Oman culture and history displayed at Waseda University

Oman culture and history displayed at Waseda University
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Waseda University and the embassy of Oman held a join cultural evening to mark the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Oman. (ANJP)
Oman culture and history displayed at Waseda University
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Waseda University and the embassy of Oman held a join cultural evening to mark the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Oman. (ANJP)
Oman culture and history displayed at Waseda University
3 / 4
Waseda University and the embassy of Oman held a join cultural evening to mark the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Oman. (ANJP)
Oman culture and history displayed at Waseda University
4 / 4
Waseda University and the embassy of Oman held a join cultural evening to mark the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Oman. (ANJP)
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Updated 04 June 2022

Oman culture and history displayed at Waseda University

Oman culture and history displayed at Waseda University
  • Students of politics, economics and physics told Arab News Japan they enriched their knowledge about the world and Oman

TOKYO: Waseda University and the embassy of Oman held a joint cultural evening to mark the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Oman.

Dr. Mohamed Said Al Busaidi, the Ambassador of the Sultanate of Oman to Japan made the opening speech in front of approximately 80 students and a number of professors. His speech highlighted the importance of the bilateral diplomatic relations which have officially existed for fifty years, but which in reality began 400 years ago between the two countries.

The ambassador pointed out the important geopolitical aspect of Oman which is at the crossroads of trade between Asia, the Middle East and Africa.  After his formal presentation, he described the many scenic features that make his country a special destination for travelers.

Students of politics, economics and physics told Arab News Japan they enriched their knowledge about the world and Oman. 

The event also included a presentation on daily life in Oman, and Arabic lessons by students from Oman. Some students also wore traditional costumes from different regions of Oman and demonstrated an Arabic coffee ceremony.  

Traditional items and jewelry were displayed alongside films and photos that illustrated the unique culture of Oman. 

A quiz was held at the end with prizes related to Oman and all participants received a small gift to remind them of the event. 

This is the second time that an event like this has been organized at Waseda University. Similar events to mark the bilateral relations and raise cultural awareness of the country are to follow, according to the embassy.


Philippines arrests suspected Sikh separatists in first Khalistan detection 

Philippines arrests suspected Sikh separatists in first Khalistan detection 
Updated 8 sec ago

Philippines arrests suspected Sikh separatists in first Khalistan detection 

Philippines arrests suspected Sikh separatists in first Khalistan detection 
  • In the 1980s, the violent separatist movement called for an independent Sikh state 
  • Though banned in India, Khalistan has support from some in Sikh diaspora community 

MANILA/NEW DELHI: Philippine authorities have arrested suspected members of a Sikh separatist group banned in India, a government agency announced on Monday, as demands for an independent Sikh homeland are rising abroad. 

Officers from the Philippine Bureau of Immigration, the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center and the Military Intelligence Group arrested three suspected members of the Khalistan Tiger Force in the central Philippine city of Iloilo on March 7, the CICC said in a statement issued Monday. 

“It is out of the ordinary, their presence here,” CICC Executive Director Alexander K. Ramos told Arab News. 

The three suspects are all Indian nationals in their 20s, who were named in a red notice issued by the global police agency Interpol, Ramos said. They are currently in the custody of the Philippine military. 

“It appears they are a group. In fact, there may be more that we are still trying to track down. This is the first time that the Khalistanis were detected here,” he added. 

Their group KTF supports a movement banned in India known as Khalistan, which calls for an independent Sikh homeland and was known as a violent separatist movement in the 1980s and early 1990s, then prompting a controversial military operation by the Indian government that killed thousands of people. 

The Philippine development follows Indian police launching on March 21 a manhunt in Punjab province for Sikh preacher Amritpal Singh, who has captured national attention and revived talks of Khalistan. 

The crackdown has triggered fresh demands abroad for an independent Sikh state, including protesters gathering in front of Indian missions in Canada and the UK this month, which has sparked concerns from Indian authorities. 

Though recent developments are stoking fears of a return to the violence that occurred decades ago, the Khalistan movement does not have much support within India, said Delhi-based counterterrorism expert Ajai Sahni. 

Sahni said Khalistan supporters are most active in Canada and the UK, but they also have a presence in the US, across Europe, and even in Malaysia and the Philippines. 

“At present, the overwhelming support is from outside, from Sikh extremist diaspora communities,” Sahni told Arab News. “The movement is not securing very much traction on the ground in India.” 


Asylum seekers in UK face being moved into camps and ferries, reports say

Asylum seekers in UK face being moved into camps and ferries, reports say
Updated 34 min 57 sec ago

Asylum seekers in UK face being moved into camps and ferries, reports say

Asylum seekers in UK face being moved into camps and ferries, reports say
  • Temporary structures on old military bases and disused ferries to be used for new arrivals, sources tell media

LONDON: Asylum seekers in the UK face being held in camps on abandoned military bases and on disused ferries under government plans, reports say.

Sources told the BBC that former bases in Lincolnshire and Essex are to be confirmed next week and the first people will be moved in within weeks. An announcement on old ferries is also due in the same time frame, the sources said.

