US anti-Muslim incidents rose about 70% in first half of 2024 amid Gaza war

File photo Demonstrators take part in a protest against growing Islamophobia (AFP)

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Updated 30 July 2024

Reuters

July 30, 2024 04:01

US anti-Muslim incidents rose about 70% in first half of 2024 amid Gaza war

Human rights advocates have reported a global rise in Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian bias and antisemitism since the eruption in October

Updated 30 July 2024

Reuters

July 30, 2024 04:01

WASHINGTON: Discrimination and attacks against Muslims and Palestinians rose by about 70 percent in the US in the first half of 2024 amid heightened Islamophobia due to Israel’s war in Gaza, the Council on American-Islamic Relations advocacy group said on Tuesday.
Human rights advocates have reported a global rise in Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian bias and antisemitism since the eruption in October of the Israel-Gaza war which has killed tens of thousands and caused a humanitarian crisis.
In the first six months of 2024, CAIR said it received 4,951 complaints of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian incidents, a rise of nearly 70 percent compared with the same period in 2023.
Most of the complaints were in the categories of immigration and asylum, employment discrimination, education discrimination and hate crimes, CAIR said.
In 2023, CAIR documented 8,061 such complaints in the whole year, including about 3,600 in the last three months after the war broke out.
Alarming US incidents in the last nine months include the fatal October stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian-American child in Illinois, the February stabbing of a Palestinian-American man in Texas, the shooting of three students of Palestinian descent in Vermont in November and the attempted drowning of a 3-year-old Palestinian-American girl in May.
There have been numerous protests in the US, Israel’s key ally, against the war in Gaza since October. The CAIR report noted the crackdown by police and university authorities on pro-Palestinian protests and encampments on campuses.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7 when Palestinian Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
The Gaza health ministry says that since then Israel’s military assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians while also displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide allegations that Israel denies.
CAIR says it compiles numbers by reviewing public statements and videos as well as reports from public calls, emails and an online complaint system. It also contacts people whose incidents are reported by media.

Topics: US Islamophobia Muslims Gaza

US charges billionaire Gautam Adani with defrauding investors, hiding plan to bribe Indian officials

Updated 16 sec ago

November 21, 2024 06:27

US charges billionaire Gautam Adani with defrauding investors, hiding plan to bribe Indian officials

Gautam Adani, 62, was charged with securities fraud in an indictment unsealed Wednesday
Several other people connected to Adani, his businesses and the project were also charged

Updated 16 sec ago

November 21, 2024 06:27

NEW YORK: An Indian businessman who is one of the world’s richest people has been indicted in the US on charges he duped investors in a massive solar energy project in his home country by concealing that it was facilitated by alleged bribery.
Gautam Adani, 62, was charged in an indictment unsealed Wednesday with securities fraud and conspiring to commit securities and wire fraud.
He is accused of defrauding investors who poured several billion dollars into the project by failing to tell them about more than $250 million in bribes paid to Indian officials to secure lucrative solar energy supply contracts.
Several other people connected to Adani, his businesses and the project were also charged.
Gautam Adani is a power player in the world’s most populous nation. He built his fortune in the coal business coal in the 1990s. His Adani Group grew to involve many aspects of Indian life, from making defense equipment to building roads to selling cooking oil.
In recent years, Adani has made big moves into renewable energy.
Last year, a US-based financial research firm accused Adani his company of “brazen stock manipulation” and “accounting fraud.” The Adani Group called the claims “a malicious combination of selective misinformation and stale, baseless and discredited allegations.”
The firm in question is known as a short-seller, a Wall Street term for traders that essentially bet on the prices of certain stocks to fall, and it had made such investments in relation to the Adani Group.

Topics: Gautam Adani India

Xi and Lula call for peace in Ukraine, ceasefire in Gaza

Updated 3 min 58 sec ago

AFP

November 21, 2024 06:09

Xi and Lula call for peace in Ukraine, ceasefire in Gaza

China-Brazil roadmap for mediating peace has been endorsed by Russia — an ally of China — but rejected by Ukraine and its Western backers
Xi’s state visit to Brasilia showcased closer relations between the biggest economies in Asia and Latin America

