NEW YORK: As students return to colleges across the United States, administrators are bracing for a resurgence in activism against the war in Gaza, and some schools are adopting rules to limit the kind of protests that swept campuses last spring.
While the summer break provided a respite in student demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war, it also gave both student protesters and higher education officials a chance to regroup and strategize for the fall semester.
The stakes remain high. At Columbia University, President Minouche Shafik resigned Wednesday after coming under heavy scrutiny for her handling of the demonstrations at the campus in New York City, where the wave of pro-Palestinian tent encampments began last spring.
Some of the new rules imposed by universities include banning encampments, limiting the duration of demonstrations, allowing protests only in designated spaces and restricting campus access to those with university identification. Critics say some of the measures will curtail free speech.
The American Association of University Professors issued a statement Wednesday condemning “overly restrictive policies” that could discourage free expression. Many of the new policies require protesters to register well in advance and strictly limit the locations where gatherings can be held, as well as setting new limits on the use of amplified sound and signage.
“Our colleges and universities should encourage, not suppress, open and vigorous dialogue and debate even on the most deeply held beliefs,” said the statement, adding that many policies were imposed without faculty input.
The University of Pennsylvania has outlined new “temporary guidelines” for student protests that include bans on encampments, overnight demonstrations, and the use of bullhorns and speakers until after 5 p.m. on class days. Penn also requires that posters and banners be removed within two weeks of going up. The university says it remains committed to freedom of speech and lawful assembly.
At Indiana University, protests after 11 p.m. are forbidden under a new “expressive activities policy” that took effect Aug 1. The policy says “camping” and erecting any type of shelter are prohibited on campus, and signs cannot be displayed on university property without prior approval.
The University of South Florida now requires approval for tents, canopies, banners, signs and amplifiers. The school’s “speech, expression and assembly” rules stipulate that no “activity,” including protests or demonstrations, is allowed after 5 p.m. on weekdays or during weekends and not allowed at all during the last two weeks of a semester.
A draft document obtained over the summer by the student newspaper at Harvard University showed the college was considering prohibitions on overnight camping, chalk messages and unapproved signs.
“I think right now we are seeing a resurgence of repression on campuses that we haven’t seen since the late 1960s,” said Risa Lieberwitz, a Cornell University professor of labor and employment law who serves as general counsel for the AAUP.
Universities say they encourage free speech as long as it doesn’t interfere with learning, and they insist they are simply updating existing rules for demonstrations to protect campus safety.
Tensions have run high on college campuses since Oct. 7, when Hamas militants assaulted southern Israel and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages.
Many student protesters in the US vow to continue their activism, which has been fueled by Gaza’s rising death toll, which surpassed 40,000 on Thursday, according to the territory’s Health Ministry.
About 50 Columbia students still face discipline over last spring’s demonstrations after a mediation process that began earlier in the summer stalled, according to Mahmoud Khalil, a lead negotiator working on behalf of Columbia student protesters. He blamed the impasse on Columbia administrators.
“The university loves to appear that they’re in dialogue with the students. But these are all fake steps meant to assure the donor community and their political class,” said Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs.
The university did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
The Ivy League school in upper Manhattan was roiled earlier this year by student demonstrations, culminating in scenes of police officers with zip ties and riot shields storming a building occupied by pro-Palestinian protesters.
Similar protests swept college campuses nationwide, with many leading to violent clashes with police and more than 3,000 arrests. Many of the students who were arrested during police crackdowns have had their charges dismissed, but some are still waiting to learn what prosecutors decide. Many have faced fallout in their academic careers, including suspensions, withheld diplomas and other forms of discipline.
Shafik was among the university leaders who were called for questioning before Congress. She was heavily criticized by Republicans who accused her of not doing enough to combat concerns about antisemitism on the Columbia campus.
She announced her resignation in an emailed letter to the university community just weeks before the start of classes on Sept. 3. The university on Monday began restricting campus access to people with Columbia IDs and registered guests, saying it wanted to curb “potential disruptions” as the new semester draws near.
“This period has taken a considerable toll on my family, as it has for others in the community,” Shafik wrote in her letter. “Over the summer, I have been able to reflect and have decided that my moving on at this point would best enable Columbia to traverse the challenges ahead.”
Pro-Palestinian protesters first set up tent encampments on Columbia’s campus during Shafik’s congressional testimony in mid-April, when she denounced antisemitism but faced criticism for how she responded to faculty and students accused of bias.
