Times Of Harvard

The US Department of Defense said on Friday it was cancelling the construction of parts of former president Donald Trump’s border wall with Mexico that were being built using military funds. All unobligated money was being returned to military, the Pentagon said. Trump declared a national emergency in 2019, in an effort to redirect funding to build a wall along the southern border. Joe Biden issued a proclamation on 20 January, his first day in office, ordering a freeze on border wall projects and directing a review of the legality of funding and contracting methods. “The Department of Defense is proceeding with canceling all border barrier construction projects paid for with funds originally intended for other military missions and functions such as schools for military children, overseas military construction projects in partner nations, and the national guard and reserve equipment account,” said a Pentagon spokesperson, Jamal Brown. Brown said the returned funds would be used for de...

The US will restrict travel from India starting next week, the White House said Friday, citing a devastating rise in Covid-19 cases in the country and the emergence of potentially dangerous variants of the coronavirus. The limits, which take effect from 4 May, with bar most non-US citizens arriving from India from entering the United States. Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said Joe Biden’s administration made the determination on the advice of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “The policy will be implemented in light of extraordinarily high Covid-19 caseloads and multiple variants circulating in the India,” she said. India’s healthcare system has been overwhelmed by the latest case surge, the worst the country has faced so far, with the virus is showing no sign of abating. With 386,452 new cases, India now has reported more than 18.7m since the pandemic began, second only to the United States. The Health Ministry on Friday also reported 3,498 deaths in the las...

The coronavirus pandemic cast a strange pall on the yearly political tradition As Biden took the podium, he brushed past a sparse, masked crowd. He fist-bumped and elbow-tapped lawmakers and members of his cabinet – greeting a crowd that was physically distanced, and ideologically divided. After a long, dark year, the vaccine offered a light, Biden said. “Grandparents hugging their children and grandchildren instead of pressing their hands against a window to say goodbye,” he said. But, he added: “There’s still more work to do to beat this virus. We can’t let our guard down now.” It was a historic evening for women in government As soon as he took to the podium, Biden acknowledged Kamala Harris, stood behind him, as “Madam vice-president,” and then reflected: “No president has ever said these words from behind this podium. And it’s about time.” For the first time in US history, two women were seated behind the president addressing a joint session of Congress. Nancy Pelosi, the House sp...

 The novel coronavirus could be associated with a leak from a US biological laboratory, said Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of Russia's Lower Parliament House the State Duma, on Tuesday.  "There was a leak from one of those laboratories that they have opened around the world. It would be right if the government of the Russian Federation raises the issue (of responsibility for the Covid-19 outbreak)," Volodin told a session of the Council of Legislators. "The US laboratories where scientists study, explore and maybe even create new biological weapons are now located in Georgia, in some counties of Eastern Europe. That must be taken under control," he said, according to an official press release. According to media reports, the United States has set up many bio-labs in 25 countries and regions across the Middle East, Africa, South-east Asia and former Soviet Union, with 16 in Ukraine alone. Some of the places are believed to have been involved in biological militari...

President Joe Biden will reportedly seek $80bn to strengthen US tax audit capabilities to help foot the bill for expanding paid leave for workers, childcare and education. Biden’s American Families Plan, set to be unveiled before Congress on Wednesday, is expected to cost over $1 trillion and potentially as much as $1.8 trillion. The sweeping economic agenda could impact millions of Americans and help them better balance work and family life. The New York Times was the first to report on the details of the plan Tuesday, citing two people familiar with the proposal. The administration reportedly hopes that its plan to boost the budget of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over the next decade will help fight tax evasion through audits of wealthy individuals and large corporations. The Democratic president’s American Families Plan would have to pass a divided Congress where Democrats hold a majority in the House of Representatives but only a slim majority in the Senate. Republicans gener...

 Former Israeli Defence Minister, Avigdor Lieberman took to twitter to express his views on the recent missile and rocket attacks on Israel. The head of the Israeli political party Yisrael Beiteinu, Lieberman took to Twitter in Hebrew language and said : "36 rockets by Hamas in the South, by Hezbollah and Iran in the North recognize the weakness of our paralyzed government." " Must form a government and fast."  Some Twitter users replying to his tweet said, Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran were able to do that because of their joint support. Many mocked him for his contribution as a Secretary of Defence. One of the Twitter users wrote :  The Crime Minister (Netanyahu) promised to overthrow the Hamas regime. Two years have passed. I think we need to give him another 20-30 years to try. Years before, during his election campaign Lieberman pledged that if he were appointed, he would eliminate Hamas head Ismail Haniyeh within 48 hours. He even said that time "Ask me abo...

