US war on Iran drives up cost of living in Sri Lanka as government prepares new taxes
IMF austerity attacks, compounded by the war burden, are hitting already impoverished workers and the poor.
•K. Ratnayake
Latest articles
Australian Labor government persecutes women and children returning from Syria
Labor is brutalising the vulnerable people to attack democratic rights and to compete with the fascistic, anti-immigrant One Nation in the demonisation of Muslims.
•Oscar Grenfell
Jörg Baberowski’s Bypassing the People: Fascism as a revitalisation of democracy
Jörg Baberowski’s latest treatise, Am Volk vorbei—Zur Krise der liberalen Demokratie (Bypassing the People—On the Crisis of Liberal Democracy), is being hailed and praised in countless media outlets. This can only be understood as a deliberate political campaign to secure the AfD a place in government.
•Christoph Vandreier
The MV Hondius hantavirus outbreak and the threat of another pandemic
Six years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the institutions of public health have been so thoroughly dismantled that the ruling class no longer knows, or wishes to know, how far this outbreak has spread.
•Evan Blake
European war flotilla en route to the Strait of Hormuz
The mission is neither peaceful nor neutral. The former colonial powers France and Britain are pursuing their own imperialist interests in the Middle East, which do not align with those of the US. The same applies to Germany and the European Union.
•Peter Schwarz
Judge forces unsealing of alleged Epstein “suicide note”
A judge from the US District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled Wednesday that an alleged suicide note written by Jeffrey Epstein before he was found dead in his jail cell was to be unsealed and released to the public.
•Kevin Reed
School District of Philadelphia announces 17 school closures, in latest onslaught against public education
The Philadelphia’s Board of Education’s vote to shutter schools is the latest assault on social programs to benefit the wealthy and the U.S. war machine.
•Nick Barrickman
A revealing report on the rise and rise of private credit
Financial authorities are largely in the dark about the operations and risk factors associated with private credit, which has undergone explosive growth in the recent period.
•Nick Beams
Trump’s “America First” Counterterrorism Strategy: A blueprint for dictatorship
The White House document equates anti-fascists and left-wing opponents of the government with terrorists, while erasing the threat of far-right fascist violence.
•Jacob Crosse
Springfield, Massachusetts postal workers describe asbestos, Legionnaires' disease and complicit union officials at major distribution center
Workers at the facility last month founded a rank-and-file committee affiliated with the national USPS Workers Rank-and-File Committee, citing the failure of the American Postal Workers Union to enforce contractual rights or respond to safety hazards.
•David Harrison
University of Michigan president attacks Faculty Senate chair for opposing Israel’s war on Gaza
Over 1,500 students, faculty and staff have signed an open letter denouncing U-M President Grasso and defending Professor Peterson. A separate alumni letter with over 750 signatures is also circulating.
•Stephen St. Clair
United Flight 169 strikes highway vehicle on landing at Newark: The latest incident in crisis-ridden US aviation system
The incident, which came the day after the collapse of Spirit Airlines, reflects the systemic crisis of FAA understaffing, crumbling navigation infrastructure and airline cost-cutting.
•Claude Delphian
US resumes strikes on Iran, as Trump threatens further escalation
US forces struck Iranian military targets on Thursday after sending three US Navy destroyers through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively closed since February.
•Andre Damon
Nexteer workers: Vote “No” on the new sellout contract! Join the Rank-and-File Committee to prepare strike action!
The new Nexteer tentative agreement expands the tier system and maintains poverty wages as in the first TA, which workers voted down by 96 percent. Workers should reject it, dismiss the bargaining committee, and prepare to strike.
•Nexteer Workers Rank-and-File Committee
Australia: Victorian budget cuts services amid war and cost-of-living crisis
In order to produce a surplus, the state Labor government’s budget deepens cuts to education, health and disability services, while rejecting the wage demands of public sector workers.
•Eric Ludlow
National strike in Bolivia fueled by gas costs sees growing calls for president to resign
The decisive question confronting workers and youth is to draw the political lessons from the debacle of the MAS and the role played by the COB and indigenous leaderships in paving the way for the return of the right.
