Larry Summers at the New Work Summit in Half Moon Bay, California, in 2019. Photograph: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Former treasury secretary steps away to ‘rebuild trust’ after severe backlash but will continue teaching Harvard classes
The Harvard professor and economist Larry Summers said he would be stepping back from public life after documents released by the House oversight committee revealed email exchanges between Summers and the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who called himself Summers’ “wing man”.
Politico reported on Monday that Summers, a former treasury secretary, expressed deep regret for past messages with Epstein.
“I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused,” he told Politico in a statement.
“I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr Epstein. While continuing to fulfill my teaching obligations, I will be stepping back from public commitments as one part of my broader effort to rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me.”
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Besides Summers, the emails released last week revealed how Epstein maintained contact with other business executives, reporters, academics and political players despite his 2008 guilty plea for soliciting prostitution from an underage girl.
“For decades, Larry Summers has demonstrated his attraction to serving the wealthy and well-connected, but his willingness to cozy up to a convicted sex offender demonstrates monumentally bad judgment,” Warren said to CNN.
Zarah Sultana at the supporters’ event in County Durham. Photo: Neil Terry Photography
ZARAH SULTANA has said Your Party must be “explicitly socialist” as she argued the new left-wing party must “embrace class war.”
The independent MP, who co-launched Your Party with Jeremy Corbyn in July, made the comments at a supporters’ event in County Durham on Saturday.
She said: “You can’t beat far-right politicians and fascism by ignoring them, or, as the Labour Party are doing, copying them.
“You do it by uniting the working class around a positive vision, and by building a movement that is broad and rooted in solidarity.
“People don’t want or need cultural wars — they need hope they need material improvements in their lives.
“What I’m saying is, we need socialism. We need to be explicitly socialist.
“That is not tweaking here and there. It’s not just lowering a few bills and a wealth tax just sprinkled on top, but it is a fundamental transformation of our society: the working class controlling the wealth that they produce and the means of production in their hands.
“We need an anti-Nazi anti-fascist league for the 21st century.”
Orcas discuss the formation of UK’s new Socialist party and ask if the killer apes have finally come to their senses.Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership is intensely relaxed about assaulting those least able to defend themselves – the very poorest and most vulnerable.Keir Starmer refuses to be outcnuted by Nigel Farage’s chasing the racist bigot vote.
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Israeli army’s tanks and armored vehicles are seen moving along the Gaza border as attacks continue unabated in Gaza City, Gaza on September 16, 2025. [Mostafa Alkharouf – Anadolu Agency]
The Oxford Union, one of the world’s most renowned debating societies, has voted “overwhelmingly” in favor of a motion declaring Israel a greater threat to regional stability than Iran, following a heated debate featuring former Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh and Geneva-based NGO UN Watch’s director Hillel Neuer, Anadolu reports.
The debate centered on the motion declaring that Israel is a greater threat to regional stability than Iran, as The Telegraph reported this weekend that the society members backed the proposition by a wide margin.
Speaking for the motion, Shtayyeh argued that Israel’s actions constitute the primary source of instability in the Middle East, describing it as “an expansionist colonial state established by colonial powers.”
He went on to call Israel a “pariah state” that “acts above the law,” alleging that it violates UN resolutions and enforces “a colonial regime based on apartheid against the Palestinian people.”
“Brutal occupation, crimes and genocide, … Israel is dragging the region into repeated conflicts,” he said, adding that some Israeli lawmakers believe the country’s borders should stretch “from the Nile to the Euphrates.”
“We all should say that Israel is the biggest cause of destabilization in the region,” he concluded.
Opposing the motion, Neuer insisted that Israel is not the destabilizing force in the region and accused Iran of arming militant proxies across the Middle East.
“Regional stability is measured by who starts wars, not by who stops them,” he said. “Israel does not arm terror proxies in five Arab countries – the regime in Iran does that.”
He cited the Iranian attack on Israel earlier this year involving drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles, arguing that the coordinated response by several Arab states showed their alignment with Israel against Iranian aggression.
“You don’t intercept missiles heading towards a threat to regional stability – you intercept missiles from one,” he said.
The Oxford Union, founded in 1823, has become increasingly scrutinised over its Israel-related debates.
