Pro-Palestine Oxbridge students set up encampments

The pro-Palestine encampment at Oxford University. (X)
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Updated 06 May 2024
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Pro-Palestine Oxbridge students set up encampments

  • They are demanding transparency about the universities’ financial links to Israel
  • ‘We will not move until our demands are met’

LONDON: Students at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge have set up encampments in support of Palestine, The Times reported on Monday.

Around 50 have refused to leave the lawn of King’s College, Cambridge, while students have also declared a “liberated zone” outside Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum.

A banner hung outside King’s College read: “Welcome to the people’s university for Palestine.” Chants of “stop the bombing now” have also been heard on the campus.

The protests have been organized by Oxford Action for Palestine and Cambridge for Palestine.

They are demanding transparency about the universities’ financial links to Israel, which they have described as a “settler colonial state,” and are calling for the end of all investments and endowments from Israeli and Israel-linked companies.

“We have set up camp in university grounds, and we will not move until our demands are met,” the groups said in a statement, adding that the universities are legitimate targets for protests because of their “role in the British empire and its disastrous colonial legacies.”

The Times reported that protesters had been given an itinerary for their involvement including “de-escalation training” and “banner-making.”

A spokesperson for Cambridge University said it is for the college to decide whether to call the police, adding: “The university is fully committed to academic freedom and freedom of speech within the law and we acknowledge the right to protest.

“We ask everyone in our community to treat each other with understanding and empathy. Our priority is the safety of all staff and students.

“We will not tolerate antisemitism, Islamophobia and any other form of racial or religious hatred, or other unlawful activity.”

The relatively small UK protests come after nearly 2,000 people were arrested across the US after widespread demonstrations on over 130 American university campuses about Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza.


A small plane crashes into the terrace of a house in Germany. 2 people are dead

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A small plane crashes into the terrace of a house in Germany. 2 people are dead

The plane hit the terrace of the building and a fire broke out

BERLIN: A small plane crashed into the terrace of a residential building in western Germany on Saturday and two people were killed, police said.

The crash happened in Korschenbroich, near the city of Mönchengladbach and not far from the Dutch border.

The plane hit the terrace of the building and a fire broke out. Police said two people died and one of them was probably the plane’s pilot, German news agency dpa reported.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the other person had been on the plane or on the ground.

Officials had no immediate information on the cause of the crash.

Georgia’s foreign-agents act ‘a serious setback’: EU officials

Updated 21 min 38 sec ago
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Georgia’s foreign-agents act ‘a serious setback’: EU officials

  • Georgia’s law is inspired by US legislation which makes it mandatory for any person or organization representing a foreign country, group or party to declare its activities to authorities

BRUSSELS: A new law in Georgia that from Saturday requires NGOs and media outlets to register as “foreign agents” if they receive funding from abroad is a “serious setback,” for the country, two top EU officials said.

Alongside other laws on broadcasting and grants, “these repressive measures threaten the very survival of Georgia’s democratic foundations and the future of its citizens in a free and open society,” EU diplomatic chief Kaja Kallas and EU enlargement commissioner Marta Kos said in a joint statement.

They stressed that the law, which they dubbed a tool “by the Georgian authorities to suppress dissent (and) restrict freedoms,” jeopardized the country’s ambitions of one day joining the European Union.

“Georgia’s Foreign Agents Registration Act marks a serious setback for the country’s democracy,” they said.

Georgia’s law is inspired by US legislation which makes it mandatory for any person or organization representing a foreign country, group or party to declare its activities to authorities.

But NGOs believe it will be used by Georgia’s illiberal and Euroskeptic government to further repression of civil society and the opposition.

The Black Sea nation has been rocked by daily demonstrations since late last year, with protesters decrying what they see as an increasingly authoritarian and pro-Russia government.

Tensions escalated in November when Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced that Georgia would postpone EU membership talks until 2028.

“The EU is ready to consider the return of Georgia to the EU accession path if the authorities take credible steps to reverse democratic backsliding,” Kallas and Kos said in their statement.