•Andrea Lobo
Chavín de Huántar: The Rescue of the Century: A film of reactionary propaganda for Peru’s military
The social and political issues are deliberately ignored in order to present the rescue operation as a binary struggle between the “heroic” army and a guerrilla force that is the enemy of the entire nation.
•Armando Cruz
Conviction of Palestine Action activists escalates Labour’s historic assault on democratic rights
The attack on the right to a fair trial reached astounding levels during the closing phase of both trials. Centuries-old legal and democratic rights are being trampled.
•Robert Stevens
Workers Struggles: Europe, Middle East & Africa
May Day general strike in Italy heralds month of strikes against falling living standards; Unison ends long pay strike at Mining Museum in England to bolster Labour’s chances in local elections; software workers in Israel begin organisational sanctions over contracts; South African Post Office workers protest over wages and privatisation
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Hantavirus outbreak on cruise ship exposes the continuing threat of zoonotic spillover
A lethal hantavirus outbreak aboard the luxury vessel MV Hondius highlights how capitalist encroachment into ecological frontiers and global mobility transform localized zoonotic spillovers into urgent international public health crises.
•Benjamin Mateus
The Trump regime, oligarchy and the fight for socialism
This speech was given by Joseph Kishore, National Secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (US), at the International May Day 2026 Online Rally, held Friday, May 1.
•Joseph Kishore
Australia: 6 months since the fatal Endeavor mine explosion in Cobar
There is still no official explanation of what caused the explosion at Polymetals Resources’ Endeavor mine on October 28, 2025, that killed workers Patrick “Ambrose” McMullen and Holly Clarke.
•Martin Scott
Crisis in New Zealand government over Iran war
Foreign Minister Winston Peters, leader of the right-wing nationalist NZ First Party, released emails sent in early March which indicate that Prime Minister Christopher Luxon wanted the government to express stronger support for the criminal US-Israeli war.
•Tom Peters
1 year of the Merz government: War, militarism and social devastation
The Merz-Klingbeil government is the most right-wing and hated government in the history of the Federal Republic. The struggle against it requires an independent socialist perspective.
•Johannes Stern
What is it about the Met fashion gala that leads one to think fondly of the guillotine?
The Met Gala on Monday evening was an expression of the putrefaction of the ruling establishment where fashion, Hollywood, corporate money, celebrity culture and politics comingled in a display of wealth and privilege.
•David North
Higher oil prices to come as reserves fall at record pace
The “baseline” assumption of official forecasts that the war would be over in weeks has been shattered by events, with warnings that oil price hikes so far are only the beginning.
•Nick Beams
Australia and Japan boost military ties against China
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has proclaimed that the country will play a “more proactive” role in the Indo-Pacific, amid a flurry of regional visits all directed against Beijing.
•Oscar Grenfell
Trump administration attacks Costa Rican media to silence opposition to fascistic puppet regime
Despite the right-wing character of La Nación, the visa revocations are a naked attack by a Hitler-inspired imperialist regime seeking to crush even limited criticism of its puppet government.
•Andrea Lobo
For rank-and-file control of the National Steel Car contract struggle! International class unity, not a nationalist corporate/union partnership!
Under conditions of the ongoing war on Iran that is disrupting the world economy and the Canada-US trade war that has hit our facility here in Hamilton, Ontario, for over a year now, Management aims to offload the crisis onto our backs through real wage cuts and continued job insecurity.
•National Steel Car Rank-and-File Committee
Scottish National Party heads for victory, amid continued Labour collapse, rise of Reform UK and Greens
The Scottish National Party appears headed for a fifth consecutive electoral victory, thanks to Labour’s rotten right-wing record, which has fuelled Reform UK's growth in Scotland.
•Steve James
UK to lead European “Northern Navies” force against Russia
The Northern Navies would centre on the Joint Expeditionary Force, a UK-led grouping of 10 European countries.
•Robert Stevens
Royal Mail workers call for No vote against CWU negotiators' agreement with Kretinsky
As soon as details of the “groundbreaking agreement” were released on April 15, opposition went viral among postal workers who slammed the proposed deal.
