Columbia’s president resigns after months of turmoil, including protests over the Israel-Hamas war

Columbia’s president resigns after months of turmoil, including protests over the Israel-Hamas war
Columbia University President Nemat (Minouche) Shafik. (AP)
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Updated 15 August 2024
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Columbia’s president resigns after months of turmoil, including protests over the Israel-Hamas war

Columbia’s president resigns after months of turmoil, including protests over the Israel-Hamas war

NEW YORK: Columbia University President Minouche Shafik resigned Wednesday after a brief, tumultuous tenure that saw the head of the prestigious New York university grapple with protests over the Israel-Hamas war and criticism over how the school handled divisions related to the conflict.
The school in upper Manhattan was roiled this year by student protests, culminating in scenes of police officers carrying zip ties and riot shields storming a building that had been occupied by pro-Palestinian protesters. Similar protests swept college campuses nationwide.
In addition to the protests, the school in July removed three deans, who have since resigned, after officials said they exchanged disparaging texts during a campus discussion about Jewish life and antisemitism. Shafik said in a July 8 letter to the school community that the messages were unprofessional and “disturbingly touched on ancient antisemitic tropes.”
Shafik was also among the university leaders called for questioning before Congress earlier this year. She was heavily criticized by Republicans who accused her of not doing enough to combat concerns about antisemitism on Columbia’s campus.
In her letter announcing her resignation, Shafik heralded “progress in a number of important areas” but lamented that her tenure had also been a “period of turmoil where it has been difficult to overcome divergent views across our community.” In her statement, she acknowledged the campus protests factored into her decision to resign.
“This period has taken a considerable toll on my family, as it has for others in the community,” Shafik wrote. “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.”
Shafik said she will return to the United Kingdom to lead an effort by the foreign secretary’s office reviewing the government’s approach to international development and how to improve capability.
“I am very pleased and appreciative that this will afford me the opportunity to return to work on fighting global poverty and promoting sustainable development, areas of lifelong interest to me,” she wrote. “It also enables me to return to the House of Lords to reengage with the important legislative agenda put forth by the new UK government.”
The Board of Trustees announced that Katrina Armstrong, the CEO of Columbia University Irving Medical Center, agreed to serve as interim president. The board said Armstrong, who is also the executive vice president for the university’s Health and Biomedical Sciences, “is the right leader for this moment.”
Armstrong said she was “deeply honored” to be leading the university at a “pivotal moment for Columbia.”
“Challenging times present both the opportunity and the responsibility for serious leadership to emerge from every group and individual within a community,” Armstrong wrote. “This is such a time at Columbia. As I step into this role, I am acutely aware of the trials the University has faced over the past year.”
Shafik was named president of the university last year and was the first woman to take on the role, and she was one of several women newly appointed to take the reins at Ivy League institutions.
She had previously led the London School of Economics and before that worked at the World Bank, where she rose through the ranks to become the bank’s youngest-ever vice president. Shafik also worked at the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, followed by stints at the International Monetary Fund and the Bank of England.
At the time of Shafik’s appointment, Columbia Board of Trustees chair Jonathan Lavine described her as a leader who deeply understood “the academy and the world beyond it.”
“What set Minouche apart as a candidate,” Lavine had said in a statement, “is her unshakable confidence in the vital role institutions of higher education can and must play in solving the world’s most complex problems.”


Poland says students arrested in Nigeria have been released

Poland says students arrested in Nigeria have been released
Updated 6 sec ago
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Poland says students arrested in Nigeria have been released

Poland says students arrested in Nigeria have been released

WARSAW: A group of Polish students who were arrested in Nigeria have been released, the foreign ministry in Warsaw said on Wednesday.
Nigeria said earlier this month that it had arrested seven Polish nationals for raising Russian flags during anti-government protests in the northern state of Kano.
Following their arrest, a Polish foreign ministry spokesperson rejected the accusation that they were waving the flags and said they were merely in the vicinity of the protest.
“The Polish students have been released and are in Kano,” the Polish foreign ministry said in a post on social media platform X. “Thank you to everyone involved in the release of the Polish citizens!“
Hundreds of thousands of Nigerians had been protesting since Aug. 1 against President Bola Tinubu’s painful economic reforms that have seen a partial end to fuel and electricity subsidies, currency devaluation and inflation touching three-decade highs.
Some protesters waved Russian flags during protests in northern states, underscoring concerns about increased Russian activity in western Africa.


Kremlin, dismissing Zelensky’s talk of a peace plan, says Russia will keep fighting in Ukraine

Kremlin, dismissing Zelensky’s talk of a peace plan, says Russia will keep fighting in Ukraine
Updated 3 min 5 sec ago
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Kremlin, dismissing Zelensky’s talk of a peace plan, says Russia will keep fighting in Ukraine

Kremlin, dismissing Zelensky’s talk of a peace plan, says Russia will keep fighting in Ukraine
  • Ukrainian president says he would present his plan to US President Joe Biden and his two potential successors

MOSCOW: The Kremlin on Wednesday dismissed talk by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about a plan he has to end the war and said Russia would continue what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Zelensky said he would present his plan — full details of which he did not publicly disclose — to US President Joe Biden and his two potential successors.


