Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
1. Rohingya refugees among 250 feared dead in boat capsize
An overloaded fishing trawler carrying hundreds of Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi nationals has capsized in the Andaman Sea, in what is one of the deadliest maritime disasters in the region in years. Around 250 people—men, women and children—are missing and feared dead after the vessel, which left from Teknaf in southern Bangladesh and was bound for Malaysia, went down around April 9.
The trawler was routed along a well-known sea lane towards Malaysia, a primary destination for Rohingya seeking to escape the squalor of Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar camps, where many have lived for years after being driven from their homes in Myanmar. According to UN agencies, the boat was grossly overcrowded and ill-equipped for the open sea when it encountered rough conditions and capsized in the Andaman Sea, close to the Indian Andaman and Nicobar archipelago.
The tragedy only came to light by sheer chance. On April 9, a Bangladesh-flagged tanker, the M.T. Meghna Pride, spotted people clinging to drums, logs and debris and rescued nine survivors—eight men and one woman, three Rohingya and six Bangladeshi nationals. They were later handed to the Bangladesh Coast Guard and police in Teknaf.
One survivor, identified in local reports as Rahela Begum, a Rohingya woman, described drifting “two days and one night” in the sea, clinging to a piece of wood until she lost consciousness. When she awoke, she saw the tanker looming over her. She has no idea what became of the hundreds of others who shared the boat.
Rafiqul Islam, another of the survivors, told Reuters that they had been at sea for four days. In an attempt to avoid naval patrols, the crew forced passengers into cramped storage compartments meant for fish and nets. “There was hardly any oxygen,” he said, adding that at least 30 people died from suffocation before the boat capsized. He estimated that there were about 240 people still onboard at the time, including women and children.
Despite the scale of the catastrophe, there is no evidence of a serious, sustained, multinational search-and-rescue operation to find the missing. A Bangladeshi official declared that the sinking occurred outside the country’s territorial waters, implying it had no responsibility for broader search efforts.
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UN data indicate that between January and early November 2025 alone, over 5,100 Rohingya attempted dangerous sea journeys from Myanmar and Bangladesh, with nearly 600 reported dead or missing. Many voyages go unrecorded, meaning the true toll is far higher.
The largely Muslim Rohingya in Myanmar have been a persecuted minority for decades. Since formal independence in 1948, military and civilian regimes alike have systematically stripped them of basic democratic rights, culminating in the 1982 citizenship law that effectively rendered them stateless “foreigners” in their own homeland.
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Between 2012 and 2015, over 110,000 Rohingya and impoverished Bangladeshis embarked on rickety boats towards Thailand and Malaysia, producing the so-called “boat people” crisis that governments across the region responded to with pushbacks and detentions.
The decisive turning point was 2016–17. After a smaller operation in late 2016, the Myanmar military used attacks by Rohingya militants in August 2017 as the pretext for vast “clearance operations”: village burnings, massacres, mass rape and landmines seeded along escape routes.
Médecins Sans Frontières estimates that between August and December 2017, some 655,000–700,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh, with MSF documenting at least 6,700 Rohingya killed. Those who fled joined earlier arrivals, creating the largest concentrated refugee population in the world.
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Bangladesh, which is not a party to the Refugee Convention, labels Rohingya merely as “forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals” and openly insists on eventual “repatriation,” despite the fact that the military responsible for the violence holds power in Myanmar and the country has plunged into a broader civil war.
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Conditions of uncertainly, poverty and exploitation are what awaits those who reach Malaysia. Like Bangladesh, Malaysia is not party to the Refugee Convention and has no asylum law. Rohingya and other asylum seekers are simply “illegal immigrants” under the Immigration Act, and can be subject to arrest, caning, indefinite detention and deportation.
The UNHCR registers refugees and issues cards, but these have no firm legal effect: even card holders can be detained or deported, and access to detention centres for monitoring has been repeatedly curtailed.
Most Rohingya in Malaysia live “in the shadows,” packed into substandard housing on the margins of Kuala Lumpur and other cities. They have no legal right to work, forcing them into informal, low-paid and hazardous jobs in construction, plantations, restaurants and factories. Children are barred from public schools and rely on under-resourced community learning centres.
Public opinion, stoked by the media and political establishment, has turned sharply hostile, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic. Rohingya are denounced as disease carriers and job thieves. The state has turned away boats and mounted immigration “crackdowns” that sweep refugees into detention.
The plight of Rohingya is an acute expression of a global crisis. Worldwide, more than 100 million people are displaced, driven from their homes by war, repression, economic collapse and climate catastrophe—processes rooted in the mounting crisis of global capitalism. The working class internationally has a responsibility to defend the basic democratic rights of refugees to asylum and to oppose the vilification of some of the world’s most vulnerable people, which is exploited by governments to justify persecution, dire poverty, imprisonment and the use of the military to bar entry.
2. Ukraine’s Zelensky in Berlin: Germany escalates its war offensive against Russia
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was received Tuesday with military honors outside the Chancellery in Berlin. The imposing scene, featuring dozens of uniformed and armed soldiers, underscored the character of the visit. Snipers were positioned on the surrounding rooftops to provide security for the first German-Ukrainian government consultations in 20 years. The focus of the meeting was the signing of a new “strategic partnership” between Germany and Ukraine.
Then on Wednesday, the Ukraine Defence Contact Group (UDCG) met in Berlin. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, together with his British counterpart John Healey, welcomed NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and Ukrainian Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov to the 34th ministerial meeting of the UDCG. Other participants joined the meeting online. The focus was on coordinating the NATO offensive in the war in Ukraine and expanding military support for Kyiv.
Both events illustrate the aggressiveness with which German imperialism is driving the war against Russia. The official propaganda that the war is about defending democracy and freedom was a lie from the outset. The NATO powers systematically provoked the Russian invasion—through the continued eastward expansion of the military alliance right up to the Russian border and the transformation of Ukraine into a military outpost against the nuclear-armed power Russia.
