One-day strike by Kurds in Iran demands end to death penalty

Vol. 89/No. 5 - February 10, 2025

A one-day strike shut down businesses and schools all across the Kurdish region of Iran Jan. 22, demanding the revocation of death sentences for Pakhshan Azizi and Warisheh Moradi. These two Kurdish women are accused by Tehran of belonging to…


Sankara: ‘Semicolonial people’s foreign debt is unpayable’

Vol. 89/No. 5 - February 10, 2025
Fidel Castro welcomes Thomas Sankara in Havana Sept. 25, 1984. Sankara, a communist, looked to Castro’s Marxist leadership and the voluntary mobilizations of workers and peasants in Cuba’s socialist revolution as he led a popular, democratic revolution in Burkina Faso.

The French edition of Thomas Sankara Speaks: The Burkina Faso Revolution 1983-87 is one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for February. In 1983 Sankara led an uprising in the former French colony of Upper Volta, bringing to power a…


For Israel’s defeat of Hamas, end to Tehran’s nuclear threat

Vol. 89/No. 5 - February 10, 2025
Rafael Hasid, Israeli owner of Miriam Restaurant in Brooklyn. He left up Jan. 25 antisemitic graffiti so that people can “see that things like that happen.” Tehran-backed Hamas war to destroy Israel has sparked rise in anti-Jewish violence worldwide, a deadly threat to all workers.

The unstable ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and the release of more Israeli hostages, along with Israel’s freeing of hundreds of Hamas thugs ready to return to duty, does not resolve the key challenge facing the people of Israel —…


Israel, the Holocaust and Oct. 7 pogrom

Vol. 89/No. 5 - February 10, 2025

The stakes for workers in the U.S., the Middle East and worldwide are enormous in backing Israel’s unfinished battle to defeat Hamas and Hezbollah once and for all, and to destroy the ability of the reactionary capitalist regime in Iran…


25, 50 and 75 Years Ago

Vol. 89/No. 5 - February 10, 2025

February 7, 2000 CHARLESTON, South Carolina — Cops in full riot gear attacked an early morning march to the waterfront by hundreds of members of the International Longshoremen’s Association Jan. 20. Eight of the unionists are now facing frame-up charges…


Working class responds to LA fires disaster with solidarity

Vol. 89/No. 5 - February 10, 2025
Roger Dagoberto Cruz, left, a gutter installer, told Eric Simpson, SWP candidate for mayor of Oakland, that when work is slow he volunteers at the local job center to help others get work.

ALTADENA, Calif. — “Under capitalism, every time a disaster happens, the bosses and their politicians merely recreate the same conditions for it to happen again,” said Eric Simpson, Socialist Workers Party candidate for Oakland mayor and a union factory worker,…


New US gov’t takes shape amid growing conflicts, wars

Vol. 89/No. 5 - February 10, 2025

Since Donald Trump took office as president again Jan. 20, he has moved to advance his “Make America Great Again” nationalist agenda and, at the same time, to promote his pledge that his plans will mean a pro-worker White House.…


Las Vegas hotel workers win 69-day strike at Virgin Hotels

Vol. 89/No. 5 - February 10, 2025
Workers at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas ended 69-day strike Jan. 22, winning key demands, including wage increase. Above, picket in November. Strike won much-needed union solidarity.

The 700 members of Culinary Workers Local 226 and of Bartenders Local 165, both UNITE HERE affiliates, voted unanimously to end a 69-day strike Jan. 22 after bosses at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas met most of their demands. The bosses,…



CN rail signal workers planned strike over wages, schedules

Vol. 89/No. 5 - February 10, 2025

MONTREAL — On Jan. 28 rail bosses at Canadian National Railway and union officials of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents the signal and communications workers, announced that a tentative four-year agreement had been reached, the same day…