WA rally for Queer and Trans rights

Written by: Cal G. on 6 January 2026

 

Around one hundred people from Perth’s LGBTIQA+ communities, joined by trade unionists, socialists, and allies, assembled in Northbridge on Saturday afternoon for a rapid-response protest against the Northern Territory government’s latest attack on trans youth healthcare.

The action was called following the Northern Territory Country Liberal Party government’s December 21 announcement that it would strip public funding from puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormone treatment for anyone under the age of eighteen. The decision forms part of a broader, coordinated political campaign aimed at rolling back hard-won rights under the guise of “protecting children,” while ignoring medical evidence and lived experience.

At the rally, demonstrators condemned NT Health Minister Steve Edgington’s claim that the treatments represent “dangerous ideologically driven practices.”

Protesters responded by holding up satirical masks bearing Edgington’s likeness, drawing a pointed comparison to authoritarian leaders overseas who use culture-war rhetoric to consolidate power and distract from economic failure.

Despite heavy-handed restrictions imposed by WA Police on how the protest could operate, the gathering remained peaceful. After speeches at Northbridge Piazza, the crowd marched to Yagan Square, where an open microphone allowed community members to speak directly about the consequences of healthcare bans on working-class families, trans youth, and marginalised communities more broadly.

A recurring theme across the rally was the recognition that attacks on trans healthcare do not exist in isolation. Speakers warned that restricting medical autonomy for trans young people creates a dangerous precedent—one that threatens women’s reproductive healthcare, intersex bodily autonomy, and the right of all people to make decisions about their own bodies free from state coercion.

The Northern Territory ban follows similar moves elsewhere. Queensland has already extended its own suspension of puberty blockers until at least 2031. Internationally, conservative governments in the United Kingdom and New Zealand have taken steps to restrict access, despite ongoing criticism of the scientific basis for these decisions. Notably, while the UK cited the Cass Review as justification, international medical experts have raised serious concerns about its methodology, and the British government has since acknowledged the need for further clinical trials.

These political interventions stand in stark contrast to growing medical evidence. Research published last year in the *Journal of Pediatrics* demonstrated significant reductions in psychological distress among young people who were able to access gender-affirming care—evidence that protesters argued is being deliberately ignored in favour of ideological posturing.

Maddie, speaking at the rally, shared her positive experiences as a patient of Western Australia’s Youth Gender Clinic. She framed the struggle not only as one for trans liberation, but as part of a broader fight for dignity under a system that routinely sacrifices vulnerable people for political gain.

“I want to honour every trans person who keeps living openly, who keeps resisting, and who refuses to disappear,” she told the crowd.

Maddie also pointed to recent victories won through sustained community pressure, including the abolition of the WA Gender Recognition Board and reforms in New South Wales that removed surgical requirements for legal gender recognition. She argued these gains show that reactionary culture-war politics do not enjoy the mass support politicians claim.

“When Queensland introduced its ban, people mobilised across the country,” she said. “And the results of the last federal election showed that attempts to divide us along these lines don’t work the way the ruling class hopes they will.”

Alex Bainbridge, a long-time WA activist now living in Queensland, described attending rallies there and hearing firsthand from families forced to navigate the trauma of losing access to essential healthcare. He stressed that the burden of these policies falls disproportionately on working-class households with the fewest resources to fight back.

Stacie Mei Laccohee-Duffield from Queer and Diverse Pathways addressed the crowd, situating the bans within a broader pattern of state violence against marginalised people.

“These policies violate basic human rights that Australia claims to uphold,” they said. “They aren’t abstract principles—they affect real children, real families, and real futures.”

Laccohee-Duffield spoke movingly about having been denied recognition during their own adolescence, and warned that today’s governments are making a conscious choice to repeat that harm despite having the knowledge and medical expertise to do better.

“This isn’t ignorance anymore,” they said. “This is bigotry enforced by the state. It’s an abuse of power.”

