Category: General

ISTANBUL: Pro-Palestine student demonstrations at universities have spread to Australia amid police raids on campuses in the US.

Students and activists are camping at major universities, including in Sydney, as demands for divestment from Israel grow louder.

Solidarity camp at the University of Sydney said students and Palestine activists across Sydney on Friday ‘successfully” defended “Gaza Solidarity Encampment from a Zionists demonstration.’

A huge number of pro-Palestine demonstrators gathered on Friday but the situation across the campuses is said to be peaceful unlike the US, where pro-Israel groups, as well as police, launched raids on pro-Palestine encampment sites and the demonstrations turned violent.

‘We stand on the side of the Palestinians, and we will not be intimidated,’ said the University of Sydney Gaza Solidarity Camp on X.

The students and activists on the encampment sites are seen engaged in different activities, including songs and teach-in programs during which they are informing vi
sitors about the struggle of Palestinians.

‘The Palestine movement is a fight for peace for humanity,’ said the camp, sharing hashtags of #freegaza #freepalestine #stopfundinggenocide.

Pro-Palestine student university demonstrations in Australia prop up as the US saw more than 150 Gaza solidarity encampments popping up throughout the country.

More than 2,000 people, including students, have been arrested by the US authorities during the pro-Palestine demonstrations.

There have been student protests in Canada and France as well.

‘An excellent turnout at the Sydney University encampment, resisting intimidation and demanding the university end its complicity with Israel’s genocide,’ said Jessica Whyte, about demonstrations held at the University of Sydney.

Whyte, a philosophy professor at the University of New South Wales, also shared photos of pro-Palestine demonstrations at the encampment site on her X account.

Nick Riemer, a linguistics professor at the University of Sydney, said the varsity vice-chanc
ellor Mark Scott has given a ‘public commitment’ to allow the pro-Palestine encampment to stay on the campus.

‘Make no mistake: we will hold him to it. It is the absolute, bare minimum that he should be doing,’ said Riemer, a leader of Australia’s National Tertiary Education Union.

Unionists for Palestine, another group based in Australia, extended support to the pro-Palestine encampment at the University of Sydney, calling for divestments from academic as well as military ties with Israel and helping ‘build the resistance against Australian institutional complicity with the Gazan genocide.’

Amid allegations of a witch hunt for siding with Palestinians, with the ongoing Israeli bombardment since Oct. 7 last year, Sydney-based academic and author Randa Abdel-Fattah said there were ‘Zionist attempts’ to pressure the Australian government to ‘revoke my Future Fellowship and for Macquarie University to dismiss me.’

However, Abdel-Fattah said such a step would affect more than herself.

‘Zionists are not just
about trying to remove me from academia and destroy my academic career. The funding I received was not just for me. As a Future Fellow I am engaged in my own research as well as leadership and mentoring,’ she said on X.

‘The fellowship funds awarded to me also cover the costs of building an online and physical exhibition tracing anti-colonial, intersectional, transnational Arab and Muslim activism in Australia from the 1970s to date. I have employed and involved young students of color to assist in building this archive of resistance,’ she said.

Abdel-Fattah said: ‘(Zionists are) purposefully targeting me and the next generation of Arab and Muslim women academics.’

‘They seek to eliminate us from the academy because our voices, knowledge production and impact threaten the White supremacist status quo they so desperately seek to maintain,’ the academic added.

‘It is about removing Palestine from the Australian academy.’

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on Gaza since the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion,
which killed around 1,200 people.

Tel Aviv, in comparison, has killed nearly 34,600 Palestinians and wounded over 77,800 others amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities in the Palestinian territory.

Source: Anadolu Agency

ISTANBUL: American activists vow to persist in their pro-Palestine protests despite police interventions and university administrations’ efforts to block the demonstrations.

Huwaida Arraf and Marybeth Brownlee, who came to Istanbul as part of the activities of the International Freedom Flotilla to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, spoke to Anadolu about Palestine solidarity protests at US universities.

Arraf, a Palestinian-American human rights lawyer and organizer of the Freedom Flotilla, criticized the US for failing to act in the face of crimes against humanity in Gaza.

“We intend to sail until we break this siege. We have long witnessed, unfortunately, the US leading an effort to foil our ability to sail, and they have done that by placing pressure economically … but that has not stopped us. In fact, it has strengthened our resolve,” she said.

Arraf criticized the US for neglecting its responsibilities, highlighting how civil society is taking on tasks the government should handle.

She said they ar
e opposed to the “war crimes,” emphasizing that US resources should be used to prevent such acts, not hinder those opposing them.

