The UN's top human rights official has voiced concern over heavy-handed steps taken to disperse and dismantle pro-Palestinian protests across university campuses in the US, just hours before the New York Police Department arrested and cleared protesters at the prestigious Columbia University. Hundreds of police officers swept into Columbia University on Tuesday night to end the pro-Palestinian occupation of an administration building and sweep away a protest encampment, acting after the school's president said there was no other way to ensure safety and restore order on campus. The police cleared 30 to 40 people from inside Columbia University's Hamilton Hall late Tuesday after pro-Palestinian protesters occupied the administration building in New York earlier in the day. Freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly are fundamental to society particularly when there is sharp disagreement on major issues, as there are about the conflict in the Occupied Palestinian ...
Officers took protesters into custody late Tuesday after Columbia University called in police to end the pro-Palestinian occupation on the New York campus. The scene unfolded shortly after 9 p.m. as police, wearing helmets and carrying zip ties and riot shields, massed at the Ivy League university's entrance. Officers breached Hamilton Hall, an administration building on campus, to clear out the structure. The demonstrators had occupied Hamilton Hall more than 12 hours earlier, spreading their reach from an encampment elsewhere on the grounds that's been there for nearly two weeks. Shortly before officers entered the campus, the New York Police Department received a notice from Columbia authorising officers to take action, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official was not authorised to discuss details of the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The NYPD's move came hours after the department's brass said officers wouldn't enter Columbia's ..
Iran-aligned Houthi militants have launched repeated drone and missile strikes in the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandab Strait and Gulf of Aden since November, forcing shippers to re-route cargo
Protests are roiling college campuses across the US as upcoming graduation ceremonies are threatened by disruptive demonstrators, with students and others sparring over Israel's military offensive in Gaza and its mounting death toll. Many campuses were largely quiet over the weekend as demonstrators stayed by tents erected as protest headquarters, although a few colleges saw forced removals and arrests. Many students are demanding their universities cut financial ties with Israel over the large-scale operation in Gaza it says was launched to stamp out the militant Palestinian group Hamas. Protesters on both sides of the rancourous debate shouted and shoved each other during duelling demonstrations Sunday at the University of California, Los Angeles. The university stepped up security after some physical altercations broke out among demonstrators, Mary Osako, vice chancellor for UCLA Strategic Communications, said in a statement. There were no reports of arrests or injuries. About 27
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Achinthya Sivalingan, hailing from Tamil Nadu, was arrested after demonstrators erected tents in the Princeton University courtyard early Thursday morning
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has said Israel must be brought to justice for "usurpation and oppression" of the Palestinian territories, if not there will not be a guarantee that others would not do the same in other lands. Raisi was delivering a statement during his one-day visit to Sri Lanka on Wednesday. "When it comes to the oppressor, when it comes to the usurper, the Zionist Israeli regime has been committing oppression against the people of Palestine for 75 years, they have been usurping their territory," Raisi said. "First of all, we have to expel the usurpers. Secondly, we should make them pay the cost for all the damage they have created and thirdly, we have to bring to justice the oppressor and usurper," he said. Earlier on Wednesday, Raisi inaugurated a hydropower and irrigation project in Sri Lanka and said his country has proven that the West does not have a monopoly on technology. Raisi is the first Iranian leader to visit Sri Lanka since former President Mahmoud
Students at a growing number of US colleges are gathering in protest encampments with a unified demand of their schools: Stop doing business with Israel or any companies that empower its ongoing war in Gaza. The demand has its roots in a decades-old campaign against Israel's policies toward the Palestinians. The movement has taken on new strength as the Israel-Hamas war surpasses the six-month mark and stories of suffering in Gaza have sparked international calls for a cease-fire. Inspired by ongoing protests and the arrests last week of more than 100 students at Columbia University, students from Massachusetts to California are now gathering by the hundreds on campuses, setting up tent camps and pledging to stay put until their demands are met. We want to be visible, said Columbia protest leader Mahmoud Khalil, who noted that students at the university have been pushing for divestment from Israel since 2002. The university should do something about what we're asking for, about the
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The United States vetoed a widely backed U.N. resolution on Thursday that would have paved the way for full United Nations membership for the state of Palestine. The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 12 in favor, the United States opposed and two abstentions. The resolution would have recommended that the 193-member General Assembly, where there are no vetoes, approve Palestine becoming the 194th member of the United Nations. Some 140 countries have already recognized the state of Palestine, so its admission would have been approved. Before the vote, U.S. deputy State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said the United States has been very clear consistently that premature actions in New York even with the best intentions will not achieve statehood for the Palestinian people. This is the second Palestinian attempt for full membership and it comes as the war in Gaza has put the more than 75-year-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict at center stage.
