University and police denounced as masked group marched on campus and attacked pro-Palestinian demonstrators last week

The University of California, Los Angeles said that it would create a new office dedicated to campus safety following mounting criticism of authorities’ slow response to a brutal attack on pro-Palestinian protesters by a mob of “ instigators ”.

The school’s chancellor, Gene Block, said on Sunday that urgent changes were needed to “better protect our community moving forward”, and announced that a new office of campus safety would oversee the university police department and the UCLA office of emergency management, “effective immediately”.

Continue reading...

More than 200 expected to join protest calling for climate action and to cut ties with Israeli institutions

More than 100 students have occupied Ghent University in the first European protest to fuse demands about Gaza and the climate crisis.

Ghent’s centrepiece UFO building was peacefully taken over by students calling for concrete action to meet the university’s 2030 climate plans, and asking the university to cut ties with institutions connected to the Israeli military.

Continue reading...

Militant group issued a statement saying its supreme leader, Ismail Haniyeh, had delivered the news in a phone call with Qatar’s prime minister and Egypt’s intelligence minister

There was no immediate comment from Israel on the deal, and details of the proposal have not yet been released, the AP reports.

In recent days, Egyptian and Hamas officials have said the cease-fire would take place in a series of stages, during which Hamas would release hostages it is holding in exchange for Israeli troop pullbacks from Gaza.

It is not clear whether the deal will meet Hamas’s key demand of bringing about an end to the war and complete Israeli withdrawal.

Hamas said in a statement its top leader, Ismail Haniyeh, had delivered the news in a phone call with Qatar’s prime minister and Egypt’s intelligence minister.

Continue reading...

Mulino, who won 34.3% of vote, pledges to welcome business and investment without forgetting ‘those who are hungry’

José Raúl Mulino, a former security minister, has emerged from a chaotic campaign to become Panama’s next president — and will now have to address a cocktail of social discontent with just a fraction of the seats in parliament.

Amid record turnout, Mulino won 34.3% of the vote, followed by the lawyer Ricardo Lombana on 24.8% and former president Martín Torrijos on 16%.

Continue reading...

How did UK activists outfox 700 police? Why was Hong Kong traffic stopped by ‘mini Stonehenges’? And could an octagonal treehouse and a crow’s nest really have saved a German forest? Our writer enjoys a 200-year history of resistance architecture

In his 1868 street-fighting manual, Instructions for an Armed Uprising , the French revolutionary Auguste Blanqui sets out meticulous instructions for how to build a good barricade. Such defences, he wrote, must no longer be thrown together in “a confused and disorderly fashion”, but should be robustly composed of two sturdy rampart walls made of paving stones and plaster. All the aspiring revolutionary needed was a good supply of cobblestones and “a cart filled with sacks of plaster, plus wheelbarrows, handcarts, levers, picks, shovels, mattocks, hammers, cold chisels, trowels, buckets and troughs”. Blanqui advised that all of these things could be “requisitioned from the respective merchants”, whose addresses were handily listed in an accompanying directory.

The students at UCLA, who were peacefully occupying their campus in protest against Israel’s war on Gaza, might have wished for such supplies when they were attacked by a violent mob of vigilantes last week. Terrifying footage showed masked thugs beating their makeshift encampment with sticks and metal poles, dragging away steel fencing and plywood panels, and tearing apart their tents and gazebos, amid fireworks and clouds of bear spray. The hastily assembled camp stood no chance against the brute force of an organised gang intent on inflicting violence, terror and destruction.

Continue reading...

Union calls for end to politicians’ interference in state broadcaster amid debate over censorship

An Italian union has called for political parties to be “eliminated from Rai” as journalists with the public broadcaster went on strike in protest against the “suffocating control” allegedly being wielded by Giorgia Meloni ’s rightwing government over their work.

The ruling coalition has been accused of influencing programming, including censoring themes that are not in tune with its rightwing stance.

Continue reading...

Bloc ‘will not waver’ from making tough decisions to protect economy and security, says Ursula von der Leyen

• Europe live – latest updates

The EU has restated its readiness to launch a trade war with China over imports of cheap electric cars, steel and cheap solar and wind technology, with Ursula von der Leyen saying the bloc will “not waver” from protecting industries and jobs after a meeting with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping.

The European Commission chief said she was “convinced that if the competition is fair” from China, then Europe “will have thriving durable economies”.

Continue reading...

Emmanuel Macron and Viktor Orbán among leaders Xi is meeting, with several key issues on the table

China’s president, Xi Jinping, has begun a three-country tour of Europe – his first state visit to the continent in five years – at a time when China-EU ties are under strain from trade disputes and Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Continue reading...

Violent assault on Social Democrat politician triggers debate over rise in aggression against public figures

Four German teenagers are being investigated over a violent attack on a German politician that left him hospitalised with serious injuries, triggering a nationwide debate as to how to deal with a sharp rise in aggression towards people in public office.

Police said on Monday they had identified three suspects after a 17-year-old turned himself in to police on Sunday, admitting his involvement in the attack on Matthias Ecke, a member of the European parliament for the Social Democrats, and its main candidate for the 7 June election.

Continue reading...