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France hit by new wave of strikes against Macron’s pension reform

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  • Reform would raise retirement age to 64
  • Schools, transport networks, refinery deliveries hit
  • Macron: Reform vital to ensure viability of pension system

SAINT-NAZAIRE, France, Jan 31 (Reuters) – Striking workers disrupted French refinery deliveries, public transport and schools on Tuesday in a second day of nationwide protests over President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to make people work longer before retirement.

Crowds marched through cities across France to denounce a reform that raises the retirement age by two years to 64 and which is a test of Macron’s ability to push through change now that he has lost his working majority in parliament.

On the rail networks, only one in every three high-speed TGV trains were operating and even fewer local and regional trains. Services on the Paris metro were thrown into disarray.

Buoyed by their success earlier in the month when more than a million people took to the streets, trade unions which have been battling to maintain their power and influence urged the public to turnout en masse.

“We won’t drive until we’re 64!” bus driver Isabelle Texier said at a protest in Saint-Nazaire on the Atlantic coast, adding that many careers involved tough working conditions.

Others felt resigned ahead of likely bargaining between Macron’s ruling alliance and conservative opponents who are more open to pension reform than the left.

“There’s no point in going on strike. This bill will be adopted in any case,” said 34-year-old Matthieu Jacquot, who works in the luxury sector.

Unions said half of primary school teachers had walked off the job. TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA) said 55% of its workers on morning shifts at its refineries had downed tools, a lower number than on Jan. 19. The hard-left CGT union said the figure was inaccurate.

For unions, the challenge will be maintaining a strike movement at a time when high inflation is eroding salaries.

At a local level, some announced “Robin Hood” operations unauthorised by the government. In the southwestern Lot-et-Garonne area, the local CGT trade union branch cut power to several speed cameras and disabled smart power meters.

“When there is such a massive opposition, it would be dangerous for the government not to listen,” said Mylene Jacquot, secretary general of the CFDT union’s civil servants branch.

[1/16] Protesters attend a demonstration against French government’s pension reform plan in Paris as part of a day of national strike and protests in France, January 31, 2023. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes

Opinion polls show a substantial majority of the French oppose the reform, but Macron intends to stand his ground. The reform was “vital” to ensure the viability of the pension system, he said on Monday.

A street march in Paris takes place later in the day.

‘BRUTAL’

The pension system reform would yield an additional 17.7 billion euros ($19.18 billion) in annual pension contributions, according to Labour Ministry estimates.

Unions say there are other ways to raise revenue, such as taxing the super rich or asking employers or well-off pensioners to contribute more.

“This reform is unfair and brutal,” said Luc Farre, the secretary general of the civil servants’ UNSA union. “Moving (the pension age) to 64 is going backwards, socially.”

French power supply was down by 4.5% or 3 gigawatts (GW), as workers at nuclear reactors and thermal plants joined the strike, data from utility group EDF (EDF.PA) showed.

TotalEnergies said deliveries of petroleum products from its French sites had been halted because of the strike, but that customers’ needs were met.

The government made some concessions while drafting the legislation. Macron had originally wanted the retirement age to be set at 65, while the government is also promising a minimum pension of 1,200 euros a month.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne has said the 64 threshold is “non-negotiable”, but the government is exploring ways to offset some of the impact, particularly on women.

Hard-left opposition figure Jean-Luc Melenchon, a vocal critic of the reform, said parliament would on Monday debate a motion calling for a referendum on the matter.

“The French are not stupid,” he said at a march in Marseille. “If this reform is vital, it should be possible to convince the people.”

Reporting by Forrest Crellin, Benjamin Mallet, Sudip Kar-Gupta, Leigh Thomas, Blandine Henault, Michel Rose, Dominique Vidalon, Benoit Van Overstraeten; Writing by Ingrid Melander and Richard Lough; Editing by Janet Lawrence

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India police detain students gathered to watch BBC documentary on Modi

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NEW DELHI, Jan 25 (Reuters) – Students were detained by the Delhi police on Wednesday as they gathered to watch a recent BBC documentary about Prime Minister Narendra Modi that India has dismissed as propaganda and blocked its streaming and sharing on social media.

This follows similar disruptions, some of which turned violent, at gatherings this week by students to watch the documentary that questions Modi’s leadership during deadly riots two decades ago, as his opponents raise questions of government censorship.

Modi, who is aiming for a third term in elections next year, was the chief minister of Gujarat in February 2002 when a suspected Muslim mob set fire to a train carrying Hindu pilgrims, setting off one of independent India’s worst outbreaks of religious bloodshed.

