Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:

1. Transcript of Joseph Kishore's speech:  The political issues behind the persecution of Momodou Taal and the assault on democratic rights in the US

Joseph Kishore, national secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (US)

 Kishore: 

We now come to the critical political questions, and here it is necessary to speak plainly. The basic problem we confront is not an absence of opposition. The problem is a lack of political clarity. The situation demands that political issues be posed directly and answered honestly. Conclusions must be drawn from the experiences through which we have passed—and the experiences through which we are now passing.

I have already spoken of the objective roots of Trump’s rise. But objective processes always find expression in politics. Political responsibility for Trump’s emergence, for the fact that he is again in the White House, must be placed squarely on the shoulders of the Democratic Party—including, and I would say especially, its so-called “left” wing: figures like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

2. Wildfire smoke blankets large parts of North America

The sharp increase in the scale and impact of wildfires in the past several years is the direct result of the ongoing and accelerating ecological crisis caused by climate change. It has been predicted by climate scientists for decades that one of the impacts of global warming will be longer droughts and more severe wildfires. And starting with the sixth United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Earth’s increasing temperatures have been definitively linked to wildfires and the associated droughts and heatwaves that exacerbate them.

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Like all crises, the Canadian wildfires expose the fundamental inability of the capitalist system, bound by the contradictions of the nation-state and the profit motive, to deal with social problems, much less environmental disasters with an international scope. A real solution to fighting fires is a massive infusion of resources to combat fires, funded through the expropriation of oligarchs like [Elon] Musk, and putting those resources toward an internationally coordinated effort to fight and prevent wildfires.

3. The Musk-Trump blood feud and the US political crisis

The eruption of a public conflict between President Donald Trump and his former budget adviser, Elon Musk—the world’s richest man—speaks to the extraordinary level of crisis and conflict within the state apparatus, generated by an intensifying economic crisis and mounting popular opposition to the corporate-financial oligarchy. 

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The conflicts within the ruling class intersect with the corrupt personal interests of the individuals involved. Trump has threatened retaliation against Musk’s business empire, including the cancellation of “billions and billions” in federal contracts. Tesla stock plunged more than 14 percent on Thursday, wiping out $152 billion in market value and costing Musk personally $20 billion in a single day. 

On Saturday, Trump withdrew the nomination of billionaire Jared Isaacman, a Musk customer and crony, to head NASA. Isaacman was Musk’s choice, viewed as a key ally of his lucrative—but technically challenged—SpaceX venture, which relies entirely on federal contracts.

4. Proctor & Gamble announces 7,000 layoffs, as impact of trade war mounts

The announcement was buried in corporate newspeak, but the need to cut costs in the face of growing trade war measures spearheaded by the Trump administration was obviously a major factor. The press release said the company would carry out “interventions in our supply chain—right-sizing and right-locating production” in order to enable “cost reduction” and a “more reliable and resilient supply.”

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The cuts at Procter & Gamble are the latest in a series of mounting layoffs by US-based firms, including: 20,000 job cuts at UPS, which is also in the midst of an automation-led restructuring; 6,000 more layoffs at Microsoft, following a previous round of cuts in January; 3,500 jobs at Citigroup in its China operations, following plans announced last year to cut 20,000 jobs or 10 percent of its workforce; 1,500 jobs at big box retailer Walmart, and hundreds of employees at Disney. 

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The reality is that the overriding concern behind the tariffs is preparations by US imperialism for war. As Leon Trotsky observed of the spiraling trade wars of the 1930s, which led directly to World War II, “breeding places of nationalism also are the laboratories of terrific conflicts in the future; like a hungry tiger, imperialism has withdrawn into its own national lair to gather itself for a new leap.”

This drive to war was stated bluntly last Friday by Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, at the Reagan National Economic Forum. “We shouldn’t be stockpiling bitcoins,” the billionaire banker said during a discussion of the “national security” implications for industry. “We should be stockpiling guns, bullets, tanks, planes, drones, you know, rare earths. We know we need to do it. It’s not a mystery.” 

5.  Australia slides back into per capita recession

The biggest contribution to economic growth, such as it was, came from increased household spending. But this was not an indication of economic health but rather the reverse because one of the main reasons for the increase in consumption was rising spending on electricity, gas and fuel due to the end of some state government energy rebates. Increased rents were another factor. 

6. Miserly Australian award wage rise leaves low-income workers behind in real terms

The minimum wage will increase by just 85 cents per hour to $24.95 [approximately US$16.18], but the news has been received with whoops and cheers from the country’s leading trade union bureaucrats.

7. Australia: Indigenous man dies after being violently restrained by police

Kumanjayi White, a 24-year-old Indigenous man with a disability and under state guardianship, died on May 27 after being violently restrained by police in full view of supermarket workers and shoppers in the Northern Territory town of Alice Springs.  His death has ignited widespread grief and anger not only from the remote Aboriginal community of Yuendumu where White had close family ties, but nationally.

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The tragic death of Kumanjayi White is a devastating illustration of a broader and worsening social crisis, rooted in the economic conditions confronting the working class nationally. Aboriginal communities in the NT remain among the most disadvantaged in Australia, with their appalling living conditions the result of decades of government cuts to welfare, housing, healthcare and mental health services, cuts that are also increasingly affecting broader sections of the working class throughout the country.

White, a young man with known cognitive and mental health impairments, was vulnerable and in need of support. Instead, he was subjected to surveillance and criminalization. Former Alice Springs supermarket worker Gene Hill, recently spoke to the media and recalled his encounters with White: “One glance at him and you can see he’s got special needs.” Hill described assisting White on several occasions, including buying him food and explaining that items needed to be paid for.

8. Trial of ex-president Bolsonaro for fascist coup bid advances in Brazil

The last few weeks have been marked by important developments in the case against former President Jair Bolsonaro and those accused of leading the coup attempt that culminated in the invasion of government buildings in Brasília on January 8, 2023

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The fraudulent narrative about the military as “saviors of democracy” is the highest expression of the hopes of Brazil’s ruling class to solve the greatest crisis in its history through bureaucratic maneuvers and by purely judicial means. These bankrupt pretensions are exploding in the face of the contradictions that led to the coup attempt in the first place.

