Times Of Harvard

Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi's killing was not possible without the approval of the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. This is an American intelligence claim. In a report, it states that Mohammad Bin Salman had “complete control”, to carry out such an operation with his “green light”. The report contains a list of about 20 people involved in the operation, including former Saudi intelligence number two Ahmed al-Assiri, a close aide of MBS and a former adviser to Prince Saud al-Kahani. The accusations were quickly dismissed by Riyadh, which however is careful not to spoil its relationship with the US. The US generally does not ban top leaders of countries with which it has diplomatic relations, justified the State Department. The relationship with Saudi Arabia is an important one. We have significant ongoing interests. We remain committed to the defense of the kingdom. But we also want to make sure – and this is what the President has said from the outset – that the relationship bett...

US intelligence agencies have concluded in a newly declassified intelligence report that Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, approved the 2018 murder of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi – but Washington stopped short of targeting the future Saudi king with financial or other sanctions. The four-page report released on Friday confirmed the long-suspected view that the 35-year-old future king had a personal hand in the violent murder of one of his most prominent critics, a columnist and former Saudi insider who was living in exile in the US and used his platform to decry the prince’s crackdown on dissent. The assessment’s release was accompanied by further actions from the Biden administration, including the unveiling of a new “Khashoggi policy” which is set to impose visa sanctions on individuals who, acting on behalf of a foreign government, engage in “counter-dissident” activities, including harassment, surveillance, and threats against journalists, activists, and d...

The U.S. urged Turkey not to go ahead with the delivery of Russian S-400 missiles and jettison the battery it already acquired, as Ankara engages in talks with Moscow over the delivery of a second system. Turkey and Russia have been negotiating over technology transfers and local production ahead of a potential purchase of a second system. Turkey acquired the first battery from Russia in 2019 after dropping talks over a comparable U.S. Patriot system because Washington refused to share technology. The U.S. recently imposed sanctions on Turkey’s defense industry over the missile purchase, saying the Russian system could be used to gather intelligence on Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35 stealth fighter. It previously suspended Turkish defense contractors from the international program to help build the F-35. “Again, we urge Turkey not to move ahead with the delivery of the S-400,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said. “We believe it’s incompatible with the F-35, and Turkey remains suspended fr...

 Internationally renowned American linguist, philosopher, historian and social critic Noam Chomsky, during his session at the ongoing Jaipur Literature Festival discussed the global 'drift into authoritarianism', post-Trump America, and the factors that make social reform possible. The session opened with Chomsky speaking of the recent storming of the US Capitol, and how it was a turning point for the country. He shared with co-panelist Sreenivasan Jain what it was like to wake up in America in the 'aftermath' of Donald Trump. The duo discussed whether Trump can still pose a tangible threat to American democracy, seeing as he is no longer in power a" with Professor Chomsky speculating possibilities of continued propaganda for very real support for Trump by his 'voter-base' and insisted that the democracy had 'serious problems' even before his presidency. The conversation also raised wider questions about the state of democracy, which appears to be i...

Led by former IDF deputy chief of staff Matan Vilnai, commanders for Israel’s security said in the letter that it “welcomes the American initiative to get Iran to again transparently follow the guidelines in the JCPOA as long as it includes an Iranian commitment to abide by UN Security Council Resolution 2231” regarding development of ballistic missiles. In addition to Vilnai, the letter was signed by former Mossad director Tamir Pardo, former IDF OC Operations Directorate Maj. Gen. Nitzan Alon, former National Security Council head Uzi Arad and Eli Levite, the former principal deputy director-general for policy at the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission. The former senior defense officials expressed support for President Joe Biden’s current position not to lift sanctions on Iran unless it returns to abide by the 2015 deal. The first goal needs to be to get Tehran back into compliance and then to work on a follow-up deal that would fill the holes in the JCPOA, they said. Iran has been ins...

In the last few decades,  middle-class wages, especially for men,  have stagnated, and the middle class has experienced slower income growth than the bottom and top quin-tiles.  If not for women’s increased economic contributions, middle class incomes would not have risen at all.  In fall 2019, we conducted focus groups with over 100 middle-class Americans in five locations with the goal of better understanding how they navigate the “time squeeze,” produced by outdated, even family-hostile, workplace policies in the context of rising economic insecurity. The broad argument in this report is simple: the centrality of work shapes how middle-class Americans think about and utilize their time. This top-down shaping of middle–class time has negative impacts on well-being and has direct implications for their health, relationships, and overall sense of autonomy and purpose. In conducting our analysis for this report, we paid special attention to how race, gender, parenthood, or occupation sh...

