Freed Palestinian student accuses Columbia University of inciting violence

Freed Palestinian student accuses Columbia University of inciting violence
Palestinian student Mohsen Mahdawi arrested as he was about to finalize his US. citizenship accused Columbia University on Thursday of eroding democracy with its handling of campus protests against the Israel-Hamas war. (AP/File)
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Updated 09 May 2025
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Freed Palestinian student accuses Columbia University of inciting violence

Freed Palestinian student accuses Columbia University of inciting violence
  • Mahdawi said instead of being a “beacon of hope,” the university is inciting violence against students
  • “Columbia University is participating in the destruction of the democratic system,”

NEW YORK: A Palestinian student arrested as he was about to finalize his US citizenship accused Columbia University on Thursday of eroding democracy with its handling of campus protests against the Israel-Hamas war.

Mohsen Mahdawi, 34, who led anti-war protests at the Ivy League school in New York in 2023 and 2024, spent 16 days in a Vermont prison before a judge ordered him released on April 30.

On Friday, an appeals court in New York denied the government’s request to halt that order, saying the Trump administration’s jurisdictional arguments were unlikely to succeed and that it hadn’t shown that Mahdawi’s release has caused irreparable harm.

“Individual liberty substantially outweighs the government’s weak assertions of administrative and logistical costs,” wrote the three-judge panel at the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Trump administration has said Mahdawi should be deported because his activism threatens its foreign policy goals, but the judge who released him on bail ruled that he has raised a “substantial claim” that the government arrested him to stifle speech with which it disagrees.

Mahdawi spoke to The Associated Press on Thursday, a day after pro-Palestinian protesters clashed with campus security guards inside the university’s main library. At least 80 people were taken into custody, police said.

Mahdawi said instead of being a “beacon of hope,” the university is inciting violence against students.

“Columbia University is participating in the destruction of the democratic system,” Mahdawi said in the interview. “They are supporting the initiatives and the agenda of the Trump administration, and they are punishing and torturing their students.”

A spokesperson for Columbia University, which in March announced sweeping policy changes related to protests following Trump administration threats to revoke its federal funding, declined to comment Thursday beyond the response of the school’s acting president to Wednesday’s protests.

The acting president, Claire Shipman, said the protesters who had holed up inside a library reading room were asked repeatedly to show identification and to leave, but they refused. The school then asked police in “to assist in securing the building and the safety of our community,” she said in a statement Wednesday evening, calling the protest actions “outrageous” and a disruption to students for final exams.

Mahdawi, a legal permanent resident, was born in a refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and moved to the United States in 2014.

At Columbia, he organized campus protests and co-founded the Palestinian Student Union with Mahmoud Khalil, another Palestinian permanent resident of the US and graduate student who was arrested in March.

On April 14, Mahdawi had taken a written citizenship test, answered verbal questions and signed a document about the pledge of allegiance at an immigration office in Colchester when his interviewer left the room. Masked and armed agents then entered and arrested him, he said. Though he had suspected a trap, the moment was still shocking, he said, triggering a cascade of contrasting emotions.

“Light and darkness, cold and hot. Having rights or not having rights at all,” he said.

Immigration authorities have detained college students from around the country since the first days of the Trump administration, many of whom participated in campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war. Mahdawi was among the first to win release from custody after challenging his arrest.

In another case, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday in favor of Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk, upholding an order to transfer her from a Louisiana detention center back to New England to determine whether her rights were violated and if she should be released.

Mahdawi said his message to the Turkish student and others was “stay positive and don’t let this injustice shake your belief in the inevitability of justice.”
“People are working hard. Communities are mobilizing,” he said. “The justice system has signaled to America with my case, and with Rumeysa’s yesterday with the Second Circuit, that justice is functioning and checks and balances is still in function.”

Mahdawi’s release, which is being challenged by the government, allows him to travel outside of his home state of Vermont and attend his graduation from Columbia in New York later this month. He said he plans to do so, though he believes the administration has turned its back on him and rejected the work of a student diplomacy council he served on alongside Jewish, Israeli and Lebanese students.

“I plan to attend the graduation because it is a message,” he said. “This is a message that education is hope, education is light, and there is no power in the world that should take that away from us.”


