Anti-war protest ruffles University of Michigan as demonstrations collide with graduation season

Students demonstate during a Pro-Palestinian protest during the University of Michigan's spring commencement ceremony on May 4, 2024 at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, Michigan. (AFP)
Students demonstate during a Pro-Palestinian protest during the University of Michigan's spring commencement ceremony on May 4, 2024 at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, Michigan. (AFP)
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Updated 05 May 2024
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Anti-war protest ruffles University of Michigan as demonstrations collide with graduation season

Anti-war protest ruffles University of Michigan as demonstrations collide with graduation season
  • Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry
  • Tent encampments of protesters calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies they say support the war in Gaza have spread across campuses nationwide in recent weeks in a student movement unlike any other this century

NEW YORK: Protesters chanted anti-war messages and waved Palestinian flags during the University of Michigan’s commencement Saturday, as student demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war collided with the annual pomp-and-circumstance of graduation season at American universities.
The protest happened at the beginning of the event at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor. About 75 people, many wearing traditional Arabic keffiyeh along with their graduation caps, marched up the main aisle toward the graduation stage.
They chanted “Regents, regents, you can’t hide! You are funding genocide!” while holding signs, including one that read: “No universities left in Gaza.”
Overhead, planes flew competing messages. One read: “Divest from Israel now! Free Palestine!” The other read: “We stand with Israel. Jewish lives matter.”
Officials said no one was arrested, and the protest didn’t seriously interrupt the nearly two-hour event, which was attended by tens of thousands of people, some of them waving Israeli flags.
State police prevented the demonstrators from reaching the stage and university spokesperson Colleen Mastony said public safety personnel escorted the protesters to the rear of the stadium, where they remained through the conclusion of the event.
“Peaceful protests like this have taken place at U-M commencement ceremonies for decades,” she added.
US Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro paused a few times during his remarks, saying at one point, “Ladies and gentlemen, if you can please draw your attention back to the podium.”
Before he administered an oath to graduates in the armed forces, Del Toro said they would “protect the freedoms that we so cherish,” including the “right to protest peacefully.”
The university has allowed protesters to set up an encampment on campus but police assisted in breaking up a large gathering at a graduation-related event Friday night, and one person was arrested.
Michigan was among the schools bracing for protests during its commencement ceremonies this weekend, including Indiana University, Ohio State University and Northeastern University in Boston. Many more are slated in the coming weeks.
At Indiana University, protesters were urging supporters to wear their keffiyehs and walk out during remarks by President Pamela Whitten on Saturday evening. The campus in Bloomington, Indiana, has designated a protest zone outside Memorial Stadium, where the ceremony is set to take place.
Tent encampments of protesters calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies they say support the war in Gaza have spread across campuses nationwide in recent weeks in a student movement unlike any other this century. Some schools have reached agreements with the protesters to end the demonstrations and reduce the possibility of disrupting final exams and commencements.
Many encampments have been dismantled and protesters arrested in police crackdowns.
The Associated Press has recorded at least 61 incidents since April 18 where arrests were made at campus protests across the US More than 2,400 people have been arrested on 47 college and university campuses. The figures are based on AP reporting and statements from universities and law enforcement agencies.
At Princeton, in New Jersey, 18 students launched a hunger strike in an effort to push the university to divest from companies tied to Israel.
Senior David Chmielewski, a hunger striker, said in an email Saturday that the latest protest started Friday morning with participants consuming water only.
He said the hunger strike will continue until university administrators meet with students about their demands, which include amnesty from criminal and disciplinary charges for protesters.
Other demonstrators are participating in “solidarity fasts” lasting 24 hours, he said.
Princeton students set up a protest encampment and some held a sit-in at an administrative building this week, leading to about 15 arrests.
Students at other colleges, including Brown and Yale, launched similar hunger strikes earlier this year before the more recent wave of protest encampments.
In other developments Saturday, police broke up a demonstration at the University of Virginia. Campus police called it an “unlawful assembly” in a post on the social platform X.
Footage from WVAW-TV showed police wearing tactical gear removing protesters from an encampment on the Charlottesville campus. Authorities have not said how many people were arrested.
Meanwhile near Boston, students at Tufts University peacefully took down their protest encampment without police intervention Friday night.
Officials with the school in Medford, Massachusetts, said they were pleased with the development, which wasn’t the result of any agreement with protesters. Protest organizers said in a statement that they were “deeply angered and disappointed” that negotiations with the university had failed.
The protests stem from the Israel-Hamas conflict that started on Oct. 7 when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking roughly 250 hostages.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched an offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 34,500 Palestinians, around two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. Israeli strikes have devastated the enclave and displaced most of Gaza’s inhabitants.

