Latest news with #Shafik
The Sun
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Humble wife's viral billboard birthday surprise for husband
A touching birthday tribute from a wife to her husband has captured the hearts of millions after going viral on TikTok, amassing over 3.5 million views. In a TikTok video, user @apiknadia surprised her husband, Abiy, with a 15-second birthday message displayed on a digital billboard in the bustling Bukit Bintang area. ALSO READ: Wife recovers over RM10,000 in coins from bathroom door thanks to husband's habit The video, which appeared on a giant LED screen, celebrated Shafik's 36th birthday and paid tribute to his dedication as an ice lorry driver. 'I want to tell the people of Bukit Bintang — I'm proud of you, Abiy,' she wrote in the caption. 'I'm happy and proud even though my husband is just an ice lorry driver who doesn't wear a uniform,' she revealed in the comments. Netizens flooded her comments with heartfelt messages and praise for her touching tribute and unwavering support for her husband. 'How sweet of you to highlight that he works for the family,' one user called immi ani commented. 'It's so sad to watch. Because our husbands are also like that—simple in appearance and working hard for the family. Even though their bodies hurt, they just smile. It makes me think of my own husband. Happy birthday to your husband, sis,' lenrena3 wrote. 'A wife's effort truly cannot be beaten,' cikbungaross commented.
New York Times
20-03-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Trump's Battles With Colleges Could Change American Culture for a Generation
In October 2023, three days before Hamas fighters attacked Israel, Columbia University's new president stood outside Low Library and posed a foundational question. 'What,' she asked, 'does the world need from a great university in the 21st century?' The president, Nemat Shafik, argued that the world required much. Rigorous thinkers who were grounded in the age's great debates. Researchers whose breakthroughs could transform societies. Universities that extended their missions far beyond their gates. Seventeen months later, Dr. Shafik is gone and the Trump administration is offering a far different answer. The ideal Dr. Shafik described, much of it historically bankrolled by American taxpayers, is under siege, as President Trump ties public money to his government's vision for higher education. That vision is a narrower one. Teach what you must, defend 'the American tradition and Western civilization,' prepare people for the work force, and limit protests and research. 'I have not experienced, across 46 years of higher education, a period where there's been this much distance' between the agendas of university leaders and Washington, said Robert J. Jones, the chancellor of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The outcome of this clash over the purpose of higher education stands to shape American culture for a generation or more. If the president realizes his ambitions, many American universities — public and private, in conservative states and liberal ones — could be hollowed out, imperiling the backbone of the nation's research endeavors. Two months into Mr. Trump's term, universities are laying off workers, imposing hiring freezes, shutting down laboratories and facing federal investigations. After the administration sent Columbia a list of demands and canceled $400 million in grants and contracts, university leaders across the country fear how the government might wield its financial might to influence curriculums, staffing and admissions. 'Colleges have gotten hundreds of billions of dollars from hard-working taxpayers,' Mr. Trump said in a campaign video. 'And now we are going to get this anti-American insanity out of our institutions once and for all. We are going to have real education in America.' The goal, Mr. Trump declared, is to reclaim 'our once-great educational institutions from the radical left.' Other Republicans have spoken, often in more measured language, about their own frustrations with higher education. Senator Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, bluntly complained during a hearing last month that colleges were 'not preparing students to succeed in the modern work force.' With presidential power magnified by a largely genuflecting Congress, Mr. Trump's challenges to academic freedom and First Amendment protections have not provoked broad and visible public outrage. The sobering reality for university leaders is that Mr. Trump has the administrative upper hand, and academia has startlingly few vocal allies. The fusillade against higher education led by Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance — men with Ivy League degrees — is more furious than past conservative crusades against the country's elite academic institutions. The administration, though, is capitalizing on imperfections that have been tearing at the system's stature for years. 'His genius was in understanding and then exploiting the resentments, the anxieties, and the vulnerabilities of' voters who already had 'critical sentiments' toward higher education, Ronald J. Daniels, the president of Johns Hopkins University, wrote of Mr. Trump in his 2021 book, 'What Universities Owe Democracy.' Private polling conducted for universities shows that many people believe that these nonprofit institutions are anything but — one consequence of high tuition costs. Even though a college education almost always provides graduates with higher lifetime incomes, rising debt has made the value of a degree a matter of debate. Politicians have eagerly caricatured colleges as sanctuaries of intolerance and 'wokeism' where admissions processes favor the well-connected. For all of their grand talk — 'For Humanity' is the name of Yale University's $7 billion fund-raising campaign — administrators and professors often acknowledge that they have not mustered easy-to-digest responses against even routine criticisms. Universities strained to be more accessible, building up more diverse classes and handing out more financial aid. But Chancellor Jones, who will become the University of Washington's president this summer, nevertheless described higher education's public relations strategy as 'a work in progress.' Many leaders concede that while the role of the university in American life is clear to them, it has grown muddled to many. 