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Swedish Police Detained 19 Pro-Palestinian Activists Who Barricaded Themselves inside a University

Pro-Palestinian activists barricade themselves in a building at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Friday June 7, 2024. (Fredrik Persson/TT News Agency via AP)
Pro-Palestinian activists barricade themselves in a building at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Friday June 7, 2024. (Fredrik Persson/TT News Agency via AP)
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Swedish Police Detained 19 Pro-Palestinian Activists Who Barricaded Themselves inside a University

Pro-Palestinian activists barricade themselves in a building at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Friday June 7, 2024. (Fredrik Persson/TT News Agency via AP)
Pro-Palestinian activists barricade themselves in a building at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Friday June 7, 2024. (Fredrik Persson/TT News Agency via AP)

Swedish police detained 19 pro-Palestinian activists who barricaded themselves in the country's main technical education and research university on Friday.

After two hours, police carried out the masked activists from the third floor of the Royal Institute of Technology building in Stockholm. They are likely to be prosecuted for trespassing and disobeying the police, according to police.

International pressure has been mounting on Israel to limit civilian bloodshed in its war against Hamas in Gaza. On Thursday, an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in central Gaza killed at least 33 people, including 12 women and children, according to local health officials.

The Israeli military said that Hamas fighters were operating from within the school.

At around noon, the activists blocked the entrance of a student building at the institute, known by its Swedish acronym KTH, with chairs and tables. Some shouted “Free Palestine” and hung Palestinian flags in the windows.

People supporting the activists and a large contingent of law enforcement personnel, including officers with dogs and mounted police, quickly gathered outside KTH, which is located north of downtown Stockholm.

On Instagram, the activists said they occupied the building to pressure KTH to stop collaborating with Israeli universities.

The school describes itself as the largest institution in Sweden for technical education and research and is a leading technical university internationally.

Last week, a handful of pro-Palestinian activists were briefly detained in connection with an unauthorized demonstration outside KTH.

In the past months, law enforcement in the United States and in Europe have forcefully removed encampments and barricades where pro-Palestinian demonstrations have blocked the main entrances and other access points on campuses.

In the Danish capital, activists who had set up tents at a University of Copenhagen campus have taken them down and some moved Wednesday to the City Hall Square where they set up a tent camp, demanding that Denmark boycott Israeli arms sales.

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World

Report: Ukraine to Take Measures Against Israel if Grain Ship Docks

View of Mount Carmel city and port of Haifa in northern Israel. (AFP)
View of Mount Carmel city and port of Haifa in northern Israel. (AFP)
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Report: Ukraine to Take Measures Against Israel if Grain Ship Docks

View of Mount Carmel city and port of Haifa in northern Israel. (AFP)
View of Mount Carmel city and port of Haifa in northern Israel. (AFP)

Israel ‌risks a diplomatic and legal response from Kyiv if it allows a vessel carrying grain from Russian-occupied Ukraine to dock at the port of Haifa, a Ukrainian diplomatic source told Reuters on Monday.

Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported earlier that the vessel Panormitis, which ‌it said was ‌carrying grain from ‌occupied Ukrainian ⁠territory that Kyiv ⁠regards as stolen, was waiting for permission to berth in Haifa.

"If this ship and its cargo isn't rejected, we reserve the right to deploy a ⁠full suite of diplomatic and ‌international legal responses," ‌the Ukrainian source said on ‌condition of anonymity.

Israel's foreign ministry did ‌not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Haaretz reported on Sunday that four shipments of grain from occupied Ukraine ‌had already been unloaded in Israel this year.

"The ⁠practice ⁠of laundering stolen goods is unacceptable, and Israel has essentially shrugged off our demands regarding the previous vessel," the source said.

The source added Kyiv was tracking the vessel, warning that allowing it to dock would have consequences for bilateral relations between Ukraine and Israel.

World

‘Looming’ Risk of Nuclear Arms Race, UN Proliferation Meeting Hears

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks to delegates during a meeting on Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty at UN headquarters in New York City, US, April 27, 2026. (Reuters)
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks to delegates during a meeting on Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty at UN headquarters in New York City, US, April 27, 2026. (Reuters)
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‘Looming’ Risk of Nuclear Arms Race, UN Proliferation Meeting Hears

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks to delegates during a meeting on Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty at UN headquarters in New York City, US, April 27, 2026. (Reuters)
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks to delegates during a meeting on Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty at UN headquarters in New York City, US, April 27, 2026. (Reuters)

Signatories of the landmark nuclear non-proliferation treaty began a meeting at the UN on Monday as fears of a renewed arms race escalate, with atomic powers once again at loggerheads over safeguards.

In 2022, during the last review of the treaty considered the cornerstone of non-proliferation, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned humanity was "one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation."

On Monday he warned "the drivers" of nuclear weapons proliferation were accelerating.

"For too long, the Treaty has been eroding. Commitments remain unfulfilled. Trust and credibility are wearing thin. The drivers of proliferation are accelerating. We need to breathe life into the Treaty once more," Guterres said in opening remarks.

With global geopolitical friction only heightened since the last meeting, it was unclear what the two-week gathering at UN headquarters in New York could achieve.

