Arrests of pro-Palestine student protesters were rights violations, New York City mayoral candidate tells Arab News

Arrests of pro-Palestine student protesters were rights violations, New York City mayoral candidate tells Arab News
New York Assembly member Zohran Mamdani has vowed to reverse the policies he claims Mayor Eric Adams imposed that punished pro-Palestine student protestors last spring. (AFP file photo)
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Updated 20 December 2024
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Arrests of pro-Palestine student protesters were rights violations, New York City mayoral candidate tells Arab News

Arrests of pro-Palestine student protesters were rights violations, New York City mayoral candidate tells Arab News
  • Zohran Mamdani urges ‘one set of rules’ for all city’s people
  • Majority of New York Democrats want ‘end to the genocide’

CHICAGO: New York Assembly member Zohran Mamdani, who is running for mayor of the city, has vowed to reverse the policies he claims Mayor Eric Adams imposed that punished pro-Palestine student protesters last spring.

More than 1,000 students were arrested and injured during a citywide police crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters, while those supporting Israel were reportedly not targeted.

Many of the pro-Palestinian students were expelled from their universities or denied graduation because of the protests over 10 days last April.

Mamdani, who led a hunger strike in front of the White House last November to push for a Gaza ceasefire resolution, said that an American mayor should apply the law and morality equally to all the city’s people.

“It’s a position I hold as a reflection of consistency no matter the issue. It is one that is in line with the positions I hold when it comes to my own constituents.

“What I mean by that is I think New Yorkers are tired of politicians who speak out of both sides of their mouths, who have one set of rules for one set of people and then another set of rules for another set of people,” Mamdani said Thursday.

He added: “I think it’s time that we simply believe in the same things for all people. So, if we say that we believe in freedom and justice and safety and liberty, then how can we continue to draw the line at Palestinians?

“We know that the more you draw a line, the easier it gets to draw that line for more and more people, and the more you will end up justifying that which you might have previously considered to be unjustifiable.”

Mamdani said that if elected in the June 24, 2025, Democratic primary election, he would “treat everyone equally.”

“I think it absolutely extends also into policies and day-to-day impacts for New Yorkers, with one example to me being that as Democrats, we often rightfully talk about how guns on elementary school campuses, middle school campuses, high school campuses make that campus more unsafe.

“And we ridicule this Republican notion that the answer to gun violence is simply more armed officers on those sites of education,” Mamdani said.

“And yet when it comes to student organizing in support of policy and human rights, there were far too many elected officials in New York City who were supportive of the mayor’s decision to send the NYPD (New York Police Department) into Columbia and CUNY (City University of New York) campuses.

“And it is my belief in the necessity of consistent politics that leads me to say I will not be sending the police in to respond to an encampment of the like that we saw in the previous school year.

“Because the act of doing so actually made students far less safe than they were even prior to that, because one officer discharged their weapon in the course of that mission.

“And that is but a moment away from a student being killed by the NYPD. And I think it made it very crystal clear to me as to why we tend to oppose these things and why we need to do so no matter what the issue is.”

Mamdani said that mayor Adams, pro-Israel legislators and elected officials mischaracterized the student protests to justify both their defense of Tel Aviv and the assault on the protesters.

“I think it’s a mischaracterization of New Yorker sentiments. I think that a majority … especially of New York Democrats, want to see an end to the genocide, want to see a ceasefire.”

He said many have taken “umbrage at having a mayor who has refused to call for a ceasefire for more than a year, who has justified the killing of children, who has had meetings with billionaires, who have urged him to send in the police.”

Mamdani claimed that Adams had previously visited Israel “with a promise to increase cooperation with settlement leaders there.”

Mamdani said he has been attacked because of his insistence to stand up to one morality and one rule of law, denying that he is “antisemitic” or “anti-Israel.”

He fears that the damage caused by Tel Aviv’s actions, including the expansion of the Jewish-only settler movement, would prevent the two-state solution which is a part of the Democratic Party’s foreign policy on Israel and Palestine.

Mamdani insisted many New York voters who are Jewish defend Palestinian lives. “There is a large and beautiful Jewish population across New York City, and it is also like any other religions, politically diverse.

“And many of the acts of civil disobedience and protests that I’ve been a part of over the last year calling for a ceasefire, calling for an arms embargo, have in fact been led by Jewish New Yorkers.

“Thousands of Jewish New Yorkers. I’m proud to have been endorsed by Jewish Voice for Peace Action as the first-ever municipal candidate that they have endorsed in their history as an organization.”

Mamdani said he could win the election with his policies which include helping residents face the city’s “cost of living crisis.” If elected, he would provide universal and free childcare.

