Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
1. This week in history: November 2-8
- 25 years ago:
50 years ago:
75 years ago:
Britain deploys 6,000 troops to Egypt as workers’ strikes paralyze the Canal Zone
100 years ago:
Polish government announces press censorship laws
The Metropolitan Police warned that not only placard holders but anyone providing “logistical support” faced arrest, days before the Supreme Court hears the appeal against the ban on Palestine Action on Wednesday.
The department behind that door is hollowed out. We see over 100,000 patients a year in our A&E with only half the recommended minimum of 25 consultants.
4. Netanyahu uses election deadlock to ramp up Iran war threats and retain power
Numerous Israeli and US reports and statements suggest that Israel and Washington are preparing to launch another attack on Iran after the US midterm elections.
5. Workers speak on unemployment, homelessness and war ahead of New Zealand election
“I don’t think military spending is what we should be focusing on, especially since our healthcare is terrible right now. We need more nurses and doctors.”
6. New Zealand jobs crisis demands a socialist solution
The Socialist Equality Group rejects the premise shared by every other party contesting the November 7 election: that working people must pay for the crisis of the profit system.
7. Sri Lankan government grants concessions to imprisoned monks
The president’s prostration to the demands of the Buddhist hierarchy exposes the phony character of his attempts to posture as standing for ethnic and religious harmony and equal treatment for all.
8. Conservatives win British Columbia election as voters abandon NDP in droves
The Conservative “majority” rests in large part on working class disillusionment with the trade union-supported NDP, which lost a third of its voters from the 2024 election.
9. Children’s Hospital of Michigan nurses fight unsafe staffing and low pay under Tenet Healthcare
A unionization campaign, which would affiliate nurses with the Michigan Nurses Association, comes amid years of systemic degradation of healthcare standards, But he MNA bureaucracy, by contrast, seeks a cooperative relationship with management and already begun lowering nurses’ expectations.
10. The fifth and final season of Babylon Berlin—strengths and weaknesses
The final season excels in the sphere of production values, atmosphere and acting performances but fails miserably to deal with the central political question: how could Hitler have been prevented from taking power?
11. Trump plans to resume bombing of Iran as early as the day after the midterm elections
Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat on the Foreign Relations and Appropriations committees, has sat in a classified briefing on the plan. Speaking Wednesday at the Middle East Institute in Washington, he said the briefing included “a fairly detailed conversation about what the war plan would be if we restarted military operations,” and that the plan “will lead, in my view, to a prolongment and an escalation of this war.” He pointed to “open reporting as to what we may be planning and the civilian infrastructure that we may be targeting.”
The next day Murphy wrote on X: “Some of us have been briefed on the war plan. And while I cannot disclose any details, I can say this: the plan is insane. It will not achieve objectives and will set off a new cycle of escalation.” Murphy suffered a stroke Saturday and was hospitalized.
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The Pentagon told Congress that the cost of the war had reached $47.1 billion by October 16, the New York Times reported Wednesday, and that more than 60 percent of it had gone to bombs, missiles and other ammunition. The Pentagon’s casualty report published October 15 listed 21 US troops dead and 865 injured in the Iran war and related operations in the region.
12. Leading German news weekly Der Spiegel attacks Die Linke / Left Party
The media campaign against Die Linke is aimed less at the party than at the Berlin voters who gave it victory in the state election, hoping for affordable housing and an end to the federal government’s policy of war and social cuts.
13. Democratic Representative Haley Stevens endorses Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan Senate race
Democratic Representative Haley Stevens, who was defeated by Abdul El-Sayed in the August primary for Michigan’s open US Senate seat, endorsed his Trump-backed Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, on Sunday, two days before the election.
In her video, Stevens said, “Hey Michigan. As you may have seen, our Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, Abdul, said I was no longer welcome in his campaign and that I should stay away. And he’s right—that’s why I’m endorsing Mike Rogers for the U.S. Senate today.”
Stevens would not have taken this action on her own. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer denounced it as a “despicable betrayal,” and her chief of staff and other staff members resigned. But Stevens speaks for a faction of the party leadership that has moved against El-Sayed, hostile to his criticism of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and even to the milquetoast social reforms he has proposed.