“The US is absolutely complicit in Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people,” Arraf added.

Amid nationwide protests now taking place at around 35 universities, she criticized the stance of universities and the US government toward student protests.

“Unfortunately, the universities, instead of listening to these students and respecting their demands — which are in compliance with international law, they are asking their universities to not support Israeli apartheid — are ordering a brutal crackdown. They are beating students, arresting them, and expelling them.

“It’s a shame, but what these students are doing is absolutely laudable. They are really reflecting the best of humanity, and I give them my greatest respect and admiration. I don’t think these students will give up.”

Arraf also praised the students’ “resolute” and historic movement in the US marking a “turning poin
t” in the struggle for “Palestine’s liberation.’

‘We are all working towards a single common goal through different paths’

Marybeth Brownlee, a US college student, said young people’s independent thinking and critical analysis in protests were inspiring, noting that some of these protesters are her friends.

“We’re all working towards that common goal through different avenues of approach,” she said.

Brownlee criticized state and university administrations’ attitudes towards students, asserting that they will not back down despite challenges.

“It is absolutely unreasonable, over-policing, it’s an overstretch of the power, and demonstrates how there is this ruling class in the US that does not, in fact, listen to the will of its people.

“Well, you’ll see that even with the arrests, they’re still coming back, and not only do more students join, but more camps are forming all over the country,’ she noted.

Brownlee stressed that the US police’s increased pressure on students will exacerbate the protests.

”
So I hold my country accountable, and I hold myself accountable, I hold my neighbors, my community accountable, and ultimately I hold my government accountable, because if they’re paying for the bombs, then it’s our bombs.”

She also said the US supports the “genocide” carried out by Israel in Gaza.

“I don’t know that democracy ever truly existed in the US, because we were a country built on the backs of human trafficking with the slave trade that benefited the US in its fledgling years, and we’ve never even reconciled that aspect of our history. So I don’t know that I could even call us a democracy, but with that, with the love I have for all of humanity, I must point out these issues. I must raise my voice to my government, to my country, to say we need to do better.”

*Writing by Gizem Nisa Cebi

Source: Anadolu Agency

ANKARA: Turkish students on Friday held demonstrations in universities across the country to protest Israel’s ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.

A demonstration called “We Gather for Palestine” at Cukurova University in southern Adana province was attended by the rector, academics, university staff, and students.

Igdir University students organized a march to protest Israel’s attacks on Gaza and support Palestinians.

Students at Kutahya Health Sciences University organized a march to protest Israel’s attacks on Gaza.

Student groups at Ibn Haldun University in Istanbul also took out a rally to support Palestine and draw attention to the ongoing anti-Israel protests at US universities.

Students at Uludag University in Bursa province Friday continued their tent vigil in support of students participating in pro-Palestine demonstrations at some US universities.

The administration and students of Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University organized a demonstration against Israel’s attacks on Gaza.

Mugla Sitki Kocman Un
iversity students held a march to decry Israeli atrocities.

In northeastern Trabzon province, students at Karadeniz Technical University protested Israel’s attacks on Gaza by organizing a march and releasing a press statement.

Students and academics at Agri Ibrahim Cecen University organized a march in support of Palestinians.

In northeastern Rize province, university students expressed support for ongoing protests in the US through a press statement.

In Duzce province, university students held a demonstration to protest Israel’s attacks on Gaza and show support for pro-Palestine protests at various universities in the US and Europe.

Students and academics at Erzurum Technical University organized a march to slam Israel’s war on Gaza, while students at Mersin University also held protests against Israel.

Students nationwide chanted slogans condemning the Israeli genocide in Gaza and carried banners denouncing the country.

The student demonstrations began on April 17 at Columbia University to protest Is
rael’s offensive in Gaza, where more than 34,600 Palestinians have been killed and 77,700 injured since an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas.

The protests have served as a flashpoint for the wider movement to protest Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Israel continues its onslaught on the Gaza Strip where at least 34,622 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and 77,867 injured since Oct. 7, according to Palestinian health authorities.

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Hamas, which Tel Aviv says killed nearly 1,200 people.

The Israeli war on Gaza has pushed 85% of the territory’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is pr
ovided to civilians in Gaza.

Hostilities have continued unabated, however, and aid deliveries remain woefully insufficient to address the humanitarian catastrophe.

*Writing by Zehra Nur Duz

Source: Anadolu Agency

ISTANBUL: The Saudi authorities on Friday announced the introduction of new measures to reduce the number of individuals performing Hajj illegally, without permit or registry.