With the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East and Donald Trump’s open threats of annihilation against Iran—which German Chancellor Friedrich Merz cynically justified as “diplomatic war tactics”—all pretences are now being dropped in the war in Ukraine as well. Merz and Zelensky visited arms factories together and agreed on measures to return fit-for-service Ukrainian men in Germany to the front line.
It must be stated openly: de facto, Germany is once again at war with Russia—and is continuing a disastrous historical tradition. In the 20th century, German imperialism twice attempted to subjugate Russia militarily, committing appalling crimes in the process. Today, the ruling class is making a third attempt. As in both world wars, Ukraine is a central battlefield.
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Today, the German ruling class is again pursuing the goal of removing Ukraine and other states formerly part of the Soviet Union from Moscow’s sphere of influence and bringing them under the control of a European Union dominated by Berlin. In 2022, the then Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared that Ukraine’s integration marked a “starting point” for closer European integration—including the states of the Western Balkans, Moldova and, in the long term, Georgia.
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Regarding Russia, it is not only economic interests—particularly in raw materials—but also a historical thirst for revenge that is driving the escalation. While all parties in the Bundestag (German parliament) essentially support the course of war and rearmament, the Socialist Equality Party (SGP) warned of this development from the outset. As early as 2014, we stated:
History is returning with a vengeance. Almost 70 years after the crimes of the Nazis and its defeat in World War II, the German ruling class is once again adopting the imperialist great power politics of the Kaiser’s Empire and Hitler... In Ukraine, the German government is cooperating with the fascists of Svoboda and the Right Sector, which stand in the tradition of Nazi collaborators in the Second World War.
This warning has been confirmed. Germany is now at the forefront of Ukraine’s military rearmament—including support for far-right and fascist forces within the state and military apparatus.
At the same time, this policy is exacerbating tensions between the imperialist powers themselves, particularly between Germany and the United States. From the perspective of the German bourgeoisie, the struggle for supremacy in Europe and over Ukraine is ultimately part of the preparation for a future confrontation with Washington as well.
The only way to prevent the catastrophe of a Third World War is to build an international socialist movement of the working class—in Russia, Ukraine, Germany, across Europe, in the US and worldwide—against war and its root cause: the capitalist system.
3. War powers resolution blocked in the Senate as 10,000 more US troops head to the Middle East
On Wednesday, the US Senate defeated a Democratic Party-sponsored war powers motion aimed at bringing a resolution to the chamber floor calling for the withdrawal of US forces from the war against Iran on the basis that the war was not authorized by Congress.
The procedural vote failed 52-47 on a motion to discharge a resolution moved by Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois from committee. The vote permits the Trump administration to continue its illegal war against Iran without any congressional oversight.
This was the fourth attempt by the Democrats to posture as opponents of Trump’s warmongering, while they know full well that the resolutions will be blocked by the Republican majority, and while they continue to vote for trillion-dollar military budgets.
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The text of Duckworth’s resolution sought, “To direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against the Islamic Republic of Iran that have not been authorized by Congress.” The resolution does not declare the war illegal, criminal, or a violation of US and international law. Instead, it accepts the framework of the war and argues that Congress has been incorrectly excluded from the decision-making about launching the war and how to conduct it.
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A similar charade was under way in the US House of Representatives on Wednesday with Democrats introducing articles of impeachment against Secretary of War Pete Hegseth for “unauthorized war against Iran,” “targeting of civilians,” “obstruction of congressional oversight,” “abuse of power” and several other items. The motion is universally recognized as dead on arrival, given the Republican majority in the House. Even if it were passed, a two-thirds vote in the Senate would be required to remove Hegseth from office.
Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson dismissed the impeachment motion as an effort to make headlines and said Hegseth will “continue to protect the homeland and project peace through strength.”
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While the Trump administration is publicly talking about diplomacy, the military posture tells a different story. Media reports say that another carrier strike group and additional amphibious and Marine forces are moving into the region, with tens of thousands of troops already there from the first phase of the war.
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The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that the US is sending more than 10,000 additional troops to the Middle East before the end of April. Quoting unnamed current and former US officials speaking on condition of anonymity, the Post reported that the aircraft carrier USS George H. W. Bush and the ships escorting it, including 6,000 troops, are on the way to the region.
Another 4,200 troops from the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group and its embarked Marine Corps task force, the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, are also expected to arrive in the next two weeks.
This buildup is unmistakable evidence that the Pentagon is preparing for a resumption of military operations, regardless of the negotiations. As was the case before the start of the war, the force posture points to a second phase of war rather than de-escalation.
The same pattern is unfolding in Lebanon, where Israeli strikes continue while talks are underway. Reporting over the last 24 hours showed continued attacks in southern Lebanon, including strikes that killed medical workers, alongside Hezbollah rocket fire and the possibility of new Israeli buffer-zone plans.
In both Iran and Lebanon, the US and Israel are pursuing negotiations as a mechanism to buy time to allow for the mobilization of military personnel and hardware and escalate the wars in pursuit of their imperialist and annexationist objectives.
4. Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell resigns amid #MeToo-style sex scandal
On Tuesday, April 14, Eric Swalwell, a seven-term congressman from California’s Bay Area, resigned his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. With remarkable speed, Swalwell went from front-runner in the race to become the next governor of America’s most populous state to political pariah, denounced by Democrats and Republicans alike.
On Friday, April 10, the San Francisco Chronicle and CNN ran lurid accounts by four women accusing Swalwell of sexual abuse. One of the four, a former staffer who has not been identified, claimed that Swalwell raped her on two occasions when she was intoxicated, once in 2019 and again in 2024. The other three accused the then-congressman of sending them sexually explicit and salacious social media posts.
Within hours of the appearance of these reports, which Swalwell claimed were fabrications, his campaign managers and Democratic and trade union endorsers abandoned him and called on him to end his gubernatorial campaign. These included leading Democratic figures, such as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Adam Schiff.
