Gaza war protesters arrested at offices of US Senators Schumer and Gillibrand
More than 100 protesters, who were organised by anti-war group Jewish Voice for Peace, chanted and banged pots and pans in the lobby of the Third Avenue building where the two senators have office space.
– Dozens of demonstrators protesting against Israel's war in the Gaza Strip were arrested on Aug 1 at the midtown Manhattan offices of New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, days after they broke with many of their fellow Democrats by voting against a resolution to halt US arms sales to Israel.
Pressure has mounted on Democratic lawmakers to press Israel to end its military activity in Gaza, where famine and starvation have spread in recent weeks, and allow in a flood of aid.
On Aug 1, more than 100 protesters, who were organised by anti-war group Jewish Voice for Peace, chanted and banged pots and pans in the lobby of the Third Avenue building where Mr Schumer, the Senate minority leader, and Ms Gillibrand have office space.
'New Yorkers are heartbroken, America is heartbroken,' said City Council member Alexa Aviles, who protested on Aug 1. 'We want an end to the war, we want peace.'
The traditional bipartisan consensus in support of Israel among US lawmakers has collapsed over the course of Israel's nearly two-year war in Gaza, which has killed more than 60,000 people, according to Gaza officials.
Support for the war has plunged into the single digits among Democratic voters, and on July 30, 27 Democratic senators voted to halt US weapons transfers to Israel in protest against the war and the deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
On Aug 1, two elected Democrats, City Council member Tiffany Caban and Assembly member Claire Valdez, were arrested outside Mr Schumer and Ms Gillibrand's offices.
Top stories
Swipe. Select. Stay informed.
Singapore Opening of Woodlands Health has eased load on KTPH, sets standard for future hospitals: Ong Ye Kung
Singapore New vehicular bridge connecting Punggol Central and Seletar Link to open on Aug 3
Singapore New S'pore jobs portal launched for North West District residents looking for work near home
Singapore HSA investigating teen allegedly vaping on MRT train
Asia KTM plans new passenger rail service in Johor Bahru to manage higher footfall expected from RTS
Singapore Tengah facility with over 40 animal shelters, businesses hit by ticks
Business Property 'decoupling' illegal if done solely to avoid taxes: High Court
Singapore 60 years of building Singapore
Gaza has teetered on the brink of famine since the early months of the war, which began after a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that killed more than 1,000 people on Oct 7, 2023, but the crisis has exploded since March, when Israel blocked the entry of humanitarian goods into the enclave in a bid to squeeze concessions from Hamas.
Israel later established a new aid distribution system. But the Gaza Ministry of Health reported more than 40 hunger-related deaths in July, including 16 children, and at least 111 since the beginning of the war, 81 of them children.
The data could not be independently verified. NYTIMES
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Straits Times
2 hours ago
- Straits Times
Israel says ground troops conducted raids in Syria
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox Israeli troops patrol the border fence with Syria near the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights. JERUSALEM - Israel's military said on Aug 3 ground troops had operated in southern Syria, seizing weapons and questioning individuals suspected of arms trafficking, in the latest cross-border raid since the fall of Mr Bashar al-Assad in December. A military statement said that troops had completed overnight 'a mission involving on-site questioning of several suspects involved in weapons trafficking in the Hader area in southern Syria', near the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. 'Troops entered four locations simultaneously and located numerous weapons that the suspects had been trafficking,' the statement said. Footage released by the military showed uniformed Israeli troops in armoured vehicles and on foot operating at night. An Israeli army division remains 'deployed in the area, continuing to operate and prevent the entrenchment of any terrorist elements in Syria, with the aim of protecting Israeli civilians, and in particular, the residents of the Golan Heights', the military said. As an Islamist-led offensive late in 2024 toppled Syrian president Assad , Israel deployed troops to the UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights which has separated Israeli and Syrian forces following their 1973 war. In July, Israel bombed Syrian government forces in the capital Damascus and in Sweida province to force their withdrawal from the southern region amid a wave of sectarian violence. Israel said it was acting in defence of the Druze community, but some diplomats and analysts say its goal is to weaken the Syrian military and keep the forces of the new government away from the frontier. Israel launched hundreds of strikes on military sites followingMr Asaad's overthrow in December, saying at the time it wanted to prevent weapons from falling into the hands of the new authorities it considers jihadists. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demanded the demilitarisation of southern Syria. AFP
Straits Times
2 hours ago
- Straits Times
Armed groups attack security force personnel in Syria's Sweida, killing one, state TV reports
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox Armed groups attacked personnel from Syria's internal security forces in Sweida, killing one member and wounding others, and fired shells at several villages in the violence-hit southern province, state-run Ekhbariya TV reported on Sunday. The report cited a security source as saying the armed groups had violated the ceasefire agreed in the predominantly Druze region, where factional bloodshed killed hundreds of people last month. Violence in Sweida erupted on July 13 between tribal fighters and Druze factions. Government forces were sent to quell the fighting, but the bloodshed worsened, and Israel carried out strikes on Syrian troops in the name of the Druze. The Druze are a minority offshoot of Islam with followers in Syria, Lebanon and Israel. Sweida province is predominantly Druze but is also home to Sunni tribes, and the communities have had long-standing tensions over land and other resources. A U.S.-brokered truce ended the fighting, which had raged in Sweida city and surrounding towns for nearly a week. Syria said it would investigate the clashes, setting up a committee to investigate the attacks. The Sweida bloodshed last month was a major test for interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, after a wave of sectarian violence in March that killed hundreds of Alawite citizens in the coastal region. REUTERS
Straits Times
3 hours ago
- Straits Times
China can buy Nvidia H20 chips again. But it's not all good news