The plans come as the government pushes the “Illegal Migration Bill” through parliament, which will ban people arriving in small boats from across the Channel from ever applying for asylum, and confirm plans to send some of them to Rwanda with no chance of return. The law has been condemned by rights groups and international bodies alike.

According to reports, the planned camps on military bases would house between 1,500 to 2,000 migrants. They would be used initially for new arrivals rather than relocating the nearly 51,000 asylum seekers being housed in hundreds of hotels at a reported cost of £6.8 million a day.

The proposals, first reported by the Daily Telegraph, have not been denied by government sources. 

A Home Office spokesperson told the BBC that the government had been “upfront about the unprecedented pressure being placed on our asylum system, brought about by a significant increase in dangerous and illegal journeys into the country.”

In 2018, 300 people reached Britain via the channel. The number rose to 45,000 last year. 

The spokesperson added: “We continue to work across government and with local authorities to identify a range of accommodation options.”

Hotels housing asylum seekers have been targeted for protests by far-right groups, including in Knowsley, Merseyside, where a crowd fought police and set fire to a police van last month. 

Last week residents near the former RAF Scampton base in Lincolnshire, heard that the site could house about 1,500 people, including in temporary cabins on the former runway.

Meanwhile, Europe’s top human rights body wrote to British MPs on Monday urging them to prevent the passing of the “Illegal Migration Bill”, saying it was “incompatible with the UK’s international obligations.” 

The Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner, Dunja Mijatovic, said in the letter that the bill created a “clear and direct tension with well-established and fundamental human rights standards.”


Female shooter kills 3 children, 3 adults in Nashville school attack

Female shooter kills 3 children, 3 adults in Nashville school attack
Updated 27 March 2023

Female shooter kills 3 children, 3 adults in Nashville school attack

Female shooter kills 3 children, 3 adults in Nashville school attack
  • Deadly mass shootings have become commonplace in the United States, but a female attacker is highly unusual
  • There have been 89 school shootings — defined as anytime a gun is discharged on school property — in the US so far in 2023

At least three children and three adults were killed in a shooting at a private Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee, on Monday before police shot dead the shooter, who appeared to be a teenage girl.
Police began receiving calls of a shooter at The Covenant School at 10:13 a.m.. Officers could hear gunfire coming from the school’s second floor, Don Aaron, a spokesperson for Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, told reporters.
The shooter had at least two semi-automatic rifles and a handgun, Aaron said. Two officers from a five-member team shot at her in what Aaron described as a lobby area and she was dead by 10:27 a.m..
“We do not know who she is at this juncture,” Aaron said.
Deadly mass shootings have become commonplace in the United States, but a female attacker is highly unusual. Only four of the 191 mass shootings since 1966 catalogued by The Violence Project, a nonprofit research center, were carried out by a female attacker.
There have been 89 school shootings — defined as anytime a gun is discharged on school property — in the US so far in 2023, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database, a website founded by researcher David Riedman. Last year saw 303 such incidents, the highest of any year in the database, which goes back to 1970.
Three students were pronounced dead after arriving at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt with gunshot wounds, John Howser, a hospital spokesperson, said in a statement. Three adult staff members were killed by the shooter, police said.
Besides the deceased, no one else was shot, Aaron said.
Students’ parents were told to gather at a nearby church.
The Covenant School, founded in 2001, is a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church in the Green Hills neighborhood of Nashville with about 200 students, according to the school’s website. The school serves preschool through 6th graders and held an active shooter training program in 2022, WTVF-TV reported.


UK travel agent makes millions off migrant accommodation crisis

UK travel agent makes millions off migrant accommodation crisis
Updated 27 March 2023

UK travel agent makes millions off migrant accommodation crisis

UK travel agent makes millions off migrant accommodation crisis
  • Hoban’s company made over £6m in 2022 primarily by finding bridging hotels for Afghan refugees

LONDON: A former travel agent made £2.19 million ($2.7 million) in 2022 from winning UK government contracts to house migrants in hotels, the Daily Mail reported on Monday.

Debbie Hoban is one of the most prominent private-sector chiefs profiting from the UK’s crippling refugee crisis.

Her Leeds-based company, Calder Conferences, made more than £6 million last year, primarily by finding bridging hotels for Afghan refugees fleeing the Taliban’s takeover in 2021.

The company is now among many being paid to house small-boat arrivals and other asylum seekers in nearly 400 hotels throughout the UK, the Daily Mail reported.

Hoban lives in a £3 million country farmhouse with four bedrooms, a triple garage, swimming pool, jacuzzi, and basement wine cellar. Social media shows on her lavish trips to India’s Taj Mahal and attending the F1 Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi.

The BBC revealed that due to a severe scarcity of official accommodation a total of 395 hotels in the UK are being used to house 51,000 asylum seekers. This costs taxpayers more than £6.8 million per day.

“The number of people arriving in the UK who require accommodation has reached record levels and has put our asylum system under incredible strain,” a British Home Office spokesperson told the Daily Mail.