•Tony Robson
Lessons of the Turkish miners’ struggle in Ankara
The miners’ struggle in Ankara has ended with the promise that all their demands will be met. The lessons from this important struggle must be drawn.
•Barış Demir
Mass protests in Japan against war and remilitarisation
An estimated 50,000 people gathered in the Tokyo Rinkai Disaster Prevention Park to mark Constitution Memorial Day, carrying banners reading “STOP Constitutional Revision and Military Expansion.”
•Peter Symonds
Australian central bank hikes rates again as stagflation threat grows
The hikes for this year so far total three quarters of a percent with more rises threatened in the future, taking hundreds of dollars a month from the disposable income of households battling to pay off mortgages.
•Nick Beams
Australian Education Union cancels strikes in Victoria to impose Labor’s austerity agenda
The AEU move to sell out the educators’ struggle is driven by fears of a wider working-class movement against the cost-of-living crisis imposed by the state and federal Labor governments.
•Sue Phillips
Facing mounting crisis, Trump reverses course on escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz
US President Donald Trump announced Tuesday evening that he was pausing the day-old US military operation to escort commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz "for a short period of time," citing what he said was "great progress" toward an agreement with Iran.
•Andre Damon
Nexteer workers: Prepare now to defeat another UAW sellout contract!
After extending the last contract behind the backs of workers UAW Local 699 officials have announced that they have reached a new deal.
•Nexteer Workers Rank-and-File Committee
The collapse of Spirit Airlines: The latest in a decades-long war on the working class
The ruling class is using the economic shocks produced by the war on Iran to accelerate a sustained, bipartisan attack on the working class stretching back half a century.
•Tom Hall
UAW holding strike vote at Sterling Heights Assembly over outsourcing, as Stellantis gears for more cost cutting
Everything indicates that the vote called by leaders of UAW Local 1700 at SHAP is performative, aimed at venting workers' anger and will lead to no consequential action by the union.
•Shannon Jones
El Gamal lawyers detail ICE kidnapping operation, as Congress prepares $53 billion for ICE and CBP
The El Gamal family’s legal team detailed last Saturday’s kidnapping, as Congress moves to pour billions more into ICE and CBP.
•Jacob Crosse
Balikatan 2026: US turns Philippines into forward base for war against China
Washington’s largest-ever war games in the Philippines featured the first live Tomahawk firing on Philippine soil and the first Japanese combat deployment since its World War II occupation.
•John Malvar
Mehring Yayıncılık holds first cinema screening of Tsar to Lenin in Türkiye
Mehring Yayıncılık successfully held the first cinema screening in Türkiye of the unique documentary Tsar to Lenin.
•Our reporters
Louisiana governor suspends primary election to enforce new congressional gerrymandering
The action by Republican Jeff Landry, postponing a primary in order to carry out a pro-Republican redistricting approved by the Supreme Court, has no historical precedent.
•Patrick Martin
Stalin, Trotsky and the 1926 British General Strike
May 4 marked 100 years since the beginning of the 1926 British General Strike. The strike, defeated after nine days, was a pivotal experience for the working class in Britain and internationally.
•Chris Marsden
Trump’s deployment of warships to Strait of Hormuz escalates Iran war
The increasingly desperate actions of American imperialism express the strategic debacle it confronts after 35 years of uninterrupted wars of aggression.
•WSWS Editorial Board
“All this money for bombs but no money for education”: May Day protesters in US denounce war and dictatorship
Although officially dominated by Democrats and the labor bureaucracy, hundreds of thousands in the US marched on May Day to oppose war and defend immigrants and democratic rights.
•Our reporters
Trump withdraws 5,000 US troops from Germany as Berlin steps up rearmament
The announcement by President Donald Trump to withdraw 5,000 US troops from Germany and halt the planned deployment of US intermediate-range weapons in Germany marks a further escalation of the crisis in transatlantic relations.
•Johannes Stern
Further light shed on criminal US torpedoing of Iranian ship
The evasions and hypocritical declarations of “neutrality” by Colombo and New Delhi, along with the silence of the imperialist-aligned media, cannot cover up the fact that these governments were complicit in this US war crime.