Updated 3 min 58 sec ago

AFP

November 21, 2024 06:09

BRASILIA: Chinese leader Xi Jinping urged “more voices” to end the Ukraine war and a ceasefire in Gaza, as he conducted a state visit to Brazil’s capital, Chinese state media said.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva echoed those points as he met with Xi in a red-carpet welcome in Brasilia, and stressed a joint roadmap for peace in Ukraine that they are proposing.
“In a world plagued by armed conflicts and political strife, China and Brazil put peace, diplomacy and dialogue first,” Lula said.
Xi said he wanted to see “more voices committed to peace to pave the way for a political solution to the Ukraine crisis,” the Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported.
He also called for “a ceasefire and an end to the war at an early date” in Gaza, the agency said.
On Ukraine, the China-Brazil roadmap for mediating peace has been endorsed by Russia — which is China’s ally — but rejected by Kyiv and its Western backers.
The Chinese president’s appeal for a halt to fighting in Gaza — where Israel is pressing an offensive against Hamas — echoed one he and the other G20 leaders made during a summit held Monday and Tuesday in Rio.
That summit’s joint statement called for a “comprehensive” ceasefire in both Gaza and Lebanon, where Israel is also waging an offensive against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group.
On Wednesday, the UN Security Council held a vote on a resolution calling for “an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza, but it was vetoed by Israel’s ally the United States.

Shrinking US influence
Xi’s state visit to Brasilia showcased closer relations between the biggest economies in Asia and Latin America, which analysts said also reflected shrinking US influence.
The two leaders signed 35 cooperation accords on areas including agriculture, trade, technology and environmental protection.
Xi said China-Brazil relations “are at their best in history” and the two countries are now “reliable friends,” according to Xinhua.
Lula said he believed the growing Brazil-China ties “will exceed all expectations and pave the way for a new phase of bilateral relations.”
He added that he looked forward to welcoming Xi to Brazil again next July for a BRICS summit.
The Chinese leader figured prominently at the G20 summit, and at an APEC one held last week in Peru — in contrast with outgoing US President Joe Biden, who cut a spectral figure.
Fellow leaders looked past Biden, politically, to the coming US presidency of Donald Trump, which starts January 20.
“Xi Jinping is clearly looking to fill the vacuum that will come following the election of Trump, who does not value multilateralism,” Oliver Stuenkel, an international relations expert at Brazil’s Getulio Vargas Foundation think tank, told AFP.

Brazil's balancing act

China is Brazil’s biggest trading partner, with two-way commerce exceeding $160 billion last year.
The South American agricultural power sends mainly soybeans and other primary commodities to China, while the Asian giant sells Brazil semiconductors, telephones, vehicles and medicines.
Since returning to power in early 2023, Lula has sought to balance efforts to improve ties with both China and the United States.
A visit to Beijing this year by Vice President Geraldo Alckmin was seen as paving the way for Brazil to potentially join China’s Belt and Road Initiative to stimulate trade — a central pillar of Xi’s bid to expand China’s clout overseas.
But there was no announcement in that direction during Xi’s visit. Instead both leaders spoke of finding “synergies” between that Chinese program and Brazil’s own infrastructure development program.
South American nations that have signed up to Beijing’s initiative include Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.
One of the accords signed Wednesday was on Brazil opening its market to a Chinese satellite company, SpaceSail, that competes with Starlink, founded and run by South African-born US billionaire Elon Musk, which already covers remote Brazilian regions.
Musk has a turbulent history with Brazil, whose courts forced his social media platform X to comply with national laws against disinformation.

Topics: Xi Jinping Brazil Ukraine Gaza Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva

Zelensky says Crimea can only be restored to Ukraine through diplomacy

Updated 19 min 37 sec ago

Reuters

November 21, 2024 05:16

Zelensky says Crimea can only be restored to Ukraine through diplomacy

Zelensky tells Fox News his country could not afford to lose the number of lives that would be required to retake Crimea through military means
He has proposed a peace formula and a “victory plan” underpinned by the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine

Updated 19 min 37 sec ago

Reuters

November 21, 2024 05:16

KYIV: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged the Crimea peninsula, seized by Russia in 2014, would have to be restored to Ukrainian sovereignty through diplomacy.
Zelensky, interviewed by Fox News on a train in Ukraine and broadcast on Wednesday, said his country could not afford to lose the number of lives that would be required to retake Crimea through military means.
He again rejected any notion of ceding any territory already occupied by Moscow’s forces, saying Ukraine “cannot legally acknowledge any occupied territory of Ukraine as Russian.”
“I was already mentioning that we are ready to bring Crimea back diplomatically,” Zelensky told Fox News through an interpreter.
“We cannot spend dozens of thousands of our people so that they perish for the sake of Crimea coming back ... and still it’s not a fact that we can bring it back with the arms in our hands. We understand that Crimea can be brought back diplomatically.”

Russia seized and annexed Crimea in 2014 after a popular uprising prompted a Russia-friendly president to flee the country and Russian proxies seized swathes of territory in Ukraine’s east.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, its troops have captured about one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory and proclaimed the annexation of four provinces, though Moscow does not fully control any of them.
Zelensky has proposed a peace formula and a “victory plan” underpinned by the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine. But his recent calls have stressed security guarantees for his country and an invitation to join NATO, a notion rejected out of hand by Moscow.