“The Home Office is committed to making every effort to reduce hotel use and limit the burden on the taxpayer,” they added.

In early 2020, Calder was reported to have had secret talks on behalf of the Ministry of Justice to support housing up to 2,000 prisoners in a Butlin’s holiday camp in the English east-coast town of Skegness to alleviate the jails crisis during the coronavirus pandemic, the Daily Mail reported.

Calder’s representatives met with Butlin’s executives and discussed a £10 million scheme to place low-risk prisoners in leisure facilities. However, senior government officials halted the plan before it could be implemented.

The Daily Mail approached Calder Conferences for a comment, but were told, “we decline to comment.”


Humza Yousaf becomes Scotland’s first Muslim leader

Humza Yousaf, the first Muslim leader of a major UK political party, faces an uphill battle to bring Scotland independence
Humza Yousaf, the first Muslim leader of a major UK political party, faces an uphill battle to bring Scotland independence
Updated 27 March 2023

Humza Yousaf becomes Scotland’s first Muslim leader

Humza Yousaf, the first Muslim leader of a major UK political party, faces an uphill battle to bring Scotland independence
  • Glasgow-born Yousaf took oath in English and Urdu when first elected to Scottish Parliament in 2011
  • Yousaf vowed in victory speech Monday to deliver independence in this generation

EDINBURGH: Humza Yousaf, the first Muslim leader of a major UK political party, faces an uphill battle to revive Scotland’s drive for independence following the long tenure of his close ally Nicola Sturgeon.
The new and youngest Scottish National Party (SNP) leader, 37, says his own experience as an ethnic minority means he will fight to protect the rights of all minorities.
The Glasgow-born Yousaf took his oath in English and Urdu when he was first elected to the Scottish Parliament in 2011, before progressing to become the first Muslim to serve in the devolved government’s cabinet.
He has been hailed by his supporters as a polished communicator who can unite the party as support stagnates for the SNP’s central policy — independence for Scotland.
Despite the UK government’s opposition to a new referendum, and a Supreme Court setback, Yousaf vowed in his victory speech Monday to deliver independence in this generation.
And, as his wife and mother brushed away tears, he paid tribute to his paternal grandparents after they came to Scotland from Pakistan in the 1960s barely speaking English.
They would not have imagined “in their wildest dreams” that their future grandson would become the leader of their adopted homeland.
“We should all take pride in the fact that today we have sent a clear message: that your color of skin or indeed your faith is not a barrier to leading the country that we all call home,” Yousaf said.
He also vowed to be his own man as Scotland’s first minister. But far from running away from Sturgeon’s controversial record, he also says he will keep his experienced predecessor on “speed dial” for advice.
That has fed into critics’ portrayal of Yousaf as a political lightweight who will remain in thrall to Sturgeon’s camp.
At the same time, he is promising a more collegial style of leadership. “Mine would be less inner circle and more big tent,” he told LBC radio.
With the independence push stymied for now, following Sturgeon’s more than eight-year tenure as first minister, Yousaf takes over facing crises in health care and education under the SNP’s own watch in Scotland.
His record as Sturgeon’s minister for justice and health care was savaged on the campaign trail by his chief rival, Kate Forbes, and Yousaf must also heal a fractured party after its bruising leadership election.
Yousaf says he was toughened after facing racist abuse growing up in Glasgow, especially after the 9/11 attacks in the United States.
“I’ve definitely had tough times,” he recalled, reflecting on his time in politics.
“I’ve thought to myself, ‘goodness, is there more that I can take personally’ because I also come under a tremendous amount of abuse online and, unfortunately, sometimes face to face.”
Yousaf’s Pakistani-born father forged a successful career in Glasgow as an accountant. The new SNP leader’s mother was born into a South Asian family in Kenya.
Yousaf attended an exclusive private school in Glasgow, two years behind Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar.
He studied politics at Glasgow University, and worked in a call center before becoming an aide to Sturgeon’s predecessor as SNP leader and first minister, Alex Salmond.
Yousaf entered the Scottish cabinet in 2012, serving in various roles including justice, transport and most recently health.
He married former SNP worker Gail Lythgoe in 2010, but they divorced seven years later.
In 2021 he and his second wife Nadia El-Nakla launched a legal complaint against a nursery, accusing it of racial discrimination after it denied admission to their daughter.
The complaint was upheld by education inspectors but the couple have now dropped it, and the nursery denied the accusations.
He was accused of deliberately skipping a Scottish vote to legalize gay marriage in 2014, due to pressure from Muslim leaders.
Yousaf insisted he had a prior engagement, and contrasts his own record to Forbes’ religiously conservative views as a member of a Scottish evangelical church.
He says he will “always fight for the equal rights of others” and not legislate based on his own faith.
But one person’s constitutional position will not be protected in a Yousaf-led Scotland — that of King Charles III.
“I’ve been very clear, I’m a republican,” he told Scottish newspaper The National, calling for debate on whether Scotland should move to an elected head of state.