Last year, it passed another motion accusing Israel of being “an apartheid state responsible for genocide,” by 278 votes to 59.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Vote Labour for Genocide.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
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Restoration work begins on the historic Pasha Palace, a centuries-old landmark located at Old City in Gaza City, Gaza on November 10, 2025. [Khames Alrefi – Anadolu Agency]
Gaza’s historical and cultural heritage has not been spared Israeli bombardment during Tel Aviv’s two-year war, with over 20,000 rare artifacts spanning from prehistoric eras to the Ottoman period missing and looted, Anadolu reports.
“The Israeli army has systematically and extensively destroyed Gaza’s archaeological sites as part of a policy aimed at erasing Palestinian identity,” Ismail al-Thawabteh, head of Gaza’s Government Media Office, told Anadolu on Monday.
According to official data, Israeli forces fully or partially destroyed more than 316 archaeological sites and buildings in the Gaza Strip, most dating back to the Mamluk and Ottoman eras, while others trace back to the early Islamic centuries and the Byzantine period.
Qasr al-Basha, a Mamluk-era palace built on a UNESCO heritage site dating back to 800 BC, was not spared from Israel’s systematic targeting of Gaza’s history.
Located in the Al-Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City’s Old City, 70% of the Qasr al-Basha palace was damaged in Israeli attacks, according to Hamouda Al-Dahdar, a cultural heritage expert at the Centre for Cultural Heritage Preservation in Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank.
Looting
Technicians and workers continue searching for scattered artifacts under the rubble, using simple tools to recover and preserve what remains of Gaza’s historical identity.
“What happened to Gaza’s heritage was not only destruction; it was organized looting, a practice criminalized under international law and considered an assault on global cultural heritage,” Thawabteh said.
He added that over 20,000 rare artifacts spanning prehistoric eras to the Ottoman period housed in the museum had disappeared during the Israeli war.
Dahdar also confirmed the disappearance of thousands of rare and diverse artifacts after Israeli forces raided and destroyed the site.
“Each piece of these artifacts is historically significant and represents a chapter of Palestine’s civilizational history,” Dahdar said, calling the looting “a grave cultural crime that affects national identity and humanity’s shared heritage.”
The expert noted that the site had previously suffered extensive destruction during earlier Israeli military operations before its withdrawal in 1994.
After the Israeli withdrawal, the Palestinian Authority restored the palace and turned it into a museum featuring valuable historical collections.
Israel occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967 and withdrew in 1994 under the 1993 Oslo Accords with the umbrella Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). In 2005, it dismantled its settlements in Gaza under its unilateral “Disengagement Plan.”
Once again, during the latest war that started in October 2023, the palace suffered destruction and the looting of its archaeological objects.
More than 69,000 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and over 170,700 others injured in the Israeli war that reduced the enclave to rubble.
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Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Vote Labour for Genocide.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Government Spokesperson Stefan Kornelius of Germany speaks to press during the press meeting of German government spokespersons in Berlin, Germany on October 06, 2025. [Halil Sağırkaya – Anadolu Agency]
Germany announced Monday it will lift restrictions on arms exports to Israel, citing a “stabilized ceasefire” in Gaza and recent diplomatic progress in the region, Anadolu reports.
The decision takes effect on Nov. 24 and returns the country to case-by-case review of arms export applications to Israel, government spokesman Stefan Kornelius told the German press agency DPA.
Kornelius said the government based its decision on the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that has held since Oct. 10 and has stabilized in recent weeks. He also pointed to efforts toward a sustainable peace and increased humanitarian aid in Gaza.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz ordered the restrictions on Aug. 8, halting approval of arms exports that could be used in the Gaza war. The decision came in response to Israel’s announcement of a full-scale ground offensive and the stopping of aid deliveries into Gaza.
Germany’s arms exports to Israel have long been contentious and the subject of legal challenges by rights groups and Gaza residents. The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), which supported plaintiffs in their legal action, has repeatedly said that Berlin’s authorization of weapons exports to Israel violated international agreements Germany signed, including the Geneva Convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide.
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Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Vote Labour for Genocide.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
Zarah Sultana at the supporters’ event in County Durham. Photo: Neil Terry Photography