 


Liz Cheney campaigns with Harris in Wisconsin while Trump holds a rally in Michigan

Liz Cheney campaigns with Harris in Wisconsin while Trump holds a rally in Michigan
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Liz Cheney campaigns with Harris in Wisconsin while Trump holds a rally in Michigan

Liz Cheney campaigns with Harris in Wisconsin while Trump holds a rally in Michigan
  • Harris and Cheney hammer Trump for his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election and his failure to quell the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021

RIPON, Wisconsin: Vice President Kamala Harris rallied side-by-side with Republican Liz Cheney in the birthplace of the modern Republican Party on Thursday as the two women delivered a double-barreled denunciation of GOP nominee Donald Trump as a threat to democracy.
As people raised signs declaring, “Country over Party,” Harris told the crowd that “people of every party must stand together” to reject Trump, citing his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election and his failure to quell the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021.
It was an improbable moment — a Democratic nominee giving a nod to a rival party member and to the origins of the opposing party in the closing weeks of a presidential campaign — and it demonstrated how Harris is working to win over moderate voters.
Harris said of Trump, “As you have heard and know, he refused to accept the will of the people and to accept the results of an election that was free and fair.”
”The president of the United States must not look at our country through the narrow lens of ideology or party partisanship or self interest.”
Cheney is one of Trump’s most ardent antagonists. She is the daughter of former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney and was the top GOP lawmaker on the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, earning Trump’s disdain and effectively exiling herself from her own party.
“Violence does not and must never determine who rules us. Voters do,” Cheney told the crowd as she recounted Trump refusing to act as he watched the violent attack on television. Someone in the crowd yelled “coward!” Others booed.
“He praised the rioters. He did not condemn them. That’s who Donald Trump is,” Cheney said.
She lost her Wyoming seat to a Trump-endorsed candidate two years ago and she endorsed Harris, the Democratic nominee, last month. The two women appeared together in Ripon, home to a white schoolhouse where a series of meetings held in 1854 to oppose slavery’s expansion led to the start of the Republican Party.
“I know that she loves our country, and I know she will be a president for all Americans” Cheney said of Harris. Noting that she herself remains conservative, Cheney said she was “honored to join her in this urgent cause.”
Instead of her usual “Harris-Walz” campaign signs, the stage was decorated with large signs that said “Country Over Party,” along with plenty of red, white and blue bunting.
Harris was opening a two-day trip to Wisconsin and Michigan, and Trump was in Michigan on Thursday as the two candidates grapple for wins in the “blue wall” battleground states, which also include Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden said Thursday that he wasn’t concerned about a Trump-Harris race coming down to the wire because “it always gets this close.”
“She’s gonna do fine,” Biden said of Harris to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House on his way to visit storm-ravaged Georgia and Florida. He added that Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, did well in his debate with Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance during Tuesday’s debate in New York.
“The other guy lost the debate,” Biden said. “He misrepresented everything.”
Harris’ visit to Wisconsin comes one day after a federal judge unsealed a 165-page court filing outlining prosecutors’ case against Trump for his attempt to overturn his 2020 election defeat. Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy and obstruction.
Trump did not mention the document filed by special counsel Jack Smith or Cheney’s appearance with Harris during an 82-minute speech at a rally in Saginaw County, Michigan. In 2020, Democrat Biden won the bellwether county by a slim 303 votes, contributing to his victory in the state.
As Trump spoke, his campaign announced he’ll appear in Georgia on Friday with Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. The two men have made peace after Trump in August unleashed a blistering attack on Kemp, whom he has faulted for not giving in to his efforts to overturn his loss in 2020.
During the 2020 campaign, Liz Cheney criticized Harris as “a radical liberal” who “wants to recreate America in the image of what’s happening on the streets of Portland & Seattle,” a reference to unrest that took place in those cities after the murder of George Floyd.
But Jan. 6 was a turning point for Liz Cheney and her family. Both Cheneys are backing Harris, part of a cadre of current and former Republican officials who have broken with the vast majority of their party, which remains in Trump’s corner. Harris wants to portray her candidacy as a patriotic choice for independent and conservative voters who were disturbed by Trump’s unwillingness to cede power. Trump continues to deny his defeat with false claims of voter fraud.
Harris on Thursday also was endorsed by Cassidy Hutchinson, who was a young White House aide during Trump’s presidency and described during a hearing of Cheney’s Jan. 6 congressional committee how she grew disgusted by Trump’s refusal to stop the rioters that day. Harris’ campaign also began airing ads targeting Republicans, independents and former Trump voters in battleground states.
Cheney’s presence prompted some dissonance for Harris supporters in the audience, especially those that remember her father’s role as a Republican headliner.
Victor Romero, 46, said it was “a little weird” to be at an event with her.
“I still don’t like Liz Cheney’s politics. But I’m glad that she understands the Republican Party that currently exists is just for Trump.”
But for younger voters, they know Cheney primarily for standing up to Trump.
“She stuck to her morals,” said Kynaeda Gray, 22.
Harris on Friday will hold a campaign rally in Flint, Michigan, continuing her tour of states that have been critical to Democratic victories. Trump won Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan in 2016, and Biden won them in 2020.
Trump has ramped up his focus on Michigan, holding two rallies there less than a week ago before Thursday’s appearance in Saginaw.
 


