LONDON: The Court of Appeal in London has refused to grant an injunction to block Britain from sending its first flight of asylum seekers to Rwanda, a plan the United Nations’ refugee chief described as “catastrophic.”
Britain has agreed to a deal with Rwanda to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda in return for an initial payment of 120 million pounds ($148 million) and additional sums based on the number of people deported.
The government has not provided details of those selected for deportation but charities say they include people fleeing Afghanistan and Syria.
Amid legal challenges, the number of people scheduled to leave on Tuesday’s plane has fallen to less than a dozen. However, a High Court judge on Friday refused to grant a temporary injunction to block the flight, and on Monday three justices on the Court of Appeal upheld that decision.
Judge Rabinder Singh said they could not interfere with the original “clear and detailed” judgment, and refused permission for further appeal. A full hearing to determine the legality of the policy as a whole is due in July.
The government says the deportation strategy will undermine people-smuggling networks and stem the flow of migrants risking their lives by crossing the English Channel in small boats from Europe.
Human rights group say the policy is inhumane and will put migrants at risk. The UNHCR has said Rwanda, whose own human rights record is under scrutiny, does not have the capacity to process the claims, and there was a risk some migrants could be returned to countries from which they had fled.
“We believe that this is all wrong ... for so many different reasons,” UN High Commissioner For Refugees Filippo Grandi told reporters. “The precedent that this creates is catastrophic for a concept that needs to be shared like asylum.”
Initially, some 37 individuals were scheduled to be removed on the first flight to Rwanda, but the charity Care4Calais said that number has dwindled in the face of legal challenges to just eight.
Earlier, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the government was determined to press ahead with the policy despite the legal challenges and opposition, reportedly including from Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne.
“It’s very important that the criminal gangs who are putting people’s lives at risk in the Channel understand that their business model is going to be broken and is being broken by this government,” Johnson told LBC radio. “They are selling people false hope and luring them into something that is extremely risky and criminal.”
The government said the deportation plan would deter the Channel crossings, although more than 3,500 people have reached Britain in small boats since the middle of April when the Rwanda scheme was unveiled, according to government figures
As the court hearings were taking place about 35 migrants arrived in Dover, some carrying their possessions in black bags, where they were taken away by British border forces.
The High Court is separately hearing arguments from Asylum Aid, a refugee charity, which launched a second legal challenge to stop the government flying refugees to Rwanda.
Charlotte Kilroy, a lawyer representing Asylum Aid, said asylum seekers were not given enough time to challenge their deportation, meaning there was a high risk of unlawful and unsafe decisions.
This case is being heard by Jonathan Swift, the same judge who on Friday rejected granting an injunction.
UK court allows first migrant deportation flight to Rwanda
https://arab.news/p45bd
UK court allows first migrant deportation flight to Rwanda
- Amid legal challenges, the number of people scheduled to leave on Tuesday’s plane has fallen to less than a dozen
- Human rights group say the policy is inhumane and will put migrants at risk
Trump has called for dismantling the Education Department. Here’s what that would mean
- The Education Department manages approximately $1.5 trillion in student loan debt for over 40 million borrowers
- Federal education money is central to Trump’s plans for colleges and schools
He has picked Linda McMahon, a former wrestling executive, to lead the department. But like many conservative politicians before him, Trump has called for dismantling the department altogether — a cumbersome task that likely would require action from Congress.
The agency’s main role is financial. Annually, it distributes billions in federal money to colleges and schools and manages the federal student loan portfolio. Closing the department would mean redistributing each of those duties to another agency. The Education Department also plays an important regulatory role in services for students, ranging from those with disabilities to low-income and homeless kids.
Indeed, federal education money is central to Trump’s plans for colleges and schools. Trump has vowed to cut off federal money for schools and colleges that push “critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content” and to reward states and schools that end teacher tenure and enact universal school choice programs.
Federal funding makes up a relatively small portion of public school budgets — roughly 14 percent. Colleges and universities are more reliant on it, through research grants along with federal financial aid that helps students pay their tuition.
Here is a look at some of the department’s key functions, and how Trump has said he might approach them.
Student loans and financial aid
The Education Department manages approximately $1.5 trillion in student loan debt for over 40 million borrowers. It also oversees the Pell Grant, which provides aid to students below a certain income threshold, and administers the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which universities use to allocate financial aid.