According to a statement by the Kingdom’s General Directorate of Public Security, the new regulations for Hajj require “residents who wish to enter Makkah to obtain a permit from the relevant authorities.”

It added that the implementation of the new regulations are effective as of Saturday, May 4, 2024.

The statement stressed that the Saudi security personnel at the security checkpoints leading to Makkah will prevent entry to any individuals without the proper permits.

The new measures come as part of the Kingdom’s efforts to control the flow of the pilgrims into the holy sites to control their numbers and protect their safety, especially during the Hajj season.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar

Source: Anadolu Agency

ANKARA: Rwanda’s newly appointed ambassador to Trkiye said that he aims to develop ‘deeper cooperation’ between his country and Rwanda.

‘Based on this good relationship (between Trkiye and Rwanda), I intend also to develop deeper cooperation,’ Charles Kayonga told Anadolu.

Referring to high-level contacts between Trkiye and Rwanda, Kayonga said that Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have met at various events.

Indicating that he follows Trkiye’s politics and economic development, the ambassador said he was ‘very impressed’ when he came to the country.

Rwanda’s strategic location

Stating that Rwanda is at a ‘strategic’ location, Kayonga provided information about his country’s structure.

Emphasizing Africa’s development as an economic market, he noted that his country is located “at the center” of this vast market.

Highlighting that Rwanda is ‘one of the safest countries” in the African continent, the ambassador said that under the leadership of Kagame, his country
has achieved “quite good indicators.’

Pointing out that many countries are interested in Africa, he highlighted the continent’s abundance of resources.

Referring to the importance of Trkiye’s investments in Africa, Kayonga said: ‘Trkiye is also developing very fast.’

He highlighted the projects carried out by Turkish companies in the construction sector in Rwanda, emphasizing that these companies do ‘quality work very fast.”

Observing Ankara’s active policies, Kayonga stated that they would like to collaborate with a country like Trkiye, where its people have become prosperous, in areas such as tourism.

*Writing by Esra Tekin in Istanbul

Source: Anadolu Agency

ANKARA: More than 10,000 women were killed in the ongoing Israeli onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said on Friday.

In a statement, the agency said: ‘The war in Gaza continues to be a war on women.’

‘Over 10,000 women have been killed and 19,000 injured,’ it added.

The agency also said: ’37 children lose their mother every single day.’

It stressed that ‘conditions are appalling,’ noting that ‘over 155,000 pregnant or breastfeeding women faced with severely limited access to water and sanitary items.’

Israel has for over half a year waged a war on Gaza that has resulted in widespread death and destruction in the coastal enclave.

More than 34,600 Palestinians have since been killed and over 77,800 injured. The vast majority of the dead have been women and children. Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

Israel also is accused of genocide
at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January said it is “plausible” that Israel’s actions amount to genocide, and ordered Tel Aviv to ensure its forces do not commit such acts, and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

*Writing by Ikram Kouachi

Source: Anadolu Agency

ISTANBUL: Nearly 10,000 people are either missing or trapped under the rubble due to Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7 last year, according to local authorities in the Palestinian enclave.

The Israeli army has “committed 3,070 massacres in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7,” the government media office in Gaza said in a statement.

A total of 14,944 children and 9,849 women have lost their lives in attacks carried out by the Israeli army, said the statement.

The number of Palestinians killed in Gaza has reached 34,622, while that of injured who have been hospitalized totals 77,867, noted the statement.

It stressed that 72% of those exposed to Israeli attacks in Gaza were women and children.

About 30 children have so far died due to malnutrition and fluid loss in the blockaded territory, it noted.

The Israeli army has used more than 75,000 tons of explosives since the ongoing offensive began, the statement said, adding that some 492 healthcare workers and 68 civil defense personnel have been killed
in attacks targeting Gaza’s health sector.

The bodies of 471 Palestinians have been unearthed from six mass graves in hospitals raided by Israeli soldiers, said the media office.

It also said that nearly 11,000 injured are in critical condition and require treatment abroad, while 10,000 cancer patients are at risk of dying due to insufficient health care.

Doctors in Gaza have diagnosed about 1.095 million cases of infectious diseases and more than 20,000 cases of Hepatitis A, the statement said, pointing to the mass displacement of civilians caused by the Israeli offensive.

Some 60,000 pregnant women are at risk due to lack of health care, as are 350,000 people suffering from chronic diseases due to medication shortages, according to the statement.

Since the Israeli army began its attacks, it had detained more than 5,000 Palestinians in Gaza, it added.