'Higher education has always been able to stand up and invoke its moral authority,' said Roger L. Geiger, a distinguished professor emeritus at Pennsylvania State University and a leading authority on the history of American colleges. 'What's happened is they've simply lost that moral authority.' The Pew Research Center found in 2012 that 26 percent of Americans believed that colleges and universities were negatively affecting the United States. Last year, even before the campus demonstrations that led to thousands of arrests, Pew reported that figure had increased to 45 percent. Much of Mr. Trump's higher education agenda during his first term empowered for-profit colleges. Now, though, Mr. Trump is taking clearer aim at the cultures and missions of major nonprofit universities. His tactics, university officials and researchers believe, could throw American higher education toward an earlier time — closer to when, as Dr. Shafik put it, universities 'were kept separate from the world around them.' American higher education predates the republic itself. Harvard, for example, was established in the colonial period to educate clergymen. George Washington's idea for a national university was never realized, but Abraham Lincoln found more success pursuing the idea that higher education was entwined with American ambition when he signed the measure that led to publicly funded land-grant institutions. Research became a focus of universities late in the 19th century. The nation's reliance on universities greatly accelerated during and after World War II, as the United States began to lean on academia more than most other countries. Essential to the system was Washington's new willingness to underwrite overhead costs of expensive research projects. By 1995, the National Academy of Sciences concluded that universities were 'the core strength' of the American research-and-development apparatus. Universities also assumed part of the United States' soft-power strategy, working on foreign aid projects that spanned the globe. That symbiotic arrangement is now in jeopardy. The administration has framed its proposed cuts to overhead expenses, for instance, as a way 'to ensure that as many funds as possible go toward direct scientific research costs.' But administration officials have also depicted the longstanding framework in harsh terms, including the assertion that it created a 'slush fund' for liberal university administrators. As Dr. Geiger put it, the Trump administration's approach represented 'a new era.' Besides upending individual studies, cuts to federal money could unleash dramatic consequences for the structures and objectives of universities. 'No one can assume, for example, that biochemistry is going to have a sustained future of generous funding,' said John Thelin, a professor emeritus at the University of Kentucky and a former president of the Association for the Study of Higher Education. He could think of no president, provost or medical school dean who had, in recent years, appeared particularly nervous about an evaporation of funding. These days, it is hard to find a president, provost or medical school dean who is not anxious about something. At Illinois, the federally funded Soybean Innovation Lab will close next month. Dr. Jones fears that research on everything from insulin production to artificial intelligence could ultimately wither, undermining the university's ability to advance what he called 'the public good.' 'Before, we were just trying to tell our story to improve the value proposition in the eyes of the public, but now it becomes a bigger, much larger issue than that,' said Dr. Jones, one of the few top university chiefs who have been willing to be interviewed on the record since Mr. Trump's inauguration. The threat is also acute at private institutions, even those with the biggest war chests. Johns Hopkins said last week that it would eliminate more than 2,000 jobs in the United States and overseas, the largest round of layoffs in its history. The University of Pennsylvania, Mr. Trump's alma mater, is among the universities with new hiring freezes. (It announced that step before the Trump administration said on Wednesday that it would pause about $175 million in funding for Penn because it had allowed a transgender woman to compete on its women's swim team.) In recent weeks, presidents at public and private universities alike have weighed how long any institutional lifelines could last. But professors doubt that a major university can meet its modern ambitions without a relatively open spigot of federal support. 'Ultimately, the university cannot exist without research,' said Brent R. Stockwell, the chair of biological sciences at Columbia. 'It would be really, really more akin to a high school or a local community college where you're just teaching some classes without world-class researchers bringing the frontier of knowledge into the classroom.' So far, Mr. Trump has not signaled any interest in retreat. That has left academic leaders searching urgently for how to save an ideal they insist is imperative. Asked whether he feared a wholesale remaking of the American university, Dr. Jones replied that he did not like to use the word 'fear.' But, he added, 'it is a concern — I can't say that it is not one of those things that a lot of us are concerned about.'
