Today on wsws.org

The hung parliament resulting from Saturday’s federal election, the first since 1941, has triggered an enormous crisis for the Australian ruling elite and presages heightened political and social instability.

Strikers at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto and Helen Joseph hospital in Johannesburg were attacked by South African police using water cannon and rubber bullets last week.

The escrow claims fund to compensate victims of the BP Gulf oil disaster has set even more stringent restrictions than had been previously indicated.

More than a quarter of Americans report cutting back on routine medical care as a consequence of the economic crisis, according to a recent study.

The rape charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, announced and then withdrawn by Swedish prosecutors, bear all the hallmarks of a US-inspired provocation against the Internet-based organization for its exposure of US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq.

After a two-day UN session ended yesterday, international aid pledged for Pakistani flood victims still fell well short of the UN’s emergency aid appeal for $460 million.

In a high-profile attack on the Roma community, the French government deported 93 Roma gypsies to Romania on Thursday.

The Indianapolis GM stamping plant, where workers are being told to accept 50 percent wage cuts, is a run down and hazardous workplace, where sweltering heat, overwork, and the constant threat of injury are all part of the job.

Rabid right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh devoted his Tuesday commentary to the struggle of workers at the Indianapolis GM stamping plant against demands for a 50 percent wage cut.

In Spain as in France, a wave of anti-democratic legislation and policies is being prepared against Muslims, including proposals to ban the burqa.

A new study on oil plumes in the Gulf of Mexico by independent scientists contradicts the Obama administration’s claims that the remaining oil in the Gulf is rapidly biodegrading.

The wildfire disaster in Russia, which is now abating, has exposed the decay of social infrastructure resulting from the restoration of capitalism and the vast chasm that separates ordinary working people from the ruling elite.

A Colombian high court decision to toss out a treaty allowing the US to set up military bases in the country has left the governments in both countries scrambling to salvage the agreement.

Negotiations to form the new coalition government are proceeding slowly in Belgium, amid market demands for tough austerity measures.

A huge food recall has expanded in the past week to include some 550 million eggs, linked to an outbreak of salmonella poisoning. This latest mass food poisoning exposes yet again the vulnerability of the US population to the most simple and preventable illnesses.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has laid off another 200 New York City station agents, while proposing to once again increase transit fares.

China’s rise is fundamentally altering the global balance of forces and foreshadows a new period of confrontation and conflict among the major powers.

The Socialist Equality Party election meetings this week commemorated the 70th anniversary of the assassination of Leon Trotsky and the significance of his principled struggle for the working class today.

Socialist Equality Party National Secretary Nick Beams delivered this speech to the SEP’s final election meetings in Melbourne and Sydney on August 18 and August 19.

The SEP held meetings this week in Melbourne and Sydney entitled “Seventy years since the assassination of Leon Trotsky: The Fourth International and the Perspective of the Socialist Equality Party”.