task is to build a revolutionary leadership rooted in the working class and linked to workers throughout the region and in the imperialist centers. It means building sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in Uganda and across Africa and the globe to unite workers and youth in the fight for world socialism.
9. Denmark rejects US “conquering Greenland,” as NATO countries send troops
Denmark and Greenland rejected US President Donald Trump’s demand for the acquisition of Greenland Tuesday following a meeting at the White House with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, even as European NATO members sent troops to the Arctic island.
“We have a fundamental disagreement,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told reporters Tuesday at the Danish embassy in Washington. Rasmussen rejected Trump’s “wish of conquering Greenland” and emphasized: “This is not in the interest of the kingdom.
“The president has made his view clear, and we have a different position,” he said. “Ideas that would not respect the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark and the right of self-determination of the Greenlandic people are, of course, totally unacceptable.”
Speaking at a separate event at the White House Tuesday, Trump reiterated his demands. “We need Greenland for national security,” he declared. “If we don’t go in, Russia is going to go in, and China is going to go in. And there’s not a thing that Denmark can do about it, but we can do everything about it.”
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The threats come amid a deployment of European troops to Greenland. Denmark announced military reinforcements, while Germany is deploying 13 Bundeswehr soldiers, Norway two military personnel, and Sweden an unspecified number of officers for “Operation Arctic Endurance.” France is deploying mountain warfare units, and Canada, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have confirmed or are considering participation.
Greenland is an autonomous territory of Denmark, a founding member of the NATO alliance and covered by Article 5, which obligates all members to defend any member that is attacked.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen declared Sunday this is a “decisive moment” and warned: “If the United States attacks another NATO country, everything stops.”
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According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted January 12-13, only 17 percent of Americans approve of US efforts to acquire Greenland, while 47 percent disapprove. Just 4 percent said using military force would be a “good idea,” with 71 percent calling it a “bad idea”—including 60 percent of Republicans. Polls indicate approximately 85 percent of Greenlanders oppose joining the United States.
Greenland commands the GIUK Gap, the critical maritime chokepoint between Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom through which Russia’s Northern Fleet must pass to reach the Atlantic. Climate change is opening Arctic shipping routes that could transform global trade, with the Northern Sea Route 40 percent shorter than the Suez Canal route between the North Pacific and northern Europe.
Beyond its military value, Greenland contains an estimated 1.5 million tons of proven rare earth reserves—potentially the world’s second largest after China—along with vast deposits of copper, graphite and other critical minerals essential to advanced weapons systems and artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Clayton Allen of the political risk consultancy Eurasia Group told CNBC last week: “Trump is a real estate guy. Greenland is sitting on some of the most valuable real estate in terms of economic advantage and strategic defense for the next three to five decades.”
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The eruption of US military violence across the globe—from the Caribbean to the Arctic—reflects the terminal crisis of American capitalism. Unable to maintain its global position through economic competition, the US ruling class is turning to naked military force to seize resources and subjugate rivals. Trump has dispensed with even the pretense of legality. “I don’t need international law,” he told the New York Times last week. Asked what limits exist on his power, he replied: “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
Both parties have endorsed this lawlessness. In December, 115 House Democrats voted for a $901 billion defense authorization bill, the largest in history.
10. Germany and European powers back Trump’s regime change plan in Iran
Despite growing tensions between the US and Europe, the European powers have backed Washington and Tel Aviv’s threats of war against Iran and the associated plans for regime change. Donald Trump is using the anti-government protests in Iran as a pretext to threaten military intervention. The German government under Chancellor Friedrich Merz has decisively endorsed this strategy.
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The claim that this is about “peace” or “democracy” is cynical. The US, Germany and their European allies are pursuing the goal of installing a neocolonial regime in Iran that is subservient to them. In doing so, they are deliberately relying on the most reactionary forces, including the son of the Shah who was overthrown in 1979. Such a regime would hand over control of the country’s enormous oil and gas reserves to Western corporations and fully integrate Iran into Washington’s military-strategic offensive against Russia and China.
For the Iranian working class, such a “transition” would have catastrophic consequences. As experience in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan shows, a regime change imposed by imperialism does not mean freedom but social devastation, intensified exploitation and brutal repression. A pro-Western regime in Iran would oppress workers just as ruthlessly in the interests of international finance capital as the existing one.