•Wasantha Rupasinghe
Graham Platner: A bogus “pro-worker” face for the Democratic Party in Maine
Platner is being promoted as an outsider, but his campaign was recruited, packaged and launched through the AFL-CIO, Bernie Sanders and the Democratic Party apparatus.
•Jacob Crosse
Islamist offensive tacitly backed by Paris shakes Mali
Against the backdrop of the war against Iran and Russia, the conflict between the anti-imperialist aspirations of the Malian masses and the bourgeois politics of the Malian junta is emerging ever more clearly.
•Alex Lantier
Spirit workers lose paychecks and benefits as executives seek $10.7 million in “retention” bonuses
The collapse of Spirit has priced millions of working class travelers out of air travel overnight—and it is only the first casualty of the fuel crisis triggered by the US-Israeli war on Iran.
•Tom Hall
New sanctions, threats and military exercises set stage for US assault on Cuba
Amid escalating sanctions, military exercises, and threats by Donald Trump to take the island “immediately,” Washington is laying the groundwork for a regime-change war against Cuba.
•Andrea Lobo
Brazil’s unions isolate São Paulo education strikes
The struggles of teachers and students in São Paulo are part of a growing movement of the international working class against the austerity policies driven by the capitalist crisis and the effects of the war against Iran.
•Guilherme Ferreira
Australian Labor government axing public sector jobs to deepen budget cuts
The Albanese government is slashing thousands of public service positions—a warning of what is to come in next week’s budget.
•Mike Head
Union presents pay-cutting offer to New Zealand nurses
Nurses and healthcare workers should reject the offer presented by the NZNO, which would slash wages and do nothing to address the staffing crisis in hospitals.
•Tom Peters
Workers Struggles: The Americas
Thousands of nurses at long-term care facilities in the province of Ontario have voted to authorize strikes, while workers in Puerto Rico held May Day protests demanding the end of the Wall Street financial dictatorship over the US island colony.
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The new code of silence: Texas Tech University bans gender and sexuality teaching and research
The draconian directive is an obvious appeal to social and intellectual backwardness and an attempt to shove ultra-right Christian ideology down the throats of faculty, students and staff.
•Andrea Peters
The Revolutionary Communist Party abandons Corbyn only to embrace Zack Polanski’s Green Party
Building socialist consciousness means fighting to bring the historical and international experience of the working class to bear on contemporary political issues, in order to break the working class from its potential misleaders.
•Thomas Scripps
UK Labour Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood targets children for brutal treatment in asylum seeker crackdown
In a joint letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer on April 27, almost 150 organisations—including social care workers, refugee charities, and fostering groups—accused the government of a “sustained attack on children’s rights.”
•Harvey Thompson
Australia: Interim report provides no answers on Bondi terrorist attack
The section of the report dealing with the role played by the federal policing and intelligence agencies, about which so many questions remain, has been suppressed entirely.
•Oscar Grenfell
“May Day Strong” in Chicago: Labor bureaucracy, Democrats seek to smother growing resistance to war and Trump dictatorship
With thousands of workers and young people marching to oppose Trump, the AFL-CIO and Democratic Party is trying to prevent this movement from evolving into a politically conscious challenge to oligarchic rule and the capitalist system that both parties defend.
•Kristina Betinis, Jerry White
Strike of Little Lake teachers in California shut down after 10 days
The decision was taken before teachers were given access to the full terms of the tentative agreement and before any meaningful rank-and-file review could take place.
•Marc Wells
Trump says US Navy will begin escorting ships out of the Strait of Hormuz
In a rambling Truth Social post on Sunday afternoon, President Trump wrote that the US would begin escorting hundreds of “Ships and Crews safely out of the Strait, ” and that any Iranian interference will “have to be dealt with forcefully.”
•Kevin Reed
Spirit Airlines collapses: 17,000 workers pay for Wall Street’s war on Iran
The government’s decision not to rescue Spirit, on the absurd grounds that they did not “have half a billion dollars laying around,” is deliberate class policy aimed at making the working class pay for the war.
