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A judge moved the legal case of a pro-Palestinian protest leader detained and slated for deportation by US authorities to a new court Wednesday, but not the highly conservative jurisdiction sought by President Donald Trump’s administration.The administration had pushed for Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil’s case to be heard in Louisiana, a district sympathetic to deportation efforts, but a New York judge instead moved it to New Jersey.”The government first moved Mahmoud to Louisiana, then it tried to move his federal case there, too, hoping for better odds in court,” said Ramzi Kassem, law professor at City University of New York and co-director of CLEAR, a legal non-profit that represents Khalil. “The judge rightly rejected that approach and transferred the case to a court in the greater New York City area, close to Mahmoud’s home, where the case and, most importantly, Mahmoud himself, belong. We intend to bring him home next.”Khalil, one of the most prominent faces of the protest movement that erupted in response to Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza, was arrested and taken to Louisiana earlier this month, sparking protests.The government has not accused Khalil of breaking any laws. Instead, officials said his permanent residency was being revoked over his involvement in the protests under rarely used powers to deport non-citizens accused of undermining US foreign policy.His arrest has triggered outrage from critics of the Trump administration as well as free speech advocates, including some on the political right, who say such a move has a chilling effect on freedom of expression.Judge Jesse Furman moved the case on grounds that he did not have jurisdiction, as the legal filing that initiated it was submitted while Khalil was in New Jersey, not New York.Furman also wrote “this is indeed an exceptional case and there is a need for careful judicial review.””Such judicial review is especially critical when, as here, there are colorable claims that the Executive Branch has violated the law or exercised its otherwise lawful authority in an arbitrary and discriminatory manner,” he wrote.

The ear-splitting roar of his jet ski fills the air as Hamza al-Hamm thunders past, kicking up plumes of water — not at the beach, but in the heart of the Saudi Arabian desert.Sand-caked SUVs ring the temporary lake, formed by winter rains, as Hamm zips across the impromptu watersports centre doing donuts.Women in the traditional face-covering niqab sit on rugs by the shore, watching the action.The lake, surrounded by sand dunes near the small desert city of Zulfi, lasts only about three months a year.”One day, my friends challenged me to ride a jet ski,” said Hamm, who started out on a borrowed machine.Since then he has bought his own, gradually becoming one of a rare breed — an expert jet-skier who lives in the desert.Zulfi’s lake, more than 200 kilometres (124 miles) northwest of the capital Riyadh, appears every winter, giving desert-dwellers the chance to take part in a sport usually associated with seaside resorts.The rare phenomenon draws not only locals like Hamm, in his 40s, but also visitors from as far away as Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.Meshaal al-Otaibi, who came with a caravan from the Saudi town of Taif, more than 700 kilometres away, said he had to see the lake for himself.”When I heard about the lake on YouTube, about people gathering there and water activities, I couldn’t resist,” he said.Zulfi, which sits in a dip between sand dunes and mountains, “is a perfect trap for rainfalls pouring over the mountains”, according to scientist Alain Gachet.”That is why the lake is seasonal in Zulfi, which is located on the deepest part of this depression,” said Gachet, whose French-based company Radar Technologies International specialises in untapped natural resources.When it forms, the lake offers a welcome respite in a country where intense heat limits outdoor activities for much of the year.Issam Hamad, another Saudi who was visiting with his family, said it was relaxing just to be outside.”Some watch, others do watersports” but everyone enjoys the fresh air, he said.