The moral outrage over the violence of the Iranian state is particularly hypocritical. The same powers have actively supported the genocide of the Palestinians over the past two years. The Gaza Strip has been systematically turned into a field of rubble and, according to official figures, some 70,000 people have been killed, mostly women and children. Independent calculations by a team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research estimate the death toll was at least 100,000.
From the outset, the World Socialist Web Site has noted that the Gaza genocide is part of a comprehensive imperialist war strategy. The goal is the complete subjugation of the resource-rich and geostrategically critical Middle East in order to create the conditions for a direct military confrontation with Russia and China. Since the European powers share these strategic goals, they already supported the US-Israeli attacks on Iran last year, which killed numerous members of the Iranian military leadership, struck nuclear facilities and slaughtered hundreds of civilians.
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European support for Trump’s war offensive against Iran will not lead to a thawing of transatlantic relations. Trump’s threats against Greenland and the new US National Security Strategy, which openly names the European Union as a rival, are exacerbating tensions. But as long as the European powers are not yet militarily capable of waging global wars independently of Washington, they will support US operations.
In doing so, they are pursuing several interrelated interests. They hope to secure a share of the imperialist spoils by supporting US wars. They want to continue NATO’s war offensive against Russia in Ukraine and are dependent on Washington’s military and political backing to do so. And they are using the escalation of US imperialism to massively advance their own rearmament. The logic is that in a world of power, those who are not prepared to use military force will go under.
Workers and young people must resolutely reject these preparations for war—as well as the propaganda with which the European imperialists sell their rearmament drive and war policies as “peace policies.” As in the past, the enforcement of predatory imperialist interests is inseparably linked to the dismantling of social and democratic rights and the establishment of dictatorship at home. The only progressive way out lies in building an international, socialist anti-war movement in the working class that opposes all of the imperialist powers and links the fight against war with the fight against its root cause—the capitalist profit system.
The International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC) has called for an independent investigation, led by rank-and-file workers, into the recent deaths of US Postal Service workers Nick Acker, 36, in the Detroit area and Russell Scruggs, Jr., 44, near Atlanta.
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As part of its independent investigation into workplace deaths at USPS facilities, the Postal Workers Rank and File Committee has obtained the autopsy report for Russell Scruggs, Jr., a 44-year-old postal worker who died on the job at the Palmetto, Georgia USPS facility on November 15, 2025. The inquiry, conducted independent of management and pro-corporate union bureaucrats, was launched in response to a series of recent fatalities including Scruggs as well as Nick Acker in Michigan. It seeks to establish the facts surrounding these deaths and hold management accountable for unsafe working conditions.
Celebration of life and memorial services were held for Scruggs in late December, and little information has been released on the conditions of his death beyond what has been reported by his coworkers who have begun to come forward to the committee’s investigation.
Dr. Stephanie Zhang of the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office writes: “It is my opinion that Russell Scruggs, Jr. died as a result of heart failure due to hypertensive cardiovascular disease. Autopsy examination reveals that, although there was a laceration to the back of the head, there was no injury to the skull or brain. Internal examination reveals a massively enlarged heart with a thickened left and right ventricular walls and a dilated left ventricle. These findings are evidence of his heart failure and hypertension. Along with the reported circumstances, it is likely that Mr. Scruggs sustained a cardiac event after which he was witnessed going unresponsive and… falling and hitting his head. The laceration of the head did not contribute to death. The manner of death is classified as natural.”
While the manner of death can medically be classified as “natural,” the circumstances leading up to Russell’s death were entirely preventable, according to multiple accounts from his coworkers who were with him that day.
The autopsy report corroborates the accounts of Russell’s death by his coworkers who told the World Socialist Web Site that he fell and hit his head, possibly as the result of a medical emergency, and that treatment was not administered quickly enough. One worker reported that it appeared that Russell had already died before he was taken to the hospital where resuscitation attempts were made.
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Multiple USPS employees at the Palmetto facility confirmed that there is no defibrillator equipment on site, much less any professionally trained medical staff to intervene in the event of an emergency. Workers cannot even access their cell phones due to the signal being cut off inside of the plant to preserve bandwidth for networked machinery in the facility.