Two days later, on Sunday, April 12, Swalwell announced the suspension of his campaign for governor. While calling the specific allegations against him false, he apologized to his family and acknowledged “mistakes in judgment,” evidently acknowledging that he had had extra-marital affairs.
By then 50 former staffers had issued a public letter calling on him to resign from Congress, and numerous lawmakers from both parties followed suit, threatening to expel him if he refused. The House Ethics Committee announced a probe, and the Manhattan District Attorney’s office launched a criminal investigation.
Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Pramila Jayapal, chair of the House Progressive Caucus, said she would vote to expel both Swalwell and Texas Republican Tony Gonzales from the House of Representatives. Gonzales had been under investigation by the Houses Ethics Committee after having admitted to having a sexual relationship with one of his staffers, who subsequently committed suicide.
Jayapal said, “I think that this is very important that we believe women, and that we show people across the Capitol and across the country that we will not accept this kind of behavior.”
Here you have the totally undemocratic ethos of the #MeToo movement spelled out in all its crudity. Whatever one thinks of Swalwell, and the World Socialist Web Site has no brief for this run-of-the-mill capitalist politician, there is no presumption of innocence, no trial of fact and no due process. The ethos of the #MeToo witch-hunters is guilty as accused!
Swalwell’s political demise cleared the way for the removal of another congressman, Republican Tony Gonzales of Texas, who had already announced he would not run for reelection after admitting to an affair with one of his staff. The woman, who was married with children, committed suicide. Gonzales resigned from Congress under pressure from both parties, shortly after Swalwell did so.
Press accounts claim that billionaire Tom Steyer, who closely trailed Swalwell among Democrats running in the June 2 “jungle primary,” would be the most likely beneficiary of Swalwell’s removal. Steyer has already spent $110 million on his own campaign, far more than all other candidates combined, Democratic and Republican.
Former Democratic leader in the state legislature Willie Brown, a long-time power broker in the party, told USA Today on Tuesday that the Democrats would benefit from the Swalwell exposure coming before rather than after the June 2 primary, when Swalwell and a Republican would likely have emerged as the two candidates going forward to the general election. According to the newspaper, “Brown speculated that opposing candidates in both parties knew about Swalwell’s alleged misconduct, but only Democrats wanted it to come out before the primary.”
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The use of such scandals is invariably associated with a shift to the right in capitalist politics. Swalwell was a well-publicized critic of Trump, particularly in his second impeachment over the failed January 2021 coup. He was a constant presence on cable networks and social media since Trump returned to the White House, denouncing his ICE raids against immigrants and other dictatorial moves. His removal likely means a Democratic governor in California more cooperative with the Trump administration.
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Republican Congressman Gonzales had also run afoul of the Trump White House, occasionally voting against Trump’s policies and criticizing the most extreme anti-immigrant measures. His district covered the vast rural area along the Rio Grande, from El Paso almost to the Gulf of Mexico.
The swift removal of these congressmen is in sharp contrast to the blockade by the Trump administration—and the Biden administration before it—of any serious investigation into the Jeffrey Epstein affair. The convicted sex trafficker died in his Manhattan prison cell in 2019, under circumstances that suggest murder rather than suicide.
For seven years since then, and for nearly two decades before his death, Epstein served as both a financial agent and pimp to billionaires, capitalist politicians and even British royalty. Despite the public denunciations by hundreds of former victims, not a single person, other than the deceased Epstein, has ever been prosecuted.
Last Thursday, in a particularly bizarre scene, First Lady Melania Trump gave a surprise press statement denouncing claims on social media relating to her past association with Epstein. She denied that she had been one of Epstein’s victims, or that Epstein had introduced her to Donald Trump, appealed for a congressional hearing to take the testimony of the victims and left without answering questions from the startled press corps.
5. The political lessons of Mamdani’s first 100 days
The weekend’s campaign-style events were supplemented with a new city-run website touting Mamdani’s accomplishments in his first 100 days: $1.2 billion secured for universal childcare, $9.3 million secured in worker and small business restitution and 100,000 potholes fixed.
While Mamdani was busy patting himself on the back for initiatives like “fixing a bump on the Williamsburg Bridge,” a critical analysis of the last three-and-a-half months of the standard bearer for the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) sheds a different light on the content of the supposed “new era” ushered in on January 1.
Speaking on his accomplishments before an audience of supporters on Sunday, Mamdani did not dare to highlight the most important political initiative of his term thus far: his alliance with President Donald Trump. Mamdani has continued what he calls a productive relationship with the man he correctly characterizes as a fascist, meeting with Trump at the White House for a second time on the eve of the criminal war in Iran.
In two addresses Sunday, speaking well over 5,000 words, Mamdani not once uttered the name “Trump.” He made zero references to the war in Iran, and managed just one fleeting mention of ICE. The omissions are not an accident. Mamdani, playing up his “democratic socialism” before an audience overwhelmingly hostile to Trump, would rather avoid dwelling on the blossoming partnership with the leading advocate of world war and dictatorship.
Despite his reticence on the subject, Mamdani’s collaboration with Trump is extremely significant. Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America are put forward as the “left” alternative to the pro-business and pro-war politics of the Democratic Party establishment and the fascist politics of the Republicans. Mamdani himself was elected on the basis of left-wing appeals to address the affordability crisis and take on a system dominated by an oligarchy.
In the first months of the Mamdani administration, the strain on the working class is not abating; on the contrary, it’s reaching a breaking point. Trump’s criminal war in Iran is the latest catalyst. The administration is determined to make the working class pay for the unfolding disaster. Trump has requested $200 billion in supplemental war funds specifically for Iran, and roughly $1.5 trillion in military spending next year—a World War III budget. Beyond the inevitable cuts to social services to pay for war, the shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz has already led to major increases in energy prices and will reverberate into all aspects of the economy. And an expansion of the war would have catastrophic consequences for the working class everywhere.
