WASHINGTON: The Texas synagogue hostage-taker had mental health issues but no criminal records, the US media reported on Monday. The accused, Malik Faisal Akram, was from Blackburn, UK, and his family had migrated to Britain from Jhelum nearly 50 years ago. He broke into the Beth Israel synagogue on Saturday, holding four hostages for more than 12 hours. FBI agents raided the synagogue on Saturday evening and killed Akram who, according to US media reports, had refused to surrender. Media reports claimed that Faisal Akram was married to a Muslim woman from the Indian state of Gujarat and has five…
Author: Hasnain Abid Khanzada
JERUSALEM: Israeli police were in a standoff on Monday with a Palestinian family that threatened self-immolation on the roof of their home in a Jerusalem flashpoint district as they faced eviction. Several members of the Salhiya family remained on the roof of their house with a gas cannister into the evening, with security forces heavily deployed on the street in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem. “The family climbed onto the roof of the house and has threatened to set fire to themselves and the house if the occupation (Israeli) forces take control of it,” Muna ElKurd, an…
PARIS: French far-right presidential candidate ric Zemmour was convicted on Monday of inciting racial hatred over 2020 comments he made about unaccompanied migrant children. A Paris court ordered Zemmour to pay a fine of 10,000 euros (more than $11,000) and several thousand euros in damages to anti-racism groups. Zemmours lawyer, Olivier Pardo, said he advised his client to appeal the decision. Samuel Thomas, president of the Maisons des Potes (“Homes of Friends”), a network of anti-racism associations, said the sentence is very light. “We had hoped for him to be deprived of civic rights,” Thomas said. So ric Zemmour will…
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday reassured Russian President Vladimir Putin of Pakistan’s commitment to collaborate with Russia on the Pakistan Stream Gas Pipeline Project as the two leaders discussed the expansion of bilateral economic and energy cooperation. PM Khan and President Putin spoke by phone about the progress in relations between the two countries, regional situation, Islamophobia and justification of blasphemy by some of the western countries as freedom of expression. Coincidentally, the conversation happened as India began installing the first of the Russia-supplied S-400 ‘Triumf’ surface-to-air missile systems on its borders with Pakistan. India plans to deploy…
NEW DELHI: Indian authorities have charged a Hindu monk with inciting religious violence after he called for the genocide of India’s Muslims at a meeting of right-wing supporters, police said on Monday. Senior police officer Swatantra Kumar said Yati Narsinghanand Giri, an outspoken supporter of far-right nationalists who also heads a Hindu monastery, was initially arrested on Saturday on allegations that he made derogatory remarks against women. He appeared the following day in a court in the town of Haridwar, where he was sent into 14 days of custody for hate speech against Muslims and calling for violence against them.…
ATLANTA: A dangerous winter storm combining high winds and ice swept through parts of the US southeast on Sunday, knocking out power, felling trees and fences and coating roads with a treacherous, frigid glaze. Tens of thousands of customers were without power in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida. Highway patrols reported hundreds of vehicle accidents, and a tornado ripped through a trailer park in Florida. More than 1,200 Sunday flights at Charlotte Douglas International were cancelled. Winter Storm Izzy dumped as much as 10 inches of snow in some areas of western North Carolina as the system moved…
An air strike killed about 14 people in a building in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, residents said on Tuesday, during strikes across the city launched by the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthi group. The alliance strikes on Houthi-held Sanaa followed an attack claimed by the Iran-aligned Houthis on Monday on coalition partner the United Arab Emirates, in Abu Dhabi, in which three people, including one Pakistani, were killed. The coalition also said it intercepted eight drones launched toward Saudi Arabia on Monday. Early on Tuesday, the coalition said it had begun air strikes against strongholds and camps in Sanaa belonging to…
Months before US President Joe Biden announced the United State’s complete withdrawal from Afghanistan last year, Washington’s watchdog warned that the Afghan air force would collapse without critical American aid, training and maintenance. The report was declassified on Tuesday. The report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (Sigar) John Sopko, submitted to the Department of Defence in January last year, underscores that American authorities had been alerted that Afghanistan’s air force did not have the capabilities to survive after a US withdrawal. In particular, the report points to US failure to train Afghan support staff, leaving the air force unable…
ISLAMABAD: The membership of 150 legislators from across the country, including some cabinet members and veteran politicians, has been suspended by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for not filing their statements of assets. The ECP on Monday released a list of MNAs, senators and MPAs of the four provincial assemblies who failed to file their statements of assets and liabilities, as well as those of their spouses and dependents, for the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2021. These statements have to be filed every year by Dec 31. In the 100-member Senate, the membership of three lawmakers…
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) senior vice president and former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Monday said after passage of the controversial State Bank of Pakistan (Amendment) Bill 2021 from the Senate, the SBP governor would become so much powerful that even the parliament would be requiring his nod for doing legislation regarding affairs of the bank. Speaking at a news conference with party leaders Miftah Ismail and Marriyum Aurangzeb at the PML-N Secretariat, Mr Abbasi said the SBP officials would become so much independent and powerful that they would not be answerable to the parliament, the government, National…