Pakistan bans new hotel construction around tourist lakes

Pakistan bans new hotel construction around tourist lakes
Updated 5 sec ago
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Pakistan bans new hotel construction around tourist lakes

Pakistan bans new hotel construction around tourist lakes
  • Unregulated construction of hotels and guest houses in Gilgit-Baltistan has sparked major concerns about environmental degradation
  • The natural beauty of the region has made it a top tourist destination, with towering peaks looming over the Old Silk Road
GILGIT, Pakistan: Pakistan will ban for five years the construction of new hotels around picturesque lakes in the north that attract tens of thousands of tourists each year, a government agency said.
Unregulated construction of hotels and guest houses in Gilgit-Baltistan – which boasts around 13,000 glaciers, more than any other country on Earth outside the polar regions – has sparked major concerns about environmental degradation.
The natural beauty of the region has made it a top tourist destination, with towering peaks looming over the Old Silk Road, and a highway transporting tourists between cherry orchards, glaciers, and ice-blue lakes.
However, in recent years construction has exploded led by companies from outside the region, straining water and power resources, and increasing waste.
“If we let them construct hotels at such pace, there will be a forest of concrete,” Khadim Hussain, a senior official at the Gilgit-Baltistan Environmental Protection Authority said on Friday.
“People don’t visit here to see concrete; people come here to enjoy natural beauty,” he added.
Last month, a foreign tourist posted a video on Instagram – which quickly went viral – alleging wastewater was being discharged by a hotel into Lake Attabad, which serves as a freshwater source for Hunza.
The next day, authorities fined the hotel more than $5,000.
Asif Sakhi, a political activist and resident of the Hunza Valley, welcomed the ban.
“We have noticed rapid changes in the name of tourism and development,” he said, adding hotel construction was “destroying our natural lakes and rivers.”
Shah Nawaz, a hotel manager and local resident of the valley, also praised the ban, saying he believes “protecting the environment and natural beauty is everyone’s responsibility.”

Germany deports 81 Afghan nationals to their homeland, the 2nd flight since the Taliban’s return

Germany deports 81 Afghan nationals to their homeland, the 2nd flight since the Taliban’s return
Updated 37 min 12 sec ago
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Germany deports 81 Afghan nationals to their homeland, the 2nd flight since the Taliban’s return

Germany deports 81 Afghan nationals to their homeland, the 2nd flight since the Taliban’s return
  • The Interior Ministry announced the flight on Friday, emphasizing that those deported had prior legal issues
  • This is the first deportation under Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has pledged stricter migration policies since taking office in May

BERLIN: Germany deported dozens of Afghan nationals to their homeland on Friday, the second time it has done so since the Taliban returned to power and the first since a new government pledging a tougher line on migration took office in Berlin.
The Interior Ministry said a flight took off Friday morning carrying 81 Afghans, all of them men who had previously come to judicial authorities’ attention. It said in a statement that the deportation was carried out with the help of Qatar, and said the government aims to deport more people to Afghanistan in the future.
More than 10 months ago, Germany’s previous government deported Afghan nationals to their homeland for the first time since the Taliban returned to power in 2021. Then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz vowed to step up deportations of asylum-seekers.
New Chancellor Friedrich Merz made tougher migration policy a central plank of his campaign for Germany’s election in February.
Just after he took office in early May, the government stationed more police at the border and said some asylum-seekers trying to enter Europe’s biggest economy would be turned away. It also has suspended family reunions for many migrants.
The flight took off hours before German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt plans to meet his counterparts from five neighboring countries — France, Poland, Austria, Denmark and the Czech Republic — as well as the European Union’s commissioner responsible for migration, Magnus Brunner. Dobrindt is hosting the meeting to discuss migration on the Zugspitze, Germany’s highest peak, on the Austrian border.


Taiwan will not provoke confrontation with China; does not seek conflict says vice president

Taiwan will not provoke confrontation with China; does not seek conflict says vice president
Updated 39 min 49 sec ago
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Taiwan will not provoke confrontation with China; does not seek conflict says vice president

Taiwan will not provoke confrontation with China; does not seek conflict says vice president
  • Chinese pressure on Taiwan had only escalated over the past few years but that the island’s people were peace-loving

TAIPEI: Taiwan does not seek conflict with China and will not provoke confrontation and Beijing’s “aggressive” military posturing was counterproductive, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim said on Friday.

China considers democratic Taiwan as part of its own territory and calls President Lai Ching-te a “separatist.” Taiwan’s government disputes China’s claim.

Speaking to the Taiwan Foreign Correspondents’ Club in the capital Taipei, Hsiao said that Chinese pressure on Taiwan had only escalated over the past few years but that the island’s people were peace-loving.

