Rights abuses continue in North Korea a decade after probe, says UN investigator
A North Korean flag flutters on top of a 160-metre tower in North Korea's propaganda village of Gijungdong in this picture taken from the Dora observatory near the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas, in Paju, South Korea, April 24, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji/File Photo
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4 hours ago
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US judge orders release of protest leader
US judge orders release of protest leader Supporters of Mahmoud Khalil say he was unlawfully targeted for his advocacy of Palestinian rights. Photo: Reuters A federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Friday to release Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student who became a leader of pro-Palestinian campus protests. Khalil, a legal permanent US resident who is married to a US citizen and has a US-born son, has been in custody since March facing potential deportation. District Judge Michael Farbiarz ordered Khalil's release on bail during a hearing on Friday and he will be allowed to return to New York while his deportation case proceeds. "After more than three months, we can finally breathe a sigh of relief and know that Mahmoud is on his way home," his wife, Michigan-born dentist Noor Abdalla, said in a statement. "We know this ruling does not begin to address the injustices the Trump administration has brought upon our family and so many others the government is trying to silence for speaking out against Israel's ongoing genocide against Palestinians," added Abdalla, who gave birth to the couple's first child while her husband was in detention. Amol Sinha, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, which is among the groups representing Khalil, welcomed the release order. "This is an important step in vindicating Mr Khalil's rights as he continues to be unlawfully targeted by the federal government for his advocacy in support of Palestinian rights," Sinha said. "We're confident he will ultimately prevail in the fight for his freedom." Since his March 8 arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Khalil has become a symbol of President Donald Trump's campaign to stifle pro-Palestinian student activism against the Gaza war, in the name of curbing anti-Semitism. At the time a graduate student at Columbia University in New York, Khalil was one of the most visible leaders of nationwide campus protests against Israel's war in Gaza. Following his arrest, US authorities transferred Khalil, who was born in Syria to Palestinian parents, nearly 2,000 kilometres from his home in New York to a detention center in Louisiana, pending deportation. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has invoked a law approved during the 1950s Red Scare that allows the United States to remove foreigners seen as adverse to US foreign policy. Rubio argues that US constitutional protections of free speech do not apply to foreigners and that he alone can make decisions without judicial review. (AFP)
RTHK
5 hours ago
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No nuclear talks unless Israel stops attack, says Iran
No nuclear talks unless Israel stops attack, says Iran Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghch says Tehran would not resume negotiations with the United States until Israel stopped its attacks. Photo: Reuters Iran said on Friday it would not discuss the future of its nuclear programme while under attack by Israel, as Europe tried to coax Tehran back into negotiations and the United States considers whether to get involved in the conflict. A week into its campaign, Israel said it had struck dozens of military targets, including missile production sites, a research body it said was involved in nuclear weapons development in Tehran and military facilities in western and central Iran. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said there was no room for negotiations with the US "until Israeli aggression stops". But he later arrived in Geneva for talks with European foreign ministers at which Europe hopes to establish a path back to diplomacy. US President Donald Trump said on Friday he was unlikely to press Israel to scale back its airstrikes to allow negotiations to continue. "I think it's very hard to make that request right now. If somebody is winning, it's a little bit harder to do than if somebody is losing, but we're ready, willing and able, and we've been speaking to Iran, and we'll see what happens," he said. Speaking to reporters after his plane landed in Morristown, New Jersey, Trump said he doubted European negotiators would be able to secure a ceasefire. "Iran doesn't want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us. Europe is not going to be able to help in this one," Trump said. Trump also said that Iran had a "maximum" of two weeks to avoid possible US air strikes, indicating he could take a decision before the fortnight deadline he set a day earlier. "I'm giving them a period of time, and I would say two weeks would be the maximum," Trump told reporters when asked if he could decide to strike Iran before that. Trump had said in a statement on Thursday that he would "make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks" because there was a "substantial chance of negotiations" with Iran. Those comments had been widely seen as opening a two-week window for negotiations to end the war between Israel and Iran. But his latest remarks indicated Trump could still make his decision before that if he feels that there has been no progress towards dismantling Iran's nuclear program. On Friday, Trump again disagreed with his own national intelligence director, Tulsi Gabbard, by insisting that Iran does have the capability to build a nuclear weapon. "She's wrong," Trump said. Gabbard testified to Congress in March that the US intelligence community continued to judge that Tehran was not working on a nuclear warhead. (Agencies)
RTHK
5 hours ago
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Court blocks Trump ban on foreign students at Harvard
Court blocks Trump ban on foreign students at Harvard A US court issued an injunction to prevent US authorities from immediately revoking Harvard's ability to enroll international students. Photo: Reuters A federal judge on Friday indefinitely paused Donald Trump's bid to block Harvard from enrolling foreign students as the US president said a "deal" with the Ivy League school was in the works. The order by District Judge Allison Burroughs will allow international students to continue to attend the elite university while a lawsuit filed by Harvard plays out in the courts. Trump, who has cut federal grants for Harvard and tried a host of different tactics to block the institution from hosting international students, said that his administration has been holding negotiations with Harvard. "Many people have been asking what is going on with Harvard University and their largescale improprieties that we have been addressing, looking for a solution," Trump said in a post Friday on Truth Social. "We have been working closely with Harvard, and it is very possible that a Deal will be announced over the next week or so," he said. "If a Settlement is made on the basis that is currently being discussed, it will be 'mindbogglingly' HISTORIC, and very good for our Country." Trump did not provide any details about the purported deal. The Trump administration has sought to remove Harvard from an electronic student immigration registry and instructed embassies to deny visas to international students hoping to attend the Massachusetts-based university. Harvard has sued the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies to block the efforts, arguing that they were illegal and unconstitutional. Harvard previously secured two temporary restraining orders from Burroughs against the government's move to bar international students, and the judge extended it with a preliminary injunction on Friday. International students accounted for 27 percent of total enrollment at Harvard in the 2024-2025 academic year and are a major source of income. In court filings, Harvard argued that Trump's actions were "retribution for Harvard's exercising its First Amendment rights to reject the government's demands to control Harvard's governance, curriculum, and the 'ideology' of its faculty and students." Alongside the campaign against foreign students, the Trump administration has also cut around $3.2 billion of federal grants and contracts benefiting the university and pledged to exclude it from any future federal funding. Harvard has been at the forefront of Trump's campaign against top universities after it defied his calls to submit to oversight of its curriculum, staffing, student recruitment and "viewpoint diversity." Trump and his allies claim that Harvard and other prestigious universities are unaccountable bastions of liberal, anti-conservative bias and anti-Semitism. (AFP)