Nearly 12 million people in Texas have been told to boil tap water before consuming it after a deadly winter storm caused power blackouts at treatment facilities. The huge storm sweeping across the southern US has killed nearly 50 people and left millions without power. Texas has seen widespread outages. Freezing temperatures have also caused water pipes to burst, despite attempts by some homeowners to insulate them from the cold using blankets. The state's energy grid has been overwhelmed by a surge in demand as people try to keep warm in some of the coldest temperatures there in more than 30 years - hitting 0F (-18C) earlier this week. Over 13 million people - close to half of the state's population - have faced some disruption of water services. US President Joe Biden earlier approved a state of emergency for Texas, which has been blanketed by snow and ice since the storm swept in at the weekend. Storm warnings are still in place across much of Texas, but temperatures will r...

 American security contractor Erik Prince, a close ally of former U.S. President Donald Trump, violated the U.N. arms embargo against Libya along with three United Arab Emirates-based companies and their top managers during an operation to help a rebel military commander take the capital Tripoli, U.N. experts said. In a key section of a report to the U.N. Security Council obtained Saturday by The Associated Press, the panel of experts outlined “a well-funded private military company operation” called “Project Opus” designed to provide military equipment to eastern-based commander Khalifa Hifter. “The Project Opus plan also included a component to kidnap or terminate individuals regarded as high value targets in Libya,” the experts said. Prince and another man named in the report denied any wrongdoing. The plan was first reported by The New York Times and The Washington Post. Oil-rich Libya was plunged into chaos after a 2011 NATO-backed uprising toppled longtime dictator Moammar Ga...

 This article is part of Foreign Policy’s ongoing coverage of U.S. President Joe Biden’s first 100 days in office, detailing key administration policies as they get drafted—and the people who will put them into practice. Saudi Arabia is extending an olive branch to the Biden administration. On Feb. 10, the kingdom released women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul after 1,001 days in prison, a detention marked by allegations of sexual abuse and torture. Earlier this year, Riyadh released other political prisoners while announcing judicial reforms and revisions to state-approved schoolbooks that promoted martyrdom and anti-Semitism. In Washington, Democratic control of both the White House and Congress has put the kingdom in a precarious position. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s jailing of dissidents, careless prosecution of the war in Yemen, and reported ordering of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi provoked bipartisan backlash, but the rift with Riyadh runs deeper on t...

 Israel closed all its Mediterranean beaches until further notice on Sunday, days after an offshore oil spill deposited tons of tar across more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) of coastline in what officials are calling one of the country's worst ecological disasters. Activists began reporting globs of black tar on Israel's coast last week after a heavy storm. The deposits have wreaked havoc on local wildlife, and the Israeli Agriculture Ministry determined Sunday that a dead young fin whale that washed up on a beach in southern Israel died from ingesting the viscous black liquid, according to Kan, Israel's public broadcaster. Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority has called the spill “one of the most serious ecological disasters” in the country’s history. In 2014, a crude oil spill in the Arava Desert caused extensive damage to one of the country's delicate ecosystems. The Environmental Protection Ministry and activists estimate that at least 1,000 tons of tar, a product ...

The Biden administration will release an intelligence report that concludes Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Washington Post reported Thursday that an unclassified report produced by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence will be made public as early as next week. 'I don’t have an update on the timing,' press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday when asked about the coming release. Khashoggi was writing columns critical of the Saudi government for the paper before he was drugged and dismembered after being lured to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, to pick up the paperwork required for his marriage to a Turkish citizen.   The Biden administration has already indicated the president will snub 'MBS,' as the crown prince is called, and instead engage with his father, the 85-year-old Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin did speak with Crown Prince Mohammed, who as the Saudi D...

Over 90,000 more Americans are likely to die from COVID-19 related causes by June 1, a leading forecasting institute says. The projection comes as the U.S. expects to surpass 500,000 deaths within the next two days and Dr. Anthony Fauci says it's "possible" that Americans will still be wearing masks in 2022. The University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) also warns that the world may never reach herd immunity. IHME projects that 589,197 Americans will have died by the end of May. The good news is the institute projects that deaths could drop to fewer than 500 per day by then, and the number could be even lower if Americans are vigilant about wearing masks. The U.S. is currently averaging about 2,000 deaths per day. More than 75% of Americans now say they wear masks in public. To reach the lower death numbers, the percentage should be about 95%, IHME says. The institute notes that some political and public health leaders have argued t...

Iran will "immediately reverse" actions in its nuclear programme once U.S. sanctions are lifted, its foreign minister said on Friday, reacting coolly to Washington's initial offer to revive talks with Tehran aimed at restoring the 2015 nuclear deal. President Joe Biden's administration said on Thursday it was ready to talk to Iran about both nations returning to the accord, which aimed to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons while lifting most international sanctions. Former President Donald Trump left the accord in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Iran. Tehran said Washington's move was not enough to persuade Iran to fully respect the accord. When sanctions are lifted, "we will then immediately reverse all remedial measures. Simple," Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Twitter. Tehran and Washington have been at odds over who should make the first step to revive the accord. Iran says the United States must first lift Trump’s sanctions ...

