Ceasefire and divestment calls have spread beyond US campuses, with more expected as Rafah offensive begins

University campuses around the world have been the stage of a growing number of protests by students demanding academic institutions divest from companies supplying arms to Israel.

The protests, which first spread across college campuses in the US, have reached universities in the UK, the rest of Europe, as well as Lebanon and India.
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Some students have begun hunger strikes in protest against their university’s “silence and inaction”.
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BUENOS AIRES, April 30 (Reuters) - Argentina's lower house of Congress gave President Javier Milei a boost on Tuesday by approving his sweeping reform bill ahead of a final Senate vote and backing articles related to privatizing state bodies and labour reform.
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MOSCOW, April 25 (Reuters) - Russia said on Thursday that Poland was playing a "very dangerous game" by considering the possibility of hosting U.S. nuclear weapons.

Polish President Andrzej Duda said on Thursday he had invited Prime Minister Donald Tusk for talks on May 1 about the possibility of nuclear weapons from NATO states being deployed in Poland.

Duda has reiterated his position that Poland would be ready for such a possibility, prompting Tusk to say he would like a clarification from the president.
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Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said any U.S. nuclear missiles in Poland could become targets in the event of a Russia-NATO war.

"It is not difficult to assume that if American nuclear weapons appear on Polish territory, the corresponding objects will immediately join the list of legitimate targets for destruction in the case of direct military conflict with NATO," she told reporters at her weekly briefing.

The Freedom Flotilla could depart Friday with 5,500 tons of aid for Gaza, amid Israel’s ongoing siege and blockade.

Activists are planning to lead a flotilla of ships to Gaza, amid Israel’s ongoing siege. They’ll transport 5,500 tons of desperately needed food and supplies from Istanbul to the Palestinian territory, where famine looms.

The activists don’t necessarily expect to make it there. They hope they do. But in the event that Israel blocks them, boards them, and detains them — or worse — they hope their efforts will inspire international outcry and put more pressure on Israel to end its war in Gaza and blockade around the territory.
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A Biden spokesperson declined to comment on the flotilla and did not respond to questions about whether the administration has been lobbying Turkey to block the voyage.
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Wynd Kaufmyn, an activist from Berkeley traveling with the flotilla, says the participants hope that “there will be enough international eyes on us that Israel will leave us alone, and we get the aid in, and we hope that it’s just the beginning of getting aid in.”

She acknowledges, though, if the flotilla is allowed to depart from Istanbul, participants need to be ready for Israel to “board us, take control of the boat, confiscate everything, deport us, and not treat us very well in the process.”

“We are totally idealistic,” she says. “We’re not being unrealistic.”

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During a recess at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's corruption trial this week, several journalists approached Police Brig. Gen. Coresh Barnoor and introduced themselves. The officer asked them to keep their distance. "If anyone sees me with you, I'm done for," he said. "You already are," said one of them.
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From Taiwan to South Korea to Silicon Valley, some of the most important nodes in the global tech economy are in disaster-prone places.

Germany finds itself in a situation where it is being asked to side with some Jews against others

The headline was thought up by the activist organization Jewish Voice for Peace which says its account with a Berlin bank has been frozen — and not for the first time. The group claims that the German police “have been politically persecuting us as a Jewish organization for some time,” and that it “will not be intimidated by this… arbitrary, politically motivated freezing of our account, which is unacceptable in a democracy.”

Argentina’s libertarian president Javier Milei is under fire from his counterparts in the region for comments made during an interview with CNN Español. In response to his explosive comments, wherein he called Colombia’s president a “terrorist assassin”, Colombia’s Foreign Ministry announced the expulsion of Argentina’s diplomats from its embassy in Bogotá, Colombia.
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The full interview is set to air this Sunday March 31.

Despite a widening rift with the Israeli government, the Biden administration continues to authorize the transfer of 2,000-pound bombs and other weapons

The Biden administration in recent days quietly authorized the transfer of billions of dollars in bombs and fighter jets to Israel despite Washington’s concerns about an anticipated military offensive in southern Gaza that could threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians.

The new arms packages include more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, according to Pentagon and State Department officials familiar with the matter. The 2,000-pound bombs have been linked to previous mass-casualty events throughout Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. These officials, like some others, spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity because recent authorizations have not been disclosed publicly.

The development underscores that while rifts have emerged between the United States and Israel over the war’s conduct, the Biden administration views weapons transfers as off-limits when considering how to influence the actions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“We have continued to support Israel’s right to defend itself,” said a White House official. “Conditioning aid has not been our policy.”

The Israeli government declined to comment on the authorizations.

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Israeli forces shot dead a 13-year-old Palestinian boy during a raid in the occupied West Bank

A report was later received regarding a Palestinian minor who was killed, the military said.
"The circumstances of the incident are under review," it said in a statement to Reuters.

An Israeli attack on an emergency response center in Lebanon killed seven people. Another set of strikes on Syria killed several soldiers and an Iranian military adviser

Despite the UN Security Council adopting a resolution on a ceasefire in Gaza, peace remains elusive with Israel’s continued attacks on Palestinians and other countries in the region.

In the past 24 hours, Israeli forces carried out several airstrikes in Lebanon and Syria, killing over a dozen people. Early on Wednesday, March 27, its forces bombed an emergency response center at al-Habbariyeh in southern Lebanon’s Nabatieh region killing at least seven people.

The attack followed another Israeli air strike in northern Lebanon’s Bekaa region where at least four other Lebanese were killed. The strike on Bekaa was the second attack on northern Lebanon since October 8 when Israel began bombing the country

There were 12 people inside the response center at al-Habbariyeh at the time of the attack. All of them were paramedics and volunteers involved in rescue and relief work, Al Jazeera reported.

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