Alongside the war crimes in Iran, Trump is continuing to eviscerate democratic rights within the United States. Trump’s immigration Gestapo operates without constraints. ICE agents in New York City have arrested three times as many people in the first month and a half of 2026 as they did in the same period a year ago. Meanwhile, Trump is preparing the narrative that midterm elections—if they happen at all—are illegitimate and can be overturned.
Reflecting on his first hundred days in an interview with POLITICO, Mamdani made clear that none of the crimes of the Trump administration are impediments to deepening their alliance. “The president and I disagree on many things in public and in private,” Mamdani said in the interview. “We do, however, agree on one thing, which is a love for New York City. And that love, it is one that allows for our relationship to be a productive one, and allows for the city to know that it will not simply be affected by threats.”
David North, the chairperson of the World Socialist Web Site and of the Socialist Equality Party, responded on X, “If Mamdani were transported back to the 1930s as mayor of Berlin, he would say: ‘Hitler is the leader of the Nazis, but he loves sauerkraut and so do I.’”
The main political function of Mamdani’s alliance with Trump is to disorient those who are becoming radicalized and looking to (democratic) socialism for an alternative. Mamdani offers the poison that productive relationships can be forged with fascists, cutting workers and youth off from an orientation to the independent mobilization of the working class and a genuine struggle for socialism.
Instead, Mamdani and the DSA present a watered-down version of “sewer socialism,” offering minor reforms and managerial efficiency palatable to business interests and the political establishment. Even then, under conditions of a deepening crisis of American capitalism, with a ruling class turning towards dictatorship and war, Mamdani’s appeals to the ruling class and their political servants are able to yield very little.
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Meanwhile, Wall Street bonuses reached a record $49.2 billion last year, up 9 percent year over year, according to a report from the City Comptroller. The bonuses reflect an increase in Wall Street profits by more than 30 percent last year, to over $65 billion.
This staggering social inequality is coinciding with the beginning of an upsurge among workers and a political radicalization accelerated by the Trump administration. Already this year, nurses in New York City struck at three major hospital systems for 41 days. Next week may see the 34,000 building service workers walk off the job. A similar number of transit workers are nearing a contract deadline in May. And Mamdani will come into direct conflict with city workers later this year when DC37 and other union contracts expire.
For the working class to make real gains in improving living conditions, in defending democratic rights and resisting imperialist war, sharp lessons must be drawn from the Mamdani administration’s first 100 days. Mamdani and DSA represent the interests of an upper-middle-class layer dissatisfied with the status quo, not seeking to put an end to the horrors of capitalism, but a more comfortable life within it for those already living in privileged circumstances (the upper middle class). Mamdani’s fraudulent “socialism” must be rejected. The decisive question is building a movement that doesn’t seek to pressure the Democratic Party but politically breaks from it; one that aims not to more effectively organize oligarchic rule but fights for workers’ control; and one that rejects collaboration with the would-be dictator in the White House, instead mobilizing the strength of the working class internationally to fight fascism, dictatorship and war.
6. European states refuse to join in US blockade of Straits of Hormuz targeting Iran
European governments have rejected the Trump administration’s demands that they join the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz that Trump declared Sunday, after announcing a ceasefire last week in his war of aggression against Iran. A far-reaching and historic breakdown of European relations with the United States is underway.
At the same time, the European bourgeoisies’ response is marked above all by cowardice and hypocrisy. Not only is a blockade itself an act of war, but closure of the Strait of Hormuz would cut off essential oil, gas and fertilizer supplies to Europe and the entire world. Yet none of the European governments have dared denounce the blockade, call to end it, call to stop the war, or end military and financial assistance to the US government.
Instead, reflecting the outlook of the corrupt capitalist oligarchies they represent, Europe’s governments continue to discuss a naval intervention in the Persian Gulf—though this would face the same Iranian missile threat that have so far dissuaded the US Navy from assaulting Iran’s coast. Britain and France are convening a summit meeting on Friday of an alliance of 40 countries to prepare a naval mission to the Strait of Hormuz, coordinated independently of Washington.
“This strictly defensive mission, which is separate from the belligerents, will be deployed as soon as the situation permits it,” said French President Emmanuel Macron. He called for “a solid and durable solution to the Middle East conflict via the diplomatic road, a solution that would allow the region of a robust framework so everyone can live in peace and security.” He went on to denounce “the nuclear and ballistic activities of Iran as well as its destabilizing actions in the region.”
Macron’s lies are staggering. The essential threat to peace and security in the Middle East comes not from Iran, which did not initiate this war or any of the other wars launched against it, but from Washington and the war of extermination launched by America’s fascist president. As for peace in the Middle East, Paris is complicit in undermining it, by consistently stressing Macron’s friendship with the Israeli government amid its genocide in Gaza.
In Germany, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius responded, “This war is not our war, we did not start it … What does Donald Trump want a handful of European frigates in the strait of Hormuz to accomplish, when even the powerful US Navy could not do so?” Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s office issued a statement that Trump’s war against Iran “has nothing to do with NATO.”
Merz’s statement is a pathetic dodge, in that it is clear that Trump’s war with Iran and in particular his blockading of the Strait of Hormuz is cutting off key energy supplies to Europe. This follows the destruction of Germany’s Nordstream pipeline to Russia after US President Joe Biden threatened that it would be destroyed. This consistent US policy, by directly threatening to cut off Europe’s energy supply, most definitely “has to do with NATO.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told BBC Radio: “We’re not supporting the blockade and all of the marshalling diplomatically, politically and capability... that’s all focused, from our point of view, on getting the Strait fully open.” He added, “whatever the pressure—and there's been some considerable pressure—we’re not getting dragged into the war. That’s not in our national interest, because I’m not going to act unless there’s a clear, lawful basis and a clear thought-through plan.”