In addition, he would freeze the rent of more than 2 million New Yorkers in rent-stabilized apartments; and eliminate the fare on all city buses and make them faster (currently they are the slowest in the nation).

He would also lower the cost of groceries by piloting city-owned stores; and institute a comprehensive, evidence-based approach to public safety.

In 2020, Mamdani was the first South Asian man and only third Muslim elected to the New York State Assembly representing western Queens, New York.

He is the first Muslim elected official to run for mayor or any citywide office in New York City. He identifies both as a “socialist,” which he defines as serving all citizens justly and legally, and as a member of the Democrat Party.

If he wins the Democratic Party nomination, he will represent the party in the general election in November 2025.

Mamdani bids to replace incumbent Adams who faces multiple charges of bribery and campaign offenses.

Adams is alleged to have committed the offences over a decade while mayor and as the president of the Brooklyn borough.

He was elected New York City mayor in November 2021 having defeated Republican Curtis Sliwa.


‘Good morning, teacher!’ Senegal introduces English in nursery schools

‘Good morning, teacher!’ Senegal introduces English in nursery schools
Updated 12 sec ago
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‘Good morning, teacher!’ Senegal introduces English in nursery schools

‘Good morning, teacher!’ Senegal introduces English in nursery schools

DAKAR: “Good morning, teacher!” a chorus of Senegalese five-year-olds responded at a school where English has been introduced alongside the official language of French.

The pupils at the nursery school near central Dakar repeated the English words out loud.

“They’re interested in the lesson, and they start a conversation with ‘how are you?’” teacher Absa Ndiaye said.

Hers is one of more than 600 classes in Senegal that have been testing a new program of teaching English in nursery and primary schools since mid-January in a push for better connectivity with the wider world.

The developing country, which has seen a massive youth boom but also an exodus of young people searching for a better life, has recently become an oil and gas producer.

Senegal is a member of the Francophonie group of French-speaking nations and uses French in public schools and in administration.

Students also learn Arabic and the country’s national languages.

Until recently, English was only taught in public high schools and universities, although it is sometimes taught from nursery school onwards in the private sector.

President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who was elected in March on a nationalist ticket, is trying to recalibrate Senegal’s relationship with former colonial power France after decades of strong ties, without breaking away altogether.

Senegal will remain “the steadfast and reliable ally” of all its foreign partners, Faye announced, emphasising his desire to widen Senegal’s prospects.

Despite seven years of teaching, “students can barely communicate properly in English,” lamented Aissatou Sarr Cisse, who is in charge of the Education Ministry’s English program.

“We’re starting from a younger age so that they can improve their language skills.

“The aim is to shape people who are open to the world. Mastering English will give them access to opportunities and facilitate better collaboration with Senegal’s partners,” she said.

In the pilot schools, English is taught every Tuesday and Thursday — two lessons of 25 minutes each in nursery and two 30-minute lessons in primary schools.

The subjects taught include family, colors, everyday greetings, the environment and the weather.

Teacher Mamadou Kama listens to a conversation in English between two 13-year-olds in his class of around 60 at a primary school in Dakar’s working-class Medina neighborhood.

“I can see that the students are motivated. Some of them are asking for English lessons to be (taught) every day,” Kama, who has a degree in English, said.

Most of the teachers have not yet received the digital teaching materials the ministry is meant to provide, but Kama has tablets, video projectors and USB sticks given by the school’s management.

“We haven’t had the time to create handbooks. Computers have been ordered, and in the meantime, we have provided students with printed documents with fun pictures,” Cisse, from the education ministry, said.

The ministry has “invested in teachers who are proficient in English” and have been selected and trained after an application process, Cisse added.

The initiative has been praised by Ousmane Sene, director of the Dakar-based West African Research Center, which handles academic exchanges between US and west African universities.

“English is the most common language at an international level and it’s the most used language in diplomacy and international cooperation, so it’s an additional asset,” Sene said.

Additionally, the bulk of “global scientific output is written in English. If Senegal doesn’t adapt to this way of accessing knowledge, there will be an epistemological wall,” said his university colleague Mathiam Thiam, who was involved in creating the program.

But Sene said there was a “prerequisite — to train and equip the teachers well.”

Opponents of the scheme have criticized a shortfall in teachers.

“On these grounds alone, introducing English at nursery and primary school levels is a pipe dream, it’s impossible,” former member of parliament and retired teacher Samba Dioulde Thiam wrote in an opinion column.

“Is the aim to compete with French? Is the aim to flatter the Anglo-Saxons who dominate this planet and get them to give us resources?” Thiam wrote.

He pointed out that intellectuals have been demanding the introduction of Senegal’s national languages in education for many years which risks being “postponed indefinitely.”

