LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The University of Southern California, citing safety concerns and passions around the latest Middle East conflict, has canceled its valedictorian speech from a Muslim student who said she was being silenced by anti-Palestinian hatred for her views on human rights. USC Provost Andrew Guzman claimed in a statement that the decision to scrub the traditional valedictorian address at next month’s graduation had “nothing to do with freedom of speech” and was simply aimed at protecting campus security. The valedictorian, biomedical engineering major Asna Tabassum, in her own statement challenged the university’s rationale, questioning “whether USC’s decision to revoke my invitation to speak is made solely on the basis of safety.”

 

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LONDON (Reuters) - Britain’s upper house of parliament again has defeated Rishi Sunak’s plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, proposing changes that will delay but not block a policy the prime minister hopes could help change his party’s electoral fortunes. Sunak has invested huge political capital in the Rwanda scheme before an election later this year he is predicted to lose, saying it will help meet his pledge to stop thousands of people arriving in Britain without permission in small boats. The House of Lords, Britain’s unelected upper house, for a third time sought to make changes to the new legislation after the House of Commons lower house of parliament rejected its second set of proposals on Monday.

 

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ATHENS (AP) — Ships remained docked at Greek ports and train services were halted on Wednesday amid a strike by transport sector workers demanding higher pay to cope with rising living costs. With bus and taxi drivers also walking off the job, many roads in central Athens were clogged as commuters resorted to driving themselves to work. The workers joined a 24-hour strike by Greece’s largest private sector union GSEE who say their wages still lag behind those of their European colleagues. Greece this month raised its monthly minimum gross wage by 6.4 percent to 830 euros, the fourth such increase in five years, as the country has been recovering from a decade-long financial crisis.

 

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TBILISI (AFP) - Riot police in Georgia began clearing demonstrators from around the ex-Soviet state’s parliament as lawmakers debated a bill on “foreign agents” that the opposition denounces as authoritarian. The bill would require organizations receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as being agents of foreign influence. It is likely to pass in a parliament controlled by the ruling Georgian Dream party and its allies. Opponents say the legislation will damage Georgia’s bid to join the European Union. More than 5,000 protesters had massed by parliament for a second day to denounce the bill, approved by a parliamentary committee. Officers, some carrying shotguns, ordered protesters to disperse and deployed what appeared to be a crowd-control substance like pepper spray.

 

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MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro has ordered the closure of his government’s embassy and two consulates in Ecuador in protest of Ecuador’s detention of former Vice President Jorge Glas, the Venezuelan information ministry said in a statement. Ecuadorean police arrested Glas, twice convicted of corruption, on April 5, removing him from the Mexican embassy where he had been living since December. The arrest prompted Mexico, which had offered Glas political asylum, to suspend diplomatic relations with Ecuador.