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One basic contradiction marks the European governments’ policy. When the US government takes war measures targeting them, they retaliate not against the United States, but against Iran and the Middle East. Underlying their collaboration with Trump is not only personal cowardice but, above all, objective imperialist interests. The European powers are intervening to defend their own military bases and profits extracted from the Middle East, and to maintain financial ties to Wall Street as well as their NATO military alliance with US imperialism.
The cost of the war in lives and the catastrophic economic impact of the conflict on millions of workers’ jobs and the purchasing power of the entire population are of little concern to Macron, Starmer and the leaders of other capitalist governments across Europe. They are far more concerned with salvaging the domination of the Middle East by world imperialism, increasingly threatened by the initial failure of Trump’s war, than the well-being of the working people of Europe or the world.
Despite the European powers’ refusal to challenge the most reactionary elements of US imperialist foreign policy, the rift between Washington and its European NATO “allies” is continuing to widen and grow more explosive by the day.
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While US threats of an energy cutoff visibly pose a mortal threat to Europe’s economy, such financial moves pose an equal threat to the US economy. European investors hold an estimated total of $8 trillion in US assets—Treasury bonds, stocks and corporate bonds—equivalent to 24 percent of the US sovereign debt. If European investors dumped their US Treasury bonds, either due to increasingly low returns on US dollar assets or as retaliation for US tariff or energy threats, it could trigger a massive crisis of the $38 trillion US sovereign debt and a surge in US interest rates.
The explosive conflicts between the NATO imperialist powers again illustrate the fundamental contradiction of the capitalist system, between world economy and the nation-state system, that the great Marxists of the 20th century identified as the source of the two world wars in that century. The critical 21st century task for the workers is to stop capitalism’s accelerating plunge into global war and genocide by developing an international movement in the working class against imperialist war, and to take power out of the hands of the capitalist oligarchy and establish socialism.
7. Venezuelan workers protest persistent poverty amid privatizations and US corporate deals
An economic crisis marked by widespread hunger and disease continues for Venezuelan workers, even as Chavista officials boast of how “sexy” the country has become for foreign investors. This grotesque coexistence of deepening social misery alongside an unrestricted courtship of transnational corporations defines the current stage of Venezuela’s crisis.
Even as executives from Chevron and Shell parade through the halls of government and oil production again surpasses 1 million barrels per day—amid high global oil prices—workers continue to live in extreme poverty.
There is no contradiction here. A decade of shock therapy vastly worsened by US sanctions and enforced through low wages by the Chavista government has produced the conditions for the superexploitation of millions of Venezuelan workers.
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As part of measures to attract foreign investment, the state oil company PDVSA is implementing reduced access to subsidized gasoline while expanding gas stations offering premium fuel. This gasoline is sold exclusively in US dollars at $3.79 per gallon—far beyond the reach of most Venezuelans, who are paid in rapidly depreciating bolivars.
These policies are fueling growing unrest. A coalition of trade unions and student organizations launched a protest last Thursday demanding wage increases. An estimated 2,000 participants attempted to march to the Miraflores Presidential Palace but were violently blocked by anti-riot police. Security forces deployed tear gas and detained five protesters. It marked the largest anti-government demonstration since the January 3 US military raid in which President Nicolás Maduro was abducted and transferred to a New York City prison.
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This protest followed another significant mobilization on Wednesday. Hundreds of students and workers from the Universidad Central de Venezuela marched through Caracas demanding wage increases. They denounced that their salaries have not increased in four years and officially amount to about $1 per month, supplemented by approximately $190 in bonuses. Teachers have announced plans to strike on April 22, indicating that broader sectors are preparing for sustained struggle.
Another protest is planned this Thursday in front of the US embassy, with organizers declaring their intention to demonstrate before “those who truly rule in Venezuela.”
Interim President Delcy Rodríguez has responded with a combination of repression and empty promises. Last week, she appealed to workers for “patience” in a televised address, pledging a “responsible” increase in the minimum wage on May Day so as not to fuel inflation. Framed in such terms, any increase is widely expected to be negligible. The minimum wage, unchanged since 2022, stands at 130 bolivars—approximately $0.27 per month.
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Against this backdrop, the transformation of Venezuela into a semi-colony has become increasingly explicit. President Donald Trump has repeatedly praised Rodríguez while his administration advances a broader project of hemispheric domination, described in terms of a “Greater North America” extending from Greenland to the equator.
As part of this agenda, the Pentagon has escalated near-daily missile strikes on small boats across the eastern Pacific and Caribbean—claiming without evidence that they are “narco-traffickers”—killing at least 173 innocent fishermen, since September. Caracas has issued no denunciation of these cold-blooded killings.
Rodríguez is acting openly as a tool of US corporate interests. This posture can only intensify popular opposition among workers who have endured more than a decade of devastating US sanctions, repeated coup attempts, and, most recently, direct military violence.
At a recent investor forum in Miami—a city long regarded in Caracas as a center of far-right exile politics and coup plotting—Rodríguez openly presented Venezuela as a semicolonial supplier of oil and critical minerals. She emphasized the country’s vast reserves and low production costs, highlighting renegotiated prices and reduced taxes and royalties designed to attract foreign investors.
These overtures have been matched by concrete policy shifts. The Chavista administration has not opposed Trump’s executive order requiring that Venezuelan oil revenues be deposited into US Treasury accounts and managed entirely by the US government. This extraordinary arrangement effectively strips the country of sovereign control over its primary source of income.
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The economic restructuring has proceeded rapidly. Following the earlier passage of legislation on crude oil, the Chavista-controlled Congress last week unanimously approved a law privatizing gold and other “strategic minerals.” The law removes exclusive state control and establishes a framework for 30-year concessions to private corporations, with royalties that can be paid “in kind”—that is, effectively not at all. Shipments of gold and minerals are already departing Venezuelan ports under these arrangements.