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Israel's army said Saturday the body of a missing Israeli teen has been found in the occupied West Bank after he was killed in a terrorist attack. The disappearance of 14-year-old Binyamin Achimair sparked a large attack by settlers on a Palestinian village on Friday and Saturday. The events marked the latest in escalating violence in the territory at a time when Israel is waging war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The army said security forces were pursuing those suspected of killing the teen. On Friday, one Palestinian man was killed and 25 others were wounded in an attack on the village of Mughayyir, Palestinian health officials said. Israeli troops delayed the ambulance carrying the body of the 26-year-old man for several hours, but it eventually got through. Dozens of settlers returned to the village's outskirts on Saturday, burning two homes and several cars. Palestinian health officials say over 460 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli fire since the war in
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Streams of Palestinians filed into the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis on Monday to salvage what they could from the vast destruction left in the wake of Israel's offensive, a day after the Israeli military announced it was withdrawing troops from the area. Many came back to the Gaza Strip's second-largest city to find their former hometown unrecognisable. With scores of buildings destroyed or damaged, piles of rubble now sit where apartments and businesses once did. Streets have been bulldozed. Schools and hospitals were damaged by the fighting. Israel sent troops to Khan Younis in December, part of its blistering ground offensive that came in response to a Hamas-led attack on October 7 into southern Israel. Israeli authorities say 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and roughly 250 people taken hostage. The war, now in its seventh month, has killed more than 33,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to local health authorities, displaced most of the ...
Brent crude futures dropped 90 cents or 1%, to $90.27 a barrel by 1000 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was down 86 cents, or about 0.9%, at $86.05
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The Palestinians want the Security Council to vote later this month on their revived request for full membership in the United Nations, despite the United States reiterating Wednesday that Israel and the Palestinians must first negotiate a peace agreement. Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian UN ambassador, said 140 countries recognise the state of Palestine, and we believe it is high time now for our state to become a full member at the United Nations. The Palestinians are making a fresh bid for UN membership as the war between Israel and Hamas that began Oct 7 nears its sixth month, putting the unresolved decades-old Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the spotlight after years on the back burner. During the Cold War between the former Soviet Union and the United States, Mansour said, countries were blocked from joining the UN, but they all eventually became members, including North Korea. The US doesn't recognise North Korea but didn't block its admission, he said, and asked why conditions
'The shock to Gaza's economy as a result of the ongoing conflict is one of the largest observed in recent economic history,' according to the report
Supporters of the Palestinians' request for full membership in the United Nations asked the UN Security Council on Tuesday to revive their application for admission submitted in 2011. But the United States is again almost certain to block it. The supporters' letter to the council president included the names of 140 countries that have recognised a Palestinian state, including members of the 22-nation Arab Group at the United Nations, the 57-nation Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and the 120-member Nonaligned Movement. The Palestinians are making a fresh bid for UN membership as the war between Israel and Hamas that began on Oct 7 nears its sixth month, and the unresolved decades-old Palestinian-Israeli conflict remains in the spotlight after years on the back burner. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas delivered the Palestinian Authority's application to become the 194th member of the United Nations to then Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sept 23, 2011, before addressing world
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