Speakers also highlighted the hypocrisy at the heart of the bans: while puberty blockers are condemned as unsafe when prescribed to trans youth, they continue to be routinely used to treat precocious puberty. Advocates described this double standard as proof that the issue is not safety, but control.

Kate Salinger-Hatter from PFLAG WA welcomed the rally’s emphasis on solidarity across struggles, arguing that attacks on trans youth are inseparable from broader assaults on bodily autonomy.

 

Speech at Venezuela solidarity rally, Melbourne, January 4

 Written by: Shirley Winton on 5 January, 2026

 

(Shirley Winton, member of the Australian Anti-AUKUS Coalition, speaking at the Melbourne rally on January 4.)

 

We stand in solidarity with the people of Venezuela.  We condemn the US invasion and it taking control of this sovereign country and the abduction of their elected President Maduro.

We demand the US immediately leave Venezuela and return President Maduro and his wife to Venezuela.

The US has fabricated drug trafficking  and weapons trade by Maduro as pretext for the murderous invasion and coup of sovereign Venezuela to seize its rich oil reserves for US oil corporations.  Yet the world’s biggest drug traffickers and weapons runners are US imperialism and its oil and weapons corporations.  It is unfolding as a repeat of US invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 under the pretext of weapons of mass destruction to seize Iraq’s oil for US oil corporations.  The latest desperate action is a sign of economically weakening US empire.

This is the naked face of US imperialism.  From Venezuela and Latin America, to Palestine, Middle East to South East Asia and the Pacific, US is the biggest danger and threat to peoples of the world.

Yet our Labor government dutifully follows US imperialism, turning Australia into a US military base, taking away $368 billion of public funds from people’s social needs – housing, health care, child care, aged care – to fund AUKUS and prop up the US empire, and will lock Australia into a disastrous US-led war with China. 

We must unite and resist the scourge of US imperialism where ever it raises its head.  

We demand Albanese government condemns the US invasion and taking control of sovereign Venezuela and its oil, and demands immediate release of Venezuelan president Maduro and his wife.

Yankee Go Home!  must echo around the country.  

US out of Venezuela, out of Latin America, out of Palestine and the Middle East, out of Asia-Pacific!

Yankee out of Australia! – Break the US-Australia Alliance, Cancel AUKUS, Close Pine Gap and all US military bases in Australia!

Victory to people of Venezuela!  Victory to people of the world fighting colonialism, imperialism and capitalism.

The UN is a toothless tiger.  The fight lies with united working people of the world.

The fight to scrap AUKUS, end US alliance and throw the US out of Australia is Australian working people’s contribution to ridding the world of US imperialism.

 

CPA (M-L) condemns US kidnapping of Maduro

 Written by: Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninst) on 5 January 2026

 

(Above: Venezuelans in Caracas condemn US imperialism)

The Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) unequivocably condemns the US kidnapping of Venezuelan President Maduro and his wife and their transfer to a gaol on US territory.

We also condemn Albanese, Wong and Marles, the most craven puppets of the US in Australia, who have failed to condemn the US actions. 

It is pointless to “urge all parties to support dialogue and diplomacy” without condemning the illegality of the US actions and stating the principles on which a call for “dialogue and diplomacy” are based. Those principles must be based on the UN Charter, and not some alternative version of a spurious “international rules-based order” constructed by the US to serve its own interests.

Oil, not drugs

Trump’s motivation for the kidnapping of Maduro is seizure of Venezuelan oil, not stopping the flow of cocaine and fentanyl to the US. He is also determined to impose a new Monroe Doctrine and freeze out competitors like China.

Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves and supplies BRICS countries like China and Russia.  China now has extensive investments and projects in South America. Indeed, just hours before US Special Forces invaded his country and kidnapped him, Maduro was meeting with Qiu Xiaoqi, Special Envoy of President Xi Jinping. According to Maduro, “We reaffirmed our commitment to the strategic relationship that is progressing and strengthening in various areas...”

US imperialism has committed acts of piracy in international waters, bombing alleged drug smuggling boats and killing over 100 people, and has illegally seized two tankers of Venezuelan oil.

