India court suspends order to restaurants to display owners’ names after anti-Muslim bias concerns/node/2554096/world
India court suspends order to restaurants to display owners’ names after anti-Muslim bias concerns
A labourer unloads a sack of almonds from a supply truck as other labourers wait for their turn, at a wholesale market in the old quarters of Delhi, India, July 22, 2024. (Reuters)
India court suspends order to restaurants to display owners’ names after anti-Muslim bias concerns
Updated 22 July 2024
Reuters
NEW DELHI: India’s top court ruled on Monday that restaurants cannot be forced to display the names of their owners, suspending police orders in two northern states that critics had said could foment discrimination against Muslims.
Police in the two states, both ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist party, gave oral orders in at least two districts requiring restaurants to put the names of their owners on display boards.
Police said this would help avoid disputes for thousands of Hindu pilgrims who travel on foot to sacred sites during a holy month, many of whom follow dietary restrictions, such as eating no meat during their journey.
But a Supreme Court bench ruled on Monday that while restaurants could be expected to state the type of food they serve, including whether it is vegetarian, they “must not be forced” to display the name and identities of owners.
The court suspended orders by police in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand states and issued a notice to them seeking their response on petitions challenging the move.
More than a third of India’s 1.4 billion people are estimated to be vegetarian — the world’s largest percentage of people who don’t eat meat or eggs — as they follow diets promoted by groups within Hinduism and other religions.
Some vegetarians choose not to eat in restaurants that also serve meat and don’t rent out houses to meat-eating tenants.
A few allies of Modi and leaders of opposition parties had criticized the police orders, saying they feared they would deepen the communal divide and lead to Hindus avoiding restaurants employing Muslims.
Political foes accuse Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of targeting India’s roughly 200 million minority Muslims for electoral gains, which Modi and the BJP both deny.
“Such orders are social crimes, which want to spoil the peaceful atmosphere of harmony,” opposition Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav had said in a post on X, criticizing the police moves.
President-elect Donald Trump visits Jimmy Carter’s casket in Capitol Rotunda after criticizing him
“I liked him as a man. I disagreed with his policies. He thought giving away the Panama Canal was a good thing,” Trump said on Tuesday
House Speaker Mike Johnson eulogized: "In the face of conflict, he brokered peace. In the face of discrimination, he reminded us that we are all made in the image of God."
Updated 7 sec ago
AP
WASHINGTON: President-elect Donald Trump, who has alternated among praising, criticizing and even mocking Jimmy Carter, came Wednesday to the Capitol Rotunda to pay his respects as the 39th president lay in state ahead of his funeral Thursday in the nation’s capital.
Carter was often the target of Trump’s derision during his 2024 campaign, and the president-elect has renewed his critique of the Georgia Democrat this week amid his state funeral rites for ceding control of the Panama Canal to its home country when he was president more than four decades ago.
Trump, who plans to attend Carter’s funeral Thursday at Washington National Cathedral, played it straight on Capitol Hill, walking somberly into the rotunda with his wife, Melania, and pausing in front of Carter’s flag-draped casket, which is resting atop the Lincoln catafalque and stands surrounded by a military honor guard.
But on the campaign trail, Trump lampooned President Joe Biden and Carter together, playing up Republican caricatures of Carter as an incompetent steward of an inflationary economy and directing the same indictment at Biden’s administration.
“Jimmy Carter is happy because he had a brilliant presidency compared to Biden,” Trump would say, even using some version of the attack when former first lady Rosalynn Carter was on her deathbed in 2023 and on Carter’s 100th birthday on Oct. 1, 2024. On Tuesday, the day Carter’s remains arrived in Washington, Trump added of Carter, “I liked him as a man. I disagreed with his policies. He thought giving away the Panama Canal was a good thing.”
Members of Congress, Hill staffers and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy were among the steady stream of mourners in addition to the Trumps. Lynda Robb and Luci Baines Johnson, the daughters of President Lyndon Johnson, paid their respects, as well. Luci Baines Johnson blew a kiss toward the casket as she walked away.