In reprisal attacks across the state at least 1,000 people were killed, mostly Muslims, as crowds roamed the streets over days, targeting the minority group. Activists put the toll at around 2,500, over twice that number.

The government has said the BBC documentary “India: The Modi Question” released last week is a biased “propaganda piece” and has blocked the sharing of any clips from it on social media.

The Students’ Federation of India (SFI) said on Wednesday it plans to show the documentary in every Indian state.

“They won’t stop the voice of dissent,” said Mayukh Biswas, general secretary of the SFI, the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

Ahead of one of those screenings at Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia university, 13 students were detained amid a heavy police deployment. The university blamed the students for creating a “ruckus on the street” and said they did not have permission for holding the show, police said.

“There is no chance that anybody who tries to disturb the discipline of the university will go free,” the university’s vice chancellor, Najma Akhtar, told Reuters.

A day earlier, bricks were hurled, allegedly by members of a right-wing group, on students hoping to watch the documentary at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, students said.

Student leader Aishe Ghosh said they were watching the documentary on their phones and laptops after power was cut off about half an before a scheduled screening.

The university had denied permission and threatened disciplinary action if the documentary was screened.

“It was obviously the administration that cut off the power,” Ghosh said. “We are encouraging campuses across the country to hold screenings as an act of resistance against this censorship.”

The media coordinator for the university did not comment when asked about the on-campus power cut.

A spokesman for the right-wing student group did not respond to a message seeking comment. A police spokesperson did not respond to queries.

Protests also erupted following the film’s screening at campuses in the southern state of Kerala on Tuesday while a show was cancelled mid-way at a university in the north Indian city of Chandigarh, according to local media reports.

Derek O’Brien, a member of parliament in the upper house of the parliament, wrote on Twitter on Saturday that the opposition “will continue to fight the good fight against censorship” in reference to the block on sharing clips from the documentary on social media.

The BBC said its documentary series examines tensions between India’s Hindu majority and Muslim minority and explores Modi’s politics in relation to those tensions.

“The documentary was rigorously researched according to highest editorial standards,” the BBC said.

It approached “a wide range of voices, witnesses and experts” and featured a range of opinion including responses from people in Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, the BBC said.

Reporting by Shivam Patel in New Delhi and Sudipto Ganguly in Mumbai; additional reporting by Krishn Kaushik; Editing by Robert Birsel and Jonathan Oatis

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Indian university reports power cut ahead of Modi documentary screening

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NEW DELHI, Jan 24 (Reuters) – A top Indian university cut off power and internet supply on campus on Tuesday before a screening by its students’ union of a BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi that India has dismissed as propaganda, broadcaster NDTV reported.

The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in the capital New Delhi had threatened disciplinary action if the documentary was screened, saying the move might disturb peace and harmony on campus.

Modi’s government has labelled the documentary, which questioned his leadership during deadly riots in his home state of Gujarat in 2002, as a “propaganda piece”, blocked its airing and also barred sharing of any clips via social media in India.

Modi was chief minister of the western state during the violence in which more than 2,000 people were killed, most of them Muslims.

The students’ union of the JNU, long seen as a bastion of left-wing politics, was to screen the documentary, “India: The Modi Question”, at 9 p.m. (1530 GMT).

A person present with students inside campus said the documentary was now being watched on mobile phones through links shared over Telegram and Vimeo (VMEO.O) after the power went out.

“There are about 300 people streaming the documentary now in campus on their phones since the power went out about half an hour before the screening,” the person, who did not wish to be identified, told Reuters.

Footage from inside the campus showed some students huddled together and watching the film on a laptop propped up on a chair.

The JNU media coordinator did not comment when asked about reports of internet outage and a power cut inside the campus. A source in the administration said a fault in the power line caused outages in faculty residences and other facilities and the issue was being looked into.

The university administration earlier said it had not given permission for the documentary screening.

“This is to emphasise that such an unauthorised activity may disturb peace and harmony of the university campus,” it said.

“The concerned students/individuals are firmly advised to cancel the proposed programme immediately, failing which a strict disciplinary action may be initiated as per the university rules.”

Union president Aishe Ghosh had asked students via Twitter to attend the screening, describing it as having been “‘banned’ by an ‘elected government’ of the largest ‘democracy'”.

Ghosh did not respond to phone calls and a message after reports emerged of a power outage in campus.

Police vigilance was ramped up following a request from campus, police said.

The documentary was also screened at some campuses in the Communist-ruled southern state of Kerala, The Hindu newspaper reported.

India’s home ministry did not respond to requests for comment on the government’s plans if the film is shown at JNU and in Kerala.