According to various sources, estimates of the amount of cocaine smuggled into the US from Venezuela vary between 0 and 8%.  The latter figure was derived from a 2020 report from the US Drug Enforcement Administration. Overwhelmingly, cocaine is produced in neighbouring Columbia, the reputed source of 90% of US supplies. A few percent are sourced from Peru and Bolivia.

Fentanyl is not produced in or smuggled from Venezuela.

These murderous actions are extraordinary. The catalogue of breaches of international law are desperate efforts to shore up declining American power. The US hasn't been able to get its way with soft power, abuse, sanctions, tariffs, bribery and corruption, nor financial threats and bullying. Rather than showing US strength, it concedes US inability, its weakness. It strikes at the emerging world, where the US no longer predominates relying on its financial and industrial muscle. It marks another stage of American resort to imperialist military aggression.

“We will run Venezuela”

Trump has stated that the US will now run Venezuela.  He means that ownership of Venezuela oil will be transferred to the US companies which were nationalised by former President Chavez, and that Venezuela will have to compensate US oil companies for their nationalisation.

None of this will benefit the Venezuelan people. The hunger suffered by Venezuelan workers is directly the result of over a decade of US-led sanctions. Imperialists have crippled Venezuela economically, undermined their political structures through numerous failed coup attempts and laid the ground work for the recent direct aggression. 

The US is also running Australia.  Its puppets have signed up to the AUKUS arrangement and the Force Posture Agreement, which give the US unrestricted access to bases on our territory for which there is no accountability to the Australian government and people.

In solidarity with the Venezuelan people, we demand:

Break the US “Alliance”!
End the AUKUS arrangements!
Cancel the Force Posture Agreement and close Pine Gap and all US bases!
For an anti-imperialist free and independent Australia!

 

When we fight back, let’s stand on solid ground

 Written by: Lindy Nolan on 2 January 2026

 

The horrific Bondi massacre unleashed a wave of ideological, political and organisational attacks on the Australian people. Such shock and grief shake people’s ability to think clearly. The vast majority of our people are potential allies, but they can be manipulated by fear and lack of knowledge by powerful imperialist warmongers and their local collaborators to blame the wrong people. 

We have to understand in detail our own strengths and weaknesses, and our enemy’s. This doesn’t just mean listening to the vile Zionist attacks of John Howard, Chris Minns or the leading Zionists who support them. 

Listen and speak respectfully

We have to know what resonates with people. We have to test by listening and putting counter views, experimenting where truth finds a way to surface and lies fail. 

It means breaking from comfortable likeminded circles, and mixing with those who disagree with us. It means not hitting out, falling in to traps, or lecturing people, but using the mass line – taking the ideas of the people, concentrating them into theory, and testing that theory in practice in an endless cycle of increasing understanding.

We have to first unite and give confidence to our own forces, and second to win back those who are under ruling class influence. 

To fight back, to organise, we must stand on solid ideological and political ground. 

Always listen first.

But speak carefully, respectfully. No one likes to be lectured. Just because we are bursting with what we want to say, less is more. Know when to stop. Know your audience. For some, you might have two minutes or less, or two sentences online to make a point. Know who not to engage with. Know which platforms to avoid. 

Four key slogans

Here are four of our enemy’s key slogans: Don’t bring it here. Palestine rallies make us unsafe. Muslims won’t integrate and can’t be trusted. Look after Australians first.

To counter them, put yourself in others’ shoes. Acknowledge justified grief and anger.

Ten-year-old Matilda was a refugee from Ukraine via Israel. Imagine the grief of her family, the Jewish community and school friends and staff at La Perouse Public School. Start there, and with the incredible bravery of many people. Or simply say the obvious, that it’s terrible.

Only for the openminded, ask them to imagine that grief multiplied by 80,000. Gaza was just 26 kilometres long and seven kilometres wide at its narrowest point. Now it’s half that size. 2.2 million people, and all those bombs in such a small area. 400 more dead since the ceasefire. 

