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Category: Human rights

Facing Trump’s threats, Columbia inquisition targets students critical of Israel

Facing Trump’s threats, Columbia inquisition targets students critical of Israel

The Associated Press reports: Columbia University senior Maryam Alwan was visiting family in Jordan over winter break when she received an email from the school accusing her of harassment. Her supposed top offense: writing an op-ed in the student newspaper calling for divestment from Israel. The probe is part of a flurry of recent cases brought by a new university disciplinary committee — the Office of Institutional Equity — against Columbia students who have expressed criticism of Israel, according to…

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DOGE’s foreign aid cuts spark ‘total chaos’ around the world

DOGE’s foreign aid cuts spark ‘total chaos’ around the world

Wired reports: Representatives from dozens of nonprofit organizations attending a major human rights conference in Taipei, Taiwan, last week woke up Thursday to devastating news. Over the previous night in Asia, the Donald Trump administration had abruptly announced it would end nearly 10,000 contracts and grants from the US State Department, including the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) as well as the US Agency for International Development, representing about 90 percent of USAID’s contracts overall. The announcement…

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USAID cuts to foreign aid will bring disease and death to millions

USAID cuts to foreign aid will bring disease and death to millions

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration’s decision to withdraw foreign aid and dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development is likely to cause enormous human suffering, according to estimates by the agency itself. Among them: up to 18 million additional cases of malaria per year, and as many as 166,000 additional deaths; 200,000 children paralyzed with polio annually, and hundreds of millions of infections; one million children not treated for severe acute malnutrition, which is often fatal, each…

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Israel cuts off humanitarian supplies to Gaza as it tries to upend ceasefire deal

Israel cuts off humanitarian supplies to Gaza as it tries to upend ceasefire deal

The Guardian reports: Israel has cut off humanitarian supplies to Gaza in an effort to pressure Hamas into accepting a change in the ceasefire agreement to allow for the release of hostages without an Israeli troop withdrawal. The office of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Sunday it was imposing a blockade on Gaza because Hamas would not accept a plan which it claimed had been put forward by the US special envoy, Steve Witkoff, to extend phase one…

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The Trump administration said these aid programs saved lives. It canceled them anyway

The Trump administration said these aid programs saved lives. It canceled them anyway

By Anna Maria Barry-Jester and Brett Murphy This story was originally published by ProPublica After the Trump administration moved to freeze nearly $60 billion in foreign aid in January, officials like Secretary of State Marco Rubio repeatedly assured Americans that lifesaving operations would continue. “We don’t want to see anybody die,” he told reporters in early February. Aid organizations the world over scrambled to prove their work saved lives, seeking permission from the State Department and the U.S. Agency for…

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Musk’s Starlink is keeping modern slavery compounds in operation

Musk’s Starlink is keeping modern slavery compounds in operation

Wired reports: The plea for help arrived last summer. “I am in Myanmar and work for a fraud company,” a Chinese human-trafficking victim wrote in a short email sent from within the Tai Chang scam compound. Like thousands of others in the region, they were promised legitimate work only to find themselves tricked into modern slavery and forced to scam people online for hours every day. Tai Chang, which backs on to the Myanmar-Thailand border, has been linked to incidents…

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‘Worse than the Second Intifada’: West Bank refugees reel from Israeli offensive

‘Worse than the Second Intifada’: West Bank refugees reel from Israeli offensive

Hanno Hauenstein reports: Sameera Abu Rmeleh steps over mountains of rubble and debris to reach what’s left of her home in Jenin refugee camp. It’s a cold, rainy day in the northern West Bank, and the camp is almost unrecognizable. Smashed concrete, burned-out cars, bullet casings, and the lifeless bodies of stray dogs line the streets as far as the eye can see. About 100 meters away, Israeli bulldozers and armored vehicles move around with purpose. “What is happening now…

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Christian asylum seekers and other migrants deported to Panama forced into ‘fenced cages’ in jungle

Christian asylum seekers and other migrants deported to Panama forced into ‘fenced cages’ in jungle

The New York Times reports: Nearly 100 migrants, recently deported by the United States to Panama where they had been locked in a hotel, were loaded onto buses Tuesday night and moved to a detention camp on the outskirts of the jungle, several of the migrants said. It is unclear how long the group, which was deported under the Trump administration’s sweeping effort to expel unauthorized migrants, will be detained at the jungle camp. Conditions at the site are primitive,…