Carter, the longest-lived US president, died Dec. 29 at the age of 100.
A US Naval Academy graduate, submarine officer and peanut farmer before entering politics, Carter won the White House in 1976 as an outsider in the wake of the Vietnam War and Watergate. He endured a rocky four years of economic unrest and international crises that ended with his defeat to Republican Ronald Reagan. But he also lived long enough to see historians reassess his presidency more charitably than voters did in 1980, and the national rites of a state funeral afford him a notable counter to the often testy relationship he had with Washington during his four years in the Oval Office.
“President Carter was the governor of the great state of Georgia when I was born,” said Lyn Leverett, among the people who waited in below-freezing weather Wednesday. “So he’s been around my, you know, my whole entire being. And I just want to pay my respects to a decent person.”
Some visitors fondly recalled personal connections to Carter’s 1976 campaign, when his family, close friends and other supporters from Georgia formed the “Peanut Brigade” to fan out across Iowa, New Hampshire and other key primary states and help Carter surprise the Washington establishment by winning the Democratic nomination.
“I’m originally from Nashua, New Hampshire, and when I was a child, Jimmy Carter slept at my house,” said Susan Prolman. “He had just won the Iowa caucuses and he was in New Hampshire campaigning for the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire presidential primary. And I created this little poster for him, and he very kindly signed it.”
Margaret Fitzpatrick, of Kensington, Maryland, recalled a family friend who had attended the Naval Academy with Carter in the 1940s and later hosted him as a presidential candidate. But she and others said what most drew them to the Capitol was what they remember of Carter once he left office — and the distinctions they see between Carter and Trump.
“The contrast is amazing,” Fitzpatrick said, as she noted the juxtaposition of Carter’s funeral with the obvious preparations around Washington for Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration. “I’m here to respect somebody who has built a reputation on honesty, character and integrity. President Carter was a decent, kind, genuine and gentle person.”
Kim James, also a Maryland resident, said she had yet to start grade school when Carter was elected and thinks of him more as the white-haired former president who fought disease and advocated for democracy in the developing world and built homes for Habitat for Humanity in the US and abroad.
“He cared about other people,” she said, adding that political leaders today should work harder to replicate that example. “That selflessness — it always stood out.”
Official ceremonies this week also have remembered Carter’s religious convictions, long public service and decades of humanitarian work beyond what he accomplished in politics. Vice President Kamala Harris, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune eulogized Carter a day earlier at the Capitol, when his remains first arrived in the rotunda.
Said Johnson in his tribute: “In the face of illness, President Jimmy Carter brought lifesaving medicine. In the face of conflict, he brokered peace. In the face of discrimination, he reminded us that we are all made in the image of God. And if you were to ask him why he did it all, he would likely point to his faith.”
Carter will remain at the Capitol until Thursday morning, when he is transported to Washington National Cathedral for a state funeral. President Joe Biden, a longtime Carter ally, will deliver a eulogy. Other living former presidents, including Trump, are expected to attend.
After the funeral, the Boeing 747 that is Air Force One when a sitting president is aboard will carry Carter and his family back to Georgia. An invitation-only funeral will be held at Maranatha Baptist Church in tiny Plains, Georgia, where Carter taught Sunday School for decades after leaving office.
Carter will be buried next to his wife, former first lady Rosalynn Carter, in a plot near the home they built before his first state Senate campaign in 1962 and where they lived out their lives with the exception of four years in the Georgia Governor’s Mansion and four years in the White House.
US troops need to stay in Syria to counter the Daesh group, defense chief Austin says
According to estimates, there are as many as 8,000-10,000 Daesh fighters in the camps
The continued presence of US troops was put into question after a lightning insurgency ousted Assad on Dec. 8, ending his family’s decadeslong rule
Updated 09 January 2025
AP
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany: The US needs to keep troops deployed in Syria to prevent the Daesh group (also known as ISIS) from reconstituting as a major threat following the ouster of Bashar Assad’s government, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told The Associated Press.
American forces are still needed there, particularly to ensure the security of detention camps holding tens of thousands of former Daesh fighters and family members, Austin said Wednesday in one of his final interviews before he leaves office.