“Don’t bring it here”

Expanded, it means don’t bring overseas problems here. Australia is “safe and free”. 

True? Well, why project an Israeli flag on federal Parliament House, or its blue and white colours on the Sydney Opera House in October 2023?

Why allow the US war base at Pine Gap, near Mparntwe Alice Springs, to guide missiles and drones, and choose human targets in Gaza? Australia hasn’t declared war on Palestine, so how can we allow this to happen? (Pine Gap is on Arrernte land without permission.)

Why are Australian navy boats and personnel in the Middle East? Or the South China Sea?

And isn’t it ironic, the US demands “freedom of navigation”, while hijacking Venezuelan shipping?

If we don’t want it to come here, why support another undeclared US war? 

The government banned ‘Globalise the Intifada’. It’s a trap. It entices us to repeat it in defiance. Refusing to be silenced is important. But it’s the wrong slogan for us.  Most people see a foreign word they misunderstand, and think it means we want the horrors of Gaza here. 

“Palestine rallies make us unsafe”

There’ve been hundreds of Palestine rallies, and not one violent incident.

From the first protest, Jewish people marched. Hundreds of Jewish people have protested. Holocaust survivors have marched. If you’ve seen them, say it because personal experience is hard to refute. It means calling you a liar.

At the Sydney Bridge March, people waited patiently in the nearby railway stations until there was room to exit. Everyone waited 90 minutes or longer in the rain, without complaint. 

When Hezbollah flags were brought to rallies after Israel bombed Lebanon, they were told by organisers not to bring them again (because Australian governments declared Hezbollah a terrorist organisation). But don’t get into an argument about Hezbollah or Hamas. That’s quicksand, whether what you say is true or not.

Marches for peace and justice make us all safer.

How? Because people feel they belong. They feel valued. 

Before Australia joined the failed US invasion of Iraq, peace marches brought over a million Australians to the streets across the country. Half a million brought Sydney to a standstill. 

We warned that terrorism would erupt, breed and spread from Iraq. We knew UN documents and international weapons inspectors said weapons of mass destruction had been destroyed. 

But in Australia’s “great democracy”, John Howard declared war against the opposition of 94 percent of Australians. Muslim Australians marched too. They knew they were supported by all Australians. They knew they were part of the Australian community.

Because of this, there was no terrorist attack here until eleven years later, by a man who should have been in jail for life, not bail, for 43 sexual assaults on his ex-wife, and as an accessory to her murder.

When 300,000 marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, it showed a majority of Australians had understood genocide.

But think back. Australia sent forty thousand 20-year-olds to Vietnam, to be killed or carry lifelong trauma. Who fought to bring them home? Women set up “Save Our Sons”, marchers chanted “Bring them home! Bring them home!” We ended Australian involvement in that war. One misguided woman – who blamed the soldiers not those who sent them to an unjust, unwinnable US war – smeared red paint on returning soldiers. Now all protesters are unjustly blamed for the trauma Vietnam veterans carry. 

“Muslims won’t integrate and can’t be trusted”

The two killers at Bondi had IS flags. IS has killed tens of thousands of Muslims. Shia, Sunni, Alawites, all hate IS. 

Why blame all Muslims for the actions of two men? Or the two other young people, isolated from their community, who committed attacks since 2003? 

How would you feel if all “white” Australians were blamed for the 59 murders by an Australian white supremacist in a New Zealand mosque five years ago? 

Where was the panic about Islamophobia? 

Or if all men were blamed for the murder of 73 women in 2025 and a 104 in 2024?

Or if all blonde men were blamed for the Port Arthur massacre?

“Put Australians first”

Australia is where we live. Loving our country and people isn’t racism. It doesn’t mean we love everything our country does. But if we want to change the world and bring justice, Australia is where we do it, and the peoples on this continent and its islands are who we do it with. 

We can’t allow the far right to claim moral high ground. Poverty, homelessness, failure to fund public schools, hospitals, ambulances occurs because, for example, $30 million a day, every day for the next 40 years goes to AUKUS, for submarines that won’t protect us and may never arrive. 

