Global protests continue over Israel’s seizure of Sumud flotilla

Jordan Shilton

The Israeli regime’s criminal interception of the Sumud flotilla seeking to deliver aid to Gaza provoked protests around the world over the weekend. Millions of people, including one million in Rome, took to the streets in opposition to the genocide against the Palestinians and Israel’s deportation of over 400 flotilla activists after their ships and cargoes were violently seized.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators gather in Rome's San Giovanni Square, at the end of a march calling for an end to the war in Gaza, October 4, 2025 [AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino]

The protest in Rome took place the day after a one-day national strike involving 2 million workers was organised across Italy by the General Confederation of Labour (CGIL) and other trade unions.

Italy’s fascistic government under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni declared the strike “illegal” and threatened participants with fines. However, the mass support for the Palestinians, which has included the repeated blocking of ports by dockworkers to prevent ships destined for Israel from loading cargo and departing, has given vent to widespread hatred of US President Donald Trump’s closest European ally.

Another 250,000 marched through Amsterdam Sunday to denounce the seizure of the flotilla’s ships and the Dutch government’s complicity in arms shipments to Israel.

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In Spain, major protests were held Saturday in Barcelona and Madrid, fueled by Israel’s detention of over 40 Spanish activists in the flotilla. Demonstrators in Barcelona, where police underestimated a total of 70,000 participants, carried signs including “Stop the genocide” and “hands off the flotilla.”

One protestor said, “How is it possible that we are witnessing a genocide happening live after what we [as Europe] experienced in the 1940s? Now nobody can say they didn’t know what was happening.”

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators are sprayed by police as they protest in Barcelona, Spain, Friday, Oct. 3, 2025 in solidarity with the Global Sumud Flotilla after ships were intercepted by the Israeli navy. [AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti]

Over 3,000 people joined a demonstration in Lisbon, Portugal, three of whose citizens were detained by Israel. Organisers had expected only 500 to participate.

Major protests denouncing the interception of the flotilla were also reported from Kolkata, India, and Lahore, Pakistan. In Dublin, Ireland, the 17th national march for Palestine since October 2023—when Israel’s imperialist-backed genocide in Gaza began—drew some 25,000 people to the streets. Among those detained by Israel, 16 came from Ireland.

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In Sofia, Bulgaria, protesters carried placards declaring, “Gaza: starvation is a weapon of war” and “Gaza is the biggest graveyard of children.” Thousands of people also took part in marches in Turkey, Morocco, and Tunisia.

Thousands protested on Sunday in Athens, Greece, following a 24-hour strike on Friday in solidarity with the Gaza flotilla at the port of Piraeus.

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In London, police arrested close to 500 people because they declared their support for the proscribed group Palestine Action. Defend Our Juries, which organised the protest, said that over 1,000 participated in the demonstration, the latest in a series of protests since Keir Starmer’s Labour government used anti-terror legislation to criminalise the activist group and make even a declaration of support for it a criminal offence.

Over a thousand people gathered in London's Trafalgar Square to oppose genocide and the Palestine Action ban, October 4, 2025 [Photo: Defend Our Juries/X]

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The global demonstrations reflect the outrage among billions of people over the Zionist regime’s barbaric slaughter of the Palestinians in Gaza and the collusion of their governments in this historic crime. While the official death toll since October 2023 stands at just over 65,000, estimates project that the real number of fatalities is many multiples of this, running into the hundreds of thousands. Famine is rampant in the enclave, and upwards of half a million people have been ethnically cleansed from Gaza City in the past six weeks alone.

A contributing factor to the widespread protests this weekend was the brutal treatment meted out by the Israel Defense Forces to the captured flotilla activists. Some of the 137 people already deported from Israel to Turkey reported systematic abuse, denial of water, and threats with weapons. Reports indicated that activists were forced to drink from toilets to avoid dehydration and had heard how other inmates at the prison were subject to torture.

“Some boats were also hit by water cannon. All of the boats were taken by very heavily armed people and brought to shore,” an Italian local councillor who was part of the flotilla told AFP. “They put us on our knees, facing down. And if we moved, they hit us. They were laughing at us, insulting us and hitting us. They were using both psychological and physical violence.”

Describing the prison where they were held after reaching land, he added, “They were opening the door during the night and shouting at us with guns to scare us. We were treated like animals.”

