Paris: The number of anti-Muslim incidents in France has soared since the Islamist attacks in Paris two weeks ago, an organisation that tracks Islamophobia said yesterday.
The National Observatory Against Islamophobia said 116 anti-Muslim incidents had been reported to authorities since the January 7-9 shooting spree.
The two-week tally was more than double the number of incidents recorded for the full month of January 2014, the observatory said, reporting 28 attacks on places of worship and 88 threats.
The observatory’s president, Abdallah Zekri condemned the “acts of hatred towards French people of the Muslim faith, the immense majority of whom respect the values of the Republic and secularism.”
WASHINGTON: The United States will urge Cuba to lift travel restrictions and agree to establishing US and Cuban embassies in historic talks in Havana this week aimed at restoring diplomatic ties, a senior State Department official said yesterday.
The talks from January 21 to 23 will be led by Roberta Jacobson, the top US diplomat for Latin America, in the first visit to Cuba in 38 years by a US assistant secretary of state. “We are looking forward to the Cubans lifting travel restrictions, to trying to lift the caps on the number of our diplomatic personnel, to trying to gain unimpeded shipments for our mission and to the free access to our mission by Cubans,” the official said.
London: Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ)’s bulk surveillance of electronic communications has scooped up emails to and from journalists working for some of the US and UK’s largest media organisations, analysis of documents released by whistleblower Edward Snowden reveals. Emails from the BBC, Reuters, the Guardian, the New York Times, Le Monde, the Sun, NBC and the Washington Post were saved by GCHQ and shared on the agency’s intranet as part of a test exercise.Agencies
