News Briefs

Columbia agrees to policy changes. Columbia University, in New York, agreed to implement a host of policy changes, including overhauling its rules for protests and conducting an immediate review of its Middle Eastern studies department. The announcement Friday came one week after the Trump administration presented the Ivy League school with a list of demands to continue receiving federal funding. That ultimatum was widely seen in academia as an attack on academic freedom. In a letter, the university’s interim president vowed to appoint a senior vice provost to review the Middle East studies department and to ban the wearing of face masks to conceal one’s identity on campus.

Sudanese government forces retake capital. Sudan’s military said on March 21 it retook the Republican Palace in Khartoum, the rival paramilitary forces’ last heavily guarded bastion in the capital, after nearly two years of fighting. The fall of the palace – a compound along the Nile River that was the seat of government before the war erupted and is immortalized on Sudanese banknotes and postage stamps – marks another battlefield gain for Sudan’s steadily advancing military. However, it likely doesn’t mean the end of the war as the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces holds territory in Sudan’s western Darfur region and elsewhere.

We reported in January how, despite war shutting down Sudan’s universities, its students refused to give up.

Fire shuts down Heathrow. A large fire near London’s Heathrow Airport knocked out power to Europe’s busiest flight hub and forced it to shut all day on March 21. It disrupted global travel for hundreds of thousands of passengers and at least 1,350 flights, according to flight tracking service FlightRadar 24. Heathrow planned to resume flights late on March 21, with hopes of returning to a full schedule on March 22. The impact will still likely be felt for several days. Authorities do not know what caused the fire but so far have found no evidence it was suspicious.

Severe drought in Iran. Water levels in dams around Tehran have plunged and water rationing and power cuts are forecast for the summer as the rain-starved country wilts under a severe drought. Reserves in key dams supplying nearly all the city’s drinking water have dropped to their lowest levels on record, just 5% of capacity, the managing director of Tehran’s Water and Sewage Department said. Rainfall in the capital is down 17% from last year, and stands 42% below the long-term average. President Masoud Pezeshkian said rapid urban expansion has made it impossible to sustain current consumption levels in Tehran and nearby areas.

Namibia’s first woman president. Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah was sworn in as Namibia’s first female president on March 21, reaching the highest office nearly 60 years after she joined the liberation movement fighting for independence from apartheid South Africa. Ms. Nandi-Ndaitwah won an election in November to become one of just a handful of female leaders in Africa after the likes of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, Joyce Banda of Malawi, and Samia Suluhu Hassan of Tanzania. She is a veteran of the South West Africa People’s Organization, which led Namibia’s fight for independence and has been its ruling party ever since.

Foreign-born Georgetown scholar detained over alleged antisemitism. A Georgetown University researcher was detained by masked immigration agents who told him his visa had been revoked, prompting another high-profile legal fight over deportation proceedings against foreign-born scholars living in the United States. Badar Khan Suri is a postdoctoral scholar at Georgetown University. He was accused of “spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media” and determined to be deportable by the Secretary of State’s office, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said on X. A government website says he was later taken to a detention facility in Louisiana.

The Trump administration appears to be in uncharted legal waters as it seeks to define – and deport – people it sees as threats. Some view Mahmoud Khalil’s case as part of a crackdown on dissent.

World Happiness Report. A new global report released on March 20 said that people in Finland are the happiest in the world. The northern European country led the world in happiness for the eighth year in a row. The World Happiness Report also found the top 20 happiest countries include 14 Western countries, two Latin American countries, and one from the Middle East. The United States fell to its lowest-ever position at 24th, from a peak of 11th in 2012, while Afghanistan was ranked as the unhappiest. The report cited factors like sharing meals with others and social support as important to happiness.

Taliban releases American. An American man who was abducted more than two years ago was released by the Taliban in a deal with the Trump administration that Qatari negotiators helped broker, the State Department said on March 20. George Glezmann, an airline mechanic from Atlanta, was seized in December 2022 while traveling through Afghanistan as a tourist. The release of Mr. Glezmann, the third American to be let go since January, is part of what the Taliban has previously described as the “normalization” of ties between the United States and Afghanistan following the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

People Making a Difference: Human rights attorney Jared Genser specializes in “extracting” people from unjust imprisonment in far corners of the world, from China and Venezuela to Iran and Myanmar.

First woman and African elected to lead Olympics committee. Kirsty Coventry was elected president of the International Olympic Committee on March 20 and became the first woman and first African to get perhaps the biggest job in world sports. The Zimbabwe sports minister and two-time Olympic swimming gold medalist won the seven-candidate contest after voting by 97 IOC members. She gets an eight-year mandate into 2033 at age 41 – youthful by the historical standards of the IOC. It was the most open and hard-to-call IOC presidential election in decades.

Fed offers sober economic forecast. The Federal Reserve kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged on March 19 and signaled that it still expects to cut rates twice this year, though other policymakers forecast fewer cuts. The Fed also expects the economy to grow more slowly this year and next than it did three months ago, according quarterly economic projections also released March 19. It expects the unemployment rate to tick higher, to 4.4%. Policymakers also expect inflation will pick up slightly by the end of this year, to 2.7% from its current level of 2.5% and above the central bank’s 2% target.

Ceasefire in Gaza ends as IDF restarts offensive. Israel said on March 19 that it launched a “limited ground operation” to retake part of a key corridor in northern Gaza. In Israel, the resumption of airstrikes has raised concerns about the fate of roughly two dozen hostages still held by Hamas. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned that if hostages held in the territory weren’t freed, “Israel will act with an intensity that you have not known.” The ceasefire essentially ended on March 18 after Israeli airstrikes killed more than 400 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. 

After Hamas’ horrific Oct. 7 attack, Israelis mobilized almost without reservation for war, and sacrifice. But the airstrikes that killed hundreds in Gaza find many in Israel exhausted by the war and suspicious of their leaders’ motivations.

Arab world unites on Gaza. Can it get US, Israel, and Hamas on board?

Legal dispute over Venezuelan deportations continues. A U.S. judge said on March 19 the Trump administration could face consequences if he finds it violated his order temporarily blocking the deportation of hundreds of Venezuelan migrants, even as he gave the government more time to elaborate on the expulsions. Judge James Boasberg did not say what the consequences would be. He gave the government until noon on March 20 to provide more details. He said that officials could also invoke the state secrets doctrine, which protects sensitive national security information from being disclosed in civil litigation, and explain why they are doing so.

With Venezuelan deportations, is Trump taking a page from El Salvador’s playbook?

Trump claims sweeping power to deport migrants – as legal fight escalates.

Turkish opposition leader arrested. Istanbul’s mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a key rival of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was arrested on March 19 as part of an investigation into alleged corruption and terror links. The state-run Anadolu Agency said prosecutors issued warrants for some 100 people in addition to him. Authorities closed several roads around Istanbul and banned demonstrations in the city for four days in an apparent effort to prevent protests. The arrest followed a search of Mr. Imamoglu’s home a day after a university invalidated his diploma, effectively disqualifying the popular opposition figure from running in the next presidential race.

EU reins in Google and Apple. Europe’s antitrust regulators continued a crackdown against Big Tech, hitting Google with two charges of breaching landmark EU rules on March 19. Apple was ordered to help rivals connect with its iPhones and iPads. The move by the European Commission came despite threats from U.S. President Donald Trump to levy tariffs against countries which impose fines on U.S. companies. Both Google and Apple have been in the European Commission’s crosshairs since March last year over concerns that they may not be complying with regulations aimed to rein in the power of Big Tech.

Last year we reported how, after a decadeslong hiatus in antitrust cases against Big Tech, the European Union, aligned with the United States, was moving to protect consumers from market dominators, including Apple, Alphabet, and Meta.

FAA to improve safety at 74 airports. The Federal Aviation Administration said on March 19 it will install enhanced safety technology at 74 airports by the end of 2026 to help detect runway incursions. It is called the Runway Incursion Device, a memory aid for air traffic controllers that indicates when a runway is occupied. The system is operational at four airports and will be installed at another 70 airports over the next 19 months. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on March 19 that he aims to announce soon a plan to replace aging technologies in the U.S. air traffic control system.

In January, we reported how a high-profile plane crash at Reagan National Airport in Washington came amid what some see as growing stresses on air-safety systems.

Last May, we explained one systemic issue behind flight delays and threats to safety.

Kennedy papers released. The Trump administration released an initial tranche of electronic copies of papers into the National Archives on March 19, the first wave of what will be around 80,000 pages of files related to President John F. Kennedy. Earlier this year, President Trump signed an executive order directing the federal government to present a plan to release records related to the assassinations of Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. Historians have long wanted access to the documents to answer lingering questions and put some unfounded conspiracy theories to rest.

Progress for Congo: Talks between the leaders of Congo and Rwanda were held in Qatar, raising hopes of a shift in a conflict that has dogged the Democratic Republic of Congo for 30 years. Both governments committed to working toward a ceasefire. Direct talks between Congo and Rwanda-backed M23 rebels had been planned for March 18 in Angola. But M23 backed away, citing international sanctions on rebel leaders. The conflict, often framed primarily as a struggle over Congo’s mineral resources, is also bound up in identity and territory. 

USAID’s shuttering ruled unconstitutional. A federal judge ruled on March 18 that the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development likely violated the Constitution and blocked Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from further cuts to the agency. U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang ordered the Trump administration to restore email and computer access to all employees of USAID, including those who were placed on administrative leave. The lawsuit named Mr. Musk as a defendant covered by the preliminary injunction, and argues that he wielded power the Constitution reserves only for those who win elections or are confirmed by the Senate.

The Monitor's View: A refresh for foreign aid