Harvard and University of Toronto make contingency plan for international students
FILE PHOTO: A view of the Business School campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., April 15, 2025. REUTERS/Faith Ninivaggi/File Photo
TORONTO - Harvard University and the University of Toronto have unveiled a contingency plan that would allow select Harvard graduate students to continue their studies in Canada if U.S. visa restrictions prevent them from re-entering the United States.
It is the first international student backup strategy announced since the U.S. Department of Homeland Security moved last month to strip Harvard of its ability to enroll international students. A federal judge has since blocked the government's move.
In response to potential U.S. visa challenges, students at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government who are unable to return to the United States will have the option to continue their studies through a visiting student program at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.
The program would combine courses taught by Kennedy and Munk faculty, the deans of both institutions said in a statement sent to Reuters this week.
The contingency plans are being announced to ease student uncertainty, but will only be implemented if there is enough demand from those unable to enter the U.S. due to visa or entry restrictions, the statement said.
'With these contingency plans in place, HKS will be able to continue to provide a world-class public policy education to all of our students, even if they cannot make it to our campus this year," Harvard Kennedy School Dean Jeremy Weinstein said.
The program will be available to international students who have already completed one year at the U.S. campus.
U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has threatened or moved to cut billions of dollars in federal research funding for Harvard. The administration has accused the university of failing to adequately address antisemitism and campus violence, violating reporting requirements, and coordinating with foreign entities, including China's Communist Party, in ways that raise national security concerns.
Over the past five years, 52% of Kennedy students have come from outside the United States, the school's media office said.
The school enrolls 739 students from 92 countries in programs aimed at developing leadership in public policy and government, according to the Harvard International Office website. REUTERS
Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Straits Times
21 minutes ago
- Straits Times
Uber in talks with founder to help buy US unit of China's self-driving start-up Pony AI
It is unclear what role, if any, Uber would take in Pony as an investor. PHOTO: REUTERS Uber in talks with founder to help buy US unit of China's self-driving start-up Pony AI SAN FRANCISCO – Uber is increasingly grappling with competition from self-driving taxi services like Waymo. Now the ride-hailing giant is taking more action to deal with that threat. Uber is in talks with Travis Kalanick, the company's co-founder who was forced out in a boardroom coup eight years ago, to help fund his acquisition of the US subsidiary of a Chinese autonomous vehicle company, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The company, was founded in Silicon Valley in 2016 but has its main presence in China, and has permits to operate robot taxis and trucks in the United States and China. The talks are preliminary, said the people. Mr Kalanick will run Pony if the deal is completed, they said. It is unclear what role, if any, Uber would take in Pony as an investor. Financial details of the potential transaction could not be determined. Pony went public in 2024 in the US, raising US$260 million (S$332 million) in a share sale. Its market capitalisation stands at around US$4.5 billion. If the deal goes through, Mr Kalanick, 48, will remain in his day job running CloudKitchens, a virtual restaurant start-up that he founded after leaving Uber in 2017. He would also work more closely with Dara Khosrowshahi, who took over as Uber's chief executive after Mr Kalanick's ouster. The discussions are the starkest sign yet that Uber is under pressure from Waymo, the driverless car unit spun out of Google, and other autonomous car services. Last week Tesla also unveiled a limited robot taxi service in Austin, Texas. Over time, these autonomous vehicle services may replace or eat into rides from human drivers. In cities like San Francisco where robot taxi services are available, the vehicles have become ubiquitous and are popular. An Uber spokesperson declined to comment on deal talks and said, 'Uber has a platform strategy, and we intend to work with multiple players in the US and around the world who can safely bring autonomous technology to the world.' NYTIMES Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Business Times
35 minutes ago
- Business Times
Core inflation in Japan's capital slows but stays above BOJ target
[TOKYO] Core consumer inflation in Japan's capital slowed in June but stayed well above the central bank's 2 per cent target, data showed on Friday, keeping alive market expectations for further interest rate hikes. The Tokyo consumer price index (CPI), which excludes volatile fresh food costs, rose 3.1 per cent in June from a year earlier, government data showed, compared with a median market forecast for a 3.3 per cent gain. It slowed from a 3.6 per cent increase in May. A separate index for Tokyo that strips away both fresh food and fuel costs - closely watched by the Bank of Japan as a measure of domestic demand-driven prices - rose 3.1 per cent in June from a year earlier after a 3.3 per cent gain in May, the data showed. The BOJ exited a decade-long, radical stimulus programme last year and raised short-term interest rates to 0.5 per cent in January on the view Japan was on the cusp of sustainably hitting its 2 per cent inflation target. Governor Kazuo Ueda has said the BOJ will keep pushing up borrowing costs if continued wage gains underpin consumption and allow firms to raise prices, thereby maintaining inflation stably around its 2 per cent target. The rising cost of living has drawn the attention of some BOJ board members including Naoki Tamura, who said on Wednesday the BOJ may need to raise interest rates 'decisively' if upward inflation risks heighten. REUTERS
