30 Jun 2025 22:48 PM Trump administration accuses Harvard of civil rights violations against Jewish students
It follows a federal task force investigation into campus protests over Israel's war on Gaza.
The task force claimed Harvard was 'deliberately indifferent' or even 'willfully participating' in anti-Semitic harassment against Jewish people during protests against the war.
Harvard strongly disputed the findings, saying it has taken 'substantive, proactive steps' to combat antisemitism.
The dispute escalates an ongoing battle, with the Trump administration also attempting to remove Harvard from a student immigration registry and urging US embassies to deny visas to prospective international students.
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Nahar Net
5 hours ago
- Nahar Net
Bush, Obama and singer Bono fault Trump's gutting of USAID on agency's last day
by Naharnet Newsdesk 01 July 2025, 14:30 Former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush delivered rare open criticism of the Trump administration — and singer Bono recited a poem — in an emotional video farewell Monday with staffers of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Obama called the Trump administration's dismantling of USAID "a colossal mistake." Monday was the last day as an independent agency for the six-decade-old humanitarian and development organization, created by President John F. Kennedy as a peaceful way of promoting U.S. national security by boosting goodwill and prosperity abroad. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has ordered USAID absorbed into the State Department on Tuesday. The former presidents and Bono spoke with thousands in the USAID community in a videoconference, which was billed as a closed-press event to allow political leaders and others privacy for sometimes angry and often teary remarks. Parts of the video were shared with The Associated Press. They expressed their appreciation for the thousands of USAID staffers who have lost their jobs and life's work. Their agency was one of the first and most fiercely targeted for government-cutting by President Donald Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk, with staffers abruptly locked out of systems and offices and terminated by mass emailing. Trump claimed the agency was run by "radical left lunatics" and rife with "tremendous fraud." Musk called it "a criminal organization." Obama, speaking in a recorded statement, offered assurances to the aid and development workers, some listening from overseas. "Your work has mattered and will matter for generations to come," he told them. Obama has largely kept a low public profile during Trump's second term and refrained from criticizing the monumental changes that Trump has made to U.S. programs and priorities at home and abroad. "Gutting USAID is a travesty, and it's a tragedy. Because it's some of the most important work happening anywhere in the world," Obama said. He credited USAID with not only saving lives, but being a main factor in global economic growth that has turned some aid-receiving countries into U.S. markets and trade partners. The former Democratic president predicted that "sooner or later, leaders on both sides of the aisle will realize how much you are needed." Asked for comment, the State Department said it would be introducing the department's foreign assistance successor to USAID, to be called America First, this week. "The new process will ensure there is proper oversight and that every tax dollar spent will help advance our national interests," the department said. USAID oversaw programs around the world, providing water and life-saving food to millions uprooted by conflict in Sudan, Syria, Gaza and elsewhere, sponsoring the "Green Revolution" that revolutionized modern agriculture and curbed starvation and famine, preventing disease outbreaks, promoting democracy, and providing financing and development that allowed countries and people to climb out of poverty. Bush, who also spoke in a recorded message, went straight to the cuts in a landmark AIDS and HIV program started by his Republican administration and credited with saving 25 million lives around the world. Bipartisan blowback from Congress to cutting the popular President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR, helped save significant funding for the program. But cuts and rule changes have reduced the number getting the life-saving care. "You've showed the great strength of America through your work — and that is your good heart,'' Bush told USAID staffers. "Is it in our national interests that 25 million people who would have died now live? I think it is, and so do you," he said. Former Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, former Colombian President Juan Manual Santos and former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield also spoke to the staffers. So did humanitarian workers, including one who spoke of the welcome appearance of USAID staffers with food when she was a frightened 8-year-old child in a camp for Liberian refugees. A World Food Program official vowed through sobs that the U.S. aid mission would be back someday. Bono, a longtime humanitarian advocate in Africa and elsewhere, was announced as the "surprise guest," in shades and a cap. He jokingly hailed the USAID staffers as "secret agents of international development" in acknowledgment of the down-low nature of Monday's unofficial gathering of the USAID community. Bono spoke passionately as he recited a poem he had written to the agency and its gutting. He spoke of children dying of malnutrition, in a reference to people — millions, experts have said — who will die because of the U.S cuts to funding for health and other programs abroad. "They called you crooks. When you were the best of us," Bono said.