The school sent in police to clear the tents the following day, only for the students to return and inspire a wave of similar protests at campuses across the country as students called for schools to cut financial ties with Israel and companies supporting the war.
The campus was mostly quiet this summer, but a conservative news outlet in June published images of what it said were text messages exchanged by administrators while attending a May 31 panel discussion titled “Jewish Life on Campus: Past, Present and Future.”
The officials were removed from their posts, with Shafik saying in a July 8 letter to the school community that the messages were unprofessional and “disturbingly touched on ancient antisemitic tropes.”
Other prominent Ivy League leaders have stepped down in recent months, in large part due to their response to the volatile protests on campus.
University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill resigned in December after less than two years on the job. She faced pressure from donors and criticism over testimony at a congressional hearing where she was unable to say under repeated questioning that calls on campus for the genocide of Jews would violate the school’s conduct policy.
And in January, Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigned amid plagiarism accusations and similar criticism over her testimony before Congress.
US colleges revise rules on free speech in hopes of containing anti-war demonstrations
https://arab.news/w3zwk
US colleges revise rules on free speech in hopes of containing anti-war demonstrations
- American Association of University Professors condemn “overly restrictive policies” that could discourage free expression
- Many student protesters in the US vow to continue their activism, which has been fueled by Gaza’s rising death toll
Mike Huckabee, Trump’s pick to be Israel ambassador, will face senators as war in Gaza restarts
He has spoken favorably in the past about Israel’s right to annex the West Bank and incorporate its Palestinian population into Israel
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to Israel will face a confirmation hearing Tuesday on Capitol Hill as US and Arab mediators struggle to get a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas back on track after Israeli forces resumed the war in Gaza last week with a surprise wave of deadly airstrikes.
Trump nominated Mike Huckabee, a well-known evangelical Christian and vehement supporter of Israel, to take on the critical post in Jerusalem days after he won reelection on a campaign promise to end the now 17-month war.
If Huckabee, a Republican, is confirmed by the Senate, his posting will likely complicate an already unstable situation in the Middle East as the former governor of Arkansas has taken stances on the conflict that sharply contradict longstanding US policy in the region.
Huckabee, a one-time presidential hopeful, has spoken favorably in the past about Israel’s right to annex the West Bank and incorporate its Palestinian population into Israel. He has repeatedly backed referring to the West Bank by its biblical name of “Judea and Samaria,” a term that right-wing Israeli politicians and activists have thus far fruitlessly pushed the US to accept.
Most notably, Huckabee has long been opposed to the idea of a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinian people. In an interview last year, he went even further, saying that he doesn’t even believe in referring to the Arab descendants of people who lived in British-controlled Palestine as “Palestinians.”
“There really isn’t such a thing,” he said on the podcast show “Think Twice” with Jonathan Tobin. “It’s a term that was co-opted by Yasser Arafat in 1962,” referring to one of the early leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
During the same interview, Huckabee described himself as an “unapologetic, unreformed Zionist.”
As the situation in Gaza has deteriorated with the recent collapse of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire and hostage release deal, Israeli officials have begun to talk more seriously about re-occupation of the territory, something to which the Biden administration had been adamantly opposed.
Trump has made his own proposals about a potential US takeover of Gaza, which have attracted attention as well as strong criticism from Arab nations and others.
Huckabee will likely be asked about all of these points in addition to ongoing Israeli military action against Hezbollah in Lebanon and persistent threats to the country from Iran and Iranian-backed proxy groups, like the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
In remarks prepared for his testimony, obtained by The Associated Press, Huckabee does not specifically mention either annexation or Trump’s Gaza plan. But he can be expected to offer qualified praise of both, given that he blasts many past Mideast policies as “failed” and speaks of the need to look “at entirely new ways” of promoting peace.
He plans to reaffirm his strong endorsement of Trump’s policies toward Israel during his first term in office, notably his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, his decision to move the US embassy to the holy city from Tel Aviv, his recognition of the Golan Heights as sovereign Israeli territory and his sealing of the Abraham Accords, in which several Arab nations normalized relations with Israel, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
“President Trump’s first term was the most consequential for Israel and the Middle East ever with his historic Abraham Accords, and finally moving our embassy to Jerusalem, the ancient, indigenous and biblical eternal capital of the Jewish people,” Huckabee’s prepared remarks say.