Despite problems with training, Mathiam Thiam said “doctoral students are among the teachers who have been chosen.”

Former Education Minister Serigne Mbaye Thiam said that before launching the program, “it would have been wise to understand why Senegalese students who study English throughout high school struggle to reach the level required.”

Far from the controversy, though, Aissatou Barry, 13, said she “can’t wait to study English in sixth grade.”


White House confirms war crimes prosecutor first target of ICC sanctions

White House confirms war crimes prosecutor first target of ICC sanctions
Updated 56 min 48 sec ago
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White House confirms war crimes prosecutor first target of ICC sanctions

White House confirms war crimes prosecutor first target of ICC sanctions
  • Karim Khan, who is British, was named on Monday in an annex to an executive order signed by Trump last week
  • Sanctions include freezing of US assets of those designated and barring them and their families from visiting the United States

NEW YORK: International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan is the first person to be hit with economic and travel sanctions authorized by US President Donald Trump that target the war crimes tribunal over investigations of US citizens or US allies.
Khan, who is British, was named on Monday in an annex to an executive order signed by Trump last week. Reuters reported on Friday that Khan had been designated by Washington.
The sanctions, which repeat action Trump took during his first term, include freezing of US assets of those designated and barring them and their families from visiting the United States.
The ICC on Friday condemned the sanctions, pledging to stand by its staff and “continue providing justice and hope to millions of innocent victims of atrocities across the world, in all situations before it.”
Court officials met in The Hague on Friday to discuss the implications of the sanctions.
The International Criminal Court, which opened in 2002, has international jurisdiction to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in member states or if a situation is referred by the UN Security Council.
Under an agreement between the United Nations and Washington, Khan should be able to regularly travel to New York to brief the UN Security Council on cases it had referred to the court in The Hague. The Security Council has referred the situations in Libya and Sudan’s Darfur region to the ICC.
“We trust that any restrictions taken against individuals would be implemented consistently with the host country’s obligations under the UN Headquarters agreement,” deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said on Friday.


France in advanced talks to buy Indian rocket launcher system, Indian official says

France in advanced talks to buy Indian rocket launcher system, Indian official says
Updated 10 February 2025
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France in advanced talks to buy Indian rocket launcher system, Indian official says

France in advanced talks to buy Indian rocket launcher system, Indian official says
  • India is the world’s biggest arms importer, but has been trying to boost local production to meet its defense requirements
  • The Pinaka rocket system with a range of up to 90km was demonstrated to a French delegation in India around three months ago

BENGALURU: France is in advanced talks with India to buy a multi-barrel rocket launcher system, a top Indian official said on Monday, a potential deal that would be the first time India’s second-largest arms supplier buys weapons from New Delhi.
India is the world’s biggest arms importer, but has been trying to boost local production to meet its defense requirements and has been steadily raising its defense exports.
The domestically made Pinaka rocket system with a range of up to 90 km (56 miles) was demonstrated to a French delegation in India around three months ago and was found to be satisfactory, a second official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“France is in active talks for Pinaka,” Ummalaneni Raja Babu, the director general of missiles and strategic systems at India’s Defense Research and Development Organization, said on the sidelines of the Aero India aerospace exhibition in the southern city of Bengaluru.
“A deal has not been reached yet, but the talks are continuing,” said Babu.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi embarked on a visit to France on Monday to co-chair an artificial intelligence summit in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron and both leaders are scheduled to hold bilateral talks on Tuesday.
It was not immediately clear if the rocket system will feature in the talks, and India’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
France’s embassy in India did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside of business hours.
France was India’s second-largest arms supplier after Russia between 2019 and 2023, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
The Pinaka rocket launcher system, used by the Indian Army and deployed in the 1999 war between India and Pakistan, is also being enhanced with longer ranges, Babu said.


Paris AI summit pits innovation ambitions against job loss fears

People take part in the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit at the Grand Palais in Paris, Monday, Feb. 10, 2025. (AP)
People take part in the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit at the Grand Palais in Paris, Monday, Feb. 10, 2025. (AP)
Updated 10 February 2025
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Paris AI summit pits innovation ambitions against job loss fears

People take part in the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit at the Grand Palais in Paris, Monday, Feb. 10, 2025. (AP)
  • “We should not be afraid of innovation,” Macron told regional French newspapers
  • China’s DeepSeek challenged the United States’ AI leadership last month by freely distributing a human-like reasoning system