Israel’s resumption of strikes on the Gaza Strip is a major step in the wrong direction after its ceasefire with Palestinian militant group Hamas earlier this year, French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday alongside Jordan’s King Abdullah II.”The resumption of Israeli strikes yesterday (Tuesday), despite the efforts of mediators, represents a dramatic step backwards,” Macron said ahead of talks in Paris with Abdullah.”It’s dramatic for the Palestinians of Gaza, who are again plunged into the terror of bombardment, and dramatic for the (Israeli) hostages and their families who live in the nightmare of uncertainty.”Israel earlier this week carried out its deadliest bombing of Gaza since a fragile ceasefire began in January between Israel and the Palestinian territory’s Islamist rulers Hamas.The renewed Israeli air strikes in the night of Monday to Tuesday killed more than 400 people, according to the Gaza health ministry. They have continued since.Macron slammed Hamas, saying the “axis of resistance is today an illusion”, but also warned Israel that there could be “no Israeli military solution in Gaza”.The Jordanian king called the strikes “an extremely dangerous step that adds further devastation to an already dire humanitarian situation”.”The ceasefire must be restored and the flow of aid must resume immediately,” Abdullah said.- ‘Ready to contribute’ -After Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, Gazans endured more than 15 months of devastating conflict before a fragile cessation of hostilities took effect on January 19.As ceasefire talks stalled earlier this month, Israel cut off humanitarian aid and electricity to Gaza in a bid to pressure Hamas to give in to its terms. If the war stops, France has thrown its support behind a plan put forward by Arab nations, including Jordan, to rebuild Gaza without evicting its 2.4 million Palestinian residents.”We French and Europeans are ready to contribute to these deliberations and to this plan,” Macron said.Macron said he and other European leaders would discuss it on Thursday at the European Council, “among ourselves and with the Secretary General of the United Nations”.France, Britain, Germany and Italy earlier this month backed the plan, hailing it as a “realistic path” for Gaza to return to the control of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority after nearly two decades of Hamas rule.Israel and the United States have rejected the proposal.It came after US President Donald Trump triggered global outrage when he suggested the US “take over” Gaza and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East”, while forcing its Palestinian inhabitants to relocate to Egypt or Jordan.- ‘Palestinian state’ -Long term, said Macron, work should focus on “a Palestinian state to finally give back Palestinians their legitimate right”, though this should come with the “necessary security guarantees for Israel”.Abdullah said: “A political solution that leads to peace on the basis of a two-state solution is the only way to guarantee security for Palestinians, Israelis in the region.” The so-called two-state solution would see a new Palestinian state live peacefully side by side with an Israeli one.It was part of a peace plan in the 1990s but Israel has since only deepened its occupation of the West Bank and east Jerusalem, the bulk of the land which was to make up a future Palestinian state.The 2023 Hamas attack on Israel resulted in 1,218 deaths, mostly civilians, according to Israeli figures.Israel’s retaliation in Gaza has killed at least 49,547 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry.Of the 251 hostages seized during the attack, 58 are still in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Thousands of protesters massed in Jerusalem on Wednesday, chanting slogans against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who they accuse of undermining democracy and resuming Gaza strikes without regard for hostages.Protesters shouted “You are the head, and you’re to blame” as well as “The blood is on your hands” at the demonstration near parliament, the largest to take place in Jerusalem for months.The demonstration was organised by anti-Netanyahu opposition groups protesting the premier’s move to sack Ronen Bar, head of the Shin Bet internal security agency.Following Netanyahu’s announcement to dismiss Bar, which threatened to trigger political crisis, Israel launched a wave of overnight strikes on Gaza, by far the deadliest since the start of a fragile ceasefire in January.Relatives of the Israeli hostages still held in Gaza joined the rally outside the parliament in Jerusalem.”We hope all people from Israel will join this movement and we will not stop until we restore democracy and freedom for the hostages,” said Zeev Berar, 68, from Tel Aviv.”At this rate we won’t have a country left, not a democratic one. It will be a dictatorship,” student Roni Sharon, 18, told AFP.Some in the crowd brandished banners reading: “We are all hostages”.Relatives of the hostages in the Gaza Strip have said the decision to resume strikes could “sacrifice” their loved ones.Of the 251 hostages seized during the unprecedented October 2023 Hamas attack that sparked the war, 58 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.The demonstrators in Jerusalem also accuse Netanyahu of using the war against Hamas to distract from domestic political concerns. The prime minister has so far refused to set up a national commission of inquiry into Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, while his bid to dismiss Bar threatened to plunge Israel back into deep political crisis.Netanyahu’s government recently also moved to oust Israel’s attorney general and government judiciary adviser, Gali Baharav-Miara, a fierce defendant of the judiciary’s independence.A 2023 judicial reform project aimed at curbing the supreme court’s powers fractured the country and sparked major protests — before coming to an abrupt halt with Hamas’s October 7 attack.”The last two years have been a nightmare for us,” said Yael Baron, 55, from the city of Modiin.”I feel as though we are in the 99th minute and time is running out to save the country, the oxygen is running out for us, like democracy is running out.”