The Biden administration has made cancelation of student loans a signature effort of the department’s work. Since Biden’s initial attempt to cancel student loans was overturned by the Supreme Court, the administration has forgiven over $175 billion for more than 4.8 million borrowers through a range of changes to programs it administers, such as Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
The loan forgiveness efforts have faced Republican pushback, including litigation from several GOP-led states.
Trump has criticized Biden’s efforts to cancel debt as illegal and unfair, calling it a “total catastrophe” that “taunted young people.” Trump’s plan for student debt is uncertain: He has not put out detailed plans.
Civil rights enforcement
Through its Office for Civil Rights, the Education Department conducts investigations and issues guidance on how civil rights laws should be applied, such as for LGBTQ+ students and students of color. The office also oversees a large data collection project that tracks disparities in resources, course access and discipline for students of different racial and socioeconomic groups.
Trump has suggested a different interpretation of the office’s civil rights role. In his campaign platform, he said he would pursue civil rights cases to “stop schools from discriminating on the basis of race.” He has described diversity and equity policies in education as “explicit unlawful discrimination” and said colleges that use them will pay fines and have their endowments taxed.
Trump also has pledged to exclude transgender students from Title IX protections, which affect school policies on students’ use of pronouns, bathrooms and locker rooms. Originally passed in 1972, Title IX was first used as a women’s rights law. This year, Biden’s administration said the law forbids discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, but Trump can undo that.
College accreditation
While the Education Department does not directly accredit colleges and universities, it oversees the system by reviewing all federally recognized accrediting agencies. Institutions of higher education must be accredited to gain access to federal money for student financial aid.
Accreditation came under scrutiny from conservatives in 2022, when the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools questioned political interference at Florida public colleges and universities. Trump has said he would fire “radical left accreditors” and take applications for new accreditors that would uphold standards including “defending the American tradition” and removing “Marxist” diversity administrators.
Although the education secretary has the authority to terminate its relationship with individual accrediting agencies, it is an arduous process that has rarely been pursued. Under President Barack Obama, the department took steps to cancel accreditors for a now-defunct for-profit college chain, but the Trump administration blocked the move. The group, the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, was terminated by the Biden administration in 2022.
Money for schools
Much of the Education Department’s money for K-12 schools goes through large federal programs, such as Title I for low-income schools and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Those programs support services for students with disabilities, lower class sizes with additional teaching positions, and pay for social workers and other non-teaching roles in schools.
During his campaign, Trump called for shifting those functions to the states. He has not offered details on how the agency’s core functions of sending federal money to local districts and schools would be handled.
The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a sweeping proposal outlining a far-right vision for the country that overlaps in areas with Trump’s campaign, offers a blueprint. It suggests sending oversight of programs for kids with disabilities and low-income children first to the Department of Health and Human Services, before eventually phasing out the funding and converting it to no-strings-attached grants to states.
Australia’s plan to ban children from social media proves popular and problematic
- Supporters say social media is doing too much harm to not have an age limit. More about how the ban would work may be known next week when the legislation is introduced in Parliament
MELBOURNE: How do you remove children from the harms of social media? Politically the answer appears simple in Australia, but practically the solution could be far more difficult.
The Australian government’s plan to ban children from social media platforms including X, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram until their 16th birthdays is politically popular. The opposition party says it would have done the same after winning elections due within months if the government hadn’t moved first.
The leaders of all eight Australian states and mainland territories have unanimously backed the plan, although Tasmania, the smallest state, would have preferred the threshold was set at 14.
But a vocal assortment of experts in the fields of technology and child welfare have responded with alarm. More than 140 such experts signed an open letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemning the 16-year age limit as “too blunt an instrument to address risks effectively.”
Details of what is proposed and how it will be implemented are scant. More will be known when legislation is introduced into the Parliament next week.
The concerned teen
Leo Puglisi, a 17-year-old Melbourne student who founded online streaming service 6 News Australia at the age of 11, laments that lawmakers imposing the ban lack the perspective on social media that young people have gained by growing up in the digital age.
“With respect to the government and prime minister, they didn’t grow up in the social media age, they’re not growing up in the social media age, and what a lot of people are failing to understand here is that, like it or not, social media is a part of people’s daily lives,” Leo said.
“It’s part of their communities, it’s part of work, it’s part of entertainment, it’s where they watch content – young people aren’t listening to the radio or reading newspapers or watching free-to-air TV – and so it can’t be ignored. The reality is this ban, if implemented, is just kicking the can down the road for when a young person goes on social media,” Leo added.