The 2002 Gujarat violence erupted after a train carrying Hindu pilgrims caught fire, killing 59. Crowds later rampaged through Muslim neighbourhoods. In 2017, 11 men were jailed for life for setting the train ablaze.

Modi has denied accusations that he did not do enough to stop the riots and was exonerated in 2012 following an inquiry overseen by the Supreme Court. Another petition questioning his exoneration was dismissed last year.

Last week, the BBC said the documentary was “rigorously researched” and involved a wide range of voices and opinions, including responses from people in Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.

Reporting by Sudipto Ganguly, Shivam Patel and Rupam Jain; additional reporting by Krishn Kaushik; Editing by Robert Birsel and Clarence Fernandez

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Criminal justice postgrad charged with murdering 4 Idaho university students

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Dec 30 (Reuters) – A grad student seeking a criminal justice degree from Washington State University has been arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students more than six weeks ago, officials said on Friday.

Police in eastern Pennsylvania acting on a fugitive arrest warrant took Bryan Christopher Kohberger, 28, into custody on Thursday night, according to James Fry, chief of police in Moscow, Idaho, where the University of Idaho campus is located. Fry said Kohberger resides in Pennsylvania.

Kohberger was arraigned in Pennsylvania and remained jailed without bond awaiting a hearing on Tuesday to determine whether he will waive extradition and return voluntarily to Idaho to face charges in the high-profile case, said Latah County, Idaho, prosecutor Bill Thompson.

Thompson said Kohberger was charged with four counts of first-degree murder and felony burglary in a crime that unnerved the small college town in Idaho’s northwest panhandle where the four victims – three women and a man in their early 20s – were slain.

The four were all found fatally stabbed on the morning of Nov. 13 inside the off-campus house where the three women lived, two of them staying in one room, and one sharing her room with the fourth victim, her boyfriend.

Two other female roommates in the house at the time were unharmed, apparently sleeping through the killings. Police said the cellphone of one of the survivors was used to call emergency-911 when the bodies were first discovered.

“This is not the end of this investigation. In fact it is a new beginning,” Thompson told a news conference.

The victims – identified as Ethan Chapin, 20, of Conway, Washington; Xana Kernodle, 20, of Avondale, Arizona; Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum, Idaho – all suffered multiple stab wounds, Fry said. Some of the bodies also showed defensive wounds, Fry said, suggesting they had tried to fend off their attacker.

NIGHT OUT BEFORE KILLINGS

[1/5] The Sigma Chi fraternity house, where victim Ethan Chapin was a member, is pictured after four University of Idaho students were found killed in their residence on November 13 in Moscow, Idaho, U.S., November 30, 2022. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson

Chapin and his girlfriend, Kernodle, had attended a fraternity party the night before, while Mogen and Goncalves, who were best friends, had visited a local bar and food truck. Both pairs returned to the house shortly before 2 a.m. The two other roommates had gotten home about an hour earlier.

Authorities say they believe the slayings occurred between 3 and 4 a.m. on Nov. 13.

The victims appeared to have been killed with a knife or some other “edged” weapon, police have said. Fry said the murder weapon has not been recovered, though police had found a car they were searching for in connection with the killings.

Authorities said Kohberger was a graduate student at Washington State University (WSU) in Pullman, Washington, about 10 miles from the University of Idaho campus.

WSU issued a statement on Friday saying its police department and Idaho law enforcement officers searched both Kohberger’s apartment residence and his office on campus.

It said Kohberger “had completed his first semester as a PhD student in WSU’s criminal justice program earlier this month,” suggesting he had remained on campus, just miles away from the crime scene across the Idaho state line, for a number of weeks before returning to Pennsylvania.

Asked at the press conference in Moscow whether authorities there were seeking additional suspects, Fry said, “We have an individual in custody who committed these horrible crimes, and I do believe our community is safe.”

Fry said his department had received more than 19,000 tips from the public and had conducted more than 300 interviews as part of its investigation, assisted by state police and the FBI. He and Thompson urged anyone who knew anything about the accused killer to come forward.

He declined to offer a possible motive for the crime or to give any details about the investigation, such as how authorities traced Kohberger to Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, a small community in the Pocono Mountains resort region about 90 miles north of Philadelphia, where he was arrested.

Thompson said more details would emerge publicly from a probable-cause affidavit that summarizes the factual basis for the charges but remains under court seal until the suspect is physically back in Idaho to be served his arrest warrant.

Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago and Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by David Gregorio and Neil Fullick

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Taliban bans female NGO staff, jeopardizing aid efforts

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  • Taliban orders NGOs to stop female staff from working
  • Comes after suspension of female students from universities
  • U.N. says order would seriously impact humanitarian operations
  • U.N. plans to meet with Taliban to seek clarity

KABUL, Dec 24 (Reuters) – Afghanistan’s Taliban-run administration on Saturday ordered all local and foreign NGOs to stop female employees from working, in a move the United Nations said would hit humanitarian operations just as winter grips a country already in economic crisis.

A letter from the economy ministry, confirmed by spokesperson Abdulrahman Habib, said female employees of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were not allowed to work until further notice because some had not adhered to the administration’s interpretation of Islamic dresscode for women.

It comes days after the administration ordered universities to close to women, prompting global condemnation and sparking some protests and heavy criticism inside Afghanistan.

Both decisions are the latest restrictions on women that are likely to undermine the Taliban-run administration’s efforts to gain international recognition and clear sanctions that are severely hampering the economy.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Twitter he was “deeply concerned” the move “will disrupt vital and life-saving assistance to millions,” adding: “Women are central to humanitarian operations around the world. This decision could be devastating for the Afghan people.”

Ramiz Alakbarov, the U.N. deputy special representative for Afghanistan and humanitarian coordinator, told Reuters that although the U.N. had not received the order, contracted NGOs carried out most of its activities and would be heavily impacted.

“Many of our programmes will be affected,” he said, because they need female staff to assess humanitarian need and identify beneficiaries, otherwise they will not be able to implement aid programs.

International aid agency AfghanAid said it was immediately suspending operations while it consulted with other organisations, and that other NGOs were taking similar actions.

The potential endangerment of aid programmes that millions of Afghans access comes when more than half the population relies on humanitarian aid, according to aid agencies, and during the mountainous nation’s coldest season.

“There’s never a right time for anything like this … but this particular time is very unfortunate because during winter time people are most in need and Afghan winters are very harsh,” said Alakbarov.

He said his office would consult with NGOs and U.N. agencies on Sunday and seek to meet with Taliban authorities for an explanation.

Aid workers say female workers are essential in a country where rules and cultural customs largely prevent male workers from delivering aid to female beneficiaries.

“An important principle of delivery of humanitarian aid is the ability of women to participate independently and in an unimpeded way in its distribution so if we can’t do it in a principled way then no donors will be funding any programs like that,” Alakbarov said.

When asked whether the rules directly included U.N. agencies, Habib said the letter applied to organisations under Afghanistan’s coordinating body for humanitarian organisations, known as ACBAR. That body does not include the U.N., but includes over 180 local and international NGOs.

Their licences would be suspended if they did not comply, the letter said.

Afghanistan’s struggling economy has tipped into crisis since the Taliban took over in 2021, with the country facing sanctions, cuts in development aid and a freeze in central bank assets.

A record 28 million Afghans are estimated to need humanitarian aid next year, according to AfghanAid.

Reporting by Kabul newsroom; additional reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington
Editing by Mark Potter and Josie Kao

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Streets deserted in China’s cities as new COVID surge looms

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  • People take steps to protect themselves after curbs lifted
  • Senior official predicts three waves this winter
  • Lunar New Year in January to drive further spread

BEIJING, Dec 18 (Reuters) – Streets in major Chinese cities were eerily quiet on Sunday as people stayed home to protect themselves from a surge in COVID-19 cases that has hit urban centres from north to south.

China is in the first of an expected three waves of COVID cases this winter, according to the country’s chief epidemiologist, Wu Zunyou. Further waves will come as people follow the tradition of returning en masse to their home areas for the Lunar New Year holiday next month, he said.

China has not reported any COVID deaths since Dec. 7, when it abruptly ended most restrictions key to a zero-COVID tolerance policy following unprecedented public protests. The strategy had been championed by President Xi Jinping.

As part of the easing of the zero-COVID curbs, mass testing for the virus has ended, casting doubt on whether official case numbers can capture the full scale of the outbreak. China reported some 2,097 new symptomatic COVID infections on Dec. 17.

In Beijing, the spread of the highly transmissible Omicron variant has already hit services from catering to parcel deliveries. Funeral homes and crematoriums across the city of 22 million are also struggling to keep up with demand amid staff shortages as workers and drivers call in sick.

At Beijing’s largest funeral parlour in Babaoshan, also known for handling the bodies of top Chinese officials and leaders, several hearses a minute could be seen entering on Sunday, while the parking area for private cars was also full.

“Right now it is difficult to book a hearse so many relatives transport the body with their own vehicles,” said an employee on condition of anonymity.