AsiaOne
35 minutes ago
- AsiaOne
No known intelligence that Iran moved uranium, US defence chief says, World News
WASHINGTON - US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday said he was unaware of any intelligence suggesting Iran had moved any of its highly enriched uranium to shield it from US strikes, amid continuing questions about the state of Iran's nuclear programme. US military bombers carried out strikes against three Iranian nuclear facilities early Sunday local time using more than a dozen 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs. The results of the strikes are being closely watched to see how far they may have set back Iran's nuclear programme, after President Donald Trump said it had been obliterated. "I'm not aware of any intelligence that I've reviewed that says things were not where they were supposed to be, moved or otherwise," Hegseth told an often fiery news conference. Trump, who watched Hegseth's exchange with reporters, echoed his defence secretary, saying it would have taken too long to remove anything. "The cars and small trucks at the site were those of concrete workers trying to cover up the top of the shafts. Nothing was taken out of (the) facility," Trump wrote on his social media platform, without providing evidence. Several experts have cautioned that Iran likely moved a stockpile of near weapons-grade highly enriched uranium out of the deeply buried Fordow site before the strikes, and could be hiding it in unknown locations. They noted satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies showing "unusual activity" at Fordow on Thursday and Friday, with a long line of vehicles waiting outside an entrance to the facility. A senior Iranian source told Reuters on Sunday most of the 60 per cent highly enriched uranium had been moved to an undisclosed location before the attack. WHEREABOUTS OF URANIUM The Financial Times, citing European intelligence assessments, reported that Iran's highly enriched uranium stockpile remains largely intact since it was not concentrated at Fordow. Hegseth's comments denying such claims came at the news briefing where he also accused journalists of downplaying the success of the strikes following a leaked preliminary assessment from the Defence Intelligence Agency suggesting they may have only set back Iran by months. He said the assessment was low confidence, and, citing comments from CIA Director John Ratcliffe, had been overtaken by intelligence showing Iran's nuclear programme was severely damaged and would take years to rebuild. US senators briefed later on Thursday by Ratcliffe, Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it was clear the strikes had damaged Iran's nuclear facilities, though it would take time to assess by how much. "I will say it was not part of the mission to destroy all their enriched uranium or to seize it or anything else," Republican Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton of Arkansas told reporters after the classified briefing, adding that he was confident the mission was "extraordinary." Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Intelligence Committee Democrat, said the only way to be certain about Iran's nuclear capabilities was to have inspectors on the ground. "It was clear, and again, this is long before this brief, that some of the enriched uranium was never going to be taken out by a bunker-buster bomb, so some of that obviously remains," Warner said. Tulsi Gabbard, who normally would conduct such briefings as director of national intelligence, did not participate. Trump said last week that she was wrong in suggesting there was no evidence Iran was building a nuclear weapon. The four officials were due to brief the House of Representatives on Friday. Senators are expected to vote this week on a resolution that would require congressional approval for strikes against Iran, which is not expected to be enacted. At the Pentagon news conference, Hegseth described the strikes as "historically successful." His comments came after Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran would respond to any future US attack by striking American military bases in the Middle East. Khamenei claimed victory after 12 days of war, and promised Iran would not surrender despite Trump's calls. MEDIA 'HATRED' During the news conference, Hegseth criticised the media, without evidence, for having an anti-Trump bias. "It's in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump because you want him not to be successful so bad," Hegseth said. "There are so many aspects of what our brave men and women did that ... because of the hatred of this press corps, are undermined," he said. Trump praised Hegseth's news conference as: "One of the greatest, most professional, and most 'confirming' News Conferences I have ever seen!" On X, Hegseth thanked Trump for his praise. During the press conference, Caine, the top US general, largely stuck to technical details, showing a video testing the bombs on a bunker like the ones struck on Sunday. Caine declined to provide his own assessment of the strike, deferring to the intelligence community. He denied being under pressure to present a more optimistic view of the US strikes and said he would not change his assessment due to politics. Uniformed military officials are supposed to remain apolitical. "I've never been pressured by the president or the secretary to do anything other than tell them exactly what I'm thinking, and that's exactly what I've done," Caine said.