US military bases like Pine Gap litter our country. We pay for them. They make us a target in a war the US will lose against China. Our military has become a wing of the US military, but the US shows no interest in defending Australia. The US is collapsing economically, can’t feed or house its own people. It can’t sustain a war with a rising power like China. Australia is a pawn. It will be collateral damage. In World War Two Britain sent our troops to Africa, and left Australia undefended against the Japanese onslaught. The US will not defend Australia. It will make us a target, but tie our hands so we are unable to fight back.

And Palestine? The map of ever-diminishing Palestine since 1947 must be publicised in every way we can. A group in Canberra is constantly updating it. 

Truth shines

These are many ideas that have made people think and even change their minds in quiet conversations since that terrible massacre of 15 people at Bondi.

Some will listen for longer than others. Shoving ideas down peoples’ throats never work. But dip your toe in the waters of truth, ask questions so you know how people think, refuse to be silenced, speak out, and work out other ways, stickers, posters, banners, memes, songs, videos. 

We need to get organised. We need to rebuild the strength of workers and community in every way we can.

Lies have short legs. Truth shines.

Holiday Reading - "The New Cold War"

 Written by: Ned K on 2 January 2026

 

"The New Cold War - How the Contest Between the US and China Will Shape Our Century" by Robin Niblett has an eye-catching cover picturing a potential handshake between the US and Chinese senior leaders against a background of the two countries' respective flags. 

It is an interesting book to read over the Christmas period, filled with plenty of facts about these two superpowers US and China.

The book is also an insight as to how the small "l" liberal bourgeoisie see the world as an ideological struggle between "liberal democratic governance" and "one-party autocratic systems". 

 

The book was written and first published in 2024 during Biden's Presidency before Trump's second term as US President in late 2025. 

 

Niblett shows some awareness that the election of Trump in 2025 may well see his favoured "liberal democratic governance" disappear when he ends the book with the following words: "We must be ready to pick up the baton as champions of liberal democracy globally if the United States sets it to one side, and hope that it will not be for long."

 

Changing Balance of Power:

 

Niblettt examines the changing balance of global power between the US and China as the people and countries across the globe race through the third decade of the 21st Century.

 

Niblett is a Senior Fellow at Chatham House in the UK. Chatham House was set up in 1919-20 by members of the British ruling class who had an interest in analyzing international political trends and conflicts and providing advice to governments that would maximize diplomatic solutions between countries thereby averting outbreak of war between big powers on the international stage.

 

In his book "The New Cold War", Niblett sees some similarities between the current rivalry between the US and China and the outbreak of World War 1 in 1914. 

 

In 1914, there were high levels of international trade as there are now, but this did not prevent a "rising imperial Germany and increasingly overstretched British empire" from engaging in the supposed "war to end all wars".

 

Niblett also sees similarities between the current rivalry between the US and China and the old Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union when there were no arms control agreements leading up to the Bay of Pigs crisis in the early 1960s.

 

Nisbett also asks whether Taiwan will be the trigger for world war as was the Balkans in 1914?

 

Taiwan's technological and geo-political importance to the US in the Asia Pacific region directly clashes with the importance economically and politically to China that Taiwan be restored as part of the People's Republic of China.

 

Niblett implies that economically if the US loses Taiwan, it will be the straw that broke the camel's back. He provides plenty of examples to show how China is definitely winning the economic stakes in its competition with the US.

 

For example,

 

1. China now equals Germany in advanced manufacturing

2. China has its own digital companies such as Alipay and We Chat

3. In 2023 China had up to 4 million University Graduates in engineering, science and technology per year

4. In 2023 China produced over 90% of processed lithium and cobalt and 90% of rare earth mining in the world. Rare earth minerals are essential for wind turbines, smartphones and many electronic sub-components

5. Between 2010 and 2020 the US invested 150 billion Pounds Stirling in China. 

6. Chinese trade with other countries within US traditional trade markets. For example, Chinese trade with Latin America in 2001 was $12 billion. In 2022 it was $496 billion. 