•Tom Hall
Sri Lankan SEP/IYSSE meeting against US-Israeli war on Iran
SEP speakers explained that the military assault on Iran was part of US imperialism’s efforts to dominate oil and gas resources in the Middle East, as part of a far wider unfolding conflict against China and Russia.
•Our reporters
Break the isolation: Harvard graduate students’ strike must be expanded
Will Lehman, a rank-and-file Mack Trucks worker who is running as a socialist candidate for UAW president, is calling on workers to break the union's isolation of the nearly two-week walkout by 4,000 Harvard graduate student workers.
•Mike Ingram
The 2026 International May Day Online Rally and the tasks of the international working class
Speakers at the May Day rally analyzed the war against Iran as the culmination of a 35-year capitalist crisis and advanced a revolutionary program for the international working class entering a new period of global struggle.
•WSWS Editorial Board
Ypsilanti utility board halts University of Michigan nuclear weapons data center
The data center is an important element of the economic and military policy of the Democratic Party. Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the state Democratic establishment have worked to transform Michigan into an industrial, logistical and computational hub for the military-industrial complex.
•Stephen St. Clair
Two Prosecutors: A stubborn young lawyer confronts the criminal methods of the Stalinist bureaucracy
Many thousands of devoted revolutionaries, including most of the leaders of the October 1917 Revolution, were put to death between 1936 and 1938 by the counterrevolutionary bureaucracy.
•Fred Mazelis
Federal appeals court issues nationwide ban on telemedicine and mail access to abortion pill mifepristone
The decision has been appealed immediately to the US Supreme Court, which overturned abortion rights four years ago.
•Kate Randall
From Port Huron to postmodernism: The class politics of the “New” Students for a Democratic Society
The "New" SDS substitutes identity politics for class analysis, bourgeois nationalism for socialist internationalism and protest theater for the independent mobilization of the working class against the capitalist parties and the system they defend.
•Nancy Hanover
Labor blocks return of Australian citizens interned in Syria
The Albanese government’s actions set a wider precedent for barring the return of citizens deemed to be lacking in respect for the “values” prescribed by the ruling capitalist establishment.
•Mike Head
This week in history: May 4-10
South African gold mine explosion kills twelve miners; Red Army Faction founder Ulrike Meinhof is found dead in her prison cell; US conducts the test preparing hydrogen bomb; British General Strike begins.
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Socialist Equality Party intervenes at Unite event in Barnsley marking centenary of 1926 General Strike
An SEP stall next to Glass Works Square, where the rally assembled, promoted the party's public meetings this month across the UK.
•our correspondents
Unite uses Barnsley May Day and 1926 General Strike centenary to proclaim “rebirth of the trade unions”
The final Barnsley rally, with Graham as keynote speaker, represented the very forces responsible for the betrayal of 1984-85 miners’ strike and every betrayal thereafter.
•Robert Stevens
Israel violently and illegally intercepts Gaza flotilla, kidnaps organisers
This was a violent act of piracy, carried out by Israeli armed forces 600 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza, in international waters, with the intent to commit grievous bodily harm and even murder.
•Thomas Scripps
Australian inflation soars as economic effects of Iran war bite
The official cost-of-living index rose 4.6 percent in the 12 months to March, up sharply from 3.7 percent in February.
•Martin Scott
Australian Labor government’s assault on disability services to be based on brutal “functional assessments”
People with disabilities will be subjected to demeaning tests, aimed at kicking them off the NDIS or dramatically reducing the support they receive.
•Max Boddy, Oscar Grenfell
Australia: Victorian Labor leaks pay offer while teacher union prepares another sellout
The reported 28 percent pay rise offer reflects the fears of state and federal Labor governments that strikes in Victoria could become the starting point of broader action by teachers and others nationally.
•Sue Phillips
Vote “no” on the SEIU sellout agreement for Los Angeles school workers!
The central fraud of this contract is that it conceals massive cuts just over the horizon. A new budget proposal for the next school year is expected in mid-May—days after the ratification vote closes.
•Marc Wells
UIC graduate workers launch third strike in seven years against poverty wages
The more than 1,500 graduate workers who have walked out teach courses, run laboratories, and generate the research revenue that makes UIC function.
