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Columbia University faculty stand up to defend students in Gaza Solidarity Encampment

Columbia University faculty stand up to defend students in Gaza Solidarity Encampment

NOW: Columbia University faculty link arms and form a wall in front of the entrance to the ‘Gaza Solidarity Encampment’ as hundreds of students encircle the both lawns Students remaining in the encampment were told they could face disciplinary action after 2PM pic.twitter.com/C1XRgHzs8b — katie smith (@probablyreadit) April 29, 2024 My office was right by the encampment, and I cannot understand how it interferes with exams. It’s that little red circle. Not a single notable the protest in the history…

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Academic freedom under fire

Academic freedom under fire

Louis Menand writes: The congressional appearance last month by Nemat Shafik, the president of Columbia University, was a breathtaking “What was she thinking?” episode in the history of academic freedom. It was shocking to hear her negotiating with a member of Congress over disciplining two members of her own faculty, by name, for things they had written or said. The next day, in what appeared to be a signal to Congress, Shafik had more than a hundred students, many from…

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The storm brewing in Michigan

The storm brewing in Michigan

Slate reports: With its rich, dark wood, golden décor, and an invigorating oud musk, the American Moslem Society on the south end of Dearborn, Michigan, masks its age well. Opened in 1937, it was the first mosque in America to broadcast the call to prayer through loudspeakers. It was founded by Arab immigrants who had initially been drawn by the promise of $5-a-day jobs at a nearby Ford plant, which laid the foundation for what is now America’s largest concentration…

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Reimagining balance

Reimagining balance

Joel Kaye writes: Between approximately 1250 and 1375, a manifestly new sense of what balance is, and can be, emerged. When projected onto the workings of the world, this new sense transformed the ways the workings of both nature and society could be seen, comprehended and explained. The result was a momentous break with the intellectual past, opening up striking new vistas of imaginative and speculative possibility. The group of medieval scholars whose speculations most clearly reflected this new modelling…

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Yes, it is genocide

Yes, it is genocide

Holocaust scholar Amos Goldberg (translated by Sol Salbe) writes: Yes, it is genocide. It is so difficult and painful to admit it, but despite all that, and despite all our efforts to think otherwise, after six months of brutal war we can no longer avoid this conclusion. Jewish history will henceforth be stained with the mark of Cain for the “most horrible of crimes,” which cannot be erased from its forehead. As such, this is the way it will be…

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Over 600 Israeli extremists storm Al-Aqsa Mosque during Jewish Passover holiday

Over 600 Israeli extremists storm Al-Aqsa Mosque during Jewish Passover holiday

The New Arab reports: Over 600 Israeli extremists stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem early on Sunday, the Islamic Endowment Department which runs the holy site said. The storming coincided with the sixth day of the week-long Jewish holiday of Passover, The extremists performed Talmudic rituals in the mosque’s courtyards under the protection of Israeli forces, the department said. Video clips shared online showed the extremists entering the site, considered the third holiest in Islam. Many prominent extremist Israeli figures…

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Israel rebukes U.S. calls for investigation into mass graves in Gaza

Israel rebukes U.S. calls for investigation into mass graves in Gaza

Politico reports: Israel’s military says it already looked into reports of mass graves and found no wrongdoing by its forces, even as the Biden administration calls for an investigation into the matter. Over the past few days, U.S. officials, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan, have called for Israel to “thoroughly and transparently” investigate reports of mass graves at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, which Israeli forces last raided in February. The State Department came under fire from advocates for…

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Gaza’s 37 million tonnes of bomb-filled debris could take 14 years to clear, says expert

Gaza’s 37 million tonnes of bomb-filled debris could take 14 years to clear, says expert

The Guardian reports: Israel’s war in Gaza has created 37m tonnes of debris, much of it laced with unexploded bombs, which could take more than a decade to remove, a top UN demining official said. Nearly seven months into the war, there is an average 300kg of rubble a square metre of land in Gaza, Pehr Lodhammar, the former United Nationals Mine Action Service chief for Iraq, told a news conference. “Based on the current [amount] of debris in Gaza,…

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The far right alliance dedicated to the cause of raising the U.S. birth rate

The far right alliance dedicated to the cause of raising the U.S. birth rate

Gaby Del Valle writes: The threat, we are told here this weekend, is existential, biological, epoch-defining. Economies will fail, civilizations will fall, and it will all happen because people aren’t having enough babies. “The entire global financial system, the value of your money, and every asset you might buy with money is defined by leverage, which means its value depends on growth,” Kevin Dolan, a 37-year-old father of six from Virginia, tells the crowd that has gathered to hear him…

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Renewables cover 56 percent of Germany electricity use in March quarter

Renewables cover 56 percent of Germany electricity use in March quarter

Renew Economy reports: Renewable energy sources covered around 56 percent of electricity consumption in Germany in the first three months of the year, according to preliminary calculations by the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW) and utility association BDEW. “In total, renewable energy plants generated around 75.9 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity from January to March, around nine percent more than in the same period last year,” BDEW said. Onshore wind energy plants alone produced 39.4…

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DNA from ancient graves reveals the culture of a mysterious nomadic people

DNA from ancient graves reveals the culture of a mysterious nomadic people

Nature reports:Most people know about the Huns, if only because of their infamous warrior-ruler Attila. But the Avars, another nomadic people who subsequently occupied roughly the same region of eastern and central Europe, have remained obscure despite having assembled a sprawling empire that lasted from the late sixth century to the early ninth century. Even archaeologists have struggled to piece together their history and culture, relying on spotty and potentially biased contemporaneous chronicles that, in many cases, were authored by…

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Naomi Klein: Jews must raise voices for Palestine and oppose the ‘false idol of Zionism’

Naomi Klein: Jews must raise voices for Palestine and oppose the ‘false idol of Zionism’

  Hundreds of protesters were arrested in Brooklyn on Tuesday when Jewish New Yorkers and allies gathered for what they called a “Seder in the Streets to Stop Arming Israel” on the second night of Passover. The demonstration, held one block away from the home of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, came just hours before the Senate overwhelmingly approved a $95 billion foreign aid package that includes about $17 billion in arms and security funding to Israel. “Too many of…

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‘Political arrest’ of Palestinian academic in Israel marks new civil liberties threat

‘Political arrest’ of Palestinian academic in Israel marks new civil liberties threat

The Guardian reports: The arrest and interrogation of a leading Palestinian legal scholar based at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem marks a new threat to civil liberties in Israel, her legal team and employer have said. Prof Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian was detained by police on the afternoon of 18 April over comments made on a podcast more than a month earlier and held overnight in conditions her lawyers described as “terrible” and designed to humiliate. “This case is unique,” said Hassan…

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Some U.S. officials say in internal memo Israel may be violating international law in Gaza

Some U.S. officials say in internal memo Israel may be violating international law in Gaza

Reuters reports: Some senior U.S. officials have advised Secretary of State Antony Blinken that they do not find “credible or reliable” Israel’s assurances that it is using U.S.-supplied weapons in accordance with international humanitarian law, according to an internal State Department memo reviewed by Reuters. Other officials upheld support for Israel’s representation. Under a National Security Memorandum (NSM) issued by President Joe Biden in February, Blinken must report to Congress by May 8 whether he finds credible Israel’s assurances that…

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