Human Rights organization ALQST revealed that singer Abdulaziz Al-Odah, who was arrested in September 2019, was sentenced by the Specialized Criminal Court in Riyadh to five years of imprisonment, with a suspension for a period of two years and six months for his refusal to advocate for normalization with the Israeli entity. ALQST has called on the Saudi authorities to drop the charges and immediately release him.  The Prisoners of Conscience, Twitter account, had learned that the Saudi authorities had arrested singer Abdulaziz Al-Odah against the backdrop of tweets in which he defended the Palestinian cause. His arrest came as a result of Odah’s constant defense of the Palestinian cause and his rejection of the wave of normalization of relations with Israel that the Saudi authorities are trying to make acceptable within Saudi society. The Saudi authorities imposed travel ban on some people with popular Tweeter accounts because of their stand for the the Palestinian issue. Some ha...

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi sent a warning to U.S. leaders on Friday, telling them in a virtual address that their increasingly anti-Chinese words and policies “will cause chaos in the world.” Let's hope they were listening. The new Red Scare that American politicians have latched on to has, so far, failed to persuade Chinese leaders to Beijing to abandon their global ambitions. By the sound of it, it hasn’t even made them flinch. For four years, Trump’s team — led bombastically by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — worked to sell Americans and the world on China as the new immediate threat. They slammed the Chinese Communist Party leadership in what Pompeo portrayed as a battle for the soul of the world. Now, with Biden and “the blob” of foreign policy moderates firmly back in charge and striking a more hopeful and less confrontational tone, China’s top diplomat is seeking to establish a new narrative about the way ahead. Speaking at a Council on Foreign Relations virtual event...

  The Saudi-led Arab coalition fighters intensified their attacks on the Houthi militia group's headquarters in Marib, central Yemen. Houthi media said that the coalition fighters launched 19 raids on the Sarwah district in the Ma'rib governorate, without further information. Violent clashes between government forces and the Houthis intensified in the west of the province two days ago, as the Houthi militia group tries to advance towards the city of Marib.   The government forces repelled an attack by the Houthis on the "Kassara" front, through which they tried to regain positions they had recently lost, while the Houthi group did not make any comment on field developments in Marib.    

 A Saudi source familiar with the matter revealed an angry message from Jordan to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over his role in the failed coup plot in Amman. The source told Saudi Leaks that the Jordanian royal court sent a verbal message through intermediaries to the office of Mohammed bin Salman. The source explained that the source’s content rejected bin Salman’s interference in the ongoing investigations into the failed coup plot in Jordan. He added that the letter included confirmation of Oman’s rejection of bin Salman’s request to release his former adviser Bassem Awadallah, the most prominent suspect in the coup plot. As a practical translation of the message, the Public Prosecution of State Security in Jordan released 16 detainees in the case of “destabilizing the security and stability of Jordan” that recently shook the kingdom. Two other main detainees, Awad Allah and Sharif Abdul Rahman Hassan bin Zaid, remained in detention. The Jordanian News Agency (Petra) quote...

Saudi Arabia has executed three soldiers convicted of “high treason” and “cooperating with the Yemeni forces”, with a statement from the kingdom’s defence ministry saying the trio was sentenced to death by a specialist court after a fair trial. The state-run Saudi Press Agency identified the men as soldiers working in the defence ministry. It did not elaborate on how the men aided the kingdom’s enemies, i:e; Yemeni forces. The ministry named the three soldiers – Mohammed bin Ahmed, Shaher bin Issa and Hamoud bin Ibrahim – without identifying which “enemy” they were accused of aiding. The ministry said the soldiers were executed in the military’s Southern Command, based close to the border with Yemen, where Saudi Arabia is leading a six-year campaign against Houthi rebels.  The three were exposed to public using a helicopter. Watch:   Consolidating power The executions come as Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), the 35-year-old heir to the throne, tightens his control on power. ...

 In Delhi, more than 26,000 new cases and 306 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours, the equivalent of about one death every five minutes. India's epidemic has been surging over the past few weeks as a new variant has taken hold. But Delhi is now seeing the worst of the second wave as hospitals beg for more medical oxygen supplies and crematoriums run out of space for the dead. The number of coronavirus patients taking up hospital beds in Delhi has increased by 1,146 every day on average for the past week. The number is currently doubling every eight days, according to data from the Delhi chief minister's office. In early March, when there were just over 500 beds occupied in hospitals across Delhi, more than 5,000 beds lay vacant. The number of vacant beds is now at its lowest level since the start of the second wave, with only 2,037 spaces free as of 22 April. India has been increasing its number of hospital beds as infections have surged by creating makeshift spaces in pl...