The emphasis on economic restructuring also signals the indefinite postponement of elections overseen by Washington, under the fraudulent banner of a “democratic transition.”
Jorge Rodríguez, head of Congress and brother of the interim president, confirmed this orientation in a recent interview. “Venezuela is becoming quite sexy from the point of view of foreign investment opportunities,” he declared. When asked when elections will take place, he replied: “What matters most right now is the economy. It is necessary for the Venezuelan economy to advance toward such dynamism that the population feels that this entire process was worthwhile.”
For the working class, however, the reality is starkly different. The “dynamism” celebrated by officials and investors translates into intensified exploitation, declining real wages, and the dismantling of social rights.
State censorship efforts are once again being directed against an artist with Palestinian roots. Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul’s (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) ministry has reprimanded the Goethe‑Institut for allowing a work by Basma al‑Sharif to be shown in an exhibition in Lithuania.
The Goethe‑Institut is a non‑profit cultural institution that operates worldwide to promote the study of the German language and international cultural exchange. It is funded primarily by the German government.
The exhibition in question, shown from October 2025 to March 2026, was a collaboration between the Contemporary Art Centre Vilnius (CAC), the Goethe‑Institut and the Academy of Arts in Berlin. It was curated by the CAC under a title that is particularly resonant given the wars currently raging: Bells and Cannons–Contemporary Art in the Face of Militarisation.
As part of the exhibition, al‑Sharif’s installation Deep Sleep was shown. This meditative, dreamlike video was shot in 2024 in abandoned ruins in Malta, Athens and Gaza. It links these locations to convey the destruction in Gaza to the viewer. Colourful, flickering lights; sun, earth, stone, rock, sky and water flood the scenes, accompanied by rhythmic sounds of waves, bells and footsteps. The installation closely aligned with the exhibition’s theme, which alludes to the historical practice of melting down church bells during the First and Second World Wars to manufacture cannons and ammunition.
Al‑Sharif has been demonised by the government as an antisemite and an Israel‑hater because, in view of the genocidal actions of the Israeli armed forces in Gaza, she posted pro-Palestinian content on her Instagram account, including a call to boycott Israel. Because she referred to the State of Israel as a “Zionist entity,” she has been accused of “denying Israel’s right to exist.”
Goethe‑Institut officials stated they regretted not having been aware of these posts, claiming they were incompatible with its values. The German foreign ministry, which provides the bulk of the institute’s funding, made it clear that “greater diligence is necessary in the planning and conception of events with cooperation partners, and this is also expected by the foreign ministry.” This is coded language for censorship and repression.
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Further attacks on Basma al‑Sharif are already under way. She has been invited to the internationally respected Osnabrück European Media Art Festival (EMAF), where her award‑winning short film Morning Circle is due to be screened in late April, alongside her participation in a panel discussion.
On March 30, the city of Osnabrück announced that “intensive discussions” had taken place with festival organisers, who nevertheless continued to support al‑Sharif. The city subsequently distanced itself from relevant parts of the program and Lower Saxony's Minister‑President Olaf Lies (SPD), withdrew his patronage of the festival. However, funding from the city and the state government remains intact.
9. Coalition leader’s speech: Australian ruling elite turns to anti-immigrant poison
The Coalition leader called for the reversal of the nominally non-discriminatory immigration program that has existed since the formal end of the blatantly racist White Australia regime in the 1960s.
While the overwhelmingly young crowd of students and workers was no doubt drawn to El-Sayed’s rally by opposition to the Gestapo-like operations of Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) officers and the fascist Trump administration’s broader attacks on democratic rights and social institutions, the perspective offered at the rally was a political dead-end.
El-Sayed, who was born in Detroit of Egyptian immigrant parents, previously ran for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2018 with the backing of Senator Bernie Sanders, losing to Gretchen Whitmer. He has headed public health departments in Detroit and Wayne County.
After the announcement by Democratic Senator Gary Peters that he would not seek reelection this year, El-Sayed entered the race for the Democratic nomination to succeed him. His campus tour is a calculated intervention by a faction of the Democratic Party—along with its pseudo-left satellites—to corral the growing leftward movement of students within the framework of capitalist electoral politics.
In his Senate campaign, El‑Sayed has positioned himself as the “left” candidate in a three-way Democratic primary set for August 4, against US Representative Haley Stevens and State Senator Mallory McMorrow. Polling by Emerson College in late January 2026 showed McMorrow at 22 percent, Stevens at 17 percent and El‑Sayed at 16 percent among Democratic primary voters, with a huge 38 percent still undecided, leaving the race wide open.
Former Representative Mike Rogers is expected to be the Republican nominee. Rogers narrowly lost a Senate contest to Democrat Elissa Slotkin, a former CIA agent, in 2024.
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At the Ann Arbor rally, addressed by El-Sayed, Piker and Representatives Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Summer Lee (D-PA), the speeches were most notable for what they avoided. While denouncing the militarism and outright criminality of the Trump administration, the speakers made no mention of capitalism or socialism, although Piker calls himself a “Marxist-Leninist” and Tlaib and Lee are both members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
Everything was carefully edited to focus only on the primary in August and the general election in November. Toward this end, the content of nearly all the speeches emphasized El-Sayed’s supposed trustworthiness. “He’s someone I don’t have to call and check on,” Tlaib stated, adding, “if he’s elected, I know I won’t have to watch him,” and voters won’t have to pressure him constantly to “do the right thing.”
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None of the speakers made any reference to the death of Danhao Wang, a Chinese national and U-M researcher who committed suicide following intense questioning by federal agents last month, or the role played by the U-M administration in condoning and covering up the incident.
Yousef Rabhi, a Washtenaw County Commissioner, DSA member and Democratic candidate for Ann Arbor mayor, also spoke ahead of El-Sayed. Screaming out a speech peppered with expletives, Rabhi denounced Trump while stating, “We need to take this country back!” But from whom?