 

"Peaceful Economic Competition"?

 

Niblett acknowledges that the "autocratic" one Party Chinese state is winning the economic New Cold War. Nisbett is hopeful that if the western "liberal democracies" continue "free trade" with China and increase their "partnerships" with the "Global South" countries, that this will retard the economic global power of China and hence reduce the likelihood of the New Cold War between the US and China turning into an open "hot war".

 

Events that have occurred after Nisbett published his book in 2024 indicate that his hope that extension of "liberal democracies" across the "Global South" will retard China's economic dominance and therefore prevent a cold war turning into a hot war will not eventuate. The military build-up of the US and its allies in the Asia Pacific region, US military aggression against Venezuela, US backed Israeli aggression in the Middle East and the trend to the extreme Right in western "liberal democracies" including Australia and the US itself, all point to the New Cold War turning into a hot war.

 

For Australians, an independent foreign policy and cessation of the attack on our limited democratic rights become an urgent task

Return WA's freight rail to the workers

 Written by: Cal G. on 2 January 2026

 

(Above: Kalgoorlie is where the Arc Infrastructure and ARTC territories meet, the border between privatisation and state ownership.)

In the year 2000, the Western Australian Liberal government, led by Premier Richard Court, sold off the state’s freight rail network. This act of privatisation marked yet another transfer of collectively built public infrastructure into private, capitalist hands—where it would be exploited not for social need, but for profit.

The sale dismantled a core asset of the Western Australian Government Railways (WAGR), handing approximately 5,500 kilometres of freight rail into private ownership. By 2010, the network came under the control of Brookfield, a Canadian multinational investment giant managing over one trillion dollars in assets worldwide, after it acquired Prime Infrastructure, itself a remnant of the failed Babcock & Brown empire. Today, the network is operated by Arc Infrastructure, an entity wholly owned by Brookfield.

This was not merely an administrative change. It represented a fundamental shift in priorities—from serving the needs of workers, farmers, and regional communities to maximising returns for international shareholders.

Since privatisation, the consequences for working people in Western Australia have been severe. One of the clearest examples is the closure of Tier 3 rail lines across the WA Wheatbelt. These lightly used but socially vital lines once allowed grain to be transported efficiently and safely by rail. Their closure, driven by Brookfield’s profit-first logic, forced farmers to rely almost entirely on road transport, dramatically increasing costs and shifting freight onto trucks bound for CBH silos or directly to the Kwinana grain export terminal.

The social cost of this decision has been profound. Families, school buses, and local traffic are now forced to share narrow country roads with massive grain trucks, many operating continuously during harvest season. Roads never designed for this level of heavy freight traffic have become more dangerous, accelerating road degradation and increasing the risk of serious accidents. What was once a safe and publicly planned transport system has been replaced by a hazardous and inefficient patchwork that places the burden squarely on rural working-class communities—while the private rail operator bears none of the consequences.

In early 2025, multiple media outlets reported on the situation in Greenbushes, a small town in WA’s South West located near the world’s largest lithium mine. Residents and workers raised concerns that lithium dust from nearby mining operations was contaminating household water tanks, homes, and even the local school. A major contributor to this pollution was the constant movement of heavy trucks transporting lithium concentrate through the town to the Port of Bunbury.

Negotiations to move this freight by rail were publicly revealed by the ABC on 17 December 2024 to have collapsed. According to reporting, Arc Infrastructure quoted prices deemed “uneconomical” by the mine’s operator, Talison Lithium—a joint venture involving Chinese and US capital. As a result, the company ruled out a rail link, despite its clear environmental and social benefits. The historical rail line between Bunbury and Bridgetown, shut down roughly 15 years ago by the private operator to cut costs and boost profits, remains closed. Once again, shareholder value was prioritised over the health, safety, and livelihoods of working people in the region.