Smoke billowed out of crematoriums, where groups of people were gathered to collect the ashes of the deceased. It was not immediately clear to what extent a rise in COVID-related deaths was responsible.

Social media posts also showed empty subways in the city of Xian in China’s northwest, while in Shanghai, the country’s commercial hub, there was none of the usual bustle in the run up to the New Year.

“Festive vibes are missing,” said a resident who gave her name as Alice.

In Chengdu, streets were deserted but food delivery times were improving, said a resident surnamed Zhang, after services began to adapt to the recent surge in cases.

Getting hold of antigen test kits was still difficult however, she said, explaining that she had been told the kits she ordered recently had been diverted to hospitals.

‘1 PEAK, 3 WAVES, 3 MONTHS’

In Shanghai, authorities said schools should move most classes online from Monday, and in nearby Hangzhou most school grades were encouraged to finish the winter semester early.

In Guangzhou, those already doing online class as well as pre-schoolers should not prepare for a return to school, said the education bureau.

Speaking at a conference in Beijing on Saturday, chief epidemiologist Wu of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said the current outbreak would peak this winter and run in three waves for about three months, according to a state media report of his speech.

The first wave would run from mid-December through mid-January, largely in cities, before a second wave would start from late January to mid-February next year, triggered by the movement of people ahead of the week-long New Year holiday.

China will celebrate Lunar New Year starting on Jan. 21. The holiday normally sees hundreds of millions of people travelling home to spend time with family.

A third wave of cases would run from late February to mid-March as people returned to work after the holiday, Wu said.

In eastern Zhejiang province, home to many high-tech companies and industry, the first wave is expected to peak around mid-January, though it could be earlier, health officials told a press briefing on Sunday.

“This period coincides with the Lunar New Year, and population movement will speed up the spread of the epidemic,” said Chen Zhong, executive deputy director of the provincial epidemic control taskforce.

A U.S.-based research institute said this week that the country could see an explosion of cases and over a million people in China could die of COVID in 2023.

Wu said severe cases had declined compared with past years and vaccination had offered a certain degree of protection. The vulnerable should be protected, he said, while recommending booster vaccines for the general public.

While China rolled out its first COVID vaccines in 2021, vaccination rates among people aged 60 and above have remained little changed since the summer, according to official figures.

Only 66.4% of people over the age of 80 have completed a full course of vaccination, official news agency Xinhua reported.

Reporting by Siyi Liu, Dominique Patton, Ryan Woo, Eduardo Baptista and Brenda Goh; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell and Philippa Fletcher

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Iran top legal cleric says morality police shut down

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  • Protesters call for economic boycott from Monday to Wednesday
  • Raisi visits Tehran University on Wednesday for Student Day
  • Interior ministry silent on the morality police’s status

DUBAI, Dec 4 (Reuters) – Protesters in Iran called on Sunday for a three-day strike this week, stepping up pressure on authorities after the public prosecutor said the morality police whose detention of a young woman triggered months of protests had been shut down.

There was no confirmation of the closure from the Interior Ministry which is in charge of the morality police, and Iranian state media said Public Prosecutor Mohammad Jafar Montazeri was not responsible for overseeing the force.

Top Iranian officials have repeatedly said Tehran would not change the Islamic Republic’s mandatory hijab policy, which requires women to dress modestly and wear headscarves, despite 11 weeks of protests against strict Islamic regulations.

Hundreds of people have been killed in the unrest which erupted in September after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who was detained by the morality police for flouting the hijab rules.

Protesters seeking to maintain their challenge to Iran’s clerical rulers have called for a three-day economic strike and a rally to Tehran’s Azadi (Freedom) Square on Wednesday, according to individual posts shared on Twitter by accounts unverified by Reuters.

President Ebrahim Raisi is due to address students in Tehran on the same day to mark Student Day in Iran.

Similar calls for strike action and mass mobilisation have in past weeks resulted in an escalation in the unrest which has swept the country – some of the biggest anti-government protests since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The activist HRANA news agency said 470 protesters had been killed as of Saturday, including 64 minors. It said 18,210 demonstrators were arrested and 61 members of the security forces were killed.

Iran’s Interior Ministry state security council said on Saturday the death toll was 200, according to the judiciary’s news agency Mizan.

Residents posting on social media and newspapers such as Shargh daily say there have been fewer sightings of the morality police on the streets in recent weeks as authorities apparently try to avoid provoking more protests.

On Saturday, Montazeri was cited by the semi-official Iranian Labour News Agency as saying that the morality police had been disbanded.

