The US State Department has revoked at least 300 visas, many to foreign students, as it cracks down on people who participated in protests against Israel's war in Gaza, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday. It comes two days after a Turkish doctoral student was arrested on the street and taken to a distant detention centre.
The State Department has focused on students who joined pro-Palestinian protests last year, including former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil over his involvement as a lead negotiator for the student protests at the New York institution.
“We do it every day,” Mr Rubio told reporters during a press conference in Georgetown, Guyana. “Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take it away.”
The administration of President Donald Trump has been outspoken in its disdain for those who took part in the protests, claiming they are anti-Semitic or supportive of Hamas. On Tuesday, immigration enforcement agents wearing hoodies and masks arrested Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish graduate student at Tufts University in Massachusetts.
Critics say a video of Ms Ozturk being detained looks more like a kidnapping than a standard arrest. Democratic representative Ayanna Pressley accused the Trump administration of moving to “abduct students with legal status”.
“This is a horrifying violation of Rumeysa's constitutional rights to due process and free speech. She must be immediately released,” Ms Pressley said in a statement.
Ms Ozturk, who was detained while walking to meet friends for iftar, had been moved to an immigration detention centre in Louisiana by the time her lawyer went to court and a judge ordered her to be kept in the state of Massachusetts, US government lawyers said in a court document on Thursday.
Mr Rubio told The National he had not seen video of Ms Ozturk's arrest, but that agents often had to hide their faces to protect their identities.
A senior Department of Homeland Security representative told the AP that Ms Ozturk was detained after an investigation found she “engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organisation that relishes the killing of Americans". The department provided no evidence for the claims.
The Trump administration has responded that the US constitutional protection of free speech does not apply to non-citizens and has accused activist students of creating a dangerous atmosphere for Jewish students.
Ms Ozturk wrote an opinion piece in March 2024 that was critical of her university's response to several resolutions on the Gaza war, including acknowledging the “Palestinian genocide”.
“We revoked it,” Mr Rubio said of her visa. “If you apply for a visa to enter the United States to be a student, and you tell us that the reason why you're coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds, but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalising universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we're not going to give you a visa.
“If you lie to us and get a visa and then enter the United States, and with that visa, participate in that sort of activity, we're going to take away your visa."
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- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
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- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
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- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
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Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
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- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
Destroyer
Director: Karyn Kusama
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Toby Kebbell, Sebastian Stan
Rating: 3/5
UAE release: January 31
The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins
Read part one: how cars came to the UAE
THE SPECS – Honda CR-V Touring AWD
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Getting there
Flydubai flies direct from Dubai to Tbilisi from Dh1,025 return including taxes
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
What can victims do?
Always use only regulated platforms
Stop all transactions and communication on suspicion
Save all evidence (screenshots, chat logs, transaction IDs)
Report to local authorities
Warn others to prevent further harm
Courtesy: Crystal Intelligence
UAE players with central contracts
Rohan Mustafa, Ashfaq Ahmed, Chirag Suri, Rameez Shahzad, Shaiman Anwar, Adnan Mufti, Mohammed Usman, Ghulam Shabbir, Ahmed Raza, Qadeer Ahmed, Amir Hayat, Mohammed Naveed and Imran Haider.
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Gothia Cup 2025
4,872 matches
1,942 teams
116 pitches
76 nations
26 UAE teams
15 Lebanese teams
2 Kuwaiti teams
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UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