Trump’s pick for ambassador to Panama also testifying
Another nominee testifying before the committee on Tuesday is Kevin Cabrera, Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to Panama, a country that has bristled at the Republican president’s repeated calls for the US to retake control of the Panama Canal for national security reasons due to potential threats from China. The status of the canal was one of the top items on Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s agenda when he visited Panama City on his first trip as America’s top diplomat in February.
“One of the key aspects of our cooperation is ensuring the security of the Panama Canal, a critical international waterway that facilitates global trade and economic growth,” Cabrera will say according to remarks prepared for the hearing.
He plans to praise decisions by the Panamanian government to withdraw from China’s Belt and Road Initiative and to review contracts with a China-based company that is running ports at both ends of the canal. The company has preliminarily agreed to sell its interests in the subsidiaries that run the ports, but the deal is not yet complete.
MSF condemns surge of violence in DR Congo’s Ituri province
- MSF said it had seen “a renewed spike in atrocities in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ituri province”
- More than half of the victims of violence that MSF treated at its clinic in the provincial capital, Bunia, up until mid-March were women and children
KINSHASA: Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on Tuesday said civilians were suffering “horrific” wounds in a new surge in violence in the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s turbulent Ituri province.
Gold-rich Ituri has long been hit by conflict between ethnic militia as well as attacks by the Daesh-linked group, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).
It lies just north of North and South Kivu provinces, where the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group has seized large tracts of territory in recent months, but the fighting is not linked to the violence in Ituri.
The medical charity, known by its French acronym MSF, said it had seen “a renewed spike in atrocities in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ituri province, where its medical teams are providing care for civilians with horrific injuries.”
Citing UN figures, it said violence had displaced around 100,000 people since the beginning of the year, with attacks killing more than 200 people in January and February alone.
More than half of the victims of violence that MSF treated at its clinic in the provincial capital, Bunia, up until mid-March were women and children, it said.
“In February, MSF’s medical teams treated children as young as four and pregnant women for machete and gunshot wounds following militia attacks” in which sometimes other family members had been killed.
Healthcare facilities are also prey to attacks, MSF warned, saying threats by armed groups had forced a hospital to suspend its activities and evacuate patients this month. Other health centers have been destroyed.
The crisis in Ituri “is characterised by repeated displacement, in which violence forces civilians to pick up and start their lives over, again and again.
“What is worse, is that the stories patients and communities tell us represent only the tip of the iceberg,” the NGO said.
Ituri suffered a conflict between ethnic-based militias from 1999 to 2003 that killed thousands before the intervention of a European force.
In 2021, Uganda deployed troops with the DRC’s consent to Ituri, ostensibly to clear the area of the ADF.
The Ugandan army has also launched an operation this month against a militia known as the Cooperative for the Development of Congo (Codeco).
From staple to fusion: Malaysia’s Ramadan markets blend heritage and culinary trends
- With thousands spread across the country, Ramadan bazaars have become prominent in Malaysia
- Markets showcase country’s rich food landscape and beyond, from traditional dishes to international favorites
KUALA LUMPUR: Deeply rooted in Malaysia’s culture, night markets are teeming with life during Ramadan, when both Muslims and non-Muslims flock to these bustling venues to be greeted with culinary surprises that keep up with the latest food trends.
Over the years, the idea of bazaars during Ramadan has become prominent, with the capital’s biggest night markets — such as the one in Wangsa Maju area — featuring a long line of food stalls that stretch for hundreds of meters.
“We have been selling kuih muih and nasi lemak for many years now — the recipe is my grandmother’s,” Siti Amirah Hassan, who runs a stall at the Sri Sinar Bazaar in Kuala Lumpur’s Segambut district, told Arab News.
Kuih muih is a broad assortment of traditional bite-sized snacks, with the main ingredients being grated coconut, pandan leaves and palm sugar.
Hassan, a third-generation cook in her family, said that adapting to the customers’ changing preferences has meant transforming her family’s recipes to fit new trends, including adding fried lobsters to nasi lemak, which is traditionally served with fried chicken.
“Now we cannot get by just by selling the traditional nasi lemak or the Malay kuih muih … we have to keep doing new things. If I don’t do it, someone else will, then we lose the business,” she said.
As the bazaars have grown in both size and diversity over the years, they now showcase not only Malaysia’s rich food landscape, but also contemporary and viral food, artisanal products and modern takes on traditional dishes.
But the changes have also created opportunities for sellers like Arif Abdul Rahman, whose stall in Wangsa Maju offers molten chocolate and red velvet cakes.
