Currently Online 
Expelled South African ambassador to the US says ‘cannot sacrifice the Palestinians’
Ebrahim Rasool, the South African ambassador to the US who was declared persona non grata by the Trump administration, has been greeted by crowds at the airport welcoming him home, with some admirers waving Palestinian flags and chanting “Free Palestine”.
“As we stand here, the bombing [in Gaza] has continued and the shooting has continued, and if South Africa was not in the [ICJ]), Israel would not be exposed, and the Palestinians would have no hope,” Rasool said after arriving in Cape Town.
“We cannot sacrifice the Palestinians … but we will also not give up with our relationship with the United States. We must fight for it, but we must keep our dignity.”
US President Donald Trump issued an executive order last month cutting all funding to South Africa, which has filed a case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of violating its obligations under the Genocide Convention in its war on the Gaza Strip.
Rasool speaks to journalists after his arrival at Cape Town International Airport
Deport everyone who dare speak up
Mahmoud Khalil’s wife says husband punished for pro-Palestine activism
In an interview with CBS News, Noor Abdalla – the wife of Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil, who has been detained by the Trump administration due to his support for Palestine – says that her husband is being attacked by the United States government because he wants US support for Israel’s war in Gaza to end.
“It’s so simple: he just does not want his people to be murdered and killed he doesn’t want to see little kids’ limbs being [blown] off,” she said.
Asked about claims by the administration of US President Donald Trump that Khalil’s actions were “aligned” with Hamas, open-ended language that civil liberties advocates have raised alarm over, Abdalla said the claims were “ridiculous” and “disgusting”.
Abdalla, who is eight months pregnant, also described the moment her husband was arrested earlier this month.
“My husband was taken away from me in the middle of the night,” she told CBS News. “It was one of the most terrifying times of my life. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced anything scarier than that.”
Abdalla fears Khalil will miss the birth of their first child.
She said she has been forced to take on a role she never wanted, answering questions that she feels are often unfair, trying to change public perception, according to CBS.
“It gets offensive when you’re constantly having to say, ‘I’m not this. I’m not this’,” Abdalla said. “It kind of brought back a lot of things that I experienced growing up in the United States. In New York the other day, me and my husband were walking and someone said, like, called me a terrorist. So, it’s like constantly throughout my whole life. I think most Muslims in this country can relate to that. It doesn’t matter what I say; that’s what they think of me, and that’s what they’re going to think of me.”
Immigration lawyers say detention of Khalil part of troubling push by Trump administration
A US federal judge has ordered that Mahmoud Khalil be removed from an immigration detention centre in Louisiana and be brought to a court in New Jersey, closer to his home in New York City, in order to for him to continue his fight against the US government’s efforts to deport him.
Immigration lawyers who were interviewed in a CBS News report (on the arrest of Khalil) said that this is a new and very troubling trend being pushed by the administration of US President Donald Trump, using a technicality to essentially violate the First Amendment rights of those here in the United States, especially those who do have legal authorisation to be in the country.
Blackmail, the tool of the Trump administration
US education secretary says Columbia University ‘on track’ to recover funding
Linda McMahon says that the US university could have federal funds unfrozen if it continues to accept pro-Israel policy changes sought by the administration of US President Donald Trump.
“She [the university’s interim president Karen Armstrong] wanted to make sure there was no discrimination of any kind. She wanted to address any systemic issues that were identified relative to the anti-Semitism on campus,” McMahon said in a TV interview on Sunday.
Armstrong said on Friday that the university would cede to Trump’s demands, which include putting the Middle East studies department under “academic receivership”, placing it under greater outside control.
Asked if $400m in frozen grant funds would be restored, McMahon said things were on “the right track now to make sure the final negotiations to unfreeze that money will be in place”.
Essay Pro