Prominent climate and anti-genocide activist Greta Thunberg told Swedish authorities that she was dehydrated and left with inadequate food. She had developed rashes, which she suspects were caused by bedbugs.

Turkish activist Ersin Çelik said that at the detention centre “They dragged little Greta by her hair before our eyes, beat her, and forced her to kiss the Israeli flag. They did everything imaginable to her, as a warning to others.” She was “paraded like a trophy”, wrapped in the Israeli flag, said journalist Lorenzo D’Agostino.

The radicalisation of millions of workers and young people throughout the world produced by two years of genocide has sharply exposed the gulf separating the sentiments of the vast majority of the population from all major governments.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators pass in front of Rome's Colosseum, during a march calling for an end to the war in Gaza, October 4, 2025, [AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino]

Israel has only been able to act so aggressively because it enjoys the unrestrained support of the American and European imperialists, who have sent the Zionist regime unlimited supplies of weaponry and defended its war crimes. Now, Trump has proposed a “peace plan” that robs the Palestinians of their democratic rights and proposes setting up a colonial regime in Gaza that will facilitate the ethnic cleansing or extermination of those Palestinians who remain.

Japanese ruling party chooses likely new right-wing prime minister

Ben McGrath

On Saturday, Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) elected Sanae Takaichi as its new president to replace outgoing leader and Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who resigned last month. Parliament will be convened on October 15 for an extraordinary session during which Takaichi is set to be installed as Japan’s next prime minister. 

Sanae Takaichi celebrates after winning the Liberal Democratic Party leadership election in Tokyo, October 4, 2025. [AP Photo/Kim Kyung-Hoon]

The capitalist media has focused on the fact that Takaichi’s likely ascension to the premiership would make her Japan’s first female prime minister. This serves to distract from the fact that she represents the far-right of what is already a nationalistic and pro-war party. 

Takaichi is a militarist and anti-China hawk. She was close to former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated in July 2022. Abe played a leading role in Japan’s remilitarization while in office between 2012 and 2020, effectively tearing up constitutional constraints on the military, attacking democratic rights and preparing to wage war overseas. 

Takaichi takes over at a time of crisis for the LDP and the entire Japanese political establishment. Widespread public anger exists as a result of declining economic conditions, which include long-term rising inflation. Real wages have fallen for seven straight months through July. The economy is expected to grow only 0.7 percent this year and at a similarly low rate in 2026.

Moreover, Japan, like every other country, faces the fallout from the Trump administration’s tariff war. This is punishing all US rivals, while ultimately aimed at China, regarded as the existential threat to the post-World War II dominance of the US.

The LDP selected Takaichi with the hope that she can win back LDP supporters, while dealing with Donald Trump, as the two share similar far-right, anti-China positions, and potentially develop a relationship over Trump’s reported fondness for Abe.

Serious tensions have developed between Tokyo and Washington. Sections of the Japanese ruling class have reacted with hostility to Trump’s tariff demands, which include Japanese investment in the US of $550 billion, to be dispersed as Trump sees fit. Washington will also receive 90 percent of the profits. In exchange, Trump merely agreed to reduce tariffs on Japanese goods to 15 percent. 

Takaichi has hinted at trying to reopen negotiations over this trade deal. Trump’s gangster-like approach to nominal allies has exposed the differences that exist as Washington and other imperialist countries attempt to redivide the world for the exploitation of resources and cheap labor. 

The US and NATO have instigated a war against Russia in Ukraine and Washington has led a rapidly developing war drive against China. 

Successive Japanese governments have backed these conflicts and justified remilitarization. Tokyo is currently increasing de facto military spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2027, while facing calls from the Trump regime to increase this level even further to 5 percent as part of the anti-China war drive.

As tensions between “allies” grow, it is not out of the question that factions of the Japanese ruling class may decide that conflict and even war with the US is necessary to protect their own imperialist interests, just as they concluded in the 1930s.

Takaichi’s government will be an unstable one. Social unrest found expression in the previous two National Diet elections, one for parliament’s lower house last October and another for the upper house this past July. The LDP lost its majorities in both, even with the backing of coalition partner Komeito. October’s election loss was only the third time since the LDP’s formation in 1955 that it or its ruling coalition lost its majority in the more powerful lower house. 

These losses and the LDP’s inability to control the discontent led to Ishiba’s resignation as prime minister. Takaichi won the leadership election, competing against four other candidates. An LDP president is chosen by party parliamentarians and votes by rank-and-file members. In a highly anti-democratic process, the more than 910,000 party members’ votes are proportionally allocated to equal only 295, the same number of LDP Diet members. 