Earlier in the day, Russell felt unwell and requested to be sent home, according to a coworker. “We know that Russell asked a supervisor two times to go home and was told no. He didn’t feel good. He was going back and forth getting water and others in his department said he was denied his request to leave early.
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On December 3, 2025, the Postal Workers Rank and File Committee issued a statement calling on all postal workers to come forward with information on the deaths of Russell Scruggs Jr., Nick Acker, and any other deaths and unsafe working conditions. The committee explained that its independent inquiry “will collect testimonies, inspect machine lockout/tagout records, document the bypassing of safety features, obtain grievance histories and witness statements, and preserve photographic and video evidence.”
12. Adelaide Writers’ Week cancelled, new board apologizes for censorship of Randa Abdel-Fattah
A week after the Adelaide Festival board “disinvited” academic and author Randa Abdel-Fattah from the city’s prestigious Writers’ Week, the organization is in a total meltdown.
The flagrant censorship of the author, because of her hostility to the Israeli genocide in Gaza, has produced an enormous backlash. That included the vast majority of authors scheduled to appear at the Adelaide Writers’ Week pulling out in opposition to the censorship.
The institution has responded with a desperate and incoherent attempt at damage control.
On Tuesday, Adelaide Festival management announced that the Writers’ Week was being cancelled altogether for 2026. It refused to relent on its censorship of Abdel-Fattah, instead blowing up the event altogether.
The shutdown followed resignations last weekend of four Festival Board members, including its chair, and Tuesday morning’s announcement by Louise Adler, the highly respected publisher and director of Adelaide Writers’ Week, that she too was quitting.
Then, on Thursday, the newly appointed Festival Board suddenly issued an apology to Abdel-Fattah. “Intellectual and artistic freedom is a powerful human right,” it stated. “Our goal is to uphold it, and in this instance Adelaide Festival Corporation fell well short.”
“We apologize to Dr Abdel-Fattah unreservedly for the harm the Adelaide Festival Corporation has caused her,” the new board stated, before inviting her to participate in next year’s iteration of the Writers’ Week.
The statement, suggesting that Adelaide Festival violated human rights, is a damning indictment of the censorship that it carried out.
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The latest apology has created an extraordinary situation. The new Adelaide Festival Board, appointed by the South Australian Labor government, has taken a position diametrically opposed to that of the government, which continues to uphold the censorship that it helped to instigate as a righteous act.
Indeed, South Australian Labor Premier Peter Malinauskas has only escalated his vicious personal attacks on Abdel-Fattah.
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The vicious attack on a Palestinian author, by a Labor premier whose interventions on cultural matters resemble those of the fascist Donald Trump, gives the lie to all the claims of the Labor governments, state and federal, that they are seeking to combat “hate speech” and ensure “social cohesion.” In reality, they are going to war against mass opposition to an Israeli genocide that they have supported for more than two years.
The federal Labor government, through several representatives, has signaled its support for the assault on Abdel-Fattah, as part of its spearhead role in the broader offensive against democratic rights.
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The destruction of Adelaide Writers’ Week exposes the lengths to which Labor’s South Australian government, fully aligned with Prime Minister Albanese’s pro-Zionist agenda, is prepared to go.
Rather than permit Abdel-Fattah—the sole Australian-Palestinian writer on the program—to participate, Malinauskas and his allies chose to obliterate Australia’s premier literary festival, despite mass calls for her reinstatement, which would have ended the boycott and salvaged the event.Labor, confronted with the determined protest of hundreds of serious writers and mass anger over the censorship of Abdel-Fattah on social media, decided instead to sabotage a major cultural institution in order to enforce its censorship regime—a deliberate warning to every artist, academic and worker that opposition to Labor’s political and practical endorsement of Israel’s Gaza genocide and Zionist extremism will not be tolerated.
The resistance from writers and cultural workers must now connect with the independent political mobilization of the working class. Only the international socialist movement, fighting to abolish the imperialist system that breeds war, censorship and reaction, can defend democratic rights and halt the ruling-class offensive now accelerating across every sphere of social life.