Topics: Russia-Ukraine Conflict Volodymyr Zelensky Crimea Ukraine

India’s Modi offers aid to Caribbean nations while meeting leaders in Guyana

Updated 21 November 2024

November 21, 2024 04:56

India’s Modi offers aid to Caribbean nations while meeting leaders in Guyana

Modi’s visit marks the first time an Indian prime minister has come to Guyana since Indira Ghandi in 1968

Updated 21 November 2024

November 21, 2024 04:56

GEORGETOWN, Guyana: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Wednesday he would share technology for combatting seaweed infestation with Caribbean nations, as he visited Guyana in the first such visit by an Indian leader in more than 50 years.
Guyana, a South American nation with many citizens of Indian origin, serves as headquarters for the 15-member Caribbean trade bloc known as Caricom, and Modi met with regional leaders Wednesday as part of the India-Caricom summit. They last met in 2019.
Modi arrived with promises to help the region in areas including health, energy and agriculture. He also announced more than 1,000 scholarships over the next five years for trade bloc nations, mobile hospitals for rural areas and drug-testing laboratories as well as river and sea ferries for marine transport.
But Caribbean leaders reserved their loudest applause when Modi announced that India had made tremendous progress in converting large quantities of sargassum into fertilizer and other economic uses as he urged the region to take advantage of his offer.
“We are willing to share this with all the countries,” he said, calling the seaweed invasion on beaches in the tourism-dependent region “a very big problem.”
Modi also was thinking of home. Noting Guyana’s growing importance as an oil-producing nation after vast quantities of oil and gas were discovered off its coast in 2015, he said: “Guyana will play an important role in India’s energy security.”
He added that his government also is willing to fully equip at least one government building in each of the trade bloc nations with a solar power system.
Speaking after meeting with Guyanese President Irfaan Ali, the country’s first Muslim leader, Modi promised to help Guyana and the region improve agriculture production, saying food security is important to island nations.
Trade between India and Guyana has strengthened in recent years, with India providing Guyana lines of credit for military passenger planes and funding to buy a fast river ferry that services far-flung jungle areas close to neighboring Venezuela.
Modi also noted that indentured laborers from India were brought to Guyana during the British colonial era and now make a significant contribution to the country. Nearly 40 percent of the population is East Indian.
Modi’s visit marks the first time an Indian prime minister has come to Guyana since Indira Ghandi in 1968.

Topics: India-CARICOM Summit Narendra Modi Guyana

US gathers allies to talk AI safety as Trump’s vow to undo Biden’s AI policy overshadows their work

Updated 21 November 2024

November 21, 2024 04:05

US gathers allies to talk AI safety as Trump’s vow to undo Biden’s AI policy overshadows their work

Trump believes Biden’s executive order on AI safety "hinders AI Innovation, and imposes Radical Leftwing ideas on the development of this technology”
US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo says AI safety is good for innovation, and tech industry groups are mostly pleased with the approach

Updated 21 November 2024

November 21, 2024 04:05

SAN FRANCISCO, California: President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to repeal President Joe Biden’s signature artificial intelligence policy when he returns to the White House for a second term.
What that actually means for the future of AI technology remains to be seen. Among those who could use some clarity are the government scientists and AI experts from multiple countries gathering in San Francisco this week to deliberate on AI safety measures.
Hosted by the Biden administration, officials from a number of US allies — among them Australia, Canada, Japan, Kenya, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the 27-nation European Union — began meeting Wednesday in the California city that’s a commercial hub for AI development.
Their agenda addresses topics such as how to better detect and combat a flood of AI-generated deepfakes fueling fraud, harmful impersonation and sexual abuse.
It’s the first such meeting since world leaders agreed at an AI summit in South Korea in May to build a network of publicly backed safety institutes to advance research and testing of the technology.
“We have a choice,” said US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to the crowd of officials, academics and private-sector attendees on Wednesday. “We are the ones developing this technology. You are the ones developing this technology. We can decide what it looks like.”
Like other speakers, Raimondo addressed the opportunities and risks of AI — including “the possibility of human extinction” and asked why would we allow that?