According to estimates, there are as many as 8,000-10,000 Daesh fighters in the camps, and at least 2,000 of them are considered to be very dangerous.
If Syria is left unprotected, “I think IS fighters would enter back into the mainstream,” Austin said at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where he traveled to discuss military aid for Ukraine with about 50 partner nations. He was using another acronym for the Daesh group.
“I think that we still have some work to do in terms of keeping a foot on the throat of Daesh,” he said.
President-elect Donald Trump tried to withdraw all forces from Syria in 2018 during his first term, which prompted the resignation of former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. As the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group, or HTS, advanced against Assad last month, Trump posted on social media that the US military needed to stay out of the conflict.
The US has about 2,000 troops in Syria to counter Daesh, up significantly from the 900 forces that officials said for years was the total number there. They were sent in 2015 after the militant group had conquered a large swath of Syria.
The continued presence of US troops was put into question after a lightning insurgency ousted Assad on Dec. 8, ending his family’s decadeslong rule.
US forces have worked with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces on operations against Daesh, providing cover for the group that Turkiye considers an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which it identifies as a terror organization.
The Syrian transitional government is still taking shape, and uncertainty remains on what that will mean going forward.
The SDF “have been good partners. At some point, the SDF may very well be absorbed into the Syrian military and then Syria would own all the (Daesh detention) camps and hopefully keep control of them,” Austin said. “But for now I think we have to protect our interests there.”
Russian strike kills 13 in Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia
The blast left bodies strewn across a road alongside injured residents
Public transport was also damaged in the strike
Updated 09 January 2025
Reuters
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine: A Russian guided bomb attack on Wednesday killed at least 13 people and injured 63 in Ukraine’s southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, authorities said.
The blast left bodies strewn across a road alongside injured residents. Public transport was also damaged in the strike.
Prosecutors in the region said 63 people had been injured. Rescue work had been completed at the site of the attack.
High-rise apartment blocks were damaged along with an industrial facility and other infrastructure, Ukraine’s prosecutor general office said on Telegram. The debris hit a tram and a bus with passengers inside, it added.
As emergency workers tried to resuscitate a man, raging flames, smoke and burnt cars could be seen in the background.
Russian troops had used two guided bombs to hit a residential area, the regional governor Ivan Fedorov told reporters.
At least four of the injured were rushed to hospital in serious condition, Fedorov said, adding that Thursday would be an official day of mourning.
“There is nothing more cruel than launching aerial bombs on a city, knowing that ordinary civilians will suffer,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X, urging Ukraine’s Western allies to step up pressure on Russia.
Regional authorities reported further explosions after the first strike hit.
Fedorov said Russian troops shelled the town of Stepnohirsk, south of Zaporizhzhia, killing two people. Two residents were pulled alive from underneath rubble.
Russia regularly carries out air strikes on the Zaporizhzhia region, which its forces partially occupy, and its capital. Moscow claims to have annexed the Ukrainian region along with four others including Crimea.
Public broadcaster Suspilne also reported two people killed and 10 injured in attacks on several centers in the southern region of Kherson, also partially occupied by Russian forces.
US to announce new weapons package for Ukraine as defense leaders prepare to meet in Germany
The group’s future is unclear with President-elect Donald Trump set to take office on Jan. 20
Advisers to Trump have floated proposals to end the Ukraine war that would cede large parts of the country to Russia for the foreseeable future
Updated 08 January 2025
Reuters
WASHINGTON: The US is expected to announce $500 million in military aid for Ukraine on Thursday at a final gathering of President Joe Biden’s weapons pledging conferences, meetings Kyiv says have been critical to its defense against Russia.
The Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG), comprised of about 50 allies who usually meet every few months at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, was started in 2022 by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to speed and synchronize the delivery of arms to Kyiv.
The group’s future is unclear with President-elect Donald Trump set to take office on Jan. 20. Advisers to Trump have floated proposals to end the Ukraine war that would cede large parts of the country to Russia for the foreseeable future.