13. New York strike pits nurses against the financial oligarchy
On Thursday, some 15,000 nurses at three private nonprofit hospitals in New York City are entering the fourth day of their strike, the largest nurses strike in New York history. Their fight for safe staffing, healthcare benefits, raises that beat inflation and protection against workplace violence assumes immense importance amid the bipartisan attacks on public health and workers’ rights.
The nurses’ struggle pits them against the entire capitalist oligarchy that subordinates healthcare to the accumulation of profit.
The hospitals have issued bellicose threats and declared the nurses’ demands “extreme” and “reckless.” Mount Sinai claimed that satisfying the nurses’ demands would cost it $1.6 billion over three years. This is a fraction of the wealth of the financial oligarchy centered in Wall Street, and many members of Mount Sinai’s own board of trustees could write a check for that amount.
The New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) bureaucracy has focused its statements on the seven- and even eight-figure pay packages awarded to the hospital CEOs. While these salaries are indeed obscene, of even greater significance are the multibillion-dollar fortunes amassed by the members of the boards of trustees at the hospitals that are now on strike.
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The Mount Sinai board of trustees includes some of the wealthiest and most politically connected figures in the United States. Among them is James S. Tisch, CEO of Loews Corporation, whose family fortune is estimated at over $10 billion. Tisch is a major Republican donor, and his daughter, Jessica Tisch, was recently reappointed as New York City police commissioner by Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Other trustees include Frank Bisignano, a Wall Street billionaire whom Trump named Social Security commissioner after his wife donated over $931,000 to Trump’s 2024 campaign; Glenn Dubin, a billionaire hedge fund manager implicated in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal; John Hess, CEO of the oil and gas multinational that bears his name and a major advocate of fracking; Henry Kravis, the multibillionaire cofounder of private equity giant KKR and a $1 million contributor to Trump’s 2017 inauguration; Robert Rubin, former Treasury secretary and executive at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup; and Andrew M. Saul, a Republican investment banker appointed commissioner of Social Security during Trump’s first term.
No less notable is the NewYork Presbyterian board of trustees, which includes Jerry Speyer, the billionaire real estate mogul who controls Rockefeller Center; Steven R. Swartz, president and CEO of the Hearst media conglomerate; Ray Dalio, the multibillionaire founder of the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates; and William Lauder, chair of Estée Lauder Companies, a member of a family worth an estimated $40 billion and a major Trump donor.
Also on NewYork Presbyterian’s board of trustees is Stephen A. Schwarzman, the CEO and cofounder of Blackstone, the world’s largest private asset manager. Blackstone manages over $1 trillion in assets, and Schwarzman’s personal wealth is estimated at over $50 billion. He ranks among the top donors to Trump and the Republican Party.
The reaction of these billionaires to the nurses on the picket line mirrors the Trump administration’s response to mass demonstrations against its anti-immigrant crackdown and other dictatorial measures. They are “extremists” who must be crushed to set an example for other sections of the working class.
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A fight against the oligarchy requires the full mobilization of the power of the working class. The New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) bureaucracy, however, is implacably opposed to such a struggle. Prior to the strike, the NYSNA worked systematically to isolate nurses, canceling walkouts at one hospital after another without even finalized agreements. It is attempting to repeat its betrayal of 2023, when the union similarly kept nurses divided and blocked the development of a unified struggle. The so-called “safe staffing” victories hailed by NYSNA two years ago proved to be empty rhetoric.
The rest of the trade union apparatus is doing nothing. On January 8, 45 unions representing over 2.5 million workers issued a letter calling for contracts to be settled before the January 12 strike deadline. “Unions are ready to stand shoulder to shoulder with nurses on the picket lines if a strike becomes necessary,” the letter stated—an empty promise issued after most strikes had already been called off.
To take forward the struggle, the World Socialist Web Site urges nurses to build rank-and-file strike committees—democratically elected and led by nurses themselves—to establish democratic control over the strike. Nurses should formulate their non-negotiable demands as the precondition for accepting any contract or ending the strike including:
- Genuinely enforceable safe staffing ratios levels determined by rank-and-file nurses themselves;
- The immediate reinstatement of the three Mount Sinai nurses who were falsely accused of “sabotage” and an end to all victimizations;
- Immediate restoration of health benefits regardless of contract status;
- Health coverage at no cost to healthcare workers coupled with inflation busting wage increases.