Sections of the leadership are also wary of what a Democratic Senate majority would mean, and of the expectations it would raise among workers and young people. The Democrats have no intention of meeting those expectations. Their principal concern is to intensify the war against Russia.
The conflict between El-Sayed and Stevens was precipitated by an advertisement linking US support for Israel to unaffordable groceries.
Set in a grocery store, the advertisement shows a couple discussing which items they need to return to the shelves. In one exchange, a shopper tells her husband not to buy eggs because “we have to set that $7 aside for killing Palestinians.” The dialogue says that “we give Israel $4 billion a year,” then refers to an additional $26 billion and puts the cost at approximately $161 per American taxpayer.
The ad was paid for by Rebellion PAC, an independent political action committee co-founded by Cenk Uygur, host of the online program The Young Turks.
Stevens characterized the advertisement as antisemitic and demanded that El-Sayed not only disassociate himself from its producer but condemn it and apologize for his own statements about Israel. She wrote, “But the ad did not invent its argument; it dramatized one Dr. El-Sayed has made in his own words throughout this campaign: that Israel is the reason Michigan cannot afford schools, healthcare, and childcare.”
El-Sayed initially emphasized that his campaign had nothing to do with the ad. By Saturday he said, “That ad was not made by me, and I do not agree with the contents of that ad.” But the dispute escalated, and on Friday his campaign asked Stevens to stay away from its events. She endorsed Rogers the next day.
On Sunday morning, Stevens appeared with Rogers at Perfecting Church on Detroit’s east side and publicly announced her endorsement of the Republican candidate. On X, Rogers called her “a courageous leader who deserves the respect of every Michigan voter.”
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El-Sayed’s dismissal of Stevens’ actions is an effort to obscure the right-wing politics of the Democratic Party that they both represent.
Stevens is a longtime defender of corporate interests, the state of Israel, and an enemy of the working class. Outside groups spent some $60 million on her behalf in the primary, as much as $34 million of it through super PACs backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Her support for Israel was central to the contest. She refused to characterize Israel’s mass killing in Gaza as genocide and opposed a July amendment cutting off $3.3 billion in military assistance. At the April 19 Michigan Democratic convention, delegates booed throughout her remarks. Reports described her being shouted down over her pro-Israel record.
Stevens’ establishment credentials were forged during the Great Recession as chief of staff of the US Auto Rescue Task Force from 2009 to 2011 during the Obama administration. She was a central figure in overseeing the restructuring of General Motors and Chrysler and the federal bailouts that ensured corporate profitability through massive concessions, enforced by the leadership of the United Auto Workers (UAW) in collaboration with the task force.
These arrangements included $14-an-hour starting wages for auto workers, the consolidation of two-tier employment, the elimination of cost-of-living adjustments and restrictions on strikes. The restructuring devastated jobs and benefits while tying union-controlled retiree healthcare finances to company stock performance. Stevens called herself “deeply proud” of that role.
For his part, El-Sayed, who was backed by the UAW apparatus, never challenged Stevens over her participation in the attacks on auto workers. This silence revealed the shared embrace by both candidates of corporate profitability. Immediately following his primary victory, El-Sayed expressed his support for American military aid to Ukraine in the war against Russia, claiming that the US was involved in a “righteous struggle.”
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Stevens’ endorsement gives critical assistance to the Republicans amid widespread predictions of a “blue wave” that would hand the Democrats control of both houses of Congress. It is entirely in line with the role the Democrats have played throughout both of Trump’s terms. Their overriding fear is that opposition to Trump’s fascism will develop into an independent movement of the working class beyond their control. Stevens’ crossing over to the Republicans and El-Sayed’s embrace of establishment figures like [South Carolina Congressman James ] Clyburn are different expressions of the same allegiance to the interests of the capitalist class.
14. Christa Pike speaks out 1 month after Tennessee’s failed attempt to execute her
Will Tennessee try again? Republican Governor Bill Lee, who denied Pike clemency two days before the execution, called it “deeply disturbing,” ordered an “independent” review and called off the state’s only other execution this year. Prisons chief Frank Strada resigned. But Lee has rejected demands to commute Pike’s sentence, saying he expects it to stand unless the courts decide otherwise, and Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has given no assurance the state will not seek a new date.