A similar pattern can be seen in the Goldfields city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder. There is strong support from government and industry for the construction of a freight intermodal terminal—effectively a “land port”—that would allow freight from the eastern states to be loaded and unloaded locally, rather than being hauled all the way to Perth.

Such a development would bring clear benefits to workers across the Goldfields–Esperance region: reducing transport costs, creating jobs, and strengthening regional supply chains. It would also offer significant environmental advantages. A single freight train can replace up to 400 trucks and produces roughly two-thirds fewer emissions for the same volume of freight. Yet progress has been slow, and private control of the rail network continues to act as a barrier to rational, socially planned development.

Arc Infrastructure has had ample opportunity to reinvest in and expand WA’s freight rail network. Instead, it has consistently chosen to extract value—sweating existing assets, closing “unprofitable” lines, and blocking projects that do not meet short-term profit thresholds. This is not a failure of management; it is the inevitable outcome of privatisation under capitalism.

With both state and federal elections approaching, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced that a re-elected Labor government would fund a $2.5 million feasibility study into WA Labor’s proposal to buy back large sections of the privatised freight rail network. While this signals growing political recognition that privatisation has failed, it remains a timid response. Even proposals to return the network to public ownership under the Australian Rail Track Corporation stop short of addressing the deeper issue: who controls and benefits from this infrastructure.

The most effective and genuinely democratic solution is not simply re-nationalisation under a distant bureaucracy, but the transfer of the rail network into direct, democratic community and worker control. The approximately 600 workers who maintain and operate the network—from track workers carrying out day-to-day maintenance to civil engineers planning long-term upgrades—possess the expertise, commitment, and vested interest required to run the system in the interests of society.

Unlike multinational investors, these workers live in the communities the railways serve. They understand that rail is not just a commodity, but a social good—essential for regional development, environmental sustainability, and working-class livelihoods.

The experience of WA’s freight rail network exposes a fundamental truth: infrastructure built by generations of workers should never have been sold. The task ahead is not merely to buy it back, but to break with the logic of profit altogether and place this vital asset under collective, democratic control—where it belongs.

 

ICOR: US imperialism blocks Venezuela and aims for a coup d'état – international solidarity is needed

Written by: ICOR on 1 January 2026

 

The CPA (M-L) has signed the following call to action in support of Venezuela. The call was issued by the International Coordiation of Revolutionary Parties and Organisations (ICOR). It was drafted by comrades of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Uruguay.

Using the hackneyed argument of the fight against drug trafficking, in which US imperialism is a strong ally and leader, US imperialism is closing Venezuela's airspace and establishing a naval blockade with dozens of ships and its largest aircraft carrier, mobilizing special forces in several countries in the region. In total, it has mobilized around 15,000 soldiers. More than 20 ships have already been bombed and more than 100 people killed, many of them fishermen of various nationalities, without evidence and without any legal proceedings.

 

At the same time, this operation, which began in August and continues to expand, is offering rewards of millions of dollars for the capture of President Maduro and several leaders of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela's government.

 

All of this already constitutes an extremely serious intervention, preceded by many provocations over the years. The goal is to increase pressure as much as possible to bring down the current Venezuelan government and, if that does not happen, to be able to use missile strikes, drone attacks, and other military means directly against government leaders, high-ranking military personnel, and strategic infrastructure.

 

These measures would be carried out in support of a coup d'état, for which they need part of the Venezuelan armed forces and on which the CIA and other US agencies are actively working through corruption and other means. According to various media outlets and experts in the field, it is highly unlikely that the US will withdraw from the region without carrying out these attacks after undertaking such a large military mobilization, which also involved high economic costs.

 

The situation in Venezuela, Colombia, which is now also threatened by the fascist Trump, and all Caribbean countries, including Cuba, is very serious. US imperialism is the main enemy of the working class and the peoples of the world, and we condemn the possibility of subjecting Maduro to lawfare, as they have done with legitimately elected presidents in the region, as well as the possibility of direct military intervention.The real goal of this new aggression by US imperialism is clear. It remains the world's leading economic, political, and military power, but its hegemony is in decline and it is engaged in a fierce power struggle with China and in a multipolar world. It intends to expand its political, economic, and military control in Latin America and the Caribbean as far as possible, thereby returning fully to the Monroe Doctrine, as it openly states in its National Security Strategy report from last November.