These committees must fight to expand the strike to all 15 affected hospitals, oversee all negotiations and picketing, and mobilize active resistance to any attempt to prematurely shut down the strike or send nurses back to work on the basis of empty promises.
At the same time, rank-and-file committees must link the fight for healthcare to the broader struggles of the working class.
Nurses are not alone: workers across New York—educators, transit workers, municipal employees, and others—are confronting inflation, job cuts, and the collapse of public services. This year will see major contract battles involving over 300,000 city employees, 80,000 health care workers at the League of Voluntary Hospitals, 37,000 transit workers in TWU Local 100 and 40,000 hotel workers in the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council.
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The New York nurses strike reveals the true character of American society, a country ruled by a parasitic oligarchy. But it also reveals the immense power of the working class, whose labor sustains every aspect of society. To win this struggle, nurses must take the initiative into their own hands by building rank-and-file committees, linking up with other sections of workers and turning the strike into the spearhead of a broader fight against inequality, exploitation and capitalist dictatorship.
14. Hundreds of Minnesota students march to the Capitol to protest ICE
One week since the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) murder of Renée Nicole Good, the immigration Gestapo continue their reign of terror throughout the Twin Cities area, harassing children at schools by parking outside them, spraying tear gas near schools, breaking car windows, dragging people through the streets, etc.
In response to widespread demonstrations, the Trump administration is deploying more federal agents to Minneapolis, bringing the total now to 3,000, effectively putting the Twin Cities under quasi–martial law. This is taking place as the regime is spending $100 million on recruitment for the immigration Gestapo, trying to recruit some of the most rotten elements of society, including white supremacists, with slogans such as “we’ll have our home again,” expressing their racist and fascistic worldview.
Since the murder of Good, the Trump administration has embarked on a propaganda campaign based on utter lies, reminiscent of the Nazi regime, claiming that Good was a “domestic terrorist” and that she injured the ICE agent Jonathan Ross. A week after the murder, CBS reported that Ross supposedly suffered “internal bleeding,” a euphemism for a bruise, as video shows him casually walking away from the scene of the crime unscathed and unbothered.
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On Wednesday, hundreds of students from multiple high schools in St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, staged walkouts protesting ICE’s presence in their communities and marched on the state Capitol building.
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Speaking to the World Socialist Web Site, one protesting student said, “We’re students from Como Park Senior High School. We’re at the Capitol right now protesting with the other students from different schools. And the current situation with ICE, I think, is getting out of hand because students are afraid to show up to school. And they’re missing the lesson because they’re worried about ICE.”
Another student added, “And I think it’s important to speak out for what’s right. As you can see, there’s so many people here that are against ICE, and I think that ICE should leave them alone.”
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The question of a general strike to force ICE out was posed to another group of protesting students, who commented, “Yeah, I do. I support it. I support it. I think we should all do it. I think some people are afraid to do it. They’re afraid to lose their jobs, and they have people to abide to and have responsibilities to take care of. And if you’re in that situation, I understand. But if you can make time, if you can, if you feel really passionate about the topic, I think you should come out here and try to strike.”
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The walkouts and demonstrations by hundreds of students, combined with the growing protests across Minnesota and the United States, show that the class struggle is entering a new upswing—leading to a direct confrontation with the Trump administration and the American oligarchy. Trump’s siege on Minneapolis and the attempt to impose a presidential dictatorship are the efforts of a desperate and crumbling ruling class to maintain its rule. However, the rising tide of the class struggle must be guided by a clear socialist perspective.
What is needed is the formation of rank-and-file committees to organize and counter ICE and the fascist regime in the White House. In order to counter the modern-day brownshirts or squadristi, what is needed is to form rank-and-file committees to prepare for a general strike. Making moral appeals to fascists will only result in catastrophe, which is why the working class needs political independence from all bourgeois parties.
15. Australia: Bondi terror attack meeting attendees denounce Labor’s anti-protest laws
The Socialist Equality Party’s January 11 online meeting was attended by more than 160 workers, students and young people from across Australia and internationally. It provided a socialist assessment of the December 14 mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, in which 15 people were killed and dozens wounded at a Hanukkah celebration when two gunmen, father and son Sajid and Naveed Akram, opened fire on the crowd.