Middle East Eye
10-03-2025
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
A weekend from hell in coastal Syria
Syria is reeling. Last weekend, the country witnessed one of the bloodiest events in its troubled history. Gunmen loyal to deposed president Bashar al-Assad launched a ruthless attack on the coastal region. Clashes spiralled into revenge attacks on civilians, leaving hundreds dead and thousands displaced. The killings have stoked an atmosphere of sectarianism and intimidation, and posed a massive challenge for the credibility of Syria's nascent government. Civilians belonging to the Alawi community, which Assad and most of his loyalists belong to, were particularly targeted. While the new Syrian administration's defence ministry said it had completed its operations against 'regime remnants', residents of the coastal cities say violence has not ended, despite being reduced. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) has documented 779 'extrajudicial killings' since Thursday, saying it did not count the deaths of Assad loyalists in combat. This includes 211 civilians and 179 security personnel killed by Assad loyalists, and 396 civilians and unarmed loyalists killed by armed groups and security forces. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based activist group that monitors the war, put the total death toll at over 1,000. Here is how events unfolded. Thursday: Assad remnants' attack The deadly weekend started on Thursday night, when armed groups loyal to Assad attacked the new government's security forces in Jableh, killing one officer. According to Shafik, an Alawi man in the port city of Baniyas 25km south of Jableh, security forces quickly responded to the incident and told residents of Syria's coastal areas to stay in their homes and not to be afraid. Shafik, like all witnesses in this story, is using a pseudonym for security reasons. The pro-Assad gunmen, who are also Alawi, initially overwhelmed government forces and took control of Qardaha, Assad's hometown. Syria's government scrambled to bring in reinforcements but eventually managed to regain some control. Helicopters fired on areas where clashes took place that night. 'In the end, things went OK. The factions killed the remnants of the regime, and all night long the sounds of beatings, shootings and bombs did not stop,' Shafik told Middle East Eye. Friday: the massacres What were clashes on Thursday spiralled into uncontrolled mass killings on Friday. Convoys of gunmen belonging to groups that fought Assad charged into the northwestern provinces of Latakia and Tartus. They spread out through the coastal towns and cities, hunting Alawis. Shafik recalls the fighters arriving at Baniyas around 11am, and heading straight for the Alawi-majority areas of al-Qusour and al-Mrouj. 'They broke into all the shops on the street and stole everything while shouting and cursing Alawis. After they finished stealing, they burned the shops and from there they started to climb the buildings. They started going into the houses, one by one.' Once they reached his neighbourhood, he says it was 'up to one's luck' whether the armed men would kill them, beat them or steal from them. Gunmen knocked on his front door and his mother answered. She was reprimanded for marrying an Alawi. A fighter told her they will only leave after taking 'either souls or gold'. 'She told him: 'I swear we have no gold, we sold it all'. So he said: 'You either pay us with money or you all get killed. Your children are filthy Alawis, killing them is halal,' Shafik recalled. After being paid off, the men left to find other homes to raid. 'The whole time we were living in terror and hearing the voices of people being killed and screaming,' Shafik said. 'The bodies in the streets were terrifying.' A bit further north,just below Latakia city, the town of al-Mukhtariya suffered a similar fate. 'My aunt is in al-Mukhtariya,' said Faisal. 