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Gaza transfer plan: The banality of ethnic cleansing

Gaza transfer plan: The banality of ethnic cleansing

Member of the Knesset, Ahmad Tibi, writes: Widespread support for the idea of transferring the population of Gaza to other countries, alongside the notion that “there are no innocent people” in the Palestinian enclave, constitute a betrayal of every moral principle that should guide a people who endured the Holocaust. All those who support the “voluntary migration” proposal should understand: the Palestinian people are not going anywhere. The fact that polls show overwhelming support among Jewish Israelis for the idea…

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Naomi Klein on Trump, Gaza and the end of the ‘liberal order’

Naomi Klein on Trump, Gaza and the end of the ‘liberal order’

Democracy in Exile reports: “The end of the bombs does not mean the end of the genocide, unfortunately,” award-winning author and journalist Naomi Klein says of the cease-fire struck on January 15 between Israel and Hamas. “Gaza is a crime scene. I think that there’s still going to be a great deal of effort to suppress an honest examination of what has happened in Gaza and what is ongoing.” In a wide-ranging interview with Democracy in Exile, Klein discusses Donald…

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Trump wants to force Palestinians out of Gaza permanently

Trump wants to force Palestinians out of Gaza permanently

The New York Times reports: President Trump said the nearly two million Palestinians that he wants to displace from the Gaza Strip would not be allowed to return to the territory under his hypothetical plan to rebuild it. In a clip from a Fox News interview scheduled to air on Monday, Mr. Trump elaborated on his recent proposal for an American-led takeover of Gaza. Asked if Palestinians who would be removed from the territory while it is cleared would have…

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I saw illegality and complicity with war crimes. That’s why I quit the UK Foreign Office

I saw illegality and complicity with war crimes. That’s why I quit the UK Foreign Office

Mark Smith writes: My name is Mark Smith. I am a former diplomat and policy adviser at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). I spent my career working in the Middle East directorate and serving in the Arab world. As a lead officer on arms sales policy, I was responsible for assessing whether the UK government’s arms sales adhered to legal and ethical standards under domestic and international law. In August 2024, I resigned over the UK government’s refusal…

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Trump’s gutting of foreign aid is a threat to global health

Trump’s gutting of foreign aid is a threat to global health

Jeremy Youde writes: In its chaotic first few weeks, one of the new Trump administration’s many targets has been global health. With a few strokes of a Sharpie, President Donald Trump halted nearly all U.S. foreign assistance programs, including those for global health, and started the process of pulling the United States out of the World Health Organization. Trump made a range of false claims about foreign aid to support his moves, including spreading the lie that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) sent…

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Trump’s talk of a Gaza takeover masks a more immediate disaster

Trump’s talk of a Gaza takeover masks a more immediate disaster

Neil Hicks writes: The most important outcome of President Donald Trump’s White House press conference this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not Trump’s lawless and immoral musing that the U.S. would “take over” Gaza to create a new “Riviera of the Middle East.” While Trump’s outrageous comments, as they so often do, ignited dutiful praise from his supporters and instant condemnation from his opponents, the intense focus on the U.S. occupying Gaza and forcibly displacing its entire…

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A Palestinian father and journalist reflects on the ceasefire in Gaza

A Palestinian father and journalist reflects on the ceasefire in Gaza

Mohammed Mhawish writes: On the morning of Sunday, Jan. 19, I turned to my son, Rafik. He was building something with blocks, his small hands working furiously to stack them higher and higher. I watched as the tower wobbled and fell. He laughed and started over again. He kept rebuilding, and it kept falling, over and over. I could feel it inside me, somehow — joy and sorrow fighting for control, just like my son’s toy tower. One moment, his…

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Trump’s Gaza proposal rejected by allies and condemned as plan for ethnic cleansing

Trump’s Gaza proposal rejected by allies and condemned as plan for ethnic cleansing

The Guardian reports: Donald Trump’s proposal that large numbers of Palestinians should leave Gaza to “just clean out” the whole strip has been rejected by US allies in the region and attacked as dangerous, illegal and unworkable by lawyers and activists. The US president said he would like hundreds of thousands of people to move to neighbouring countries, either “temporarily or could be long-term”. Destinations could include Jordan, which already hosts more than 2.7 million Palestinian refugees, and Egypt, he…

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