“The same authority which has established this police has shut it down,” he was quoted as saying. He said the morality police was not under the judiciary’s authority, which “continues to monitor behavioural actions at the community level.”

Al Alam state television said foreign media were depicting his comments as “a retreat on the part of the Islamic Republic from its stance on hijab and religious morality as a result of the protests”, but that all that could be understood from his comments was that the morality police were not directly related to the judiciary.

EXECUTIONS

State media said four men convicted of cooperating with Israel’s spy agency Mossad were executed on Sunday.

They had been arrested in June – before the current unrest sweeping the country – following cooperation between the Ministry of Intelligence and the Revolutionary Guards, Tasnim news agency reported.

The Islamic Republic has long accused arch-enemy Israel of carrying out covert operations on its soil. Tehran has recently accused Israeli and Western intelligence services of plotting a civil war in Iran.

The prime minister’s office in Israel, which oversees Mossad, declined to comment.

Iranian state media reported on Wednesday that the country’s Supreme Court had upheld the death sentence handed out to the four men “for the crime of cooperating with the intelligence services of the Zionist regime and for kidnapping”.

Three other people were handed prison sentences of between five and 10 years after being convicted of crimes that included acting against national security, aiding in kidnapping and possessing illegal weapons, the Mehr news agency said.

Reporting by Dubai Newsroom
Editing by Dominic Evans, Raissa Kasolowsky, William Maclean and Susan Fenton

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U.S. appeals court rejects Biden’s bid to revive student debt plan

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Nov 30 (Reuters) – A federal appeals court on Wednesday declined to put on hold a Texas judge’s ruling that said President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel hundreds of billions of dollars in student loan debt was unlawful.

The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Biden administration’s request to pause a judge’s Nov. 10 order vacating the $400 billion student debt relief program in a lawsuit pursued by a conservative advocacy group.

The decision by Fort Worth, Texas-based U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman was one of two nationally that has prevented the U.S. Department of Education under the Democratic president from moving forward with granting debt relief to millions of borrowers.

The administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to similarly lift an order by the St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that, at the request of six Republican-led states, had barred it from cancelling student loans.

A three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit in Wednesday’s brief order declined to put Pittman’s ruling on hold while the administration appealed his decision, but the court directed that the appeal be heard on an expedited basis.

The panel included two Republican appointees and one judge nominated by then Democratic President Barack Obama. Pittman was appointed by then Republican President Donald Trump.

The White House had no immediate comment but the administration has said that if the 5th Circuit declined to halt Pittman’s order it would ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.

Biden announced in August that the U.S. government would forgive up to $10,000 in student loan debt for borrowers making less than $125,000 a year, or $250,000 for married couples. Students who received Pell Grants to benefit lower-income college students will have up to $20,000 of their debt canceled.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden promised to help debt-saddled former college students. Biden’s program has drawn opposition from Republicans, who have portrayed it as shifting the burden of debt from wealthy elites to lower-income Americans.

The Congressional Budget Office in September calculated that the debt forgiveness program run would cost taxpayers about $400 billion.

About 26 million Americans have applied for student loan forgiveness, and the U.S. Department of Education had already approved requests from 16 million by the time Pittman issued his ruling.

Biden last week announced his administration would extend a pause on student loan payments to alleviate uncertainty for borrowers while litigation over the debt relief plan plays out.

Pittman had ruled in a lawsuit by two borrowers who were partially or fully ineligible for the loan forgiveness who were backed by the Job Creators Network Foundation, a conservative advocacy group founded by Bernie Marcus, a co-founder of Home Depot.

The judge said it was irrelevant if Biden’s plan was good public policy because the program was “one of the largest exercises of legislative power without congressional authority in the history of the United States.”

Pittman wrote that the HEROES Act – a law that provides loan assistance to military personnel and that was relied upon by the Biden administration to enact the relief plan – did not authorize the program.

Elaine Parker, president of Job Creators Network Foundation, said in a statement the 5th Circuit’s order on Wednesday prevented the administration during the appeal from trying to “get money out the door to debtors and claim victory.”

Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Tom Hogue, Robert Birsel

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Nate Raymond

Thomson Reuters

Nate Raymond reports on the federal judiciary and litigation. He can be reached at nate.raymond@thomsonreuters.com.

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Security forces tear gas students defying Iran protest ultimatum

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  • Protests show no sign of easing amid fierce state warnings
  • University students clash with security forces
  • Journalists demand release of their jailed colleagues
  • Rights groups report arrests of activists, students

DUBAI, Oct 30 (Reuters) – Protests in Iran entered a more violent phase on Sunday as students, who defied an ultimatum by the Revolutionary Guards and a warning from the president, were met with tear gas and gunfire from security forces, social media videos showed.