Leo has been applauded for his work online. He was a finalist in his home state Victoria’s nomination for the Young Australian of the Year award, which will be announced in January. His nomination bid credits his platform with “fostering a new generation of informed, critical thinkers.”
The grieving mom-turned-activist
One of the proposal’s supporters, cyber safety campaigner Sonya Ryan, knows from personal tragedy how dangerous social media can be for children.
Her 15-year-old daughter Carly Ryan was murdered in 2007 in South Australia state by a 50-year-old pedophile who pretended to be a teenager online. In a grim milestone of the digital age, Carly was the first person in Australia to be killed by an online predator.
“Kids are being exposed to harmful pornography, they’re being fed misinformation, there are body image issues, there’s sextortion, online predators, bullying. There are so many different harms for them to try and manage and kids just don’t have the skills or the life experience to be able to manage those well,” Sonya Ryan said.
“The result of that is we’re losing our kids. Not only what happened to Carly, predatory behavior, but also we’re seeing an alarming rise in suicide of young people,” she added.
Sonya Ryan is part of a group advising the government on a national strategy to prevent and respond to child sexual abuse in Australia.
She wholeheartedly supports Australia setting the social media age limit at 16.
“We’re not going to get this perfect,” she said. “We have to make sure that there are mechanisms in place to deal with what we already have which is an anxious generation and an addicted generation of children to social media.”
A major concern for social media users of all ages is the legislation’s potential privacy implications.
Age estimation technology has proved inaccurate, so digital identification appears to be the most likely option for assuring a user is at least 16.
The skeptical Internet expert
Tama Leaver, professor of Internet studies at Curtin University, fears that the government will make the platforms hold the users’ identification data.
The government has already said the onus will be on the platforms, rather than on children or their parents, to ensure everyone meets the age limit.
“The worst possible outcome seems to be the one that the government may be inadvertently pushing toward, which would be that the social media platforms themselves would end up being the identity arbiter,” Leaver said.
“They would be the holder of identity documents which would be absolutely terrible because they have a fairly poor track record so far of holding on to personal data well,” he added.
The platforms will have a year once the legislation has become law to work out how the ban can be implemented.
Ryan, who divides her time between Adelaide in South Australia and Fort Worth, Texas, said privacy concerns should not stand in the way of removing children from social media.
“What is the cost if we don’t? If we don’t put the safety of our children ahead of profit and privacy?” she asked.
Trump names former wrestling executive as Education Secretary
Describing McMahon as a “fierce advocate for Parents’ Rights,” Trump said in a statement: “We will send Education BACK TO THE STATES, and Linda will spearhead that effort.”
McMahon is a co-chair of Trump’s transition team ahead of his return to the White House in January. It is tasked with filling some 4,000 positions in the government.
Regarding McMahon’s experience in education, Trump cited her two-year stint on the Connecticut Board of Education and 16 years on the board of trustees at Sacred Heart University, a private Catholic school.
McMahon left WWE in 2009 to run in vain for US Senate, and has been a major donor to Trump.
Since 2021, she has chaired the Center For The American Worker at the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute.
During the election campaign Trump promised to do away with the federal education department when he returns to the White House.
“I say it all the time. I’m dying to get back to do this. We will ultimately eliminate the federal Department of Education,” he said in September during a rally in Wisconsin.
At the Republican convention in Milwaukee, McMahon said she was “privileged to call Donald Trump a colleague and a boss,” as well as “a friend.”
Her ties with Trump go back to her years in the professional wrestling industry — she said she first met him as chief executive at WWE.
At the culmination of a staged feud, Trump once body-slammed her husband, legendary wrestling promoter Vince McMahon, and shaved his head in the middle of a wrestling ring on live television.
In 2017, she was confirmed as the head of the Small Business Administration, which is responsible for supporting America’s millions of small businesses, which employ around half the country’s private-sector workforce.
In nominating her, Trump pointed to her experience in business, helping to grow the WWE.
After leaving the administration, she served as chair of the pro-Trump America First Action SuperPAC, or political action committee.
Children’s wellbeing ‘under threat’ in 2050, warns UNICEF
- The unchecked proliferation of new technologies poses threats to children and their personal data, making them vulnerable to online predators
UNITED NATIONS, United States: Demographic shifts, worsening climate change and rapid technological transformation risk creating a bleak future for youth in the mid-21st century, the United Nations agency for children warned Tuesday in an annual report.
“Children are experiencing a myriad of crises, from climate shocks to online dangers, and these are set to intensify in the years to come,” Catherine Russell, executive director of UNICEF, wrote in a statement marking the release of the agency’s annual report.