“Ramadan bazaars changed a lot already; last time only the traditional things will sell,” he told Arab News.
“Malaysian mentality is very different now. Everyone is OK; they are open to trying new things,” he said. “Through this, we get an opportunity to build our business and establish it in our community.”
For Arif and his peers, Ramadan bazaars are a great source of income.
More than 65,000 stalls were opened for Ramadan bazaars, according to a 2023 report by Malaysia’s Department of Statistics, generating about 1.9 billion ringgit ($428 million) in total sales.
“Ramadan time (is) very lucrative, almost four times (sales for the) business,” Rahman said. “Hopefully this can continue for a long time.”
Under vibrant-colored canopies, sellers at the bazaars offer a variety of cuisines ranging from traditional Malay meals to Indian fusion dishes, while others have ventured into Western and Arabic fares.
Ramadan bazaars are also found in smaller neighborhoods throughout the capital, as many Malaysians consider them a must-visit during the holy month.
While Muslims would visit the markets as early as 4 p.m. each day to buy meals for iftar, the bazaars are also frequented by non-Muslims in search of good food.
The popularity of these bazaars is likely to continue, as for customers like Nina Fazliana Muhammad, visiting them is a family excursion.
“I have got three kids, all under the age of seven. They are always in a better mood after a walk through our neighborhood bazaar, firstly because of the variety of food, but also the fun of spending all that time together,” she told Arab News.
Some days, a trip to the bazaar also offered the 44-year-old entrepreneur a break from cooking.
“A 30-minute walk through the bazaar and I can have a delicious spread ready for a family break of fast. So, truly, it is a lifesaver.”
For Lee Kok Yong, the bazaars have become a tradition.
“Every year … at least once we will go … at this point it is like a family tradition. And, honestly, it is a very nice experience,” he said.
“It is like a one-stop where we get to not just eat our hearts out, but learn about new food traditions.”
US visit puts ‘unacceptable pressure’ on Greenland: Danish PM
- “You can’t organize a private visit with official representatives of another country,” Frederiksen told reporters
- “This is clearly not a visit that is about what Greenland needs or wants”
COPENHAGEN: Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on Tuesday criticized a planned US delegation visit to Greenland, a Danish territory coveted by President Donald Trump, as putting “unacceptable pressure” on both the territory and her country.
The White House has announced that Usha Vance, the wife of Vice President JD Vance, will visit Greenland from Thursday to Saturday to attend Greenland’s national dogsled race in El-Sisimiut, on the northwestern coast.
The race has been largely sponsored by the US consulate in Nuuk, Greenlandic media reported.
According to the Arctic island’s outgoing Prime Minister Mute Egede, US national security adviser Mike Waltz will also visit Greenland this week, while US media have reported that Energy Secretary Chris Wright will travel there as well.
The visits, presented as private, have angered Danish and Greenlandic politicians.
“You can’t organize a private visit with official representatives of another country,” Frederiksen told reporters.
The visit comes at a time of political flux in Greenland, where political parties are still negotiating to form a new coalition government following a March 11 general election.
“This is clearly not a visit that is about what Greenland needs or wants,” Frederiksen told broadcaster DR.
“That’s why I have to say that the pressure being put on Greenland and Denmark in this situation is unacceptable.
“And it’s pressure we will resist,” she added.
The outgoing Greenlandic government said in a post on Facebook it had not “sent out any invitations for visits, private or official.”
“The current government is a transitional government pending the formation of a new governing coalition, and we have asked all countries to respect this process,” it wrote.
Since returning to power in January, Trump has insisted he wants the United States to take over Greenland for national security purposes and has even refused to rule out the use of force to achieve that aim.
A self-governing Danish territory which is seeking to emancipate itself from Copenhagen, Greenland holds massive untapped mineral and oil reserves, although oil and uranium exploration are banned.
It is also strategically located between North America and Europe at a time of rising US, Chinese and Russian interest in the Arctic, where sea lanes have opened up due to climate change.
Greenland’s location also puts it on the shortest route for missiles between Russia and the US.
According to opinion polls, most Greenlanders support independence from Denmark but not annexation by Washington.
Greenland’s likely new prime minister — Jens-Frederik Nielsen of the center-right Democrats, who won the election — has criticized Trump’s moves on Greenland as “inappropriate.”