Israeli soldiers have detained 310 healthcare workers and 20 journalists, while 2 million people out of Gaza’s 2.3 million population have been displaced
, the statement stressed.

Israel’s attacks have so far directly caused $33 billion of damage in the Gaza Strip, it said.

*Writing by Zehra Nur Duz

Source: Anadolu Agency

ANKARA: Palestinians welcomed on Thursday a decision by Columbia to cut ties with Israel over its “genocidal” war in the besieged Gaza Strip.

‘The noble stances taken by friendly Colombia…constitute an example for the world to follow for binding the Israeli occupation to the resolutions of international legitimacy,’ the Palestinian Authority said in a statement.

It called on the international community to “take more decisive stances regarding the crimes of genocide’ against the Palestinians.

‘Israel, the occupying power, cannot continue its genocidal war against the Palestinian people, despite the UN Security Council resolution for an immediate cease-fire,’ it added.

On March 25, the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. While Hamas welcomed the resolution, Israel rejected the cease-fire call and vowed to continue its war on the Palestinian enclave.

Hamas also hailed the Colombian move as “a victory for the sacrifices of
our people and their just cause.”

The group urged countries in Latin America and elsewhere to take similar stances against Israel, which said it “disregards all international laws and norms.”

On Wednesday, Colombian President Gustavo Petro told a crowd of supporters that the following day, “diplomatic relations will be broken with the state of Israel for having a genocidal president.”

Petro, who had earlier threatened to cut diplomat ties with Israel, was among 18 country leaders that had signed a US-led statement demanding the release of roughly 130 hostages held in Gaza after a Hamas-led cross-border attack last October killed less than 1,200 people in Israel.

The statement demanded the release of the remaining hostages, saying that doing so would lead to a “credible end of hostilities.”

Israel has for over half a year waged a war on Gaza that has resulted in widespread death and destruction in the coastal enclave.

Nearly 34,600 Palestinians have since been killed and over 77,000 injured. The vast maj
ority of the dead have been women and children. Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

Israel also is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January said it is “plausible” that Israel’s actions amount to genocide, and ordered Tel Aviv to ensure its forces do not commit such acts, and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

Colombia has requested to join the case alongside South Africa, which brought it to the UN’s top court in the wake of Israel’s war. Petro previously suspended weapons sales to Israel.

Source: Anadolu Agency

ISTANBUL: Acknowledging that evolving high technology has the potential to be a ‘vital tool to further enrich’ the world, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida Thursday called for ‘international governance’ to achieve ‘secure’ artificial intelligence (AI).

‘As AI is an innovative technology that affects humanity at large, it is important that many countries share a common understanding on its use and development,’ Kishida told an event by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in the French capital Paris.

According to a transcript of his speech, Kishida said: ‘It is my belief that… AI will make great contributions toward finding solutions to various issues including healthcare and climate change, in a way that was unthinkable in the past.’

‘At the same time, one cannot shed light only on the bright side of generative AI. We must also confront the dark side of AI, such as the risk of disinformation,’ he warned.

In order to mitigate such AI-related risks, the Japanese prime minister noted
there was ‘an urgent need to establish international governance to achieve safe, secure, and trustworthy AI.’

Japan, Kishida recalled, has initiated the Hiroshima AI Process ‘which led to the development of the International Guiding Principles as well as the Code of Conduct for AI developers and contributed to reducing specific risks related to generative AI.’

To build up specific technical solutions to reduce risks in the fight against the dark side of AI, Kishida said Japan will establish the Tokyo Center of Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to ‘provide robust support to projects such as technology demonstrations by a diverse group of experts.’

Source: Anadolu Agency

ISTANBUL: The US has sanctioned 31 Chinese companies among its 200 targets over Russia’s war in Ukraine.

‘The US sanctioned 31 PRC-based companies for providing critical technologies to Russia for its defense industrial base,’ said Nicholas Burns, Washington’s top diplomat in Beijing, referring to China by its official name.

‘We said we would act if China did not stop these sales,’ he said on X.

The launch of sanctions comes days after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a trip to Beijing warned that Washington could impose sanctions on Chinese entities for their support to Russia’s defense industry.

The State Department said Wednesday it was designating several Chinese entities ‘responsible for developing, and supplying dual-use aerospace, manufacturing, and technology equipment to entities based in Russia.’

‘Specifically, these designations target producers and exporters of items critical to Russia’s defense-industrial base, some of whom have shipped goods to US-designated entities in Russia,’
it said in a statement.

Source: Anadolu Agency