“Decades of progress, particularly for girls, are under threat.”
This year, UNICEF uses its report to project forward to 2050 identifying three “major trends” that in addition to unpredictable conflicts pose threats to children unless policymakers make changes.
The first risk is demographic change, with the number of children expected to remain similar to current figures of 2.3 billion, but they will represent a smaller share of the larger and aging global population of around 10 billion.
While the proportion of children will decline across all regions, their numbers will explode in some of the poorest areas, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.
This offers the potential to boost economic growth, but only if the new young population has access to quality education, health care, and jobs, UNICEF notes.
In some developed countries, children could make up less than 10 percent of the population by 2050, raising concerns about their “visibility” and rights in societies focused on aging populations.
The second threat is climate change.
If current greenhouse gas emission trends continue, by 2050 children could face eight times more heatwaves than in 2000, three times more extreme flooding, and 1.7 times more wildfires, UNICEF projects.
New technology, particularly artificial intelligence, has the potential to power new innovation and progress but could also widen existing inequalities between rich and poor countries.
An estimated 95 percent of people in developed nations have Internet access, compared to just 26 percent in the least developed, often due to a lack of electricity, connectivity, or devices.
“Failure to remove barriers for children in these countries, especially for those living in the poorest households, means letting an already disadvantaged generation fall even further behind,” according to UNICEF.
Being connected also carries risks. The unchecked proliferation of new technologies poses threats to children and their personal data, making them vulnerable to online predators.
“Children of the future face many risks, but what we wanted to demonstrate is that the solutions are in the hands of todays decision-makers,” Cecile Aptel, deputy director of UNICEF’s research division, told AFP.
Australia, Turkiye in 2026 UN climate summit hosting standoff
- The COP summit is the centerpiece of global climate diplomacy, where nearly 200 countries gather to negotiate joint plans and funding to avert the worst impacts of rising temperatures
BAKU: Australia and Turkiye are in a standoff over which country is better suited to host United Nations climate change talks in 2026, with neither willing to give up on their bid.
Both countries have been in the running since 2022, but matters have come to a head at this year’s COP29 summit being held this week in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Australia’s climate minister made a last-minute stop in Turkiye on Friday, his office confirmed, hoping to reach a deal on the Australian bid. However, Turkish officials declined to drop their bid and the two remain in talks.
The host has a central role in brokering compromises at the annual summit and steering the final phase of negotiations. This can deliver both diplomatic prestige and a global platform to promote the country’s green industries.
The COP summit is the centerpiece of global climate diplomacy, where nearly 200 countries gather to negotiate joint plans and funding to avert the worst impacts of rising temperatures.
Every country has a shot at hosting, if they want to, as a member of one of five regional groups to take it in turns.
That system has drawn criticism as fossil fuel producers including the United Arab Emirates have played host — raising concerns among campaigners over whether countries which are deeply invested in polluting industries can be honest brokers of climate talks.
Fatma Varank, Turkiye’s deputy environment minister, told Reuters that the country’s Mediterranean location would help reduce emissions from flights bringing delegates to the conference, and highlighted its smaller oil and gas industry compared with Australia.
Australia is among the world’s largest exporters of fossil fuels.
“We don’t deny the fact that we have traditionally been a fossil fuel exporter, but we’re in the middle of a transition to changing to export renewable energy,” Australia’s climate minister Chris Bowen told Reuters at COP29.
“We have a story to tell,” he said, explaining that Australia was pitching a ‘Pacific COP’ to elevate issues affecting the region’s vulnerable island states.
Turkiye, which has a small oil and gas industry, gets around 80 percent of its energy from fossil fuels and was Europe’s second-largest producer of coal-fired electricity in 2023.
It offered to host the COP26 talks in 2021 but withdrew its bid, allowing Britain to preside over the summit. Varank said Turkiye was reluctant to step aside again.
Whoever wins would need unanimous backing from the 28 countries in the UN’s Western Europe and Others regional group. There is no firm deadline, although hosts are often confirmed years in advance to give them time to prepare.
Members including Germany, Canada and Britain have publicly backed Australia. Pacific leaders have backed Australia on the condition that it elevates the climate issues they suffer such as coastal erosion and rising seas.
Fiji’s climate secretary Sivendra Michael told Reuters the country backed Australia’s bid.
“But we are also cautiously reminding them of the national efforts that they need to make to transition away from fossil fuels,” Michael said.
Turkiye declined to say which members of the regional group had offered it support.