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The intensification of the international crisis, marked by the specter of world war, is a determining factor in the explosive unfolding of the Brazilian political situation, particularly under the impact of the violent eruption of US imperialism.

In recent weeks, the US government has significantly escalated its offensive against Brazilian state institutions. 

9. Spanish metal strike in Cantabria grows, Cádiz workers to strike next week

The roots of the strike go beyond the employers’ latest attempt to impose a below-inflation wage deal and claw back existing gains such as vacation pay improvements and night shift bonuses. Fundamentally, it is a response to the betrayal of the 2022 metalworkers’ strike by the union apparatus. Workers are currently demanding a modest 3.5 percent wage increase, already far below the real rise in living costs—yet even this limited demand, set by the unions themselves, are rejected by employers. 

10. Under pressure from far-right Congressmen, Eastern Michigan University ends US-Chinese research partnerships

In a recent war-mongering speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned that countries must not try to balance between the two superpowers, but must align with the US against China for a “potentially imminent” war.

Universities are now being realigned at an accelerating pace according to the ruling class drive for war. This underlies Secretary of State Rubio’s May 28 threats to revoke visas of potentially 270,000 Chinese students, and the June 2 arrest of Yunqing Jian, demonized by FBI director Kash Patel, accused of “agroterrorism” for plant pathogen research at the University of Michigan. The pathogen in this case is not even on the “Select Agents and Toxins” list, which designates agents posing a severe threat if misused.

11. Trump implements new travel ban, restricting travel from 19 countries

The proclamation fully restricts and limits the entry of nationals from 12 countries:  Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen, and partially restricts and limits the entry of nationals from an additional seven countries: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela. Under the restrictions, residents of the countries listed under the partial ban will be unable to apply for six of the major visa categories, including business, tourism and visas for students.

***** 

At the start of his meeting Thursday with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the Oval Office, Trump was asked why the list of banned countries does not include Egypt. Egypt is the country of origin of the suspect in the attack in Boulder Colorado, which Trump cited in justifying this travel ban. Trump replied that Egypt “has things under control,” adding that the ban applies only to countries that “don’t have things under control.” By “have things under control” Trump means that Egypt’s authoritarian government maintains political surveillance of its population and is subservient to the interests of American imperialism.

12. Election platform:  Stop militarization and cuts at universities! No to genocide and world war!

The International Youth and Students for Social Equality in Germany are running in the elections for the student parliament at Berlin’s Humboldt University, which will take place on 3 July 2025.

13. Blame, a documentary film: The defense of science and scientists against the Wuhan-Lab leak conspiracy

On April 18, 2025, the second Trump administration codified the Wuhan lab-leak conspiracy into official state policy. This is the politically engineered claim that COVID-19 began as an accidental escape from the Wuhan [China] Institute of Virology. 

Donald Trump weaponized the theory five years earlier at the outset of the pandemic, but it has since gained bipartisan traction, with Democrats under Joe Biden aiding its spread. This allegation fuels anti-Chinese sentiment and lays the groundwork for war, as proven by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s warning at the Shangri-La Dialogue that China seeks to “become a hegemonic power in Asia.”

Christian Frei’s Blame, which premiered April 4, 2025, at the 56th Visions du Réel film festival in Nyon, Switzerland, arrives as a vital rebuttal. The documentary confronts these weaponized conspiracies head-on—exposing their devastating consequences: the defunding of scientific research, mass layoffs and the public vilification of scientists. Blame is both a defense of science and a searing indictment of the political assault on public health.

14. Sri Lanka: Michelin workers continue struggle, defying management’s threats

Like all international conglomerates, Michelin operates through a global production chain. Its decision to sell the Midigama factory [in Sri Lanka] is part of a global reorganization of this giant corporation to boost its profits amid a worsening international economic crisis.  

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At the same time, the US and all the other imperialist powers are restructuring their operations in preparation for war to establish their hegemony over resource-rich regions—those abundant in oil, gas and heavy metals—and to secure labour and markets.

The burden of these developments is being imposed by capitalist government and companies through job cuts, low wages and brutal working conditions. To fight these attacks workers must develop a revolutionary strategy.

16. Greek coast guard officials face prosecution over deaths of hundreds of migrants in Pylos boat disaster

The sinking of the Adriana was the largest loss of life in the Mediterranean in a single event in recent decades. It added more than 600 deaths to the 20,000-plus who have drowned in the sea over the  last two decades.

17. Workers Struggles: Europe, Middle East & Africa

Finland: 

Airline workers in series of strike days for pay increases

France:

Municipal Call center workers in Paris strike over intolerable working conditions 

Germany:

Auxiliary workers at Charitè Hospital in Berlin, continue strike to force pay agreement

Greece: 

Research scientists strike and demonstrate for improved pay and working conditions

Seafarers on Greece-Italy ferry route in 48-hour strike to protest unsafe conditions and overwork

United Kingdom:

Teachers at 28-school trust in England walk out over plans to extend working day

Further strike by Scottish Water workers over unacceptable pay offer

Phlebotomists at Gloucestershire hospitals continue long-running strike over pay

Protest by UK Oxfam charity workers over outsourcing threat

Iran:

Nationwide strike by truck driver enters second week

Ethiopia 

Health workers' strike over staff shortages enters fourth week 

Nigeria:

Union tells Nigerian judicial workers to return to work

Zimbabwe:

Students at University of Zimbabwe in solidarity with striking lecturers

14. Free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk!

Bogdan Syrotiuk in 2015

The sign says: "Peace for the world! Down with war!"  

Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:

1. The way forward in the struggle against Trump's attack on immigrants 

The working class must reject all attempts to divide it along national or ethnic lines. The fight to defend immigrant workers can succeed only through the united mobilization of the working class as a whole— Black, white, native-born, immigrant, documented and undocumented alike. This means building rank-and-file workplace and neighborhood committees to oppose the deportation operations and prepare collective actions using the immense social power of the working class.

The defense of immigrants and the democratic rights of all is inseparable from the fight to abolish the capitalist system. It requires the building of a mass socialist movement committed to ending all borders, ending imperialist war, and securing the right of all people to live and work wherever they choose, free from repression, exploitation, or fear.   

