06/06/2025

FRIDAY | JUNE 6, 2025

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GOVT ATTACK ON UNIVERSITIES INTENSIFY WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump ramped up his campaign against top US universities on Wednesday, banning visas for all foreign students coming to attend Harvard and threatening to strip Columbia of its academic accreditation. Trump is seeking to bring the universities to heel with claims that their international students pose a national security threat, and that the institutions ignored antisemitism on campus and perpetuate liberal bias. The announcement came after the Trump administration’s earlier efforts to terminate Harvard’s option to enrol and host foreign students were stalled by a judge. “This is yet another illegal retaliatory step taken by the administration in violation of Harvard’s First Amendment rights,“ a university spokesperson said. Meanwhile, US Education Secretary Linda McMahon accused Columbia University of breaking rules prohibiting recipients of federal funding from discriminating on the basis of race, colour or national origin. A university spokesperson said: “Columbia is deeply committed to combating antisemitism on our campus. We take this issue seriously and are continuing to work with the federal government to address it.” – AFP JUDGE ORDERS DUE PROCESS FOR DEPORTED WASHINGTON: A US federal judge ruled on Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s administration must allow over a hundred Venezuelans deported under an obscure wartime law to challenge accusations that they are violent gang members. District judge James Boasberg said the US government “must facilitate” the migrants’ ability to contest their removal. In March, the Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act 1798 to deport Venezuelan migrants by alleging they were members of the Tren de Aragua gang, expelling them to a notorious maximum security prison in El Salvador. Boasberg offered no ruling on the legality of using the Act to deport migrants and acknowledged that the deportees could be gang members. “But there is simply no way to know for sure as (they) never had any opportunity to challenge the government’s say-so.“ The Trump administration has claimed that it does not have the power to bring back the deported migrants, raising fears that its defiance of federal court orders was placing the country on the cusp of a constitutional crisis. – AFP

Trump signs decree banning nationals from 12 countries

BR I E F S

WASHINGTON:

o Entry of travellers from several other nations will be partially restricted

US

President

Wildfires spread in Canada MONTREAL: More than 31,000 people were under evacuation across Canada on Wednesday as firefighters battled raging wildfires threatening towns and villages, authorities said. More than 200 fires burning across the country, half of which are described as being out of control, have scorched more than 2.2 million hectares. The Saskatchewan and Manitoba provinces have been hit the hardest, with both declaring wildfire emergencies in recent days. Firefighters across the country have been put on alert while 140 American personnel are in Canada to help fight the fires. “We are up against a monster. The last hours have been chaotic,“ said the La Ronge Fire Department. The region around La Ronge has several active blazes, one of which has consumed more than 470,000ha. Another blaze further west, also uncontained, has burned more than 140,000ha. The fires have downgraded air quality in central Canada as well as in northern parts of the United States. Wildfire smoke is comprised of gaseous pollutants, such as carbon monoxide, along with water vapor and particle pollution, which could be particularly hazardous to health. Climate change has increased the impact of extreme weather events in Canada, which is recovering from the summer of 2023 when 15 million hectares of forests were scorched. Most of the ongoing fires have been triggered by human activity, often accidental, such as poorly extinguished campfires or the passing of vehicles in extremely dry areas. – AFP Calls to Myanmar’s military government spokesperson yesterday were not answered. The Foreign Ministry of Laos did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump’s directive is part of an immigration crackdown that he launched at the start of his second term. – Reuters relationship with the United States and stands ready to engage in dialogue to address the concerns raised,” said Somalia’s US ambassador Dahir Hassan Abdi in a statement. Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, a close ally of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, responded on Wednesday by describing the US government as fascist and warning Venezuelans against being in the United States. “The truth is that being in the United States is a big risk for anybody, not just Venezuelans. They persecute our countrymen, our people for no reason.”

Donald

Trump

signed

a

proclamation Wednesday banning the nationals of 12 countries from entering the United States, saying the move was needed to protect against “foreign terrorists” and other security threats. The countries affected are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. The entry of people from several other countries, namely Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela will be partially restricted. The travel restrictions were first reported by CBS News. “We will not allow people to enter our country who wish to do us harm,” said Trump in a video posted on X, adding that the list could be revised and new countries could be added. The proclamation is effective on June 9 at 12.01am EDT (0401 GMT) on

visa overstays in the United States. “We cannot have open migration from any country where we cannot safely and reliably vet and screen those who seek to enter the United States.” He cited Sunday’s incident in Boulder, Colorado in which a man tossed a gasoline bomb into a crowd of pro-Israel demonstrators as an example of why the new restrictions are needed. Egyptian national Mohamed Sabry Soliman has been charged in the attack. Federal officials said Soliman had overstayed his tourist visa and had an expired work permit. Somalia immediately pledged to work with the United States to address security issues. “Somalia values its long-standing

and visas issued before that date will not be revoked, the order said. During his first term in office, Trump announced a ban on travellers from seven majority-Muslim nations, a policy that went through several iterations before it was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018. Former president Joe Biden, a Democrat who succeeded Trump, repealed the ban in 2021, calling it “a stain on our national conscience”. Trump said the countries subject to the most severe restrictions were identified as those harbouring a “large-scale presence of terrorists”, failing to cooperate on visa security and having an inability to verify travellers’ identities, and inadequate record-keeping of criminal histories and high rates of

SOVEREIGN SALUTATIONS ... Pope Leo XIV greeting crowds on Wednesday when he held a general audience in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican. – REUTERSPIC

Probe ordered into Biden health ‘cover-up’ WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered an investigation into what Republicans claim was a “conspiracy” to cover up Joe Biden’s declining cognitive health during his time in the White House. The move is the latest in a long-running campaign by Trump to discredit his predecessor. “In recent months, it has become increasingly apparent that Biden’s aides abused the power of presidential signatures through the use of an autopen to conceal Biden’s cognitive decline,“ said a presidential memorandum issued on Wednesday. “The American public was shielded from discovering who wielded the executive power, all while Biden’s signature was deployed across thousands of documents to effect radical policy shifts.” slamming the ordered probe as “nothing more than a distraction by Trump and Congressional Republicans who are working to push disastrous legislation”. Republicans have long claimed that Biden was suffering from intellectual decline even as the White House pressed ahead with major legislation and presidential decrees during his term. They cite his infrequent

and using a device that could reproduce his signature to allow them to continue to run the country in his name. “The counsel to the president shall investigate whether certain individuals conspired to deceive the public about Biden’s mental state and unconstitutionally exercise the authorities and responsibilities of the president,“ the document said. The probe will also look at “the circumstances surrounding Biden’s supposed execution of numerous executive actions during his final years in office, (including) the policy documents for which the autopen was used (and) who directed that the president’s signature be affixed”. – AFP

But it also comes as a growing chorus of Democrats begin to acknowledge that the former president appeared to have been slipping in recent years. Those concerns were thrown into stark light by a debate during last year’s presidential campaign, in which the then-81-year-old stumbled over his words and repeatedly lost his train of thought.

public appearances and apparent unwillingness to sit for interviews as evidence of what they say was a man incapable of doing the demanding job of US commander-in-chief. They insist that those around him covered up his physical and cognitive decline, taking decisions on his behalf

Biden has denied the allegations. “I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation and proclamations. “Any suggestion that I did not is ridiculous and false,“ he said,