US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo speaks at the convening of the International Network of AI Safety Institutes at the Golden Gate Club at the Presidio in San Francisco on Nov. 20, 2024. (AP)

“Why would we choose to allow AI to replace us? Why would we choose to allow the deployment of AI that will cause widespread unemployment and societal disruption that goes along with it? Why would we compromise our global security?” she said. “We shouldn’t. In fact, I would argue we have an obligation to keep our eyes at every step wide open to those risks and prevent them from happening. And let’s not let our ambition blind us and allow us to sleepwalk into our own undoing.”
Hong Yuen Poon, deputy secretary of Singapore’s Ministry of Digital Development and Information, said that a “helping-one-another mindset is important” between countries when it comes to AI safety, including with “developing countries which may not have the full resources” to study it.
Biden signed a sweeping AI executive order last year and this year formed the new AI Safety Institute at the National Institute for Standards and Technology, which is part of the Commerce Department.
Trump promised in his presidential campaign platform to “repeal Joe Biden’s dangerous Executive Order that hinders AI Innovation, and imposes Radical Leftwing ideas on the development of this technology.”
But he hasn’t made clear what about the order he dislikes or what he’d do about the AI Safety Institute. Trump’s transition team didn’t respond to emails this week seeking comment.
Addressing concerns about slowing down innovation, Raimondo said she wanted to make it clear that the US AI Safety Institute is not a regulator and also “not in the business of stifling innovation.”
“But here’s the thing. Safety is good for innovation. Safety breeds trust. Trust speeds adoption. Adoption leads to more innovation,” she said.
Tech industry groups — backed by companies including Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft — are mostly pleased with the AI safety approach of Biden’s Commerce Department, which has focused on setting voluntary standards. They have pushed for Congress to preserve the new agency and codify its work into law.
Some experts expect the kind of technical work happening at an old military officers’ club at San Francisco’s Presidio National Park this week to proceed regardless of who’s in charge.
“There’s no reason to believe that we’ll be doing a 180 when it comes to the work of the AI Safety Institute,” said Heather West, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis. Behind the rhetoric, she said there’s already been overlap.
Trump didn’t spend much time talking about AI during his four years as president, though in 2019 he became the first to sign an executive order about AI. It directed federal agencies to prioritize research and development in the field.
Before that, tech experts were pushing the Trump-era White House for a stronger AI strategy to match what other countries were pursuing. Trump in the waning weeks of his administration signed an executive order promoting the use of “trustworthy” AI in the federal government. Those policies carried over into the Biden administration.
All of that was before the 2022 debut of ChatGPT, which brought public fascination and worry about the possibilities of generative AI and helped spark a boom in AI-affiliated businesses. What’s also different this time is that tech mogul and Trump adviser Elon Musk has been picked to lead a government cost-cutting commission. Musk holds strong opinions about AI’s risks and grudges against some AI industry leaders, particularly ChatGPT maker OpenAI, which he has sued.
Raimondo and other officials sought to press home the idea that AI safety is not a partisan issue.
“And by the way, this room is bigger than politics. Politics is on everybody’s mind. I don’t want to talk about politics. I don’t care what political party you’re in, this is not in Republican interest or Democratic interest,” she said. “It’s frankly in no one’s interest anywhere in the world, in any political party, for AI to be dangerous, or for AI to in get the hands of malicious non-state actors that want to cause destruction and sow chaos.”

Topics: Gina Raimondo Donald Trump Joe Biden

US anti-Muslim incidents rose about 70% in first half of 2024 amid Gaza war

US anti-Muslim incidents rose about 70% in first half of 2024 amid Gaza war

India court suspends order to restaurants to display owners’ names after anti-Muslim bias concerns

‘Many challenges’ in combating Islamophobia, protecting human rights: top OIC official

US charges billionaire Gautam Adani with defrauding investors, hiding plan to bribe Indian officials

US charges billionaire Gautam Adani with defrauding investors, hiding plan to bribe Indian officials

Xi and Lula call for peace in Ukraine, ceasefire in Gaza

Xi and Lula call for peace in Ukraine, ceasefire in Gaza

Zelensky says Crimea can only be restored to Ukraine through diplomacy

US vetoes UN resolution calling for ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages

Zelensky says Crimea can only be restored to Ukraine through diplomacy

Zelensky says Crimea can only be restored to Ukraine through diplomacy

Kremlin says it disagrees with Turkiye’s Erdogan that Crimea should return to Kyiv’s control

Ukraine says hit oil facility on occupied Crimea

India’s Modi offers aid to Caribbean nations while meeting leaders in Guyana

India’s Modi offers aid to Caribbean nations while meeting leaders in Guyana

India’s Modi launches diplomatic tour in Nigeria

Modi arrives for BRICS summit in Kazan, seeks stronger ties with Russia

US gathers allies to talk AI safety as Trump’s vow to undo Biden’s AI policy overshadows their work

US gathers allies to talk AI safety as Trump’s vow to undo Biden’s AI policy overshadows their work

Artificial intelligence hitting labor forces like a ‘tsunami’ — IMF chief

UN adopts first global artificial intelligence resolution

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US anti-Muslim incidents rose about 70% in first half of 2024 amid Gaza war

US anti-Muslim incidents rose about 70% in first half of 2024 amid Gaza war

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