2. Transcript of his speech:  Attorney Eric Lee addresses London meeting on his defense of Momodou Taal: “The president is attempting to establish a dictatorship”

Immigration Attorney Eric Lee 

3. Judge issues temporary restraining order blocking the deportation of the family of Mohamed Sabry Soliman

“Punishing individuals for the purported actions of their relatives is a feature of medieval justice systems or police state dictatorships, not democracies,” Eric Lee, one of the family’s attorneys, told the World Socialist Web Site. “The Trump administration’s vindictive attack on this young family echoes the methods of Nazi Germany, where authorities used kin punishment— Sippenhaft— to intimidate the population. 

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 The World Socialist Web Site opposes individual acts of violence, which serve only to disorient the working class and hand the capitalist state a pretext to escalate police-state repression against all political opposition. As with last month’s killing of Israeli diplomatic staffers Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, Sunday’s desperate, demoralized attack will do nothing to end the ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign in Palestine or advance the cause of equality. 

4. ​​​​Trump’s universal school voucher proposal—another handout to the rich

In a sweeping escalation of the attack on public education, the Trump administration has embedded a nationwide private school voucher scheme in its new federal budget proposal. If passed, it will establish a universal voucher program for the first time in US history, bankrolled by an unprecedented $5 billion annual tax credit giveaway to wealthy donors. 

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 The big lie is that these are grassroots parental campaigns for “choice”; they are not. Polls consistently show that voters reject vouchers when given the chance. In fact, since 1970, voters have never approved a statewide ballot measure to create or expand private school vouchers, according to the National Coalition for Public Education.

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Indeed, voucher programs do not primarily serve students escaping underfunded public schools— as their proponents maintain— instead, they subsidize families already enrolled in private education. For good reason, public opposition remains widespread despite the aggressive and well-funded rollout of pro-voucher propaganda. 

5. Israeli forces have killed or wounded over 600 people at aid centers over the past week 

Prior to the launch of the US-Israeli “aid” operation, humanitarian and human rights groups, including the UN, warned that the scheme was merely a means to lure Gaza’s remaining population to the south, where they could be trapped in concentration camps in preparation for the US-Israeli plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza by expelling its population.

It has since emerged that the purpose of the “aid” centers is even more sinister: they are launching points not only for indiscriminate massacres of aid-seekers, but for what appear to be targeted assassinations of members of the crowd. Rather than being a humanitarian lifeline, they are killing fields. 

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One survivor told [a Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor], “At around 3:50 a.m. today, an Israeli quadcopter flew over and photographed the civilian crowd. Then, the army opened fire from a crane in the area. I personally carried three people who had been shot in the head. Most of the injuries were to the head. People came looking for food to ease their hunger, but they went back dead or wounded.”

In another testimony, A. B., 38, told the Euro-Med Monitor team, “Around 5:45 a.m., we managed to enter the center, and I was able to get an aid package. On my way out, I met a woman in her 40s who said she couldn’t continue forward and that she and her children were suffering from hunger and poverty. I gave her my package and returned to try to get another one, but there was nothing left. A quadcopter was overhead, broadcasting insulting remarks: ‘You animals, go away, the supply is out.’”

He continued, “As I was leaving and nearing the chute’s exit, I saw a child crying out loudly, ‘Mom, get up, Mom, get up.’ I went closer and found the woman I had given my package to lying in a pool of blood. She was dead,” he said. “A group of young men and I carried her outside and placed her in an ambulance. I accompanied her son to the hospital. On the way, along the sea road, I saw seven bodies lying on the side of the road.”

6. New York’s Whitney Museum suspends longstanding program in the face of protest over censoring of pro-Palestinian event

Alleged “harassment” is a major issue for the Whitney, association with the Israeli murder machine, however, is not.

7. Providence, Rhode Island: Butler Hospital plans to permanently replace striking workers

The announcement by Butler to replace the striking workers with scabs is a declaration of war. The move follows the cutoff of strikers’ health insurance, including medical, dental and vision coverage, as of June 1. Other benefits, including life, disability and accident insurance, had been cut off earlier in May by the company in retaliation for the strike. 

8. Tanzanian regime tortures East African activists 

Once the party of Julius Nyerere’s Ujamaa, advancing a nationalist program of limited social reforms and state-led development, [the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) government] has long since abandoned even the pretense of socialism. Under the dictates of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, it embraced neoliberal reforms in the 1980s and 1990s, dismantling public services and privatizing key sectors of the economy.

What remains today is a capitalist state ruled by a narrow elite that has profited from the exploitation of Tanzania’s vast agricultural lands and mineral wealth, including gold, uranium, and rare earths, while most of the population is mired in poverty. The working class and rural poor face unbearable conditions: skyrocketing food prices, decaying infrastructure, collapsing healthcare and education systems, and joblessness that particularly affects the youth. 

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Bolstered by the Trump administration’s efforts to install a dictatorship in the US, East African regimes are resorting to state terror. [the East African activists] Mwangi and Atuhaire have spoken out bravely, but their case is just one of countless others. Their prominence as foreign nationals ensured some media attention. Yet many Tanzanians, especially youth and political activists, have disappeared or been tortured in silence.

Workers and youth across East Africa must see in these events the brutal reality of capitalist rule in its most naked form. These coordinated assaults by the ruling class across Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda must be met with the coordinated resistance of the working class across borders and ethnic divisions.

9. Volkswagen emissions scandal: Some managers and engineers sentenced to prison, but not former CEO Winterkorn

The prosecution alleged that the former executives knowingly developed fraudulent software and used it in millions of diesel vehicles. This allowed the vehicles to pass emissions tests, whereas on the road they emitted many times more toxic nitrogen oxides into the air. Through this fraud, VW circumvented strict emissions limits in the United States and the European Union. The ultimate goal was to conquer the American market with diesel cars. 

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The emissions scandal at Volkswagen and the so-called transformation to electric mobility raise fundamental questions for VW employees.

This is not limited to VW, but is taking place in one form or another throughout the global auto industry and beyond. The globally operating corporations, which fight bitterly for market share, are not using technological progress to make work easier and raise wages, but to increase profits and intensify capitalist exploitation. 

10. Two construction workers killed in Florida crane collapse: The latest victims of America’s industrial slaughterhouse

In 2023, 1,075 construction workers died in the United States, marking the highest number of fatalities in the sector since 2011, BLS reported. The leading causes of death in construction are falls, struck-by objects, caught-in/between incidents, and electrocutions, collectively known as the “Fatal Four.” Falls to a lower level were the most common cause of death, accounting for 39.2 percent of all construction fatalities.