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When it was finally El-Sayed’s turn to speak, the “progressive Democrat” had just as little to offer as the preceding speakers. While emphasizing that ICE is not reformable and must be abolished, El-Sayed only presented one path to oppose fascism and war: vote for the Democratic Party, which is facilitating the rise of fascism and US imperialism’s wars abroad.
Publicly, El-Sayed expresses rhetorical opposition to US imperialism’s Middle Eastern wars as matters of flawed military and political procedure and presidential overreach. Behind this anti-war appearance, El-Sayed aligns himself with the Democrats’ imperialist foreign policy consensus, citing both the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine and the US-NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999 as examples of positive exercises of US military power.
In line with the politics of imperialism, El-Sayed’s gestures in support of expanding healthcare and social spending are of a limited reformist character that do nothing to challenge or undermine the capitalist system, the source of inequality, war and authoritarianism pressing down on workers and youth.
The droning chorus of statements praising El-Sayed as a steadfast and reliable political representative is true only in the sense that he will be firm in his allegiance to the capitalist politics of the Democratic Party and the ruling elite, which are presently rushing to provide political cover for Trump’s war against Iran.
In an interview with the DSA-linked publication Jacobin, El-Sayed emphasized that winning in Michigan would “suggest a way forward in the rest of the country,” meaning he had a strategy for rebranding the Democratic Party. While insisting he could “speak truth to power,” El-Sayed promised the ruling class that his proposals—single‑payer healthcare, limited debt relief, modest taxation of the wealthy—would not fundamentally threaten their wealth, property or control of the state.
Like DSA member Zohran Mamdani, who won the New York City mayoral election as a Democrat in 2025 on a platform of limited social reform, opposition to the US-Israeli-led genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and resistance to Trump’s authoritarianism, and now leads a program of cuts to social spending and political alliances with the fascist in the White House, El-Sayed offers no serious alternative to the right-wing politics of the Democratic Party.
While Trump’s pardons and commutations last year shortened or ended the sentences of the convicted, they did not erase the actual felonies from their records. If these motions are granted and the charges dismissed, they will effectively wipe away the criminal judgments in the most serious January 6 cases.
Tuesday’s motion claims that dismissal of the convictions is “just under the circumstances” because the “United States has determined in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of this criminal case is in the interests of justice.” In other words, it is in the interests of the Trump administration, and the financial oligarchy it represents, that fascist militia leaders face no consequences for their criminal actions.
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The DOJ’s motion is a warning to the working class. Under conditions in which Trump and the Republicans are widely hated, the aspiring dictator is summoning and preparing the same paramilitary elements that heeded his violent call to action some five years ago.
Trump is already moving to disrupt the midterm elections and make it difficult for workers and their families to vote. He has called for a federal takeover of elections and has demanded that states send voter rolls to the DOJ which are then shared with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for alleged “citizenship checks” aimed at removing voters. At least 12 states, including Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming, have already sent lists to the federal government.
Trump has repeatedly called for eliminating vote by mail, castigating it as inherently fraudulent, and is also trying to pass the SAVE Act, an anti-voter legislation aimed at imposing bureaucratic hurdles to proving citizenship in order to vote.
In the last month, Trump has deployed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) thugs to airports to harass, kidnap and detain workers. War Room host and former White House adviser Steve Bannon has repeatedly called on Trump to deploy the immigration Gestapo to polling locations.
That Trump is in a position to pardon his fascist foot soldiers and disrupt the midterm elections is entirely the fault of the Democratic Party. On the day of the attack, then President-elect Joe Biden implored Trump to go on television and appeal to these fascists to halt their rampage.
Trump did no such thing, but this did not prevent Biden and the Democrats from calling for a “strong Republican Party” in the aftermath of the attack. Throughout Biden’s presidency, his attorney general, Merrick Garland, stalled efforts to prosecute Trump for the coup. Taking the measure of the Democrats’ unwillingness to prosecute Trump and his co-conspirators, Republicans, and even sections of the pseudo-left, adopted Trump’s lie that the greatest injustice that occurred on January 6 was not the storming of the Capitol and the attempt to overthrow the election but the prosecution of some of Trump’s fascist foot soldiers.
Throughout Biden’s presidency, the Democrats did everything in their power to downplay the danger of dictatorship and rehabilitate the Republican Party. This was done in order to advance their shared class interests, namely prosecuting the US-NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, the genocide in Gaza and eliminating all public health and mitigation measures concerning the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The Unite union received a mandate for strike action at the start of April. Contrary to its media briefings that “escalating strike action will be announced in the coming days”, no dates have been confirmed.
A worker died at Amazon’s PDX9 fulfillment center in Troutdale, Oregon, on Monday, April 6. For more than an hour after his collapse, employees at the facility say that management ordered them to continue working around his body. The death went unreported for a week before the online investigative outlet, the Western Edge, broke the story on April 13.
The worker, 46 years old, was employed as a “tote runner,” which involves gathering stacks of yellow plastic bins, loading them onto a cart and hauling them along warehouse corridors for other workers to fill. According to multiple employees who spoke to the Western Edge on condition of anonymity, the facility recently reduced the number of tote runners, increasing the physical burden on those who remain.
The unidentified man collapsed on the second level of the loading dock. A 911 call placed at 1:55 p.m. captured a worker describing what he found: the man had extensive blood coming from his head and was “very blue looking.” A second caller asked the dispatcher for instruction on how to operate a defibrillator.
A worker identified as Sam, whose name was changed by the Western Edge to protect her from retribution, has CPR training and asked her supervisor for permission to assist a woman who was already performing chest compressions. The supervisor refused. “It has to be management or a safety team,” Sam was told. “Please get back to work.” Sam pressed further. The supervisor reportedly replied, “Just turn around and not look. Let’s get back to work.”