The meeting rejected both the reactionary, sectarian ideology that motivated the attack and the attempts by state and federal Labor governments to exploit the tragedy to suppress opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, expand police powers and curtail democratic rights.
Speakers explained that acts of terrorism are routinely seized upon by governments to justify emergency laws and suppress political opposition, above all the movement against war and militarism. In Australia, this has already taken the form of new police powers in New South Wales to shut down protests.
The meeting outlined the need for organized working-class action against this deepening repression, emphasizing that the only progressive response to the Bondi atrocity is the independent mobilization of the working class on a socialist program against genocide, war and authoritarianism.
The World Socialist Web Site spoke to several of the attendees after the meeting.
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Among attendees' comments:
“I do believe there is something people are missing. It’s a global economy. As the US collapses, the rest of the world collapses. Whatever happens in one country affects another country.”
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“In the US, ICE agents are killing people in the street, and I wonder what we can do. We’re starting to see this in Australia as well. I want to know more about socialism, what it really is.”
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“It’s a false dichotomy to say that being pro-Palestine means being antisemitic.”
16. "We cannot have oligarchy": Protesters oppose Trump's visit to Detroit
Hundreds of protesters demonstrated on Tuesday, January 13, outside of the MotorCity Casino in Detroit where President Trump delivered a speech to the Detroit Economic Club. The protesters included young people, workers and others opposed to Trump’s attack on basic democratic rights, his invasion of Venezuela, witch-hunting of immigrants and support for the ICE murder of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis last week.
Detroit police, deployed by Democratic Mayor Mary Sheffield, assaulted and arrested at least two protesters.
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The demonstration had been organized to protest the killing two days earlier of Renee Nicole Good, a Minneapolis woman shot dead at point-blank range by an immigration agent on January 7 during the federal “Operation Metro Surge,” an unprecedented mass deployment of federal agents that sparked widespread outrage. Thousands have taken to the streets in response to Good’s death; in Santa Ana that evening, what began as a large march thinned out by late hours, leaving only a smaller group at the federal plaza.
Video footage and eyewitness accounts show three armed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents in riot gear advancing on the remaining protesters. One agent is seen attempting to arrest a demonstrator identified as Skye Jones. As other protesters moved toward the agents, at least one DHS officer fired so-called “less-lethal” rounds into the crowd from close range, striking Rummler directly in the face.
Rummler fell immediately, bleeding profusely and crying out for help as others retreated. In a statement released through associates while he remained hospitalized, he described seeing “dark and thick blood pooling beneath me” and pleaded with federal agents to call an ambulance. According to his account, agents instead taunted him, laughing and saying he would never see out of his left eye again. Rummler was then hauled by an agent into the federal building by his collar as he struggled to breathe.
Surgeons later removed shards of plastic and potentially toxic materials from his skull and face, and found metal fragments dangerously close to his carotid artery, meaning he will require lifelong medical monitoring. Doctors were unable to remove all of the shrapnel. His left eye was destroyed and his tear duct was damaged; he has permanently lost vision in that eye. Rummler said that hearing the voices of friends and comrades helped keep him conscious during the ordeal.
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Legal experts have noted that federal agents do not enjoy blanket immunity under law and can be held accountable if their actions exceed lawful authority. But [Trump White House deputy chief of staff and senior immigration adviser Stephen] Miller’s remarks, broadcast amid the uproar over Good’s killing and the Santa Ana confrontation, amount to an open signal from the administration that immigration agents are being given free rein to carry out violence in support of the mass deportation operation.
Both the Minneapolis shooting and the blinding of Rummler in Santa Ana are the logical outcomes of a broader political program under the Trump administration: to escalate paramilitary repression domestically as well as abroad. DHS, ICE and Customs and Border Protection are being empowered and armed with military hardware, not just to carry out immigration raids but to suppress social opposition. Rummler’s injury and Good’s death reflect a political strategy of state terror aimed at crushing resistance to deportations and federal repression generally. The ultimate target is the entire working class.