The confrontations at dozens of universities prompted the threat of a tougher crackdown in a seventh week of demonstrations sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after she was arrested by the morality police for attire deemed inappropriate.

“Security is the red line of the Islamic Republic, and we will not allow the enemy to implement in any way its plans to undermine this valuable national asset,” hardline President Ebrahim Raisi said, according to state media.

Iranians from all walks of life have taken to the streets since Amini’s death in protests that the clerical rulers said were endangering the Islamic Republic’s security.

Authorities have accused Islamic Iran’s arch-enemies the United States and Israel and their local agents of being behind the unrest to destabilise the country.

What began as outrage over Amini’s death on Sept. 16 has evolved into one of the toughest challenges to clerical rulers since the 1979 revolution, with some protesters calling for the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The top commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards told protesters that Saturday would be their last day of taking to the streets, the harshest warning yet by Iranian authorities.

Nevertheless, videos on social media, unverifiable by Reuters, showed confrontations between students and riot police and Basij forces on Sunday at universities all over Iran.

One video showed a member of Basij forces firing a gun at close range at students protesting at a branch of Azad University in Tehran. Gunshots were also heard in a video shared by rights group HENGAW from protests at the University of Kurdistan in Sanandaj.

Videos from universities in some other cities also showed Basij forces opening fire at students.

Across the country, security forces tried to block students inside university buildings, firing tear gas and beating protesters with sticks. The students, who appeared to be unarmed, pushed back, with some chanting “dishonoured Basij get lost” and “Death to Khamenei”.

HISTORY OF CRACKDOWNS

Social media reported arrests of at least a dozen doctors, journalists and artists since Saturday. The activist HRANA news agency said 283 protesters had been killed in the unrest as of Saturday including 44 minors. Some 34 members of the security forces were also killed.

More than 14,000 people have been arrested, including 253 students, in protests in 132 cities and towns, and 122 universities, it said.

The Guards and its affiliated Basij force have crushed dissent in the past. They said on Sunday, “seditionists” were insulting them at universities and in the streets, and warned they may use more force if the anti-government unrest continued.

“So far, Basijis have shown restraint and they have been patient,” the head of the Revolutionary Guards in the Khorasan Junubi province, Brigadier General Mohammadreza Mahdavi, was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.

“But it will get out of our control if the situation continues.”

JOURNALISTS APPEAL

More than 300 Iranian journalists demanded the release of two colleagues jailed for their coverage of Amini in a statement published by the Iranian Etemad and other newspapers on Sunday.

Niloofar Hamedi took a photo of Amini’s parents hugging each other in a Tehran hospital where their daughter was lying in a coma.

The image, which Hamedi posted on Twitter, was the first signal to the world that all was not well with Amini, who had been detained three days earlier by Iran’s morality police for what they deemed inappropriate dress.

Elaheh Mohammadi covered Amini’s funeral in her Kurdish hometown Saqez, where the protests began. A joint statement released by Iran’s intelligence ministry and the intelligence organisation of the Revolutionary Guards on Friday had accused Hamedi and Mohammadi of being CIA foreign agents.

Students and women have played a prominent role in the unrest, burning their veils as crowds call for the fall of the Islamic Republic, which came to power in 1979.

An official said on Sunday the establishment had no plan to retreat from compulsory veiling but should be “wise” about enforcement.

“Removing the veil is against our law and this headquarters will not retreat from its position,” Ali Khanmohammadi, the spokesman of Iran’s headquarters for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice told the Khabaronline website.

“However, our actions should be wise to avoid giving enemies a pretext to use it against us.”

In a further apparent effort to defuse the situation, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said people were right to call for reform and their demands would be met if they distanced themselves from the “criminals” taking to the streets.

“We consider the protests to be not only correct and the cause of progress, but we also believe that these social movements will change policies and decisions, provided that they are separated from violent people, criminals and separatists,” he said, using terms officials typically use for the protesters.

Writing by Michael Georgy and Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Nick Macfie, Philippa Fletcher, Angus MacSwan and Barbara Lewis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Conservative activist steers U.S. Supreme Court college race cases

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  • Edward Blum engineered cases against Harvard, UNC
  • Arguments set for Monday; ruling due by end of June

Oct 27 (Reuters) – When the U.S. Supreme Court next week considers ending policies used by many colleges and universities to increase their numbers of Black and Hispanic students, a conservative activist will be on hand to watch this fateful moment in his long quest to erase racial preferences intended to boost diversity in American life.