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox The Cyberspace Administration of China on July 31 flagged concerns about possible 'backdoor' security risks associated with the H20 chips, which American chipmaker Nvidia has denied. – Two weeks after Nvidia's chief executive Jensen Huang mounted a charm offensive to court the Chinese market, the American chip giant found itself once again the centre of attention in Beijing – and not in a good way. 'Nvidia, how can I trust you?' So read the headline of a commentary published by the People's Daily, the communist party's mouthpiece, a day after Chinese regulators summoned on July 31 the company's representatives over what they deemed 'serious security issues' related to its chips. The processor in question, known as the H20, was until recently the most advanced chip that Nvidia could sell to China under US restrictions. Washington effectively banned their exports in April amid an escalating trade war, but said in July that it would allow sales to resume. Some US officials touted the easing of export controls as a negotiating chip in ongoing trade talks with Beijing. But this apparent concession, analysts say, is not necessarily all good news for China. 'The reversal of the H20 ban offers short-term relief for China's artificial intelligence (AI) industry,' said Mr Charlie Dai, a vice president and principal analyst at advisory firm Forrester Research. 'On the other hand, it could slow domestic chipset adoption and impact the pace of technology self-reliance (amid) ongoing geopolitical frictions.' A taste for Nvidia China has been advocating the use of homegrown chips by its companies as part of a broader push for self-reliance, including in key technologies such as AI. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore LTA, Singapore bus operators reviewing Malaysia's request to start services from JB at 4am Singapore Despite bag checks and warnings, young partygoers continue to vape in clubs in Singapore Singapore President Tharman meets migrant workers who saved driver of car that fell into sinkhole Singapore Now flying solo, Acres CEO Kalaivanan Balakrishnan presses ahead with wildlife rescue efforts Opinion The charm – and drawbacks – of living in a time warp in Singapore Business UMS Integration becomes first SGX company with secondary listing in Malaysia Singapore Ong Beng Seng to plead guilty on Aug 4, more than 2 years after trip to Qatar with Iswaran Business Decoupling to save on tax? You may lose right to property if ties go awry Despite this, many Chinese AI firms – in particular private tech giants – are said to still prefer using Nvidia's H20s to train and run their models, even though the chips are not Nvidia's most powerful. After the US announced a lifting of its export ban, news agency Reuters reported that Chinese companies were scrambling to buy the H20s, citing sources. It also said that Nvidia had placed fresh orders for 300,000 chipsets from its contract manufacturer amid strong Chinese demand. 'The general sense is that Chinese customers, especially Bytedance, Baidu, Tencent and Alibaba, still prefer Nvidia's solutions, whether it's H20 or whatever comes next,' said Mr Ray Wang, research director for semiconductors, supply chain and emerging tech at advisory firm The Futurum Group. Nvidia's edge over its Chinese rivals – which 'continue to improve' – is manifold for now, he explained. Its hardware has larger memory bandwidth, making it better for inference tasks, or the application of trained AI models that makes them useful in the real world. The company also has a stronger software platform with which to program the chips, as well as more capable networking technology to harness the combined performance of hundreds and thousands of processors, Mr Wang said. Importantly, he added, Chinese firms' rivalry with Huawei – seen as the biggest domestic rival to Nvidia on the chip front – also fuels their preference for the American chipmaker. Huawei has a sprawling business empire that boasts not just chipsets, but also extends to cloud computing and AI model development. This puts them in direct competition with the other tech giants. Mr Wang said: 'So if you're Alibaba or Tencent, do you want to source your most important computing resources from Huawei?' The push for self-reliance Nvidia's current advantages notwithstanding, analysts say that China will simultaneously double down on growing its domestic chip ecosystem – a goal that could be helped by regulators' recent scrutiny of the American firm. The Cyberspace Administration of China had on July 31 flagged concerns about possible 'backdoor' security risks associated with the H20 chips, which Nvidia has denied . A People's Daily commentary released on social media the next day sketched out possible 'nightmare' scenarios associated with such risks, such as electric cars suddenly losing power on the highway. It asked the company to provide proof of the chips' security to alleviate users' worries. The regulators' move 'will likely cause Chinese tech firms to temporarily curb adoption (of the H20) due to fears of potential vulnerabilities and regulatory uncertainty, despite strong underlying demand,' said Mr Dai of Forrester Research. He added that even as companies' continued reliance on Nvidia's superior AI capabilities may sustain some purchases of its chips, he expected firms to simultaneously also accelerate shifts towards domestic alternatives. Mr Su Lian Jye, chief analyst at technology research firm Omdia, said that Chinese firms in recent years had already been buying more homegrown chipsets or developing their own amid sharpening geopolitical tensions. These include China's three major telcos, banks, cloud service providers, and various other state-linked companies, he said. Tech giants including Baidu and Alibaba are also developing their own chips. In recent weeks, following news that Nvidia would once again be allowed to ship H20s to China, local firms have spoken up about strengthening support for homegrown chipmakers. On July 25, AI start-up StepFun, a model developer, announced an 'ecosystem innovation alliance' with several domestic chip companies including Huawei, Cambricon, Moore Threads and MetaX, news outlet Caixin reported. The same day, StepFun released a large language model that was developed with the properties of domestic chips in mind, the report also said. Separately, co-founder of cyber-security company Qihoo 360 Zhou Hongyi said on July 23 that his company had turned to procuring domestic chips, and that its recent purchases had all been of Huawei products, news outlet Yicai reported. The company, which has also branched into AI, is on the US' entity list, which restricts access to American technology. Mr Zhou acknowledged that there was a 'gap' between Chinese chips and Nvidia's, but stressed the need to use domestic processors anyway, in comments that were videoed and uploaded to social media. 'If you don't use them, the gap will always be there,' he said. 'The more (you) use them, the more they will improve.'
