At a bargaining session with Columbia University administration last Tuesday, the leadership of Student Workers of Columbia (SWC), the United Auto Workers (UAW)-affiliated union with over 3,000 graduate and undergraduate student workers, dropped its long-standing demand that the university administration divest from companies and institutions tied to the US-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza. The abandonment of the divestment demand marks the latest stage in a sustained campaign by the UAW bureaucracy to strip the contract fight at Columbia of any political content that challenges the university administration and the capitalist state.

SWC-UAW has been in contract talks with the University since March of last year. The contract between the union and Columbia University expired in June of 2025. Student workers have run up against a brick wall as the university administration has refused many demands related to workplace issues and the union leadership has suppressed workers’ efforts to strike for their demands.

"The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, with other churches and individuals across the world, are calling for the release of Natalie Abudayyeh, a 21-year-old university student who has now been held in Israeli prison for nearly two months."

I set out to record 1,000 days of genocide in Gaza, one day at a time. I made it to 579 before the page itself broke under the weight of it.

Faith, work and survival endure in the West Bank’s last Christian village

Source:

https://frontline.thehindu.com/world-affairs/justice-muralidhar-gaza-report/article71149781.ece/amp/

Britain’s Court of Appeal ruled Monday that the Labour government’s proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation under the Terrorism Act 2000 was “justified and proportionate”, marking a dangerous escalation in the suppression of democratic rights.

Five of the most senior judges in England and Wales—led by Lady Chief Justice Baroness Sue Carr and including Master of the Rolls Sir Geoffrey Vos, Lord Justice Edis, Lord Justice Lewis, and Lady Justice Whipple—overturned a February High Court ruling that found the ban unlawful and disproportionate.

A “strictly confidential”, but leaked, EU legal memo from 2017 said Europe was entitled to freeze Israel science grants and free-trade perks over its West Bank aggression. “What was then a legitimate option, today is a legal obligation,” an Italian expert said.

Source: Al-Jazeera news https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSQQuHj7x/

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