 

The Yankees' problem with Venezuela is not drug trafficking, but essentially control over its riches, especially oil, but also gold and rare metals, and the disruption of its close relations with China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba. This could even lead to a world war if US imperialism and Russia, China, and Iran clash militarily in Venezuela as its direct opponents.

 

Faced with this situation, the Venezuelan government and the heroic Venezuelan people are preparing for military resistance against US intervention and the fascist coup. It is our duty as working class and peoples of the continent and the whole world to develop the greatest possible solidarity with the Venezuelan people in their struggle against US aggression. If war breaks out, an international movement must be organized to support Venezuela.

 

This solidarity must be expressed immediately through action, through a strong mobilization of the population, which, in the face of concrete attacks, may include statements, rallies, demonstrations, and even strikes, depending on the situation. Solidarity should also be directed against complicit silence and any support for US aggression.

 

Yankees out of Latin America!

 

Long live the struggle of the Venezuelan people and international solidarity!

 

Status of the signatories 31.12.2025. Further signatures possible. Current list of signatories at www.icor.info

 

1. CPSA (ML)   Communist Party of South Africa (Marxist-Leninist)

2. PPDS   Parti Patriotique Démocratique Socialiste (Patriotic Democratic Socialist Party), Tunisia

3. SPB   Socialist Party of Bangladesh

4. SPB(M)   Socialist Party of Bangladesh (Marxist)

5. CPI (ML) MassLine   Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) MassLine

6. NCP (Mashal)   Nepal Communist Party (Mashal)

7. RUFN   Revolutionary United Front of Nepal

8. CPA/ML   Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)

9. Krasnyj Klin   Аб'яднання беларускіх камуністаў «Чырвоны Клін» (Association of Belarusian Communists «Red Wedge»), Belarus

10. БКП   Българска Комунистическа Партия (Bulgarian Communist Party)

11. PR-ByH   Partija Rada - ByH (Party of Labor - Bosnia and Herzegovina)

12. MLPD   Marxistisch-Leninistische Partei Deutschlands (Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany)

13. UPML   Union Prolétarienne Marxiste-Léniniste (Marxist-Leninist Proletarian Union), France

14. BP (NK-T)   Bolşevik Parti (Kuzey Kürdistan-Türkiye) (Bolshevik Party (North Kurdistan-Turkey))

15. KOL   Kommunistische Organisation Luxemburg (Communist Organization of Luxemburg)

16. RM   Rode Morgen (Red Dawn), Netherlands

17. MLGS   Marxistisch-Leninistische Gruppe Schweiz (Marxist-Leninist Group of Switzerland)

18. TKP-ML   Türkiye Komünist Partisi – Marksist-Leninist (Communist Party of Turkey – Marxist-Leninist)

19. MLKP   Marksist Leninist Komünist Parti Türkiye / Kürdistan (Marxist Leninist Communist Party Turkey / Kurdistan)

20. KSRD   Koordinazionnyj Sowjet Rabotschewo Dvizhenija (Coordination Council of the Workers Class Movement), Ukraine

21. OAPCM   Organización Apoyante del Partido Comunista de México (Supporting Organization of the Communist Party of Mexico)

22. PCP (independiente)   Partido Comunista Paraguayo (independiente) (Paraguayan  Communist Party (independent))

23. PC (ML)   Partido Comunista (Marxista Leninista) (Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)), Dominican Republic

24. PCR-U   Partido Comunista Revolucionario del Uruguay (Revolutionary Communist Party of Uruguay)

25. APR   Ação Popular Revolucionária (People’s Revolutionary Action), Brazil

26. SUCI (C)   Socialist Unity Center of India (Communist)

27. Chinese Communists (MLM)   Chinese Communists (Marxist Leninist Maoist)