US dockworkers’ union suspend strike until Jan. 15 to allow time to negotiate new contract

US dockworkers’ union suspend strike until Jan. 15 to allow time to negotiate new contract
Updated 04 October 2024
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US dockworkers’ union suspend strike until Jan. 15 to allow time to negotiate new contract

US dockworkers’ union suspend strike until Jan. 15 to allow time to negotiate new contract

DETROIT: The union representing 45,000 striking US dockworkers at East and Gulf coast ports has reached a deal to suspend a three-day strike until Jan. 15 to provide time to negotiate a new contract.
The union, the International Longshoremen’s Association, is to resume working immediately. Both sides also reached agreement on wages, but no details were given, according to a joint statement from the ports and union Thursday night.
The union went on strike early Tuesday after its contract expired in a dispute over pay and the automation of tasks at the ports from Maine to Texas. The strike came at the peak of the holiday shopping season at 36 ports that handle about half the cargo from ships coming into and out of the United States.
The walkout raised the risk of shortages of goods on store shelves if it lasted more than a few weeks. But most retailers had stocked up or shipped items early in anticipation of the work stoppage.
The strike came at the peak of the holiday shopping season at 36 ports that handle about half of the cargo from ships coming into and out of the United States.
It raised the risk of shortages of goods on store shelves if it lasted more than a few weeks. But most retailers had stocked up or shipped items early in anticipation of the work stoppage.


Teen arrested in Germany over alleged anti-Semitic plot

Teen arrested in Germany over alleged anti-Semitic plot
Updated 03 October 2024
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Teen arrested in Germany over alleged anti-Semitic plot

Teen arrested in Germany over alleged anti-Semitic plot

BERLIN: A teenager suspected of plotting an attack against Jews was arrested in September in western Germany, a court source and local media reports said Thursday.
The 15-year-old boy has been placed in pre-trial detention over plans to “commit a crime,” Dusseldorf prosecutors told AFP, without providing further details.
Police had previously detained the suspect in August following intelligence it had received, according to the Bild and Spiegel newspapers.
The teenager was released but arrested again after investigators discovered conversations on his phone with a suspected foreign extremist believed to have tried to talk him into perpetrating a knife attack.
The two allegedly discussed potential targets, including festivals and Jewish communities, and the teenager also reportedly posted videos on TikTok featuring Daesh flags, according to Bild and Spiegel.
The arrest came as Germany has tightened security measures after a knife attack in the western city of Solingen on August 30 that was claimed by the Daesh group.
Three people were killed and several others were injured in the Solingen attack.
A 26-year-old Syrian suspect, who had been slated for deportation but evaded law enforcement, turned himself in after a day on the run and confessed to the attack.
And in June, a German court sentenced a 15-year-old boy to four years in jail for planning an Islamist attack on a Christmas market in the western city of Leverkusen.