Washington has committed more than $63.5 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion and the additional $500 million could be announced later on Wednesday, a US official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
On Thursday, the defense leaders will meet at Ramstein Air Base for the 25th UDCG meeting.
“We’re not sunsetting the group. The next administration is completely welcome and encouraged ... to take the mantle of this 50 country strong group and continue to drive and lead through it,” said a senior US defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
“It will endure in some capacity, in some form going forward, I believe, regardless of exactly how the next team does or doesn’t pursue it,” the official said.
Trump will have a few billion dollars in appropriated money that he could use for Ukraine’s military needs once he takes office.
The official added that the Thursday meeting would look to endorse roadmaps for Ukraine’s military needs and objectives through 2027.
More than 12,300 civilians have been killed in the Ukraine war since Russia invaded nearly three years ago, the United Nations said, noting a spike in casualties due to the use of drones, long-range missiles and glide bombs.
Ukraine said on Tuesday its forces were “commencing new offensive actions” in Russia’s western Kursk region.
Ukraine first seized part of the Kursk region in a surprise incursion last August, and it has held territory there for five months despite losing some ground.
The apparent escalation in the fighting in the Kursk region comes at a critical time for Ukraine, whose outnumbered and outgunned troops are struggling to repel Russian advances in the east.
Fighting at Chad presidency leaves 19 dead, several injured
Several security sources said that an armed commando opened fire inside the presidency on Wednesday evening
Government spokesman and FM Abderaman Koulamallah later announced that the coup attempt had been repulsed
Updated 15 min 6 sec ago
AFP
N’DJAMENA: Gunmen launched an attack on the presidential complex in Chad’s capital N’Djamena on Wednesday, sparking a battle that left 18 attackers and one security personnel member dead and several others injured, the government said.
AFP reporters heard gunfire erupt near the site in N’Djamena, with tanks seen on the street, while security sources reported that armed men had tried to storm the complex.
The government later said 19 people were killed in the fighting, of which 18 were members of the 24-strong group that launched the assault.
“There were 18 dead and six injured” among the attackers “and we suffered one death and three injured, one of them seriously,” government spokesman and Foreign Minister Abderaman Koulamallah told AFP.
Hours after the shooting, Koulamallah had appeared in a video on Facebook, surrounded by soldiers, saying that “the situation is completely under control... the destabilization attempt was put down.”
Chad is a landlocked country in Africa’s northern half under military rule that is regularly attacked by the jihadist Boko Haram group in the Lake Chad region.
It has recently ended a military accord with former colonial power France and has faced accusations that it was interfering in the conflict ravaging neighboring Sudan.
Several security sources said that an armed commando opened fire inside the presidency on Wednesday evening around 7:45 p.m. (1845 GMT), before being overpowered by the presidential guard.
All roads leading to the presidency were blocked and tanks could be seen on the streets, according to an AFP reporter at the scene.
As civilians rushed out of the city center in cars and motorcycles, armed police were seen at several points in the district.
The gunfire erupted less than two weeks after Chad held a contested general election that the government hailed as a key step toward ending military rule, but that was marked by low turnout and opposition allegations of fraud.
Several hours earlier on Wednesday, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Li met with President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno and other senior officials.
The former French colony hosted France’s last military bases in the region known as the Sahel, but at the end of November it ended the defense and security agreements with Paris, calling them “obsolete.”
Around a thousand French military personnel were stationed there and are in the process of being withdrawn.
France was previously driven out of three Sahelian countries governed by juntas hostile to Paris — Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
Senegal and Ivory Coast have also asked France to leave military bases on their territory.
Deby took power in 2021 after the death of his father, who had ruled the country with an iron fist for three decades.
The country’s opposition has branded his government autocratic and repressive.
The desert country is an oil producer, but is ranked fourth from bottom in the United Nations Human Development Index (HDI).
To consolidate his grip on power, Deby has reshuffled the army, historically dominated by the Zaghawas and Gorane, his mother’s ethnic group.
On the diplomatic front, he has sought new strategic partnerships, including with Russia and Hungary.