The two construction workers are only the latest to be sacrificed for corporate profit in America’s industrial slaughterhouse. According to the AFL-CIO, over 140,000 workers die each year in the US from hazardous working conditions—more than 5,000 from traumatic injuries and the rest from occupational diseases like cancer, respiratory illness and heart failure. That is more than 380 preventable deaths every day.

Yet with fewer than 1,800 federal and state safety inspectors overseeing 11 million workplaces, there is just one inspector for every 85,000 workers, with OSHA spending about $3.92 to protect each worker in America. 

11. Stalinist Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) imposes new sell-out agreement on Samsung India workers 

The agreement was worked out under pressure from the DMK-led Tamil Nadu state government, which has bitterly opposed the Samsung workers’ challenge to poverty wages and brutal working conditions for fear that their militant example would encourage broader worker resistance and scare away investors.

The CITU is affiliated with the Stalinist Communist Party of India (Marxist), which is itself a close ally of the DMK.

Signed on May 19 in the presence of DMK Labour Minister CV Ganesan, the agreement ignores virtually all of the workers’ demands. It provides no relief from long working hours and a punishing pace of work. The 25 militant workers who have been victimized by management remain suspended and under threat of further disciplinary action. 

12. 22,000 metalworkers strike in northern Spain's Cantabria region

The resistance of Cantabrian metalworkers is entirely justified. For years, they have borne the brunt of Spain’s drive to maintain “competitiveness” on the global market, resulting in stagnant wages, longer hours, and a growing transfer of wealth to the capitalist class. These conditions have only worsened as inflation, driven in large part by NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine, devoured workers’ incomes.

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The unions, CCOO, UGT, and USO, have been compelled by workers’ rising anger to call this strike. However, their role remains that of containment, isolation, and—once they judge the time is ripe—betrayal. These organisations no longer function as genuine instruments of class struggle, but as bureaucratic enforcers working to preserve the authority of the employers and the capitalist state.  

13. Former Maryland police officer previously involved in fatal shooting of unarmed man pleads guilty in fraud scheme

The trajectory of Owen’s career—from a police officer involved in a notorious killing to a convicted fraudster—highlights the persistent problems of corruption, impunity, and lack of oversight within American policing. The crisis of police violence and misconduct is not primarily the result of “bad apples” or racism—although both are in large abundance within American police departments—but reflects systemic issues deeply embedded in class society itself.

Despite widespread public outrage and calls for reform, meaningful accountability remains elusive. Officers involved in misconduct or violence are rarely prosecuted, and when they are, sentences are often lenient. According to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which tracks federal prosecutions of public officials, including police, there has been a massive drop in conviction rates of almost 70 percent since the early 2000s. At that time, there were almost 900 federal corruption prosecutions yearly. 

14. Families continue fight to expose cover-up of Pike River mine disaster

Nearly 15 years after the series of underground explosions at Pike River coal mine in New Zealand, some of the families of the 29 workers killed in the disaster are fighting to expose the full truth about the unlawful back-room deal to drop charges against Pike River Coal’s chief executive Peter Whittall. 

15. Australian study finds more than 10 percent of Queensland tunneling workers at risk of silicosis

The authors concluded, “in a cohort of around 2,000 workers who serviced the Queensland tunnel projects, it was estimated that between 20 and 30 cases of lung cancer and between 200 and 300 cases of silicosis would develop over their lifetime as a result of exposure to RCS [respirable crystalline silica].”

*****

The ongoing exposure of workers to dangerous silica dust and other industrial safety risks raises broader political questions. Fundamentally, what workers are up against is the capitalist system, under which every concern of workers, including their health and lives, is subordinated to the demands of big business and finance capital for ever greater profits.  

16. Democrat Lee Jae-myung wins South Korea’s presidential election

He declared in his inaugural address on Wednesday, “It is time to restore security and peace, which have been reduced to tools of political strife; to rebuild livelihoods and the economy damaged by indifference, incompetence, and irresponsibility; and to revive democracy undermined by armored vehicles and automatic rifles.”

The last remark was in reference to soldiers who stormed the National Assembly in an attempt to arrest lawmakers in December during [former president] Yoon’s failed coup attempt.

Lee, however, will impose the demands of the ruling class no less ruthlessly than [Yoon's] PPP. The new president has no progressive solutions to any of the crises that grip South Korea, which include a stagnating economy worsened by Trump’s trade war and Washington’s accelerating militarization of the Indo-Pacific region. 

17. Voting concludes on sellout contract for CSX train engineers

Touted by both management and [union] officials as a breakthrough, the agreement in fact continues decades-long declines in working  conditions, paves the way for automation-driven job cuts and further  cements partnership between unions and management to suppress rank-and-file opposition. 

18. Milwaukee immigrant worker faces deportation after being framed up for threatening to kill Trump

The chain of events began in September 2023, when Morales Reyes was the victim of a violent robbery and assault. Demetric D. Scott, the perpetrator, knocked Morales Reyes off his bicycle, cut him with a box cutter and stole his bike. Scott was arrested and charged with armed robbery and aggravated battery, with Morales Reyes set to testify against him at trial.

Attempting to avoid prosecution, Scott devised a plan to have Morales Reyes deported from the US. While in jail, Scott wrote multiple letters threatening to assassinate Donald Trump, signing them with Morales Reyes’ name and return address. These letters were sent to state and federal officials, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in hopes that Morales Reyes would be arrested and removed from the country before he could testify.

*****

The treatment of Morales Reyes is of a piece with Donald Trump’s criminalization of immigrant workers and DHS attacks on basic democratic rights. The rush to utilize the fraudulent charges against Morales Reyes as an example to justify the ongoing ICE raids, mass arrests, brutalization, intimidation and deportation of immigrants is a measure of the crisis-ridden nature of the Trump White House.

19. Canadian wildfires kill 2 and force over 33,000 to evacuate so far

The response from capitalist politicians at all levels of government has followed the predictable pattern of declaring emergencies while offering wholly inadequate resources to address the crisis. 