“We do not seek conflict; we will not provoke confrontation,” she said, reiterating Lai’s offer of talks between Taipei and Beijing.

For decades, Taiwan’s people and business have contributed to China’s growth and prosperity, which has only been possible under a peaceful and stable environment, Hsiao added.

“Aggressive military posturing is counterproductive and deprives the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait of opportunities to pursue an agenda of growth and prosperity,” she said.

“Defending the status quo (with China) is our choice, not because it is easy, but because it is responsible and consistent with the interests of our entire region.”


North Korea bars foreign tourists from new seaside resort

North Korea bars foreign tourists from new seaside resort
Updated 18 July 2025
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North Korea bars foreign tourists from new seaside resort

North Korea bars foreign tourists from new seaside resort
  • The Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone appears to be lined with high-rise hotels and waterparks
  • State media previously said visits to Wonsan by Russian tour groups were expected in the coming months

SEOUL: North Korea has barred foreigners from a newly opened beach resort, the country’s tourism administration said this week, just days after Russia’s top diplomat visited the area.

The sprawling seaside resort on its east coast, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s pet project, opened to domestic visitors earlier this month with great fanfare in state-run media.

Dubbed “North Korea’s Waikiki” by South Korean media, the Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone appears to be lined with high-rise hotels and waterparks, and can purportedly accommodate some 20,000 people.

State media previously said visits to Wonsan by Russian tour groups were expected in the coming months.

But following Lavrov’s visit, the North’s National Tourism Administration said “foreign tourists are temporarily not being accepted” without giving further details, in a statement posted on an official website this week.

Kim showed a keen interest in developing North Korea’s tourism industry during his early years in power, analysts have said, and the coastal resort area was a particular focus.

He said ahead of the opening of the beach resort that the construction of the site would go down as “one of the greatest successes this year” and that the North would build more large-scale tourist zones “in the shortest time possible.”

The North last year permitted Russian tourists to return for the first time since the pandemic and Western tour operators briefly returned in February this year.

Seoul’s unification ministry, however, said that it expected international tourism to the new resort was “likely to remain small in scale” given the limited capacity of available flights.

Kim held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Wonsan last week where he offered Moscow his full and “unconditional” support for its war in Ukraine, KCNA reported.

Lavrov reportedly hailed the seaside project as a “good tourist attraction,” adding it would become popular among both local and Russian visitors looking for new destinations.

Ahead of Lavrov’s recent visit, Russia announced that it would begin twice-a-week flights between Moscow and Pyongyang.


Myanmar junta offers cash rewards to anti-coup defectors

Myanmar junta offers cash rewards to anti-coup defectors
Updated 18 July 2025
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Myanmar junta offers cash rewards to anti-coup defectors

Myanmar junta offers cash rewards to anti-coup defectors
  • The Southeast Asian country has been consumed by civil war since a 2021 coup
  • Embattled junta faces an array of pro-democracy guerillas and ethnic armed rebels

YANGON: Myanmar’s junta said Friday it is offering cash rewards to fighters willing to desert armed groups defying its rule and “return to the legal fold” ahead of a slated election.

The Southeast Asian country has been consumed by civil war since a 2021 coup, with the embattled junta facing an array of pro-democracy guerillas and ethnic armed rebels.

After suffering major battlefield reverses, the military has touted elections around the end of the year as a pathway to peace – plans denounced as a sham by opposition groups and international monitors.

State media The Global New Light of Myanmar said Friday “individuals who returned to the legal fold with arms and ammunition are being offered specific cash rewards.”

The junta mouthpiece did not specify how much cash it is offering, but said 14 anti-coup fighters had surrendered since it issued a statement pledging to “welcome” defectors two weeks ago.

“These individuals chose to abandon the path of armed struggle due to their desire to live peacefully within the framework of the law,” the newspaper said.

The surrendered fighters included 12 men and two women, it added.

Nine were members of ethnic armed groups, while five were from the pro-democracy “People’s Defense Forces” – formed after the military ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected civilian government four years ago.

The junta’s offer of a gilded olive branch matches a tactic used by its opponents – who have previously tried to tempt military deserters with cash rewards.

The “National Unity Government,” a self-proclaimed administration in exile dominated by ousted lawmakers, has called the junta’s call for cooperation “a strategy filled with deception aimed at legitimizing their power-consolidating sham election.”