After no candidate received a majority of the votes in the first round, the election went to a run-off between Takaichi and Agriculture Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, the son of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. At this second stage, voting was limited to LDP parliamentarians and one vote from each of the LDP’s 47 prefectural organizations. Takaichi won 185 to 156.

As the leader of the largest party in parliament, Takaichi will now likely replace Ishiba as prime minister. This is not guaranteed as the LDP does not hold a majority. It is however doubtful that the opposition, composed of various competing parties, will unite behind a single candidate.

That the LDP even remains in office is due to the lack of any genuine, left-wing opposition. The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP), the main opposition in parliament, offers little more than milquetoast criticisms of the LDP while having no program to improve the conditions of workers or oppose war. The Stalinist Japanese Communist Party’s entire agenda is to prop up the CDP and block any development of a left-wing movement against capitalism.

Other right-wing parties have capitalized in this atmosphere, notably the fascistic Sanseito Party and the Democratic Party for the People (DPP), which have exploited the anger of young and middle-aged people who have grown up in a period of economic stagnation, unable to find decent jobs or wages. Sanseito, in Trump-like fashion, has pushed a xenophobic agenda, blaming tourists and non-Japanese residents for the country’s social ills, including low wages and crime. 

The DPP is not a far-right party, though it was formed by the most conservative elements of the old Democratic Party, which in 2017 split into the CDP and another faction that founded the DPP the following year. While supporting the outgoing Ishiba government in passing legislation and Tokyo’s pro-war agenda, the DPP has made numerous populist pledges as economic conditions have declined.

Without a majority in parliament, Takaichi will have to rely on Komeito and at least one other party to pass her agenda. She could possibly expand the ruling coalition to include the CDP, DPP, or a third party, the right-wing Nippon Ishin no Kai, though the three may keep their distance from the unpopular LDP. 

At the same time, there are calls from the ruling class for economic restructuring as the country’s gross national debt stands at approximately 234.9 percent of GDP, one of the highest among developed countries. 

Takaichi has been a supporter of “Abenomics”—Abe’s economic program—that includes limited government spending as a means of boosting the economy. She made vague and empty populist pledges during her campaign, but also indicated that austerity is on the agenda. She acknowledged the demands for restructuring, stating she “never said that there is not a need for fiscal reconstruction.” 

Paying for Tokyo’s war preparations and fiscal restructuring means a full-scale attack on the conditions of the working class, including increased taxes, cuts to social programs, reduced wages and job-slashing.

To deflect from this agenda, Takaichi has taken pages from the playbooks of Sanseito and the far-right in the US and Europe. During the leadership race, she denounced foreigners and suggested limiting the number of people entering Japan, declaring: “We need to rethink the policy of receiving large numbers of people every year whose culture and everything else are so different from ours.”

This racist agenda is meant to divide workers who face similar declining conditions both domestically and internationally, while creating a more nationalist and militarist atmosphere.

New autumn COVID-19 spike as UK government continues to limit access to free vaccines

Ioan Petrescu

The UK is experiencing a new spike in COVID-19 infections driven by two recently emergent Omicron subvariants dubbed “Stratus” and “Nimbus”. Together these now account for the majority of cases in the UK, with genomic surveillance indicating that roughly 63 percent of analysed cases were Stratus and 25 percent were Nimbus by late September.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has classified Stratus as a “variant under monitoring,” noting it showed the highest global growth advantage in mid-2025, even outpacing Nimbus. Despite their similar overall impact, Stratus and Nimbus have each been linked to some unusual symptoms, reflecting subtle differences in how these variants affect patients.

Artist’s conception of the spike proteins that allow SARS-CoV-2 to invade human cells. [Photo by Emanresucamit / CC BY-SA 4.0]

Doctors have noted that both can cause an extremely painful sore throat—described by some sufferers as a “razor blade” sensation—often leading to a hoarse or croaky voice. Stratus infections in particular have been associated with a persistent dry cough, fatigue and fever, while Nimbus is noted to be highly transmissible due to an enhanced ability to bind to human cells.

In July, the WSWS drew attention to the 11th wave of mass COVID-19 infection sweeping across the United States and other countries, driven by new highly transmissible variants.