20. Free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk!

Bogdan Syrotiuk 

1. US demands Asian allies prepare for “imminent” war against China

Posturing as champions of peace, [US Defense Secretary] Hegseth and the Trump administration stand reality on its head. As has repeatedly been the case for more than a century, imperialism goes to war under the banner of “peace” and engages in a massive arms race under the guise of “deterrence.”

*****

The Trump administration is wielding the economic weapon of tariffs not just against China, but as the means to bludgeon governments in the Asia Pacific to line up militarily against Beijing and to bear a far higher burden of the costs of war.

To view the spiral toward war in the Indo-Pacific as simply the result of the fascist Trump would be to overlook the depth of the global economic and political crisis centered in the US of which he is the product.

US imperialism embraced China in the 1970s as a means for undermining the Soviet Union and as a seemingly endless source of cheap labor, as long as its manufactures were limited to low-tech goods. The sheer expansion of the Chinese economy to become by some measures the largest in the world threatens to eclipse the US, including in a range of hi-tech fields such as electronics, green technology, electric vehicles and artificial intelligence.

2. Chicago transit crisis: As legislative session ends, funding crisis threatens massive service cuts and layoffs

Chicago’s plight mirrors transit disasters nationwide. Philadelphia’s SEPTA proposes 45 percent service cuts and a 9:00 p.m. rail curfew. San Francisco and New York face similar shortfalls. All states are facing the impact of the evaporation of federal funding and the bipartisan refusal to tax the wealthy or corporate profits.

3. Transcript of his speech:  Momodou Taal tells a London meeting that protesting the Gaza genocide “placed a target on my back” 

Momodou Taal

4. Video: Trump’s war on free speech: The case of Momodou Taal  

The Socialist Equality Party (UK) hosted a public meeting in London May 31, addressed by Momodou Taal, the British-Gambian student who challenged US President Donald Trump’s unconstitutional war on free speech and the right to protest the Gaza genocide. 

5. Video by Will Lehman sparks outpouring of support for investigation into death of Stellantis worker Ronald Adams Sr.

A video posted by socialist autoworker Will Lehman on TikTok calling for an independent investigation into the death of Stellantis worker Ronald Adams Sr. has garnered enormous support, with over 80,000 views, 23,000 likes, and 800 comments within 24 hours of posting. The overwhelming response demonstrates the deep anger among workers over unsafe conditions in factories and the systematic cover-up of workplace fatalities by the corporations and union bureaucracies.

6. Teachers lead growing strike movement across Latin America

A wave of teacher strikes from Mexico to Panama, Colombia, Argentina and Brazil signal the emergence of a counteroffensive against the onslaught of attacks on public education, pensions and other social rights across Latin America. 

7. Jonathan Joss, King of the Hill voice actor, shot dead in alleged hate crime

Jonathan Joss, known for voicing John Redcorn in King of the Hill and various other roles in film and television, was shot to death June 1 outside the ruins of his San Antonio, Texas home. The gunman shouted violent homophobic slurs, according to Joss’s husband.

8. US train engineers union tries to whip up anti-Mexican hatred

Workers in Mexico are eager to link up with their brothers and sisters north of the border. In 2019, tens of thousands of factory workers in the border city of Matamoros launched a wildcat strike, in which they marched to the US border to appeal for international solidarity, chanting “gringos, wake up!” Later that year, GM autoworkers in Silao, Mexico were fired for refusing to scab on the GM strike in the United States. 

9. Australian Labor government approves 40-year extension of major gas project

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government cynically delayed the approval until after the election because it makes a mockery of its claims to be committed to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

10. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) cuts global growth forecast

The report pointed to a significant downturn in US growth. It would fall from 2.8 percent in 2024 to 1.6 percent in 2025 and 1.5 percent in 2026. The OECD had previously forecast US growth for this year at 2.2 percent. At the same time, inflation would increase, preventing the Federal Reserve from cutting interest rates to provide a boost to the economy.

Predictably, the downgrade in US growth prospects brought denunciations from the White House, with Trump’s spokesperson Kush Desai declaring that the OECD “joins a growing list of doomsayers that are untethered to reality.”

But the report is very much in line with other assessments. 

11. More than 300 public figures sign letter demanding Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer end UK complicity in Gaza genocide

Some of those who signed 

Prominent media and arts personalities including Benedict Cumberbatch, Dua Lipa and Gary Lineker have joined academics, doctors, lawyers and Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos in signing the letter calling out Starmer’s characterization of the genocide as “intolerable” while continuing to arm Israel.

Here is a link to the open letter 

12. Trump signs off on US Steel-Nippon Steel merger, while doubling steel and aluminum tariffs

Throughout a rambling speech Friday, Trump repeatedly called steel crucial for a strong military and made clear that the tariffs were meant to restructure US industry to be able to fight China. 

13. Union blocks staff and students from speaking at Western Sydney University job cuts rally (videos included) 

National Tertiary Education Union officials barred staff members and students from speaking at a rally against 300 to 400 threatened job cuts at Western Sydney University [in Australia] yesterday. “No open mic,” [The union's] branch president David Burchell declared repeatedly during the event when challenged. 

14. Kenya’s China orientation provokes Washington’s wrath

Kenyan President William Ruto’s state visit to China has provoked an angry response from the United States, amid an intensifying global struggle for geopolitical dominance over Africa’s strategic resources.

15. An IYSSE lecture at the University of Peradeniya: The Indo-Pakistan conflict and the threat of nuclear world war

The the International Youth and Students for Social Equality invites students, university lecturers and employees to attend a significant meeting at the University of Peradeniya which will discuss the life-and-death questions now confronting humanity.

16. Far-right opposition candidate wins presidential election in Poland

Poland is among the most unequal countries in Europe, with the latest data showing that the top 10 percent takes in more than 37 percent of income, while the bottom 50 percent accounts for less than 22 percent.

17. Free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk!

 

Bogdan Syrotiuk 

Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:

1. NATO risks nuclear catastrophe with attack on Russian airports

The destruction of strategic bombers deep inside Russia by the Ukrainian secret service SBU shows that NATO will stop at nothing to escalate the war with Russia, even if it means provoking a nuclear  catastrophe. 

*****

It is inconceivable that NATO was not informed and closely involved. Such a complex operation, prepared over a long period of time, cannot be carried out without reconnaissance data that only the US has at its disposal. Military and intelligence officials from NATO and Ukraine are in constant, close contact, and President Zelensky exchanges information with the heads of government of NATO countries on an almost daily basis. 

