Archive June 4, 2025

As Damascus continues to acquiesce in the international community, Syria’s new government has agreed to grant inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to suspected former nuclear sites right away, according to the agency’s head.

Director-general of the UN nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, met with President Ahmed al-Sharaa and other officials in Damascus on Wednesday.

Since President Bashar al-Assad’s ouster in December, the IAEA has been making strides to re-access sites related to Syria’s nuclear program.

Grossi stated that the agency’s goal is “to bring total clarity over certain activities that took place in the past that were, in the opinion of the agency, likely related to nuclear weapons.” He said he was confident in the completion of the inspection process in a few months and that the new government was “committed to opening up to the world and to international cooperation.”

After the United States and the European Union last month lifted sanctions against Syria, Grossi’s visit also represents yet another step in the direction of international acceptance. Despite the two nations holding indirect talks in early May, Israel has launched more than 200 air, drone, or artillery attacks across Syria over the past six months.

Last year, an IAEA team went to some interesting locations. According to reports, Syria’s under-Assad regime had a large, secret nuclear program, including a North Korean nuclear plant in Deir ez-Zor province, which was unveiled.

The reactor’s “not configured to produce electricity” was described by the IAEA, raising the possibility that Damascus sought nuclear weapons there by producing weapons-grade plutonium.

The reactor site was only made public after Israel, the region’s only nuclear power, launched airstrikes in 2007, destroying the facility. Later, Syria leveled the site and never fully addressed the IAEA’s inquiries.

Grossi described plans to return to the reactor in Deir az Zor and three other related locations. A facility in Homs and a miniature neutron source reactor in Damascus are additional IAEA safeguards that cover other locations.

The watchdog is concerned that “enriched uranium can be lying somewhere and could be reused, could be smuggled, and could be trafficked,” Grossi said, despite the lack of any indications that there had been radiation releases from the sites.

He claimed that al-Sharaa had shown a “very positive disposition” to talk to us and allow us to carry out our needs.

Grossi shared that the IAEA is also prepared to transfer nuclear medicine equipment and assist in the reconstruction of the country’s nearly 14-year civil war-era radiotherapy, nuclear medicine, and oncology infrastructure.

Grossi continued, “And the president has told me that he is also interested in exploring nuclear energy in the future.”

Columbia University’s accreditor has been informed by the US Department of Education that the Ivy League institution allegedly violated federal anti-discrimination laws.

According to a statement released on Wednesday, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the Education Department and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) claimed Columbia University “acted with deliberate indifference to the harassment of Jewish students.”

In consequence, they claimed Columbia broke the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids discrimination against people of color and race based on race.

OCR and HHS OCR specifically found that Columbia failed to adequately defend Jewish students from widespread and severe harassment on the campus, and that this gave them no access to the educational opportunities they were entitled to under the law, according to the statement.

Since Israel’s occupation of Gaza began on October 7, 2023, it quoted Linda McMahon, the secretary of education, who claimed Columbia University was ignoring the ongoing harassment of Jewish students on its campus.

According to McMahon, “This is not only immoral, but it is also unlawful.”

The Middle States Commission on Higher Education, the accreditor, is “obliged to ensure member institutions abide by their standards,” she added.

The commission is one of seven regional bodies that checks colleges, universities, and other higher education institutions to make sure they adhere to requirements for degrees, including those that apply to degrees.

McMahon referred to accreditation organizations as the “gatekeepers of federal student aid” and explained that they determine which institutions are student loan eligible.

According to McMahon, “We look forward to the Commission keeping the Department fully informed of the steps being taken to ensure Columbia’s compliance with accreditation standards, including federal civil rights laws.”

According to the statement, Columbia University’s civil rights compliance status was disclosed to the Education Department and HHS on May 22.

Some of the first student encampments popped up on the Ivy League school’s lawn in April 2024, marking a turning point for pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel student protest movements.

With the arrests of prominent student activists like Mahmoud Khalil in March and Mohsen Mahdawi in April, the university has remained in the news.

Mahdawi has since been free, but Khalil and he are still facing deportation proceedings.

The protest leaders have refuted accusations that President Donald Trump’s administration made of creating unsafe conditions for Jewish students on campus.

In its statement on Wednesday, which summarized the “noncompliance findings,” which allegedly show Columbia is in conflict with civil rights law, it once more made that claim.

According to Anthony Archeval, acting director of the Office for Civil Rights at HHS, “the findings carefully document the hostile environment Jewish students have endured for over 19 months, disrupting their education, safety, and well-being,” according to the statement.

We urge Columbia University to work with us to reach a conclusion that incorporates important changes that will truly safeguard Jewish students.

The university did not respond to a Reuters news agency’s request for comment right away.

Over $400 million in federal funding for Columbia University, a New York-based Ivy League institution, was being discussed by the Trump administration. In an effort to maintain the flow of funds, Columbia agreed to a number of demands from the administration, but it has not yet confirmed whether it will reactivate the grants and contracts it halted.

The Electoral Commission has stated that four well-known opposition figures from the Ivory Coast are no longer eligible to run in the crucial October presidential elections. This leaves them out of the race.

The Independent Electoral Commission’s (CEI) removal of me from the electoral list is a depressing but powerful illustration of Ivory Coast’s transition to total democracy, according to Tidjane Thiam, the party’s leader, in a statement released on Wednesday.

Two days after CEI spokesman Ibrahime Kuibiert Coulibaly stated that the electoral register wouldn’t be revised prior to the vote, Thiam made the statement.

Due to his dual citizenship, Thiam, who was widely regarded as the main challenger to Alassane Ouattara, was removed from the voter rolls in April. In 1987, Thiam, who was born in Ivory Coast, renounced French citizenship in March.

Former President Laurent Gbagbo and his close ally Charles Ble Goude, both of whom were charged with crimes against humanity in connection with the civil war, are two other prominent Ivorians who were kept out of the vote.

Guillaume Soro, the former prime minister and rebel leader, is also prohibited. He was convicted of organizing a coup in absentia, receiving a life sentence.

None of the four will be able to cast ballots or run for president on October 25.

Ouattara, who has been in office since 2011, is listed on the electoral register, but he has not yet announced whether he plans to run for president again.

With more than 80% of the vote, Ouattara won in 2015 and 2020.

According to his party, Thiam has written to the UN Human Rights Committee.

In a statement to the AFP news agency, his lawyer Mathias Chichportich claimed that the opposition leader’s deprivation of “his political rights” was “a serious violation of Ivory Coast’s international commitments.”

According to its Secretary-General Jean-Gervais Tcheide, the authorities “did not choose to listen to the advice, the calls for discussion, for reason,” according to Gbagbo’s African Peoples’ Party-Ivory Coast (PPA-CI).

It’s unfortunate that they chose to impose themselves, he said, adding, “We won’t let them do it.”

The final electoral list includes opposition figures who made announcements about running for president.

Former First Lady Simone Ehivet Gbagbo, who spoke on behalf of an opposition coalition, claimed that the requirements for a “peaceful, calm election” were not met.

The electoral list was revised in June in advance of the presidential election in October during the 2020 presidential election.

8.7 million voters’ names are included in the final electoral register for this year’s ballot, which is a nation with a high immigrant population and where nearly half of the 30 million people are under the age of 18.