'They came in, took her husband and son, supposedly to an unknown location. Some hours passed, and their bodies were found in the street." Faisal said the gunmen returned to speak to his aunt, "who had just lost her only son", and told her: "Your turn is coming, women, we will not leave a single Alawi alive.' Saturday: continued attacks, HTS intervention Shafik says the killings started again early the next morning, but this time something was different. Members of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the faction that spearheaded the assault that toppled Assad in December and now dominates the Damascus government, were seen driving around the coast with women in the front of their vehicles. Out of sight, were Alawi families that Sunni women and HTS fighters were helping escape and take to areas they could find safe shelter. As Alawis fled, they saw their neighbourhoods in ruins. 'All of my friends are gone, Baniyas is burned,' said Ali. 'My friends' bodies are in the streets.' Sunday: government restores control Hassan Abdel-Ghani, spokesperson for the defence ministry, said on Sunday that security forces had regained control of the coast and will continue to pursue the people who led the pro-Assad insurgency. Ahmad al-Sharaa, the HTS leader-turned-interim president, delivered a speech promising to hunt down remaining Assad loyalists and people who killed civilians. 'We will hold accountable, with full decisiveness, anyone who is involved in the bloodshed of civilians, mistreats civilians, exceeds the state's authority or exploits power for personal gain,' he said. 'No one will be above the law.' The government also announced a committee would be formed to investigate the clashes and killings by both sides. A member of the Syrian security forces stands between cars in Latakia, Syria, 10 March (Reuters/Karam al-Masri) Across Sunday, fighting and killing on the coast slowed. In the mountains, where some 5,000 pro-Assad insurgents are believed to be hiding, clashes continued. SANA, the state news agency, said a mass grave containing the bodies of Syrian security forces was found in Qardaha. Meanwhile, in Baniyas, Ali said some of his relatives were also found in mass graves. 'They buried my uncle in a mass grave, not even in the village,' he said. 'There is no name on his tomb, and there is no space remaining in the cemetery.' Glimmer of hope Tensions remain very high in Syria. Alawis have accused the nascent government of failing to protect them. Ali said security forces initially refused to allow people to recover bodies from Alawi-majority town al-Qusoor, which he believed was because they were trying to cover up crimes committed there. Sectarian discourse has skyrocketed online. A Syrian NGO in the north even posted a video of Ramadan sweets with a message saying: 'the Alawi has the right to live in his tomb in peace'. Its director was later arrested. Despite the horror, Fadel Abdul Ghany, founder and director of SNHR, believes acts like Sunnis protecting Alawis from the massacres are a glimmer of hope for Syria's future. 'The state should take care of all its citizens, regardless of their religion or sect' Fadel Abdul Ghany, SNHR 'There was a lot of local reconciliation between Sunnis and Alawis,' he said. 'Sunnis protected Alawis and Alawis protected Sunnis. On the social level, there is this coherence. They are friends living shoulder by shoulder.' Abdul Ghany said reconciliation will require acknowledgements from both sides regarding their suffering over the past few years, and much of this work will fall within the hands of the state. 'The state should take care of all its citizens, regardless of their religion or sect,' he said. 'If the state took these initiatives with investigations, redressing, acknowledgement, apology, holding accountable those who committed violations, I think we would be moving in the right direction.'
Yahoo
08-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Columbia University loses $400 million in federal funding over antisemitism — who's next?