2. “They just want production done at whatever the cost”: Dundee plant reopening as UAW-Stellantis stonewalls information on death of Ronald Adams Sr. 

A few weeks after Ronald’s death, another worker said, Stellantis fired the plant manager, Ronald’s supervisor and the UAW safety representative. “They fired them basically right before Ronnie’s funeral. It was almost like they set it up purposely to make people at the funeral think, ‘Ok, that’s good, they got rid of them and somebody’s paying for this.’ 

“You can’t trust the union. Say you have a situation, and you confide in the UAW. The next thing you know, they pull you into the HR office. They’re in bed with them real heavy.”

3. US Department of Homeland Security thugs detain congressional aide to New York Rep. Jerry Nadler in his Manhattan office

The seizure of Nadler’s aide is the latest in a series of politically motivated attacks launched by the Trump administration aimed at making all opposition kowtow to its dictatorial agenda.

4. Reinstate victimized Michelin workers in Sri Lanka! Mobilize working-class support to defend Michelin employees’ struggle!

These workers have been dismissed as part of management’s attempts to suppress a campaign by Michelin Midigama employees who have been fighting since May 23 to defend their jobs and wages against the restructuring attacks of the international French-based corporation.

5. Michelin workers in southern Sri Lanka appeal for support from international Michelin employees

They make their appeal in an open letter:

The Michelin website says the company will make structural changes. It also states that last year’s profit was 3.4 billion euros. Our demand is only 0.39 percent of last year’s profits made by the company. We know that you understand the reasonable nature of our demand. 

6. How Wall Street cashes in on charter schools

Charter schools are publicly funded but privately operated entities. As taxpayer-funded schools, they are legally required to be nonprofit; however, many have engineered a bypass by hiring Education Management Organizations (EMOs) to run operations. These EMOs are often for-profit entities with significant overlap in ownership with the charter itself. Even if the EMO is itself non-profit, they are free to pay their CEO and top administrators handsomely. The Trump change would further encourage unabashed profiteering and eliminate the “bureaucratic” paperwork to conceal the beneficiaries. 

7. Three killed, dozens wounded in latest Israeli aid massacre in Gaza

In a statement Monday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres demanded an investigation into the killings.

“I am appalled by the reports of Palestinians killed and injured while seeking aid in Gaza yesterday,” Guterres said. “It is unacceptable that Palestinians are risking their lives for food. I call for an immediate and independent investigation into these events and for perpetrators to be held accountable.”

8. Treasury secretary says US will never default on its debt

When the Treasury secretary, in charge of the finances of the world’s dominant power, is forced to go on public television to insist that the US will not default and will pay its debts, it is a sure indication that there are some deep-seated problems in the system over which he presides.

***** 

[US Treasury Secretary] Bessent is right in his assertion that the US is not, for now, on the brink of a default.

But his assertions that it could never take place applied in very different times. Today, what were the norms of the past have been overturned, as is widely acknowledged.

Moreover, it should be noted that a crisis in financial markets takes a longer time coming than might have been expected, but when it arrives, it proceeds far more quickly than envisaged.

9. Canada Post rejects union’s offer of binding arbitration to end contract struggle

The union leadership has bent over backwards to reach a deal with Canada Post, prevent a resumption of last fall’s month-long strike and avert a head-on clash with the big business Liberal government. On Wednesday of last week, the CUPW [Canadian Union of Postal Workers] bureaucrats were compelled to admit that Canada Post’s “final” offers were essentially a carbon copy of their previous demands for massive concessions that would open the door to the “Amazonification” of the post office and the wholesale slashing of full-time jobs.

However, even as it decries management for “playing hardball,” the CUPW leadership is determined to prevent postal workers from using their industrial power and rallying the working class behind them in a fight to defend public services and the right to strike, and to secure workers’ control over AI and other new technologies so as to ensure that they are used to improve workers’ lives and public services, not slash jobs and increase worker-exploitation.

Thus the union responded to Canada Post’s provocative “final offer” gambit, by offering to surrender workers’ rights to strike and to determine, through collective bargaining, their terms of employment.

10. MIT class president banned from graduation over pro-Palestinian remarks

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology banned Megha Vemuri, the Class of 2025 president and valedictorian, from attending her own graduation ceremony on Friday. The ban followed a commencement speech Vemuri gave at another ceremony on Thursday in which she condemned MIT’s ties to the Israeli military and denounced the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

11. “Well, we all are going to die”: Republicans gloat over death-dealing social cuts

The Medicaid cuts are the largest spending reduction in the giant “reconciliation” bill passed by the House of Representatives and now awaiting action in Senate, where it cannot be filibustered. The legislation has two major purposes: to make permanent the tax cuts for the wealthy which Trump pushed through in 2017, which are set to expire at the end of this year; and to offset some of the cost of this bonanza for the rich by slashing social programs for the poor.

12. Australian Labor government prepares to boost military spending at Trump’s demand

Despite desperate efforts by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to play down the issue, his Australian Labor government is moving to implement the Trump administration’s public demand for a sharp increase in military spending as part of US war plans against China.

13. Starmer governent's defense review prepares UK for nuclear war with Russia

The Starmer Labour government published its strategic defense review (SDR) Monday, with its central aim to prepare Britain to fight wars against Russia in Europe and the Atlantic. The SDR makes clear that this is conceived of as a nuclear conflict.

The SDR categorizes Russia an “immediate and pressing” threat operating a “war economy” that “if sustained, will enable it to rebuild its land capabilities more quickly” after any ceasefire in Ukraine. China is labelled a “sophisticated and persistent challenge”, expected to have 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030. 

14. After 4 years of negotiations, World Health Assembly adopts toothless Pandemic Agreement

The Agreement is watered down with qualifiers, lacks enforcement  mechanisms and specifies no penalties for failures to meet  obligations.

15. High Court injunction against mass picketing by UK Birmingham bin workers as Unite considers “watered down” proposal

Meanwhile, pickets have faced a coordinated strikebreaking operation involving agency workers, private contractors, and refuse crews from neighboring authorities. Police have been deployed to escort trucks through picket lines. This has been greenlit by the government. Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, promoted by union leaders as a friend of workers in Starmer’s government, publicly attacked strikers, declaring, “they can’t be blocking lorries”. Rayner authorized the use of military personnel to coordinate the strike breaking operation in March.