Lee leaves office in January. Senator Marsha Blackburn, the Republican running to succeed him, has called for bringing back the electric chair. John Yoo, author of the Bush administration’s torture memos, said Tennessee should “go back and try again.”
15. Cracks start to widen in AI boom
The sell off began on Thursday when shares in Alphabet dropped 13 percent and its market value fell by $500 billion, its largest ever one-day loss.
16. Germany: More than 120,000 young people protest against crumbling education system and war
On thousands of handmade cardboard placards, the mostly very young participants denounced the crisis in education, exorbitant rents and social cuts, linking these issues to militarism and war, on which the government is spending billions.
17. German youth join the global movement against austerity and war
The international wave of youth protests sweeping Europe has reached Germany. On Saturday, October 31, more than 120,000 young people took to the streets in over 30 cities against the destruction of education, soaring living costs, social inequality, militarism and the reintroduction of compulsory military service.
18. Australian “antisemitism” envoy demands further assault on democratic rights
Segal, an appointee of the Labor government, has launched a frontal assault on “the left,” specifically targeting socialists and Marxists.
19. International port strike reveals workers’ militancy ahead of November 5 strike in France
On Friday, October 30, 2026, an international day of action brought together dockworkers from at least 113 ports in 22 countries against war, genocide and militarization. The movement originated in the “Istanbul Declaration,” adopted in May 2026 at the third meeting of Mediterranean and European dockworkers’ unions. The declaration was backed in particular by CGT Ports and Docks (France), ENEDEP (Greece), LAB (Basque Country), Liman-İş (Turkey), ODT (Morocco) and USB (Italy).
The significance of this action extends far beyond the ports. Against the background of an eruption of mass protests across Europe, it marks the growing intervention of the working class into the struggle against war, austerity and state repression. It shows the potential for an internationally coordinated movement against the capitalist governments and war.
It also specifically reveals the militancy of workers ahead of the series of national one-day strikes planned across Europe in November, beginning with the November 5 strike in France.
However, this potential for action cannot be realized if control of workers’ struggles remains in the hands of the union apparatuses or of coalitions of national confederations. This emerges from an examination of both the strengths and the weaknesses of this mobilization. To mobilize the entire working class against war and dictatorship, workers must organize directly at the rank-and-file level, internationally, in action committees, in order to organize and wage an independent, revolutionary struggle.
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The reluctance of the union bureaucracy and the CGT to organize a real mobilization against the war is explained by their determination to preserve their relations with the capitalist state and to prevent the working class from emerging as an independent political force. This was seen very clearly in the union leaderships’ sellout of the mass strikes against Macron’s pension reform in 2023.
The fight to broaden the dockworkers’ action therefore requires a rebellion against the authority of these bureaucracies.
The Socialist Equality Parties call for the formation of independent, democratically controlled rank-and-file action committees in the ports, factories, transport, schools, universities and working-class neighborhoods. Their immediate task is to link dockworkers with railway workers, truck drivers, seafarers, industrial workers and everyone working in military production and transport, while uniting with young people resisting conscription, austerity and police violence.
This coordination must cross all borders. The ruling elites coordinate their economic attacks, rearmament and repression internationally; workers must respond with their own international organization. The International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC), initiated by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), provides the framework for this struggle.
20. Révolution permanente tries to bolster union bureaucracies amid French mass protests
The October 17 protests have opened a crisis of bourgeois rule in France that is now plainly apparent.
21. Colombia’s ultra-right president moves to put the army on the streets
The campaign to militarize Bogotá’s working-class districts is part of a continent-wide turn toward authoritarian rule, prepared by decades of US training and financing of the Colombian officer corps.
22. As Super El Niño threatens 10 million Peruvians, Senate grants Fujimori emergency powers
With more than 10 million Peruvians in areas at risk and dengue cases more than doubling, Fujimori has assumed decree powers and flown to El Salvador to inspect Bukele’s infamous CECOT mega-prison.
23. Australia: A socialist solution to the Victorian healthcare crisis
Labor, the Liberal-National Coalition, One Nation and the Greens barely refer to the worsening conditions of healthcare for working people. All of these parties are committed to slashing government spending on essential services, not ending the public health disaster.
24. Free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk!
"Peace for the world! Down with war!"