Four federal agencies came together in a joint statement on Friday, announcing 'the immediate cancellation' of $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University over the university's 'continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.' This recent move to cut the university's funding follows a pro-Palestinian protest Wednesday and another a week earlier, which sent a security guard to the hospital, according to The Washington Free Beacon. The protests on Columbia campus are nothing new. Since the Hamas-led attacks against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Columbia University has seen at least eight nationally covered pro-Palestinian protests, with several involving assaults on students and employees. From April to June 2024, students set up the Gaza Solidarity Encampment on campus. Then-university president Minouche Shafik authorized the New York Police Department to take the encampment down. NYPD arrested over 100 protesters, but another encampment was erected the following day. Columbia ended up canceling its university-wide spring graduation, and in August 2024, Shafik stepped down. In the spring of 2024, pro-Palestinian protests broke out at several universities across the country, including at the University of Utah. Recently confirmed Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a press release Friday that universities receiving federal funding will be expected to 'comply with all federal antidiscrimination laws.' 'Since Oct. 7, Jewish students have faced relentless violence, intimidation, and anti-Semitic harassment on their campuses — only to be ignored by those who are supposed to protect them,' McMahon said. She added that Friday's federal funding cuts should be a warning sign to other universities 'that we will not tolerate their appalling inaction any longer.' Federal Acquisition Commissioner Josh Gruenbaum commented on the recent funding cuts. 'Columbia University, through their continued and shameful inaction to stop radical protesters from taking over buildings on campus and lack of response to the safety issues for Jewish students, and for that matter — all students — are not upholding the ideals of this administration or the American people,' Gruenbaum said. He continued, 'Columbia cannot expect to retain the privilege of receiving federal taxpayer dollars if they will not fulfill their civil rights responsibilities to protect Jewish students from harassment and anti-Semitism.' The agency's move to cut funding received some support from Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., per his X post. The senator wrote, 'Columbia pays for its failure, and I support that.' Of Columbia's $6.6 billion yearly operating revenue, around one-fifth comes from federal research grants. 'We are reviewing the announcement from the federal agencies and pledge to work with the federal government to restore Columbia's federal funding,' a spokeswoman told the Free Beacon. Columbia is 'committed to combatting antisemitism and ensuring the safety and well-being of our students, faculty, and staff,' she said. The university also publicly responded to Wednesday's protest, saying the university was 'aware of a disruption' at a library in their affiliated school, Barnard College. 'The disruption of academic activities is not acceptable conduct. We are committed to supporting our Columbia student body and our campus community during this challenging time,' they said. The Free Beacon reported that the protest was led by Columbia University Apartheid Divest and Students for Justice in Palestine. During the rally, the protesters gave students Hamas propaganda that justified Oct. 7 attacks. Video from the protest posted to a pro-Palestine activist account shows footage of the students demanding the university's administration 'unexpel' four students who were recently banned from campus. The Department of Education, the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services announced on Wednesday they would be looking into antisemitism cases at four other universities besides Columbia. These universities include Northwestern University, Portland State University, the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. However, the student resistance does not seem too concerned over funding cuts. In an X post, Friday afternoon, Unity of Fields wrote, 'The youth at Columbia will not stop resisting. Why should they? The Holocaust in Gaza continues, the university is still embedded in the military-industrial-complex, they are still being brutalized and repressed. As long as this continues, so will resistance to it.'
Axios
26-02-2025
- Business
- Axios
Exclusive: Canadian business banking startup Venn raises $15M
Venn, a Canadian business banking and expense manage startup, raised US$15 million in Series A funding led by Left Lane Capital. Why it matters: Recent deals show investors betting that Canada is in need of its own Mercury or Ramp. What they're saying: "Canada is probably five to 10 years behind the U.S. in terms of innovation in banking or spend software," says co-CEO Ahmed Shafik. "Canadian banks are known to be one of the most expensive in terms of fees." Driving the news: Previously known as Vault, the company targets small to mid-size businesses — particularly those with international banking needs. It was founded with an initial focus on international transfers and multi-currency accounts, eliminating the need for customers to open accounts in every country. By syncing with the clients' accounting software, Venn has aimed to become the financial control center for clients. It also offers invoice automation, a corporate card with expense management, and accounting automation. Context: News of the raise comes just a month after Float Financial, a corporate card startup focused on the Canadian market, raised US$48.5 million led by Goldman Sachs Growth Equity. Loop last year raised C$6.4 million. XYZ Venture Capital, Intact Ventures and Gradient also participated in Venn's round. The intrigue: Shafik believes there are structural reasons keeping out non-homegrown potential competitors. "The BaaS players aren't here, and Canada's quite protectionist when it comes to finance," he says. Revolut, where Shafik previously worked, exited Canada in 2021. By the numbers: Venn now has about 4,000 customers and earns revenue from foreign exchange fees, interest on deposits, transaction fees, subscriptions, and interchange (its top revenue source). This year, Venn plans to enable customers to accept credit card payments for accounts receivables, and it might venture into lending.