LBCI
5 hours ago
- LBCI
Kremlin denies US claims that Russia is stalling in Ukraine peace talks
The Kremlin on Tuesday denied claims by U.S. President Donald Trump's special envoy for Ukraine that Russia was stalling in peace talks, adding that Moscow had fulfilled all the agreements reached so far in the negotiations. Trump's senior envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, said on Monday that "Russia cannot continue to stall for time while it bombs civilian targets in Ukraine." Asked about the remarks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia was grateful to Trump's team for helping to facilitate talks but that Moscow was not stalling the talks. "No one is delaying anything here," Peskov told reporters in Moscow. "We are naturally in favor of achieving the goals that we are trying to achieve through the special military operation via political and diplomatic means. Therefore, we are not interested in drawing out anything." Peskov noted that the dates of the third round of talks still needed to be agreed. Reuters
Ya Libnan
6 hours ago
- Ya Libnan
USAID cuts could cause 14 million deaths by 2030, Lancet study finds
File: A southern Sudanese boy sleeps on sacks of food distributed by the World Food Programme (WFP) in Juba on January 6, 2011. © Yasuyoshi Chiba, AFP The Trump administration's cuts to the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which provides 40 percent of humanitarian funding worldwide, could lead to 14 million deaths by 2030, a study in the Lancet found, potentially 'halting – and even reversing – two decades of progress in health among vulnerable populations'. More than 14 million of the world's most vulnerable people, a third of them small children, could die because of the Trump administration's dismantling of US foreign aid, research projected on Tuesday. The study in the prestigious Lancet journal was published as world and business leaders gather for a UN conference in Spain this week hoping to bolster the reeling aid sector. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) had provided over 40 percent of global humanitarian funding until Donald Trump returned to the White House in January. Two weeks later, Trump's then-close adviser – and world's richest man – Elon Musk boasted of having put the agency 'through the woodchipper'. The funding cuts 'risk abruptly halting – and even reversing – two decades of progress in health among vulnerable populations,' warned study co-author Davide Rasella, a researcher at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal). 'For many low- and middle-income countries, the resulting shock would be comparable in scale to a global pandemic or a major armed conflict,' he said in a statement. Looking back over data from 133 nations, the international team of researchers estimated that USAID funding had prevented 91 million deaths in developing countries between 2001 and 2021. They also used modelling to project how funding being slashed by 83 percent – the figure announced by the US government earlier this year – could affect death rates. The cuts could lead to more than 14 million avoidable deaths by 2030, the projections found. That number included over 4.5 million children under the age of five – or around 700,000 child deaths a year. For comparison, around 10 million soldiers are estimated to have been killed during World War I. Programmes supported by USAID were linked to a 15-percent decrease in deaths from all causes, the researchers found. For children under five, the drop in deaths was twice as steep at 32 percent. USAID funding was found to be particularly effective at staving off preventable deaths from disease. There were 65 percent fewer deaths from HIV / AIDS in countries receiving a high level of support compared to those with little or no USAID funding, the study found. Deaths from malaria and neglected tropical diseases were similarly cut in half. 'Time to scale up' After USAID was gutted, several other major donors including Germany , the UK and France followed suit in announcing plans to slash their foreign aid budgets. These aid reductions, particularly in the European Union , could lead to 'even more additional deaths in the coming years,' study co-author Caterina Monti of ISGlobal said. Trump's foreign aid cuts are a 'slow-running disaster', former USAID administrator says But the grim projections for deaths were based on the current amount of pledged aid, so could rapidly come down if the situation changes, the researchers emphasized. Dozens of world leaders are meeting in the Spanish city of Seville this week for the biggest aid conference in a decade. The US, however, will not attend. 'Now is the time to scale up, not scale back,' Rasella said. Before its funding was slashed, USAID represented 0.3 percent of all US federal spending. 'US citizens contribute about 17 cents per day to USAID, around $64 per year,' said study co-author James Macinko of the University of California, Los Angeles. 'I think most people would support continued USAID funding if they knew just how effective such a small contribution can be to saving millions of lives.' (FRANCE 24 with AFP)