Chinese internet and gaming giant Tencent said on Wednesday that profits in the fourth quarter of 2024 surged 90 percent as the firm accelerates a push into artificial intelligence (AI).The publication of quarterly and annual results came after weeks of robust investor confidence in Chinese technology stocks, and in AI in particular, following January’s shock …

China’s Tencent sees profits surge as AI drive accelerates Read More »

Hamas said it remained open to negotiations while calling for pressure on Israel Wednesday to implement a Gaza truce after its deadliest bombing since the fragile ceasefire began in January.Israel carried out fresh air strikes on Gaza on Wednesday, killing 13 people according to the territory’s civil defence agency, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday’s raids were “only the beginning”.The United Nations and countries around the world condemned the high civilian death toll in the renewed strikes, which have killed more than 400 people, according to Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.Hamas is open to talks on getting the ceasefire back on track but will not renegotiate the agreement that took effect on January 19, an official from the militant group said.”Hamas has not closed the door on negotiations but we insist there is no need for new agreements,” Taher al-Nunu told AFP.”We have no conditions, but we demand that the occupation be compelled to immediately halt its aggression and war of extermination, and begin the second phase of negotiations.”Negotiations have stalled over how to proceed with a ceasefire whose first phase expired in early March, with Israel and Hamas disagreeing on whether to move to a new phase intended to bring the war to an end.Instead, Israel and the United States have sought to change the terms of the deal by extending stage one.That would delay the start of phase two, which was meant to establish a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and was swiftly rejected by Hamas, which demanded full implementation of the original deal.”There is no need for new agreements in light of the existing agreement signed by all parties,” Nunu said.- ‘Only the beginning’ -Israel and the United States have portrayed Hamas’s rejection of an extended stage one as a refusal to release more Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.Netanyahu’s office said he ordered the renewed strikes on Gaza after “Hamas’s repeated refusal to release our hostages”.In a televised address late Tuesday, the premier said: “From now on, negotiations will take place only under fire… Military pressure is essential for the release of additional hostages.”Hamas has already felt the strength of our arm in the past 24 hours. And I want to promise you –- and them –- this is only the beginning.”The White House said Israel consulted US President Donald Trump’s administration before launching the strikes, while Israel said the return to fighting was “fully coordinated” with Washington.The intense Israeli bombardment sent a stream of new casualties to the few hospitals still functioning in Gaza and triggered fears of a return to full-blown war after two months of relative calm.The roads were once again filled with Palestinian civilians on the move as families responded to evacuation warnings from the Israeli army.”Today I felt that Gaza is a real hell,” said Jihan Nahhal, a 43-year-old from Gaza City, adding some of her relatives were wounded or killed in the strikes.”Suddenly there were huge explosions, as if it were the first day of the war.”The Gaza health ministry said the bodies of 413 people had been received by hospitals, adding people were still under the rubble.A spokeswoman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF said medical facilities that “have already been decimated” by the war were now “overwhelmed”.- ‘Shattering’ hopes -Governments in the Middle East, Europe and beyond called for the renewed hostilities to end.German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Israel’s raids on Gaza “are shattering the tangible hopes of so many Israelis and Palestinians of an end to suffering on all sides”.European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said she told her Israeli counterpart Gideon Saar that the new strikes on Gaza were “unacceptable”.Both Egypt and Qatar, which brokered the Gaza ceasefire alongside the United States, condemned Israel’s resort to military action.Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said the strikes were part of “deliberate efforts to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable and force the Palestinians into displacement”.Trump has floated a proposal to move Palestinians out of Gaza, an idea rejected by Palestinians and governments in the region and beyond, but embraced by some Israeli politicians.Israel’s resumption of military operations in Gaza, after it already halted all humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza this month, drew an immediate political dividend for Netanyahu.The far-right Otzma Yehudit party, which quit his ruling coalition in January in protest at the Gaza ceasefire, rejoined its ranks with its firebrand leader Itamar Ben Gvir again becoming national security minister.The war began with Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in 1,218 deaths, mostly civilians, according to Israeli figures.Israel’s retaliation in Gaza has killed at least 48,577 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry.Of the 251 hostages seized during the attack, 58 are still in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.burs/kir/dv