France’s prison population reaches all-time high

Updated 31 May 2025
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France’s prison population reaches all-time high

  • Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin, who has called the overcrowding crisis “unacceptable,” has suggested building new facilities to accommodate the growing prison population

PARIS: France’s prison population hit a record high on May 1, with 83,681 inmates held in facilities that have a capacity of just 62,570, justice ministry data showed on Saturday.
Over the past year, France’s prison population grew by 6,000 inmates, taking the occupancy rate to 133.7 percent.
The record overcrowding has even seen 23 out of France’s 186 detention facilities operating at more than twice their capacity.
Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin, who has called the overcrowding crisis “unacceptable,” has suggested building new facilities to accommodate the growing prison population.
The hard-line minister announced in mid-May a plan to build a high-security prison in French Guiana — an overseas territory situated north of Brazil — for the most “dangerous” criminals, including drug kingpins.
Prison overcrowding is “bad for absolutely everyone,” said Darmanin in late April, citing the “appalling conditions” for prisoners and “the insecurity and violence” faced by prison officers.
A series of coordinated attacks on French prisons in April saw assailants torching cars, spraying the entrance of one prison with automatic gunfire, and leaving mysterious inscriptions.
The assaults embarrassed the right-leaning government, whose tough-talking ministers — Darmanin and Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau — have vowed to step up the fight against narcotics.
And in late April, lawmakers approved a major new bill to combat drug-related crime, with some of France’s most dangerous drug traffickers facing detention in high-security prison units in the coming months.
France ranks among the worst countries in Europe for prison overcrowding, placing third behind Cyprus and Romania, according to a Council of Europe study published in June 2024.


Evacuation order for 11 villages on Ukraine border with Russia

Updated 31 May 2025
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Evacuation order for 11 villages on Ukraine border with Russia

  • Russia’s defense ministry on Saturday said its forces had taken another Sumy village, Vodolagy, known as Vodolahy in Ukrainian

KYIV: Authorities in Ukraine’s Sumy region bordering Russia on Saturday ordered the mandatory evacuation of 11 villages because of bombardments, as Kyiv feared a Russian offensive there.
“This decision takes into account the constant threat to civilian lives because of the bombardments of border communities,” Sumy’s administration said.
Russia’s defense ministry on Saturday said its forces had taken another Sumy village, Vodolagy, known as Vodolahy in Ukrainian.
Russia in recent weeks has claimed to have taken several villages in the northeastern region, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said this week that Moscow was massing more than 50,000 soldiers nearby in a sign of a possible offensive.
A spokesman for Ukraine’s border guard service, Andriy Demchenko, on Thursday said that Russia was poised to “attempt an attack” on Sumy.
He said the Russian troop build-up began when Moscow’s forces fought Ukrainian soldiers who last year had entered the Russian side of the border, in the Kursk region.
Russia has recently retaken control of virtually all of Kursk.
Currently, Russia — which launched its all-out invasion in February 2022 — controls around 20 percent of Ukrainian territory. The ongoing conflict has killed tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians on both sides.
Washington has been leading diplomatic efforts to try to bring about a ceasefire, but Kyiv and Moscow accuse each other of not wanting peace.
The Kremlin has proposed further negotiations in Istanbul on Monday, after a May 16 round of talks that yielded little beyond a large prisoner-of-war exchange.
Kyiv has not yet said whether it will attend the Istanbul meeting, and is demanding that Moscow drop its opposition to an immediate truce.


Afghanistan welcomes upgraded diplomatic ties with Pakistan

Updated 31 May 2025
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Afghanistan welcomes upgraded diplomatic ties with Pakistan

  • The move signals easing tensions between the neighboring countries have cooled in recent months
  • Tensions fueled by security concerns and a campaign by Islamabad to expel tens of thousands of Afghans

KABUL: Afghanistan has welcomed the decision to upgrade diplomatic relations with Pakistan, where the Taliban government’s foreign minister is due to travel in the coming days, his office said on Saturday.

The move signals easing tensions between the neighboring countries, as relations between the Taliban authorities and Pakistan – already rocky – have cooled in recent months, fueled by security concerns and a campaign by Islamabad to expel tens of thousands of Afghans.

Pakistan’s top diplomat on Friday said the charge d’affaires stationed in Kabul would be elevated to the rank of ambassador, with Kabul later announcing its representative in Islamabad would also be upgraded.

“This elevation in diplomatic representation between Afghanistan & Pakistan paves the way for enhanced bilateral cooperation in multiple domains,” the Aghan foreign ministry said on X.

Kabul’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi is due to visit Pakistan “in the coming days,” ministry spokesman Zia Ahmad Takal said.

Muttaqi met with Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar in May in Beijing as part of a trilateral meeting with their Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.

Wang afterwards announced Kabul and Islamabad’s intention to exchange ambassadors and expressed Beijing’s willingness “to continue to assist with improving Afghanistan-Pakistan ties.”

Dar hailed the “positive trajectory” of Pakistan-Afghanistan relations on Friday, saying the upgrading of their representatives would “promote further exchanges between two fraternal countries.”

Only a handful of countries – including China – have agreed to host Taliban government ambassadors since their return to power in 2021, with no country yet formally recognizing the administration.

Russia last month said it would also accredit a Taliban government ambassador, days after removing the group’s “terrorist” designation.