Aaja Chemnitz, a lawmaker representing Greenland in the Danish parliament, insisted the US delegation had not been invited.
“No one from the Greenlandic official system has invited the so-called tourists. They’re coming, using soft power diplomacy and also focusing on security issues and this is totally unacceptable,” Chemnitz told AFP.
Trump maintained the visit was at the invitation of Greenland.
“We’ve been invited,” Trump told reporters on Monday.
“We’re dealing with a lot of people from Greenland that would like to see something happen with respect to being properly protected and properly taken care of,” he said.
The Danish prime minister stressed Copenhagen and Nuuk were still open to cooperation with the US.
“We are allies, we have a defense agreement on Greenland that dates back to 1951,” Frederiksen said.
“There is nothing that indicates, neither in Denmark nor Greenland, that we don’t want to cooperate with the Americans.”
The US delegation will be met by a protest in El-Sisimiut, Greenland’s second-biggest town with 5,500 people, where locals have been encouraged to turn their backs on the US convoy, one of the organizers told daily Sermitsiaq.
“This is our way of showing that we don’t agree with their presence and their way of doing things,” Per Norgard said.
The delegation is also expected to visit a US air base in Pituffik, though no official program has been published.
In the current negotiations to form a new coalition government, only one of the five parties in parliament has quit the talks — the Naleraq party.
While all of the parties are in favor of eventual independence, Naleraq has campaigned for a quicker emancipation from Denmark.
Doctors warn US aid cuts leave rural Afghanistan without health care
- WHO says hundreds of health centers, clinics across country are set to close by June
- Afghan health sector relies on donors as govt covers only 3% of total expenditure
KABUL: Afghan doctors warn that new foreign funding cuts are depriving the country’s most vulnerable of health care, especially in rural areas, where aid-dependent NGOs are the sole providers.
The WHO announced last week that 206 health facilities across 28 provinces of Afghanistan were either suspended or closed due to a lack of financial support.
About 200 more clinics, health centers and mobile health and nutrition teams operating in remote areas of the country are set to close by June.
The UN health agency said that the funding shortfall, which comes amid massive US aid cuts since January, is leaving an additional 1.8 million Afghans without access to primary health care.
“The big hospitals in provincial capitals are primarily run by the government while most of the health centers in rural areas are operated by NGOs with funding from different donors,” Dr. Zobair Saljuqi, a doctor at Herat Regional Hospital, told Arab News.
Most of the rural population cannot afford to travel to provincial capitals or major cities for treatment. Health facilities in remote areas are also crucial for women, especially since their movement has been curtailed by the Taliban administration.
“If these health facilities don’t receive the needed financial aid, they cannot continue functioning even for a month because from staff salaries, through running costs, to medicines — all are provided by the donors,” Saljuqi said.
“Women will face severe challenges during pregnancies and children could die due to malnutrition or infectious diseases.”
The halt in US aid is another blow to Afghanistan’s humanitarian situation since the Taliban took over in 2021. Following the collapse of the country’s Western-backed regime, the US withdrew its troops and froze all projects overnight, after spending billions on two decades of military and development operations.
Afghanistan’s health sector relies on donor funds. UN estimates show that out-of-pocket expenses and external funding make up 97 percent of total health expenditure, while government contributions account for just 3 percent.
Dr. Ahmad Tariq, who works at a health center in Qarghayi district, Laghman province, said that almost everyone in his neighborhood depended on the facility.
“People here are very poor. They are all either farmers or daily laborers. They can’t afford to travel to the center of the province or buy medicine,” he told Arab News.
“Our small facility is helping tens of patients every day, men and women, children and elderly persons. They come for OPD consultations as well as vaccination and receive some medicine for free. If it wasn’t for this center most of the people would have been deprived of basic health services.”
According to Afghanistan’s Ministry of Health data, 72 percent of the rural population lacks access to primary and secondary health care services.
Of the country’s 400 districts, only 93 have operational hospitals, and almost 10 million people in more than 20,000 villages have limited or no access to basic health services.
Dr. Mohammad Nazar, a public health practitioner in Kabul, forecast that the sudden shortage of US-led funding would further devastate Afghanistan’s already fragile health system, which had endured decades of war and Soviet and American invasions.
“Almost all health centers across rural areas are supported by donors and humanitarian organizations,” he said.
“Tens of health facilities are already closing, which means more and more women, children, elderly persons, displaced persons ... will have no access to essential health services and mortality from preventable diseases would rise.”