 Members of Myanmar ethnic groups protested on Saturday in a show of opposition to the coup that removed the government of Aung San Suu Kyi, despite some misgivings about her commitment to their aspirations for autonomy, community representatives said. The latest development comes as Myanmar’s neighbouring countries seek new path to resolve the worsening crisis, with Indonesia proposing to convene a meeting in a bid to restore democracy in the country. Protests against the coup that overthrew the elected government of the veteran democracy campaigner have taken place across the diverse country since February 1, even though the military has promised to hold a new election and hand power to the winner. A young female protester died on Friday after being shot in the head last week as police dispersed a crowd in the capital, Naypyidaw – the first death among opponents of the coup – a development that would likely galvanise further the forces against the military generals. The United St...

For months, Nicholas Atencio and his girlfriend, Heather Surovik, spent nearly every minute of their lives together in a 2000 Cadillac Escalade. After Atencio, 33, lost his job as a plumber in May, he and Surovik, 36, delivered for Grubhub by day and at night curled up with their puppy on an air bed in the back of their car parked in a lot in Longmont, Colorado, dreaming of being reunited under one roof with Surovik’s teenage son who was living with his grandmother. “I’m a mom, so I want to fix everything and make it better,” Surovik said. “It’s hard when you don't have the means to do that when you can’t do anything because you don't have anything.” Americans are being driven into their vehicles by COVID-19 pandemic-fueled woes. And their ranks are likely to grow as the government safety net frays and evictions and foreclosures rise. “It’s in times of crisis that the fragility of our systems are laid bare,” said Graham Pruss, a postdoctoral scholar with the Benioff Homelessnes...

 Senator Bernie Sanders says it is not acceptable that in America today the very rich get much richer, while working families struggle. No more austerity economics. We need an economy that works for all, not just the few. The latest Census figures show this official poverty rate inching downward from 12.3 percent in 2017 to 11.8 percent last year. That means about 38.1 million Americans are below the official poverty line.  In a 2017 study, the Institute for Policy Studies and the Poor People’s Campaign counted the number of people living at up to twice the SPM. All told, they found around 140 million Americans who are poor or low-income. These roughly 140 million people make up over 43 percent of the population — about equal to the proportion of Americans the Fed found who can't afford a single $400 emergency.  hat means about 100 million Americans are effectively hidden by official poverty statistics. The Poor People’s Campaign, co-chaired by the Revs. William Barber Jr...

 Uncertainty looms over nearly every aspect of the former president’s post-impeachment political future — from the causes he will embrace, to his level of influence inside the GOP, to the possibility he could face criminal charges or see diminished voter appetite for a potential comeback bid in 2024. In a statement following his acquittal, Trump hinted that something was on the horizon. But there were vanishingly few details about what it would be. “In the months ahead I have much to share with you, and I look forward to continuing our incredible journey together to achieve American greatness for all of our people. There has never been anything like it!” Trump said. For many Republicans, the uncertainty about Trump’s future is equal parts harrowing, provocative and paralyzing. The former president has promised to help the GOP retake the House in the midterm elections next fall but also wants revenge against 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him in the lower chamber. It is a...

  The Saudis have raised their voice on social media against the tyranny of the Al-Saud regime and the widespread human rights violations by this monarchy including the suppression of the opponents and critics.  The human rights situation in Saudi Arabia has become so deplorable that it has become one of the most hot debated topics among the human rights organizations around the globe. Amnesty International has repeatedly warned Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for his policy of repression and oppression against his opponents and critics. Human rights watch emphasizes that the Saudi regime is spends billions of dollars hosting major entertainment, cultural, and sporting events as a deliberate strategy to deflect from the country’s image as a pervasive human rights violator. Saudi Arabia has an appalling human rights record. The authorities have systematically carried out arbitrary arrests targeting peaceful activists, journalists, academics and women human rights defende...

 Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is hitting back at critics who accuse him of hypocrisy for voting not guilty in former President Donald Trump's trial and then blaming him for provoking the Capitol attack -- as well as for his claim it was too late to convict when critics say he could have called the Senate back earlier. In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, McConnell repeated what he said on the Senate floor after Saturday's vote that there is "no question former President Trump bears moral responsibility." "But after intense study, I concluded that Article II, Section 4 limits impeachment and conviction to current officers," he wrote. Trump blasted the senator in a lengthy press release Tuesday afternoon, calling McConnell a "dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack, and if Republican Senators are going to stay with him, they will not win again." "The Republican Party can never again be respected or strong with political 'lead...