Thousands in Berlin call for end to Ukraine war support

Thousands in Berlin call for end to Ukraine war support
Updated 03 October 2024
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Thousands in Berlin call for end to Ukraine war support

Thousands in Berlin call for end to Ukraine war support

BERLIN: Thousands of people in Berlin on Thursday demonstrated against Germany’s military support for Ukraine as it battles to hold back invading Russian troops.
Participants answered a call by a radical left-wing collective to gather in the German capital and brandished placards reading “Negotiations! No weapons!,” “No to war” and “Pacifism is not naive.” Some also held anti-American signs.
One of their main demands was for Germany to stop sending weapons to Ukraine, which Kyiv desperately needs to defend itself from Russian aggression.
The protest came one week ahead of the first state visit by a US president to the European country since Ronald Reagan in 1985.
Joe Biden is also expected to meet with Ukraine’s allies to discuss military support to the war-torn nation, at the US army base in Ramstein, western Germany.
Far-left populist leader Sahra Wagenknecht, who attended the Berlin protest, has long called for an end to weapon deliveries to Kyiv and opposes a plan to deploy US long-range missiles in Germany.
Germany has been the second-largest contributor of military aid to Ukraine after the United States, but plans to halve its budget for that aid next year.
Wagenknecht’s pro-Russia, anti-NATO stance has contributed to her party’s positive results in three eastern state elections, securing 12 percent of the vote in Brandenburg.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in September stunned the political establishment by winning its first-ever parliamentary vote — in the eastern state of Thuringia — and coming a close second in neighboring Saxony.
The AfD’s platform relied on its usual discourse against asylum-seekers, multiculturalism and Islam, but also on critiques of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s policy of unconditional support for Ukraine.
The state leaders of Saxony and Brandenburg, where AfD came in second, as well as the head of the conservatives in Thuringia, have called for a ceasefire in Ukraine, in an article expected to be published on Friday in the Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung newspaper.
Germany and the European Union’s dioplomatic efforts so far have been “too indecisive,” they said, urging Berlin to bring Russia to the negotiating table.


Thousands rally in Austria against far right

Thousands rally in Austria against far right
Updated 03 October 2024
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Thousands rally in Austria against far right

Thousands rally in Austria against far right

VIENNA: Thousands of people protested in Austria’s capital Vienna on Thursday against a possible return to power for the far-right Freedom Party (FPOe), which topped national elections on Sunday.
The FPOe won almost 29 percent of the vote in Sunday’s general election, ahead of the conservative People’s Party (OeVP) with just over 26 percent.
“The Austrian Freedom Party is a danger because it has already said that it wants to govern in the image of Hungary’s Viktor Orban,” said Rihab Toumi, a 26-year-old student, referring to the nationalist leader of Austria’s neighboring country.
Although the FPOe topped the polls, there is no guarantee that their radical leader Herbert Kickl will be given a chance to form a government since no other party is willing to work with him.
“This result was a shock and we cannot let a party that drifts so far to the right garner so much support without saying anything,” said social worker Marianne, 53, who declined to share her surname.
Organizers claimed there were 15,000 to 17,000 protesters in central Vienna, who marched toward parliament.
Demonstrators held up placards saying “Let’s defend democracy,” “No alliances with Putin’s friends” and other anti-FPOe slogans.
Kickl has criticized European Union sanctions against Russian President Vladimir Putin and his inner circle over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Demonstrators intend to march every Thursday, having similarly done so after the far right formed part of short-lived coalition governments in 2000 and 2017.