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The domestic repression of dissent is inseparable from an aggressive foreign policy that relies on military force, regime change and imperialist dominance, as seen in the January 3 invasion of Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president, in the saber-rattling over Greenland that threatens to fracture NATO, and in the looming threat of war with Iran. Both domestic and foreign policy serve the interests of a financial oligarchy determined to maintain its privileges and wealth while suppressing working-class unrest and resistance.
At the same time, resistance is growing. The strike by 15,000 nurses in New York and a wave of labor struggles across the country show that the working class remains the only social force capable of stopping authoritarianism, fascism, war, imperialism and, ultimately, capitalism itself, the root cause of the repression and violence now engulfing the United States.
18. Britain to develop new long-range Nightfall ballistic missiles for Ukraine
In a major step aimed at prolonging NATO’s war with Russia in Ukraine—which has now lasted almost four years—Britain’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) has announced it will “rapidly develop” a ground-launched deep-strike ballistic missile intended for use by Ukrainian forces.
Defense Minister John Healey has said the new ballistic missile could carry a 200kg warhead over a range of more than 500 kilometers (310 miles) and would “provide Ukraine a long-range punch to counter Russian aggression.” This would place Moscow in striking distance of the new weapons.
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The cost of the missiles is staggering, with a slated production rate of 10 systems per month and a maximum price of £800,000 per missile. For context, while the Starmer government imposes pay restraint throughout the National Health Service, the cost of a single Nightfall missile would pay for the annual salary of up to 25 NHS nurses.
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Besides having a longer range than either Storm Shadows or ATACMS, the Nightfalls could fill the gap left if Ukraine’s stock of the American-made missile is not resupplied. It remains unclear how many ATACMS Ukraine has left, with US officials in recent months expressing concern that their own stockpiles are being depleted.
According to an Associated Press report last March, “A U.S. official said the U.S. provided fewer than 40 of those missiles overall and that Ukraine ran out of them in late January.”
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The Project Nightfall timetable follows an agreement between Britain and France earlier this month to establish and protect “military hubs” across Ukraine following any ceasefire agreement between Ukraine and Russia. That long-range missiles could be central to these hubs is proof of the plan to develop Ukraine as a forward base for NATO, armed to the teeth.
The European NATO powers are developing their own long-range land-based missiles. Launched in July 2024, the European Long-Range Strike Approach (ELSA)—comprising France, Germany, Italy, the UK, Sweden, Poland and the Netherlands—is expected to play a key role in Europe’s defense posture by the 2030s.
Amid US threats to withdraw military support from NATO and Europe, ELSA aims at “strengthening … the European defense industrial and technological base” and contributing to “strengthening the European pillar of the Alliance, for better sharing of the burden between Allies.”
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The presence of NATO troops, military hubs and long-range ballistic systems on Ukrainian soil massively elevates the risk of a direct confrontation between nuclear-armed powers. Moscow has repeatedly warned it will not accept NATO forces on Ukrainian territory, now, or as part of any US-brokered ceasefire—and would treat them as legitimate targets.
Prior to the Anglo-French pledge to deploy troops to Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament, December 10, “As the president [Vladimir Putin] stressed, we have no plans to fight against Europe. No plans at all. However, we will respond to any hostile steps, including the deployment of European troops to Ukraine and the seizure of Russian assets. And we are already prepared to respond.”
Serving as the main junior partner of US imperialism, Britain has played a key role in provocations against Moscow. As Trump’s hostility to the European powers grows, it is working hard to maintain a transatlantic anti-Russian alliance.
Last week, using UK bases, joint US-British forces seized the Russian-flagged oil tanker Marinera in waters off Scotland. At the request of the US, a Royal Air Force surveillance plane and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel Tideforce took part in the operation.
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On Monday, The Times revealed that “British special forces are being lined up to storm Russian shadow fleet vessels.” The report stated that elite soldiers trained to rappel onto ships from helicopters and capture their crews could target hundreds of Russian-linked oil tankers. The Special Boat Service (SBS) is reportedly likely to lead the missions.
A “defense source” all but confirmed to the newspaper that such “seizures at sea” were being planned, stating: “If you want to dial up the economic pressure on Russia, that looks like operators fast-roping onto illegal oil tankers.”
19. 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.