 President Joe Biden on Friday told Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan that he intends to recognize the 1915 massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide, people familiar with the call between the leaders told. The two spoke Friday for the first time since Biden became president in January, a day before Biden’s expected remarks designating the killings as “genocide”, an action that will further strain already fraught ties between the US and Turkey. “When it comes to the Armenian genocide, you can expect an announcement tomorrow,” US Department of State Deputy Spokeswoman Jalina Porter told reporters Friday, while declining to reveal details. Biden would be the first US president to formally recognise the killings of 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1917 as genocide. Turkey has acknowledged the deaths of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during World War I, but has steadfastly denied that the killings were systematically orchestrated and constitute a ...

A missile launched from Syria has struck Israel's Negev desert region, setting off air raid sirens near the country's top-secret nuclear reactor, the Israeli military said. In response to Thursday's incident, it said it struck the missile launcher and other targets in neighbouring Syria. The Israeli army said the missile landed in the Negev region and the air raid sirens were sounded in a village near Dimona, where Israel's nuclear reactor is located. There was no word on whether anything had been struck, but explosions were reported across Israel. The incident near the Dimona nuclear reactor, marking the most serious violence between Israel and Syria in years, pointed to likely Iranian involvement. Iran, which maintains troops and proxies in Syria, has accused Israel of a series of attacks on its nuclear facilities, including a recent fire at its Natanz nuclear facility, and vowed revenge. For weeks, Israeli media have said air defences around the Dimona reactor and th...

 At the age of 22, Marielle Bacason experienced something that would change her life forever. In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines with record ferocity, killing thousands of people and affecting millions of others. Winds of up to 315kmph (197mph) destroyed everything in their path. When the superstorm finally subsided, Bacason said, “You could not distinguish the roads and dead bodies of people and animals everywhere. We feared for our safety every day, especially during the night. We just wanted to leave Tacloban … I was traumatised.” Bacason did not just leave, she took action. She joined other brave survivors, local activists, workers, and fisherfolk to assert their fundamental rights before the Commission on Human Rights of The Philippines. The Commission announced that 47 big companies, including Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, and Total, could be found legally and morally liable for human rights harms to Filipinos resulting from climate change. Despite widespread ackno...

 President Joe Biden is expected to formally recognize the mass killing of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during World War I as an act of genocide, sources said on Wednesday, a move likely to infuriate Turkey and further strain already frayed ties between the two NATO allies. The move would be largely symbolic but would mean breaking away from decades of carefully calibrated language from the White House and come at a time when Ankara and Washington are already at loggerheads over a string of issues. Biden will probably use the word “genocide” as part of a statement on April 24 when annual commemorations for the victims are held around the world, three sources familiar with the matter told the Reuters news agency. “My understanding is that he took the decision and will use the word genocide in his statement on Saturday,” said a source familiar with the matter. Sources cautioned that given the importance of bilateral ties with Turkey, Biden may still choose not to use the term at t...

  Since last May, the world has been waiting for justice for George Floyd, who was killed on the streets of Minneapolis after trying to use a counterfeit $20 bill at a convenience store. Today, the jury found police officer Derek Chauvin guilty on all counts: second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. It was an emotional verdict, in what has been an emotional year since his killing. How are we to receive this moment? This verdict has been a long time coming. And it’s been a painful, difficult wait. Many times, I have had to remind people that it was Derek Chauvin who was on trial, not George Floyd. Over and over, people questioned Floyd’s history, his drug use and his actions – anything, that would shift the blame for his own death away from Derek Chavin. As WEB Du Bois once wrote: “Nothing in the world is easier in the United States than to accuse a black man of a crime.” That is still true today. We must end ‘qualified immunity’ for police. It might...

Since 1948, when "Israel" occupied the Palestinian lands, it has always tried to justify and cover up their crimes, either by lying or by distorting history. During these years, although many Palestinian-Islamic-Arab efforts have been made to expose the facts and make them known to the world, but a Zionist rejecting the Zionist official narrative has a great importance and status. What follows is a rejection of the Zionist official narrative on occupying Palestine, presented by a Jewish historian and researcher - Ilan Pappe. Pappé places Zionism under an uncompromising lens. In his reading it was not a national liberation movement but a settler colonial project imposed on the Palestinians by force with the support of the west. From this premise it follows that the state of Israel is not legitimate even in its original borders, much less so within its post-1967 borders.  History is usually written by the victors, and the Middle East is no exception. Pappé himself is a leading ...