PARIS: France hopes that world leaders and tech executives at an artificial intelligence summit in Paris will agree the AI revolution should be inclusive and sustainable, although it was unclear on Monday whether the United States would be supportive.
Eagerness to rein in AI has waned since previous summits in Britain and South Korea that focused world powers’ attention on the technology’s risks after ChatGPT’s viral launch in 2022.
As US President Donald Trump has torn up his predecessor’s AI guardrails to promote US competitiveness, pressure has built on the European Union to pursue a lighter-touch approach to AI to help keep European companies in the tech race.
A January 30 version of the non-binding draft statement on AI stewardship, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, called for an “inclusive approach” to AI that is multi-stakeholder, human rights-based and bolsters the developing world.
The draft statement laid out priorities that included “avoiding market concentration” and “making AI sustainable for people and the planet.”
US Vice President JD Vance could spell out the United States’ views when he gives a speech at the summit on Tuesday.
Trump’s early moves on AI have underscored how far the strategies to regulate AI in the United States, China and EU have diverged.
And many at the two-day summit that started on Monday pushed the EU to soften its own rulebook.
“If we want growth, jobs and progress, we must allow innovators to innovate, builders to build and developers to develop,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in an op-ed in Le Monde newspaper.
Even the summit’s host, French President Emmanuel Macron said: “There’s a risk some decide to have no rules and that’s dangerous. But there’s also the opposite risk, if Europe gives itself too many rules.”
“We should not be afraid of innovation,” Macron told regional French newspapers.
European lawmakers last year approved the bloc’s AI Act, the world’s first comprehensive set of rules governing the technology.
China’s DeepSeek challenged the United States’ AI leadership last month by freely distributing a human-like reasoning system, galvanizing geopolitical and industry rivals to race faster still.
More investment
Meanwhile, one early outcome from the summit was the launch of Current AI, a partnership of countries such as France and Germany and industry players including Google and Salesforce.
With an initial $400 million in investment, the partnership will spearhead public-interest projects such as making high-quality data for AI available and investing in open-source tools. It is aiming for up to $2.5 billion in capital over five years.
Current AI founder Martin Tisné told Reuters a public-interest focus was necessary to avoid AI having downsides like social media has had. “We have to have learned the lessons,” he said.
Separately, France will announce private sector investments totaling some 109 billion euros ($113 billion) during the summit, Macron said on Sunday.
“The size of this 100 billion euro investment reassured us, in a way, that there’s going to be ambitious enough projects in France,” said Clem Delangue, the CEO of Hugging Face, a US company with French co-founders that is a hub for open-source AI online.
Risks
Not everyone in Paris agreed with taking a lighter-touch approach to AI regulation.
“What I worry about is that... there will be pressures from the US and elsewhere to weaken the EU’s AI Act and weaken those existing protections,” said Brian Chen, policy director at Data & Society, a US-based nonprofit.
Labour leaders expressed concerns on the impact of AI on workers, including what happens to workers whose jobs are taken over by AI and are pushed into new jobs.
“There is a risk of those jobs being much less paid and sometimes with much less protection,” said Gilbert F. Houngbo, director-general of the International Labour Organization.
Top political leaders including China’s Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing are also attending the summit, as well as top executives such as Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and OpenAI’s Altman.


China’s foreign minister to visit Britain on Thursday for talks

China’s foreign minister to visit Britain on Thursday for talks
Updated 10 February 2025
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China’s foreign minister to visit Britain on Thursday for talks

China’s foreign minister to visit Britain on Thursday for talks
  • Wang Yi to hold talks with his British counterpart David Lammy
  • Issues to be discussed include international security and the war in Ukraine

LONDON: China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi is due to visit Britain on Thursday to hold talks with his British counterpart David Lammy in a sign that relations between the countries are normalizing after years of tensions.
Issues to be discussed include international security and the war in Ukraine, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesman told reporters.
Lammy and Wang will revive the UK-China Strategic Dialogue, a forum last held in 2018 to discuss bilateral issues.
That dialogue was paused during the COVID-19 pandemic and after Britain restricted some Chinese investment on worries over national security and over a crackdown on freedoms in Hong Kong.
The Labour government, in power in Britain since July, has made improving ties with China one of its main foreign policy goals after a period under successive Conservative governments when relations plunged to their lowest level in decades.
British finance minister Rachel Reeves visited China last month in a bid to revive economic and financial talks that had been frozen since 2019.
Wang’s visit will come two days after the start of an inquiry ordered by British government into China’s stalled plans to build a large embassy in London.
The Chinese government purchased Royal Mint Court, a historic site near the Tower of London, in 2018 but had its requests for planning permission to build the new embassy there rejected by the local council.
The stalled project had been a source of diplomatic tension between the two countries.
Lammy and interior minister, Yvette Cooper, recently come out in support of the plan, which is opposed by local politicians and residents.