16. Horror: The Mekons denounce imperialism and defend refugees

Who but the Mekons would open their latest album with a reggae song about Oliver Cromwell? The veteran British band has been blending musical styles and pointing to the reverberations of the past in the present for nearly five decades.

17. Workers Struggles: The Americas

Argentina: 

The Federation of Maritime and Fluvial Unions paralyze ports

Buenos Aires healthcare workers protest

Brazil: 

Petrobras office workers defy union, strike in Rio de Janeiro and Santos 

Canada:

60,000 Quebec construction workers on indefinite strike

United States:

Strike by 800 workers at Providence, Rhode Island Butler Hospital continues

Strike threat at four New Jersey hospitals

Workers on strike at Sutphen, major Columbus, Ohio area firetruck supplier

Negotiations continue for workers at two Colorado grocery chains following strike vote

Strike continues at California cable plant after management terminates healthcare benefits

Union says Detroit-area nursing home fired employees who picketed

Champaign County, Illinois employees vote 96 percent for strike authorization

Southern Ocean Medical Center nurses in New Jersey vote to strike over staffing

18. Free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk!

Bogdan Syrotiuk 

Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:

1. US defense secretary delivers war-mongering speech in Singapore

The Trump administration’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dramatically escalated the decade-long US confrontation with China in a provocative speech on Saturday at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, the annual premier Indo-Pacific military forum. 

Hegseth’s war-mongering remarks, delivered to a gathering of defense ministers, government leaders, and military generals, had three major prongs. First, he declared that a war with China, ostensibly over Taiwan, was “potentially imminent.”

Second, he demanded that Asian countries massively increase their military spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP)— requiring the expenditure of tens of billions of dollars— to join a US offensive against Beijing.

Third, he insisted that Asian governments must not try to balance between the US and China. They must “choose” to line up with Washington.

2. A report from independent Ukrainian journalists: Ukraine: From social collapse to social explosion. What are the obstacles?

Understanding the situation is... complicated by the difficulty of conducting opinion polls. In informal conversations with us, sociologists and political scientists have indicated that 80 percent of those offered to participate in research refuse to speak in face-to-face groups. In telephone surveys, 9 out of 10 people refuse to be interviewed. What these people think about the economic situation in the country and how they characterize their own financial situation, one can only guess. 

3. Ukrainian drones strike Russian nuclear bombers in Siberia

The British Financial Times celebrated the attack as “possibly… the most audacious attack of the war” by Ukraine. It comes just days after German Chancellor Friedrich Merz declared that Germany, which invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, killing at least 27 million people, would provide Ukraine with long-range missiles to strike targets deep inside Russian territory.

This timing was hardly a coincidence. The strikes deep inside Russia’s territory, thousands of miles away from the battlefield, were clearly meant to demonstrate both to Russia and to Ukraine’s imperialist backers that it can and will use such long-range missiles to escalate the war within Russia. The attack is all the more sinister as it was carried out less than a month after the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, which the general in charge of the “Situation Command Ukraine” in the German Bundeswehr spent in the company of the neo-Nazi commander of a Ukrainian drone battalion.

German general major Freuding and Ukrainian fascist commander Oleg Romanov on May 9  

Having deliberately provoked the oligarchic Putin regime into invading Ukraine, the imperialist powers have transformed the country into a launching pad for a much broader war. Their principal aim is to secure full control over the Eurasian landmass and its vast resources.

For their part, with acts such as Sunday’s drone attack, the Secret Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the Ukrainian oligarchy signal that they are determined to continue to play a central role in this imperialist effort to carve up the entire region and thus earn their “right” to a share of the spoils, even after hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have been left dead and injured.

The working class of Russia and the entire former Soviet Union faces an existential threat from imperialism. But the Putin regime offers no “protection” against this threat. Just as the Ukrainian oligarchy, it emerged out of the Stalinist destruction of the Soviet Union, which opened up the entire region to imperialist provocations and wars.

4. Israeli academics issue open letter condemning Gaza genocide

The statement declares:

As academics, we recognize our own role in these crimes. It is human societies, not governments alone, that commit crimes against humanity. Some do so by means of direct violence. Others do so by sanctioning the crimes and justifying them, before and after the fact, and by keeping quiet and silencing voices in the halls of learning. It is this bond of silence that allows clearly evident crimes to continue unabated without penetrating the barriers of recognition.

The letter signifies the emergence of public opposition within Israel to the war. It is not yet clear how broadbased this opposition is. Recently published polls indicated that there still remains widespread support for the regime’s onslaught against the Palestinians, which— if the polls are accurate— reflects the deep social disorientation produced by decades of reactionary Zionist policies and propaganda.

However, given the relentless barrage of lies to which Israelis are subjected, the fact that more than 1,000 academics have denounced the policies of the government as criminal is a significant development.

The letter is a devastating indictment not only of Netanyahu’s government but of its international backers in Washington, London, Berlin and other capitals, who have denounced criticisms of Israel’s genocide in Gaza as a form of “antisemitism.” The New York Times and other major imperialist media outlets have not reported on the letter, despite prominent coverage in Haaretz and Al Jazeera.

*****

The letter appeals to “all the people of this land, Palestinians and Jews.” It declares, “For the sake of the lives of innocents and the safety of all the people of this land, Palestinians and Jews; for the sake of the return of the hostages; if we do not call to halt the war immediately, history will not forgive us.”

The letter has the character of a moral appeal. Its authors do not address the fundamental historical and political issues that underlie the genocide. But however deeply felt the outrage against the war, the development of an effective opposition to the regime requires a break with the ideology and policies of Zionism. The genocidal character of this war is the culmination of the policies based on the reactionary political foundations upon which the “Jewish state” was erected in 1948. 

The opposition of Jewish and Arab socialists, and the Trotskyist Fourth International, to the formation of the Zionist state in 1948 has been vindicated.

The authors of the letter state that “It is our duty to save what can still be saved of this land’s future.” The phrasing leads one to hope that the reference to “this land” rather than to Israel indicates a growing awareness that the existence of the Israeli state, based on the expropriation and annihilation of the Palestinian people, forecloses any future other than one that perpetuates mass murder.

