WASHINGTON: United States President Barack Obama has accepted that Sikh-Americans are victims to threats and harassment as they are often “perceived to be Muslims”. Seeking to reassure Muslim-Americans in his historic address to the minority community from the mosque in Baltimore, Maryland, he termed the recent anti-Muslim rhetoric in the US poll campaign as “inexcusable”. “Since 9/11, but more recently, since the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, you've seen too often people conflating the horrific acts of terrorism with the beliefs of an entire faith. And of course, recently, we've heard inexcusable political rhetoric against Muslim Americans that has no place in our country,” said the President, in a subtle jibe at Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump. “Around the country, women wearing the hijab have been targeted. We've seen children bullied. We've seen mosques vandalised. Sikh Americans and others who are perceived to be Muslims have been targeted, as well,” Obama said.
Sikh actor barred from plane for wearing turban
Chandigarh: Indian-American Sikh actor and designer Waris Ahluwalia claimed that he was banned from boarding a flight because of his turban. He posted a photograph with his flight ticket on Instagram, saying he was not allowed to board Aero Mexico flight to New York for refusing to remove his turban. A New York daily quoted Ahluwalia as saying, "That (remove his turban) is not something I would do in public. That's akin to asking someone to take off their clothes."
Two Indian-origin men jailed for robbery in Singapore
SINGAPORE: Two men of Indian-origin were jailed up to nine years in Singapore an ordered to be given 12 strokes of the cane for robbing a currency exchanger of $430,000 in 2014. Annadurai Raman, 43, a Singaporean permanent resident and Malaysian Tachana Moorthy Peromal, 29, accepted to conspiring with six others to rob a person named Ali Yousouf Saiboo of two luggage bags containing local and foreign currencies amounting to 624,036 Singapore dollars and two mobile phones, on November 5, 2014. Annadurai was sentenced to seven years in prison and 12 strokes while Tachana was given nine years and caning.
Air strikes destroy IS radio station in Afghanistan
KABUL: US air strikes have destroyed an Islamic State-operated radio station in a remote part of eastern Afghanistan. 'Voice of the Caliphate' radio was destroyed by two US air strikes, according to a US military official. Army Colonel Mike Lawhorn, spokesman for the USNATO mission in Afghanistan said US forces conducted two “counter-terrorism air strikes” in Achin district in eastern Nangarhar province. The radio station used to illegally broadcast across the region, calling on fighters to join the groups and, threaten journalists in the provincial capital, Jalalabad. Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said the US would spend $7.5 billion to fund the fight against the Islamic State group.
An IS rape survivor is Nobel Peace nominee
STAVANGER: Among the known candidates for the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize, is Nadia Murad, a Yazidi who escaped from Islamic State sexual slavery to become a spokeswoman for those abused by the terrorist group. The five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee usually receives more than 200 nominations for the prestigious prize, and keeps candidates secret for 50 years. The panel members can make their own nominations during their first judging meeting on February 29. Audun Lysbakken, a Norwegian lawmaker has nominated Murad. “We want a peace prize that can awaken the world to the fight against sexual violence as a weapon of war,” Lysbakken, leader of Norway's Socialist Left Party, said. In December, Murad told the UN Security Council how she and thousands of other Yazidi women and girls were abducted, held in captivity and repeatedly raped after the Iraqi province of Sinjar fell to Islamic State terrorists in August 2014. She escaped after three months in captivity.
No ban on Sikh turbans, only on burqas, says France
NEW DELHI: France has clarified that there are no ban on Sikh wearing turbans in public places, with the restriction solely on burqa “for obvious security reasons”. Following allegations on the “so-called restrictions” imposed on wearing the turban, the French embassy said France upheld the freedom of religion, as well as the right not to have one, and opposed discrimination on this ground. The “ban” on turbans was applicable only in public schools. “French law in this matter is very precise, the restriction applies to the wearing of all visible religious signs, without any discrimination, and it applies only to public schools. It leaves it to the heads of public schools to take the most appropriate measures, so that it is implemented in a sensitive manners,” said the embassy.
Why schools want to allow smoking
PARIS: High schools in France are allowing students to smoke on school grounds to keep them away from extremists. A leading union of school administrators had first made the request just five days after the November 13 attacks in Paris. However, after a refusal from the health ministry, the SNPDEN union has again renewed its call for a loosening of the school smoking ban at least as long as France remains under a state of emergency. Media reports suggest that several schools have already gone ahead with the call anyway. Government statistics have drawn numbers saying around one third of French teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19 smoke. The health ministry's rejection letter late last year included a reminder that France is currently trying to cut the number of smokers by 10 per cent by 2019, and said that “the state of emergency changes nothing” regarding anti-smoking laws.
Panic grips Hindus in Pakistan after temple desecration
KARACHI: Three armed bearded men stormed into a 60-year-old temple in Pakistan's largest city, desecrating the idol and sending a wave of fear among the minority community. The men wearing salwar and kameez, barged into the temple waving pistols and ordered everyone inside the premises to step out. Following the incident, the Hindu community in the region are terrified to visit the place of worship. Maharaja Hira Lal said, “The people are afraid of coming here for puja now after the attack. We don't know who those men were. We have never seen them before. We are very saddened by the incident. It has really terrorised the neighbourhood.”
Please forgive me, says Eta sexual tigress who killed 23 times
MADRID: Idoia López Riaño, well known as La Tigresa, has now become a symbol of how Spain is turning its back on 40 years of bloodshed five years after Eta declared a permanent ceasefire. The woman who is in prison for 23 murders has renounced violence and asked for forgiveness from her victims' families. In a letter written to judges at the country's national court, she described how she was recruited by Eta when she was “only a child of 15” and then went on a murder spree in the 1980s. She wrote, “I committed an immense, terrible and awful error to believe that I should be a member of Eta. It is an irreparable error I feel every time I breathe.” Riaño is writing a memoir titled 'Memory of Destiny' about her years with Eta.