Due to far fewer people now testing for COVID-19, it has become difficult to gauge the true spread of infection in Britain. Official case counts are a severe undercount of actual infections. But it is clear that after a summer “lull” in infections—during which around 800 people still died with COVID-19 on the death certificate—indicators are once again trending upward as autumn begins.

Over the month of September, reported infections and hospital admissions have risen steadily. In England, lab test positivity increased from 7.6 percent to 8.4 percent in mid-September. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) surveillance report noted that COVID-19 activity, while still at a “low” baseline level, “increased slightly” heading into October.

The limited testing that is done suggests a few thousand cases are being identified per week—around 1,995 cases were recorded in the week of September 10–17, a 14.3 percent rise from the previous week. By comparison, data available for August showed about 1,162 people admitted with COVID-19 in the entire month—which was already up 15.6 percent from July.

All these figures greatly understate reality. With the government having shut down free mass testing and scaled back surveillance, official case numbers are far lower than they were a few years ago, capturing only a fraction of infections (primarily those tested in hospitals). Even UKHSA officials acknowledge that it is “increasingly difficult for experts to track infections”. Workers are left in the dark about the true extent of COVID spread in their communities.

Even the incomplete data shows a concerning rise in illness “so early in autumn”, as one medical expert told the BMJ (formerly, British Medical Journal). Hospitalisations are climbing alongside cases. The UKHSA reports that weekly COVID hospital admission rates in England jumped from 2.0 per 100,000 population to about 2.73 in mid-September—an increase of 37 percent in a week.

Under the bipartisan policy of “living with the virus”, the wearing of masks, isolation, contact-tracing, and other public health mitigation measures have been eliminated. The result is that, outside of individual choice, there are effectively no barriers to COVID-19 spreading through the UK’s schools, workplaces, and public venues.

The official guidance remains that if someone feels unwell with respiratory symptoms or fever, they “should avoid contact with vulnerable people and stay at home if possible”, but this is purely advisory. In reality, many cannot afford to isolate due to work pressures or may not even realize they have COVID because testing is so scarce. This laissez-faire approach virtually guarantees continued mass infection, which in turn means more illness and the potential for further variants to emerge.

One of the few remaining pillars of the pandemic response is vaccination, but this too has been drastically scaled back. As of autumn 2025, the National Health Service (NHS) is offering a COVID booster only to a very limited high-risk group: adults aged 75 and over, residents of care homes for older adults, and individuals with weakened immune systems (6 months+).

This is an even narrower criterion than the previous year which also included adults aged 65-74 and people in clinical risk groups, both dropped from free eligibility in 2025.

In other words, millions of people who once qualified for free COVID vaccination are now excluded. They must either pay out-of-pocket for a private vaccine or go without. The price of a private COVID jab in the UK is between £75–£105, making it unaffordable for many already devastated by a years-long and worsening cost of living crisis.

Unsurprisingly, uptake has fallen, with vast numbers of Britons, even those medically vulnerable, having not received any booster in the last year. This situation is also a result of the systematic attack on public awareness of the continued danger posed by the disease. Many workers, misled into thinking COVID is “over”, do not get another shot.

Health officials still emphasize that vaccines are crucial. UKHSA data from last winter showed those who got the booster were 43 percent less likely to be hospitalized with COVID compared to the unvaccinated. The agency is urging everyone who is eligible this autumn to come forward for both the COVID and flu vaccines ahead of winter. “The most important thing is for those eligible to get their vaccination when it is due,” officials insist. However, this messaging rings hollow given that the majority of the population is deemed ineligible for free COVID boosters.

Past waves of infection have already left a devastating impact on the working class in the form of Long-COVID. According to the most recent Office for National Statistics /UKHSA estimates—published in April 2024—2 million people (3.3 percent of the population in private households in England and Scotland) report Long-COVID symptoms. Of these, 75 percent said their daily activities were limited, and 19 percent said they were “limited a lot.” Half reported symptoms lasting for two years; about 31 percent for three years.

Despite this lasting damage, NHS England ended ring-fenced funding for specialist Long-COVID services on April 1 this year. Many clinics are closing or scaling back services.

According to “The Sick Times” website, dedicated to chronicling the Long-COVID crisis, out of a peak figure of 120 Long-COVID services nationwide, only 46 confirmed they would remain open by July 2025. This has created a postcode lottery, with workers living in some Integrated Care Board (ICB) areas, such as Northeast London and Lancashire and South Cumbria, having no access to Long-COVID care under the NHS.