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One worker on social media corroborated the story. “This is my site. This was a tote runner that worked FHD [who] was an older gentleman who suffered cardiac arrest likely from heat and over exertion. Fell down, hit his head. Was given CPR on site [and] by the time the ambulance came he had already passed. Our hearts and prayers go out to this person’s family. It’s been truly sad around the facility.”
Workers also commented on Amazon’s internal messaging app, one noting that, “Amazon was given a 16 billion dollar tax cut to invest in AI and robotics so they can cut 600,000 jobs. Do you think Amazon cares about safety?”
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PDX9 has long been among the most dangerous of Amazon’s facilities. A 2019 investigation by the outlet Reveal found it had the highest injury rate of 23 major distribution centers examined. In 2018, more than a quarter of all workers at the site had sustained injuries on the job.
The trend continued during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when Amazon’s refusal to provide proper protective equipment caused at least 100 infections, making it the fourth-largest workplace outbreak in Oregon at the time. In August 2021, a second outbreak at PDX9 had infected 345 workers, the highest total of any workplace in Oregon, surpassing even overwhelmed medical centers.
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The death at PDX9 also exposes the role of the Democratic Party in setting up America’s industrial slaughterhouse. The facility was built using $9.6 million in tax breaks granted by the Port of Portland and the city of Troutdale in 2017, and total public subsidies extended to Amazon for its Oregon expansion reached $213.1 million. At the time, Oregon Governor Kate Brown called the facility’s opening “a celebration.”
The deaths at Amazon are part of America’s industrial slaughterhouse. Last April, autoworker Ronald Adams Sr. was killed at the Stellantis Dundee Engine Plant when an overhead gantry crane activated without warning. A year later, MIOSHA has not released the results of its investigation, and the United Auto Workers (UAW) has worked alongside management to suppress the case.
Under the Trump administration, OSHA’s enforcement capacity is being gutted further. Proposed budgets slash inspection staffing, freeze new rule making, including a heat illness prevention standard that could have applied to facilities like PDX9 and replace enforcement with voluntary compliance by employers. Workers cannot rely on these agencies, which have never protected them.
The defense of workers’ lives at Amazon and every other workplace requires workers themselves to organize. The WSWS urges Amazon workers to build rank-and-file safety committees, genuinely democratic organizations of, by and for workers on the shop floor, to fight back against unsafe working conditions and to conduct their own investigations when workers are injured or killed.
“We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget,” Robertson said.
15. Australia: Labor intensifies assault on disability funding ahead of May budget
The cuts to the National Disability Insurance Scheme target those with so-called “mild” or “moderate” needs, who will be stripped of supports or face drastic reductions.
Over the weekend, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 7 ratified a new contract for 3,800 workers at the JBS beef processing plant in Greeley, Colorado. The deal runs retroactively from July 2025 through April 2028.
The agreement addresses none of the workers’ demands which led to a powerful three-week strike. It was the largest US meatpacking strike in more than 60 years. Workers at the plant account for more than 6 percent of all US beef processing.
The UFCW bureaucracy, after isolating the strike as much as possible, shut it down on April 4 without a deal. The present contract was announced a week later, giving workers little time to study and discuss among themselves before voting.
Local 7 President Kim Cordova hypocritically declared: “These workers stood together on the picket line for three weeks because they knew their worth and refused to be disrespected. Today, that sacrifice has been rewarded.” Cordova claimed that the “contract is significantly different [from the company’s last offer]. It is material.”
In fact, JBS spokesperson Nikki Richardson said in a press release that it “reflects the same economic framework JBS USA presented in its Last, Best and Final offer.”
Instead of a meager 60 cent per hour raise in the first year of the contract, JBS and Local 7 agreed to a 70 cent increase, an improvement of only 10 cents over the initial offer. During the second and third years of the contract, the initially proposed 30 cent increases were likewise raised by 10 cents to 40 cents per hour.
Assuming that plant employees work an eight hour day—even though most shifts actually have fewer hours—each worker would only receive an additional $5.60 per day before taxes during the first year of the agreement. After the second and third year increases, JBS Greeley workers would see an aggregate $12 increase per day, only 40 cents more than the current average price of a meal at a Colorado McDonald’s.
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The Trump administration is preparing for a renewed offensive in its genocidal war against Iran and is expecting the trade union apparatus to fall into line as it demands harsh discipline on the factory floor. The UFCW, in the latest Greeley agreement, has thus dutifully played its assigned role.
At the same time that Local 7 reached its agreement with JBS, the United Teachers of Los Angeles, Associated Administrators of Los Angeles and SEIU Local 99 also reached a last-minute agreement with the Los Angeles Unified School District to block a strike of more than 70,000 school workers.
This all makes the formation of independent rank-and-file committees an urgent necessity for workers both in the US and internationally. The trade union apparatus acts as nothing more than an appendage of the corporations, pacifying worker resistance and ensuring that obscene profits remain unimpeded in the midst of escalating war and dictatorship.
17. Australia: Labor intensifies assault on disability funding ahead of May budget
The cuts to the National Disability Insurance Scheme target those with so-called “mild” or “moderate” needs, who will be stripped of supports or face drastic reductions.
18. The socialist answer to the housing crisis
Land and property have become asset vehicles for funneling billions of pounds from the working class—those who produce society’s wealth—to the billionaires.
19. Workers Struggles: Africa & Europe
Africa
Liberia:
Nigeria:
South Africa:
Belgium:
Postal workers in wildcat strikes against deteriorating working conditions
France:
Confectionery workers in Perpignan strike for pay increase
Netherlands:
Tens of thousands of government officials strike over pay freeze and staff shortages
United Kingdom:
Academic staff at London university walk out over job cut threat
Passenger support staff at a London airport set to walk out over pay
Bus drivers at east London company to hold further stoppages over fatigue fearsFurther strike by teachers at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital over sacking of union representative
20. Free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk!
The fight for the Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist's freedom is an essential component of the struggle against imperialist war, genocide, dictatorship and fascism.