"We should not expect this conference to resolve the underlying strategic tensions of our time... but a balanced outcome that reaffirms core commitments and set out practical steps forward would strengthen the integrity of the NPT," said Do Hung Viet, Vietnam's UN ambassador and president of the conference.

"The success or failure of this conference will have implications way beyond these halls and way beyond these next five years, the prospects of a new nuclear arms race are looming over us," he said.

The nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), signed by almost all the countries on the planet -- with notable exceptions including Israel, India, and Pakistan -- aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, to promote complete disarmament, and to encourage cooperation on civilian nuclear projects.

The nine nuclear-armed states -- Russia, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea -- possessed 12,241 nuclear warheads in January 2025, according to the latest report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

The United States and Russia hold nearly 90 percent of nuclear weapons globally and have carried out major programs to modernize them in recent years, according to SIPRI.

China has also rapidly increased its nuclear stockpile, SIPRI said, with the G7 raising the alarm Friday over Moscow and Beijing boosting their nuclear capabilities.

US President Donald Trump has indicated his intention to conduct new nuclear tests, accusing others of doing so clandestinely.

In March, France's President Emmanuel Macron announced a dramatic shift in nuclear deterrence, notably an increase in the atomic arsenal, currently numbering 290 warheads.

- 'Affront' to NPT -

"It is obvious that trust is eroding, both inside and outside the NPT," Seth Shelden of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, told AFP.

He questioned the likely outcome of the four-week summit.

Decisions on the NPT have to be agreed by consensus, with the previous two conferences failing to adopt final political declarations.

In 2015, the deadlock was largely due to opposition by Israel's arch-ally Washington to the creation of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East.

In 2022, the impasse was due mainly to Russian opposition to references to Ukraine's nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia, occupied by Moscow.

This year's summit could fall on any number of stumbling blocks.

The ongoing war in Ukraine, Iran's nuclear program and the war there, non-nuclear states' fears over proliferation and North Korea's developing arsenal could all be deal-breakers.

The United States along with its allies Britain and Australia spoke out at Iran's appointment as a conference vice president.

Washington's envoy to the meeting said conferring a leadership role on Tehran was an "affront" to countries that take the NPT "seriously."

Artificial intelligence could be a prominent issue as some countries call for all sides to keep human control over nuclear weapons.

World

UK PM Starmer Faces Vote on Possible Parliamentary Probe Over Mandelson

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a speech at the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW) Annual Delegate Meeting at the Winter Gardens Blackpool, in Blackpool, Britain, April 27, 2026. (Reuters)
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a speech at the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW) Annual Delegate Meeting at the Winter Gardens Blackpool, in Blackpool, Britain, April 27, 2026. (Reuters)
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UK PM Starmer Faces Vote on Possible Parliamentary Probe Over Mandelson

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a speech at the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW) Annual Delegate Meeting at the Winter Gardens Blackpool, in Blackpool, Britain, April 27, 2026. (Reuters)
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a speech at the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW) Annual Delegate Meeting at the Winter Gardens Blackpool, in Blackpool, Britain, April 27, 2026. (Reuters)

Britain's parliament will vote on Tuesday on a possible inquiry into Prime Minister Keir Starmer, looking at whether he misled the House of Commons over the appointment of former US ambassador Peter Mandelson.

Any such inquiry could have serious implications for Starmer's future. He has so far resisted pressure to quit over his decision to hire Mandelson, but if found to have knowingly misled parliament his position would likely become untenable.

House of Commons ‌Speaker Lindsay Hoyle ‌said he had approved a request from opposition Conservative ‌Party ⁠leader Kemi Badenoch for ⁠parliament to debate and vote on whether the Committee of Privileges should look into the matter.

Mandelson was fired by Starmer last September after his relationship with the late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was found to be deeper than previously known.

DOUBTS OVER PM'S JUDGMENT

That has raised doubts about Starmer's judgment in hiring him, exacerbated by the revelation that a security vetting body had described the appointment ⁠as a borderline case and that it was leaning against ‌granting clearance - a decision foreign ministry officials overruled ‌without telling the prime minister.

Starmer's center-left Labour Party has a large majority in parliament, ‌which could allow the government to instruct its lawmakers to vote down ‌the launch of an inquiry.

On Monday the government published a letter sent in September from former cabinet secretary Chris Wormald, saying he had concluded "that appropriate processes were followed in both the appointment and withdrawal" of Mandelson as ambassador.

A spokesperson from Starmer's office described ‌Badenoch's push for a vote as a "desperate political stunt" ahead of local elections due on May 7.

Hoyle said his decision ⁠to allow ⁠the vote should not be taken as an indicator of whether Starmer had done anything wrong or not.

If parliament did vote in favor of an inquiry, the committee, made up of lawmakers from the three biggest parties, would examine whether Starmer's statements on Mandelson amount to knowingly or inadvertently misleading the House of Commons.

The focus of any such inquiry would be expected to fall on Starmer's statement that due process was followed when hiring Mandelson.

The committee previously found that former Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson had knowingly misled parliament over rule-breaking parties held during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Johnson had already stood down as prime minister by the time the report was published, but he resigned from parliament altogether after seeing a draft copy of the findings.