The only viable future is one that achieves the revolutionary dissolution of the existing Zionist state and the unification of the Palestinian and Jewish working class in a socialist republic.

5. ICE Gestapo raids a popular San Diego restaurant drawing mass outrage from community; and in Massachusetts, a high school student is kidnapped by immigration thugs

7. Will Lehman: “Support the rank-and-file investigation into the death of Ronald Adams Sr. Now is the time to come forward for your coworkers and for his family”

Lehman: 

No individual worker on his or her own, no matter how experienced or conscientious, can enforce safety in conditions that are out of the worker’s control. Adams was placed in unsafe conditions imposed by Stellantis and rubber-stamped by the UAW “safety committee.” The conditions that killed him were not created by him or his coworkers. Again, they were imposed from the top-down, and those same conditions are now being covered up with the complete blackout of information from the company and, more importantly, the union bureaucrats.

6. Three months before presidential elections, Bolivia gripped by economic crisis

With less than three months until the presidential elections, Bolivia is gripped by an unprecedented political and economic crisis. The government has requested that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) delay the release of a document on Bolivia’s financial situation, but its contents have been leaked on social media.

7. DSA member Zohran Mamdani emerges as one of the leading candidates for New York City mayor

The fundamental fraud perpetuated by Mamdani’s campaign is that the Democratic Party, which has long functioned to contain social opposition and class struggle, can be pressured into reviving a bygone era of capitalist reform. At a time when the ruling class is instead turning to dictatorship and fascism to defend its position, the consequences of such illusions will be disastrous if not consciously rejected in favor of a struggle for a genuine socialist alternative. 

8. Turkey: 23,000 workers on strike in Izmir Metropolitan Municipality

Workers all over the world are facing increasing attacks on their social conditions by the political establishment, which is seeking to transfer the social wealth they produce to a capitalist oligarchy for use in war preparations. Governments and local authorities are collaborating with the trade union apparatus to suppress class struggle and impose these attacks.

9. Industrial conglomerate ThyssenKrupp to be broken up

The term “locusts” is often used to describe financial holding companies that attack large corporations, breaking them up, filleting and plundering them, leaving a trail of devastation for employees and billions in profits for shareholders.

Last week, ThyssenKrupp, one of the world’s largest steelmakers, announced it was planning to become its own locust. According to the corporation, the strategic goal was to “gradually make all business areas independent and open them up to the participation of third parties.”

*****

But in order to become at all interesting for “third parties,” the individual divisions would have to undergo major restructuring so that they generate high profits. The approximately 96,000 employees will be made to pay for this. 

10. Remastered 1977 live album Playing the Fool: The infectious eccentricity of Gentle Giant

The mid-1970s marked the zenith of progressive rock’s global popularity. Bands that embraced the genre were filling arenas and selling millions of albums worldwide. Gentle Giant, though never as commercially successful as some of its peers, was recognized within the progressive community for its innovation and live prowess. Its tours saw the group sharing stages with the giants of progressive rock, and its live act could “equal almost any act on the bill,” as one account of a 1975 Detroit show attests.

11. DOJ settlement with Ashli Babbitt’s family: A political gift to the fascist right

The Department of Justice under the Trump administration has agreed to settle a $30 million wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of Ashli Babbitt for just under $5 million in taxpayer funds, according to multiple reports.

Babbitt, a U.S. Air Force veteran and follower of the fascist QAnon conspiracy theory, was fatally shot while participating in the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Video footage showed her at the front of a violent mob attempting to breach a secured hallway where lawmakers were being evacuated.

14. Momodou Taal meeting in London wins powerful support

Taal spoke at Saturday’s meeting for the first time about the circumstances surrounding his persecution by the US government. He was joined by his lawyer, Eric Lee, and Socialist Equality Party (US) National Secretary Joseph Kishore.

 *****

Over the next days the World Socialist Web Site will publish the remarks of Taal, Lee and Kishore, along with interviews with attendees.

12. IMF demands Sri Lankan government increase electricity tariff by nearly 20 percent

Sri Lanka has the highest household electricity charges in South Asia, following increases by the previous government of President Ranil Wickremesinghe. It is 2.5 to 3 times higher than the regional average.

***** 

The repayment of foreign debts at the cost of living and social conditions must be halted. These loans were borrowed not for the welfare of workers and the poor but for the 26-year communal war since 1983 against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and to boost profits for big business.

The working class must repudiate these foreign borrowings and use the money to develop ailing public health and education.

13. After adverse court ruling, Trump steps up tariff war

The decision against reciprocal tariffs, introduced under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, appears headed for the Supreme Court for final adjudication, but Trump has lost no time in hiking tariffs in areas not covered by the decision. He has also made threatening noises against China following the 90-day pause in the tariff hikes against it, indicating that negotiations are proceeding too slowly.

***** 

Earlier treasury secretary Scott Bessent said the talks with China were a “bit stalled” and might need to be invigorated with a call between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“Given the magnitude of the talks… this is going to require both leaders to weigh in with each other,” he said, adding that he was “confident that the Chinese will come to the table when President Trump makes his preferences known.”

But one of the problems is determining exactly what are the US preferences. The basic drive of US policy toward China is the suppression of its economic development, above all in the areas of high-tech and artificial intelligence, which it sees as the greatest existential threat to continued US global dominance. 

14. Australia rail union announces sell-out deal with New South Wales Labor government

The proposed deal, described by RTBU NSW secretary Toby Warnes as a “very positive development,” is in fact the product of a conspiracy by the union bureaucracy, Labor government, industrial courts and corporate media to sell rail workers out. 

15. “Hitler’s ovens”: Hunger strikes against isolation and inhumane conditions in “well-type” prisons in Turkey

Turkey's notorious prisons are as brutal or more brutal than as they were depicted in Oliver Stone's 1978 film, Midnight Express. 

16. This week in history:

• 25 years ago:

Bruce Springsteen song condemns police killing of immigrant worker Amadou Diallo

• 50 years ago:

Suez Canal officially reopens under Egyptian control

• 75 years ago:

Two US Supreme Court decisions challenge segregation laws

• 100 years ago:

Mass strikes and protests against imperialism in Shanghai

17. Free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk!

Bogdan Syrotiuk