Bangladesh lifts ban on main Islamist party

Bangladesh lifts ban on main Islamist party
Updated 23 min 36 sec ago
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Bangladesh lifts ban on main Islamist party

Bangladesh lifts ban on main Islamist party
  • Jamaat-e-Islami ban was imposed in the final days of the rule of now ousted autocrat Sheikh Hasina
  • Jamaat was also barred from participating in elections in 2014, 2018 and again in January this year

DHAKA: Bangladesh’s new authorities on Wednesday lifted a ban on the country’s largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, imposed in the final days of the rule of now ousted autocrat Sheikh Hasina.
“The government... has canceled the previous order of August 1, 2024 that banned Bangladesh’s Jamaat e Islami,” the order read. “It will come into effect immediately.”
Jamaat-e-Islami, which has millions of supporters, was banned from contesting polls in 2013 after high court judges ruled its charter violated the secular constitution of the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people.
Jamaat was also barred from participating in elections in 2014, 2018 and again in January this year, when 76-year-old Hasina won her fifth term in widely discredited polls without a credible opposition.
Hasina’s government then banned the party outright under an anti-terrorism act on August 1, just four days before she was ousted from power after weeks of student-led protests, fleeing to India by helicopter.
The government order said it had lifted the ban, including on the party’s student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir, because there was “no specific evidence of involvement with terrorism and violence.”
Jamaat is one of the country’s main political parties, along with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
It is unclear what strength Hasina’s once all-powerful party, the Awami League, still holds.


Russia holds three over alleged plot to attack church

Russia holds three over alleged plot to attack church
Updated 28 August 2024
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Russia holds three over alleged plot to attack church

Russia holds three over alleged plot to attack church

MOSCOW: Russian investigators said Wednesday they had held three people for allegedly plotting a terrorist attack on a church in Ingushetia, a small Muslim-majority republic in the Caucasus region.
The three Russian nationals were preparing to attack a church in the city of Sunzha, the regional branch of the investigative committee in Ingushetia said on Telegram.
Investigators have opened a criminal case against the three for “participation in the activities of a terrorist organization” and “preparation to commit a terrorist act by prior conspiracy.”
“During the investigation and related searches, it was established that the defendants... were planning to commit sabotage and terrorist acts in the region,” they said.
Those arrested are members of the Islamic State (IS) group, according to a source familiar with the case quoted by the Ria Novosti news agency.
Russia regularly announces that it has foiled plans for attacks by presumed Islamist cells. IS has repeatedly pledged to target Russia over its support of Syrian leader Bashar Assad.
In March, 145 people were killed in an attack on a Moscow concert hall — the most deadly terror attack in Russia for two decades.
A Central Asian branch of IS claimed responsibility for the attack and four suspected gunmen, now in pre-trial detention, are citizens of Tajikistan.
Last week, inmates killed at least three Russian prison guards in a prison siege, according to officials, with the assailants having apparent connections to IS.
Russian special forces stormed the facility in Russia’s southern Volgograd region and shot dead all four attackers after an hours-long stand-off.
It was the second such case of IS-affiliated prisoners taking staff hostage since June.


UK’s Starmer in Berlin for talks to reset ties with Europe

UK’s Starmer in Berlin for talks to reset ties with Europe
Updated 28 August 2024
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UK’s Starmer in Berlin for talks to reset ties with Europe

UK’s Starmer in Berlin for talks to reset ties with Europe
  • Prime Minister wants Britain to move beyond the previous Conservative government’s fractious relations with European allies
  • Britain and Germany, NATO allies and western Europe’s biggest defense spenders, are looking for ways to increase defense cooperation

BERLIN: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will discuss a landmark economic and defense accord with German leaders on Wednesday, hoping to use a two-day visit to the European Union’s top powers Germany and France to reset relations with the rest of the bloc.
Starmer said he wanted Britain to move beyond the previous Conservative government’s fractious relations with European allies and put improved ties at the heart of his efforts to boost Britain’s economic growth.
In Berlin on Tuesday, Starmer visited the landmark Brandenburg Gate, before meeting President Frank-Walter Steinmeier early on Wednesday. Later, he was greeted with military honors by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz outside the chancellery under a bright blue sky.
Starmer will discuss with Scholz, a fellow leftist, a new pact they hope will bring about an unprecedented degree of bilateral military cooperation and greater collaboration in areas such as trade and energy.
The pair will hold a joint press conference at midday.
“We must turn a corner on Brexit and fix the broken relationships left behind by the previous government,” Starmer said in a statement. “We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reset our relationship with Europe.”
Britain and Germany, NATO allies and western Europe’s biggest defense spenders, are looking for ways to increase defense cooperation ahead of a possible scaling back of US military support for Ukraine if former US President Donald Trump returns to the White House early next year.
The Republican presidential candidate has warned that if elected, he would fundamentally rethink “NATO’s purpose and NATO’s mission.” He has also not committed to sending further aid to Ukraine and said he would not defend allies that do not increase their defense budgets. Trump is locked in a tight race with Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 election.
Concerns that the US could cut back support for Ukraine have increased since Trump picked JD Vance as his running mate. Vance has stressed his opposition to the US writing “blank checks” to help Ukraine fight off Russia’s two-and-a-half-year-old invasion.
An Anglo-German defense partnership could resemble the Lancaster House pact between Britain and France agreed in 2010, according to officials, with pledges to create a joint force and share equipment and nuclear missile research centers.
The two sides will continue negotiations over the next six months with the aim of completing the deal early next year, according to Starmer’s office. It would follow the signing of a joint defense declaration in July.
On his trip to Germany, Starmer will also hold talks with business leaders including Armin Papperger, chief executive of German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall, who according to media reports last month was the target of a Russian assassination plot. The Kremlin said the reports were fake and could not be taken seriously.
He will also meet Christian Bruch, Siemens Energy’s CEO, which employs about 6,000 people in Britain, to discuss further investment and creating more highly skilled jobs.
After the talks in Germany, Starmer will head to Paris for the Paralympics opening ceremony on Wednesday night, and hold a breakfast meeting on Thursday with executives from companies including Thales, Eutelsat, Mistral AI and Sanofi.
Starmer is expected to meet Paralympic athletes as they prepare for competition, before having talks with President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace.