#shafik

Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances, I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child.💔

Link to letter here 👇🏻

Contact your representatives and free Mahmoud Khalil 👇🏻

The conflict over Columbia U's Gaza Solidarity Encampment pits an Egyptian-born school president against a student movement largely led by Arabs and Muslims protesting Israel's genocide in the besieged Gaza Strip. Goaded by Republican members of Congress and the Israel lobby, Columbia President Manouche Shafik has sicced the NYPD on the protesters, triggering mass arrests and suspensions of students for supposedly "trespassing" on their own campus.

Like so many contemporary Ivy League presidents, Shafik is not a scholar or academic. She currently serves on the board of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, providing a patina of diversity to a supranational global governing entity guided by a single uber-billionaire. Prior to that, Shafik acted as deputy governor of the Bank of England, the UK bank that confiscated Venezuela's gold reserves under orders from the US government in 2019. She has also served in top roles at the IMF and World Bank, where global south debt becomes a point of leverage for Washington and London. Her own journey to the US began as a young child when Egypt's populist President Gamal Abdel-Nasser seized land from her wealthy father.

Egypt’s Shafik withdraws presidential election bid

Egypt’s former prime minister, Ahmed Shafik, has ruled himself out of this year’s presidential election – just six weeks after announcing his candidacy.

Shafik was widely seen as a serious challenger to president Abdul Fattah al-Sisi.

A New York Times report says Shafik could have been influenced by the government to withdraw from the race. It is the latest in a series of leaks.

Al Jazeera’s…