The challenges to race-conscious admissions policies used by Harvard University and the University of North Carolina were brought by a group called Students for Fair Admissions founded and headed by Edward Blum, a 70-year-old former stockbroker and unsuccessful Republican congressional candidate.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in the two cases on Monday, with rulings due by the end of June. The litigation gives its 6-3 conservative majority another chance to issue blockbuster decisions after rulings four months ago overturning abortion rights and expanding gun rights.

The conservative justices – Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – are expected to be receptive to arguments Blum has honed against affirmative action policies, crafted as a remedy to discrimination. As such, Blum may be on the verge of a huge legal victory as he fights race-based policies not only in higher education but in areas such as elections and diversity in corporate America.

“I’m a one-trick pony,” Blum said in an interview. “I hope and care about ending these racial classifications and preferences in our public policy.”

Blum, who is white, has cast his mission as one aimed at creating a colorblind society.

“An individual’s race or ethnicity should not be used to help them or harm them in their life’s endeavors,” Blum said.

His critics paint his work as a war on racial equity aimed at undercutting policies designed to help non-white Americans overcome racial obstacles persisting in U.S. life.

“He’s made it harder for corporations, boards and governments to make racial diversity an explicit goal,” said Kristin Penner, a co-founder of a group called the Coalition for a Diverse Harvard that supports affirmative action. “And thus people of color continue to be blocked out of positions of power.”

Blum’s goal is for the Supreme Court to overturn its own precedents allowing race as a factor in admissions.

Blum lost in a previous case challenging race-conscious student admissions when the court ruled 4-3 in 2016 against a white woman he recruited as a plaintiff suing the University of Texas after being denied admission. Conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy provided the crucial vote. The court has moved rightward since then. Kennedy himself retired in 2018.

With Monday’s arguments, the court will have taken up eight race-related cases engineered by Blum. For instance, a Blum-backed challenge led to a 2013 Supreme Court ruling gutting a central part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that had forced nine states, mainly in the South, to obtain federal approval for voting rules changes affecting Black and other minority voters.

In addition, Blum last year launched a group called the Alliance For Fair Board Recruitment and filed lawsuits challenging Nasdaq rules and California laws mandating gender and racial diversity on corporate boards.

A 1978 LANDMARK

From his home in South Thomaston, Maine, Blum has orchestrated a 14-year legal campaign to challenge affirmative action in college and university admissions.

The Supreme Court first upheld such affirmative action in a landmark 1978 ruling in a case called Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, holding that race could be considered as one of several factors, along with academic and extracurricular criteria, but racial quotas were prohibited. The court reaffirmed that stance in 2003.

Blum in 2008 recruited Abigail Fisher, the daughter of an old friend, and through his first group, the Project for Fair Representation, helped fund her University of Texas suit that yielded the 2016 ruling he called a “grave disappointment.”

By then, Blum had shifted gears to the next generation of cases, forming Students for Fair Admissions in 2014 and turning his attention to Harvard and UNC. Those lawsuits accused UNC of discriminating against white and Asian American applicants and Harvard of discriminating against Asian Americans.

Boston University School of Law professor Jonathan Feingold said Blum was “transparent” in saying he needed Asian American plaintiffs this time around to sue the universities, allowing him to “spin a narrative that affirmative action is pitting students of color against one another.”

Blum raised more than $8 million from 2015 to 2020 for Students for Fair Admissions, most going to covering legal fees. Big checks came from conservative supporters including DonorsTrust and Searle Freedom Trust. Blum said 5,000 smaller donors also contributed.

Students for Fair Admissions has said it boasts 20,000 members. Its critics said it is not a true membership association at all. No Students for Fair Admissions members served as plaintiffs or testified in court in the Harvard and UNC cases as the group lost in lower courts. The Supreme Court in January agreed to hear appeals backed by Blum in both cases.

The Harvard lawsuit accused the university of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination based on race, color or national origin under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.

The UNC lawsuit accused that university of violating the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law. Blum and his supporters argue that the 14th Amendment bars government entities including public universities like UNC from treating people differently due to race.

“His efforts and broader project are paying off because now because you have a court that is very receptive to the specific arguments that are being made here,” Feingold said.

For Blum, potential victories over Harvard and UNC may not be the final word in the fight against racial preferences in student admissions.

“It might be the beginning of the end,” Blum said. “More likely, it’s probably the end of the beginning.”

Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Will Dunham

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Nate Raymond

Thomson Reuters

Nate Raymond reports on the federal judiciary and litigation. He can be reached at nate.raymond@thomsonreuters.com.

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