•Alexander Fangmann
Swedish government commits to coalition with fascist Sweden Democrats after upcoming parliamentary election
Over the past two months, the Swedish political establishment has moved to consolidate the Sweden Democrats—the far-right party that emerged from the neo-Nazi milieu of the 1980s—as the dominant force in official politics.
•Jon Andersson
World Bank details Iran war global commodity shock
The bank’s chief economist has warned that the war is hitting the global economy in a series of cumulative waves.
•Nick Beams
US national debt surpasses size of the economy, as Trump administration demands surge in military spending
The US national debt has crossed 100 percent of gross domestic product for the first peacetime year since 1946, according to data released Thursday by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)—a milestone that arrives as the Trump administration is demanding a $1.535 trillion Pentagon budget and preparing for conflict with nuclear-armed China and Russia.
•Andre Damon
Inside Amir: Tehran, before US and Israeli bombs rained down...
One can’t help but wondering after two months of war and countless waves of bombing, and thousands of civilian deaths: Does that neighborhood still look like this?
•David Walsh
Capitalist crisis, war and the international class struggle
This speech was delivered by WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North to open the 2026 International May Day Online Rally.
•David North
Democrats pave way for $70 billion infusion to ICE and Border Patrol
Congressional Democrats joined Republicans in ending the longest Homeland Security shutdown in US history while clearing the way for Trump’s immigration Gestapo to receive tens of billions of dollars, without any reforms, through a fast-track budget process requiring no Democratic votes.
•Jacob Crosse
Homelessness among young people in Germany has almost tripled since 2022
The housing crisis is destroying the lives of tens of thousands of children and young people: The number of homeless minors has almost tripled nationwide.
•Florian Hasek, Stephan Baloff
Stop the war against Iran!
The editor of the WSWS German site explained the social, political and historical basis of the struggle against imperialist war.
•Johannes Stern
PSTU leader Zé Maria sentenced to two years prison in Brazil for criticizing Israel: a grave attack on democratic rights
The case is a politically motivated fabrication and an assault on the political conscience of millions of workers and young people in Brazil and around the world.
•Statement of the Socialist Equality Group (Brazil)
Disney announces full deployment of facial recognition at Disneyland Resort
Expansion of biometric surveillance raises concerns over privacy loss, data sharing with authorities and erosion of anonymity in public life.
•Marc Wells
Executions in Florida and Texas: Condemned prisoners maintain their innocence
The twin executions of James Ernest Hitchcock, 70, and James Broadnax, 37, took place as the US death penalty machinery continues its accelerating pace in 2026.
•Kate Randall
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
India: Andhra Pradesh hospital sanitation workers at Vijayawada demand outstanding wages; Haryana fire and emergency services workers’ strike; Australia: Queensland rail workers resume industrial action; Victoria’s state school nurses demand wage parity.
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South Africa’s ruling class incites pogroms against migrants
This scapegoating must be understood in the context of the social order the ANC has presided over since 1994. While the legal framework of apartheid was dismantled, the underlying class structures have been preserved.
•Jean de Jager
Golders Green attack used to launch ferocious right-wing campaign against democratic rights and anti-genocide protests
Prime Minister Keir Starmer responded by holding those who have protested the Gaza genocide responsible, and promising draconian attacks on demonstrations.
•Thomas Scripps
Campaign begins for meetings on 100 years since British General Strike
Reports from SEP branches in London, Sheffield and Inverness are featured.
•Our reporters
Germany’s Morenoite RIO joins Left Party in support of war, attacks on the working class
The integration of the RIO Morenoites into the Left Party marks a further political shift to the right by this pseudo-left tendency, which can only be understood in the context of the current crisis of capitalism.
•Johannes Stern
Join the May Day Online Rally! For socialism! Against war, genocide and fascism!
The International Committee of the Fourth International and the World Socialist Web Site are holding our 13th annual International May Day Online Rally at 3:00 pm EDT.
•WSWS Editorial Board
German government passes war budget, agrees sharp attacks on healthcare
The cabinet has decided to massively increase military spending and correspondingly slash social spending. One “reform” will deliver a death blow to healthcare in its current form.
•Peter Schwarz
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