Some non-Muslims support PAS Bill, Hadi tells critics |
- Some non-Muslims support PAS Bill, Hadi tells critics
- Canadian man’s bomb did not fully detonate before police shot him, says report
- Conte salutes spirited Chelsea
- Firefighters make steady progress against California blaze
- Solitary by nature, India’s new central bank head steps into spotlight
- Stalemate keeps Leicester and Arsenal grounded
| Some non-Muslims support PAS Bill, Hadi tells critics Posted: 20 Aug 2016 06:37 PM PDT
He also hit out at detractors who have said that his Bill was "too general", saying that it is not specific as it sought amendments to the Shariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965 or Act 355 which is part of the Constitution and not a specific law itself. "I have been informed that there are non-Muslims that support (the Bill). Some have met me and there are non-Muslims who support. "This is the right of Muslims because under the Constitution. The Shariah courts can only punish Muslims and not non-Muslims," Malay-language newspaper Sinar Harian quoted Hadi as saying. "It is a Constitution. A Constitution must be general. People don't understand what is Constitution and what is law. "They need to understand that this (Bill) is a Constitution. Where has there been a detailed Constitution, a Constitution has to be general," the PAS chief added. Hadi said that his party is willing to meet with anyone including non-Muslims to explain the technicalities behind the Bill that he had submitted in the last Dewan Rakyat session. Hadi's Bill seeking amendments to the Shariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965 or Act 355 made a surprise appearance in the Dewan Rakyat last May after Umno minister Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said tabled a motion to expedite it. The motion was approved by Dewan Rakyat Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia but Hadi later requested for the Bill to be deferred for debate at the October parliamentary meeting. Since then, non-Muslim politicians from both Pakatan Harapan and Barisan Nasional (BN) have lashed out at both PAS and Umno, with some even accusing the ruling party of colluding with PAS to push for the implementation of hudud. Both PAS and Umno have insisted, however, that Hadi's Bill was not a hudud Bill but simply a Bill seeking amendments that would upgrade the Shariah courts' powers to hand out harsher sentences.  |
| Canadian man’s bomb did not fully detonate before police shot him, says report Posted: 20 Aug 2016 06:36 PM PDT
While there was a blast in the back seat of a taxi in Strathroy, Ontario, as police closed in, it came from the detonators, and explosive material did not go off, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) deputy commissioner Mike Cabana said. The RCMP could not immediately be reached for comment on the newspaper report. Aaron Driver, 24, was shot dead by police on Aug 10 and the taxi company in the small town said the driver sustained only minor injuries in the blast. Cabana did not go into further detail on the bomb. He said forensic investigation was still underway. The target of what police have said was an attack plotted by Driver was unclear. Driver, who also used the alias Harun Abdurahman, was arrested last year for openly supporting Islamic State on social media, but was never charged with a crime. Islamic State militants control parts of Iraq and Syria and they have supporters and sympathisers around the world who have carried out attacks on civilians in several countries. In February, Driver was placed on a peace bond, a court order that restricted his movements. It required he stay away from social media and computers and not have contact with Islamic State or similar groups. The RCMP has said officers sought out Driver on Aug. 10 after a tip from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation that morning, which included a "martyrdom video." Cabana said police identified Driver from the video in part through his choice of balaclava. The incident called into question Canada's capabilities to combat extremism and increased calls for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to abandon his plan to scale back a 2015 law that gave increased powers to police and intelligence agents. — Reuters |
| Conte salutes spirited Chelsea Posted: 20 Aug 2016 06:26 PM PDT
Late goals by Michy Batshuayi, his first for the club, and Diego Costa gave Chelsea three points that seemed unlikely when Etienne Capoue put Watford ahead early in the second half yesterday. Chelsea were second-best for the first 70 minutes, but Conte sent on Batshuayi and then Cesc Fabregas and the former scored while the latter had a hand in both goals. It was the second successive match in which Costa has scored a late winner after his decider against West Ham United last Monday and Conte took heart from his team's battling comeback. "In these two games we have seen the right spirit, the right commitment," Conte said. "After a bad season like last year's, it's not easy to start in a good way and win games, and it won't be easy, so we must know that we have to continue. "It's important to change the situation compared to last season and we are trying to do that with all our strength. "Yes, the subs had a good impact but I think it's normal when you push for 70 minutes, the opposition pays for the effort it has put in, and when the new players come on, there is an impact." Conte agreed that his intense fitness regime, which has included double sessions in pre-season, has paid off in Chelsea's ability to perform strongly late in games. "I believe that work pays and always pays," he said. "It's important. We are working very hard and we will continue to. And wins like this are very important to improve confidence and trust in the work." Commitment Conte's decision not to start Fabregas in either of this season's Premier League matches has been seen as a sign that the Spain midfielder may not be part of his long-term plans, but Conte praised the former Arsenal and Barcelona star. "We all know Cesc is a great technical player with a good pass and good assists and I made this substitution because I wanted more quality," Conte said. "Cesc is working very hard to show me that he deserves to play and I want to see this - all the players showing me that they deserve to start the game and if I see this commitment I'm a very happy manager. "That all the players think of the team, not himself, is important. And that is happening in Chelsea." Costa was in the bad books of the opposing fans as usual, this time for a challenge on Capoue that ended the Watford man's afternoon. But Conte defended the volatile Spain forward, saying: "He scored two goals but I'd have preferred him to score them earlier. "Diego is working hard like the other players but he can improve a lot. He's an important player for us and he had to stay concentrating in the game." Watford manager Walter Mazzarri, an old adversary of Conte's from Italy's Serie A, chose to look on the bright side after a frustrating result. "We played better than at Southampton last week," he said. "Then we played only 20 minutes as I wanted us to play, today we played good football for 70 minutes. We can hold our heads high. "But in Italy we'd say that we complicated our own lives. Both goals were our errors. "The value of the Chelsea players you can see for yourself but I would have preferred to concede two goals through their great qualities than our own mistakes." ― AFP |
| Firefighters make steady progress against California blaze Posted: 20 Aug 2016 06:25 PM PDT
The Blue Cut fire, named after a narrow gorge where it ignited about 120 km northeast of Los Angeles on Tuesday in an area called the Cajon Pass, has burned more than 15,000 hectares and destroyed 105 homes and 213 outbuildings, said fire information officer Mike Lopez. At its height, the blaze forced authorities to order more than 80,000 residents to evacuate their homes. They also ordered the temporary closure of a segment of Interstate 15, which connects Las Vegas to the Los Angeles area, where it traverses the Cajon Pass. But with the fire 68 per cent contained, many residents were allowed to return home, Lopez said. Overnight, firefighters built strong containment lines near Wrightwood, which allowed residents of that ski resort town to repopulate the area yesterday, he said. Residents of 7,000 other homes in the Cajon Pass area were still potentially in the path of the fire, which is burning in heavy brush, and they remained under evacuation orders, Lopez said. "We feel confident we can keep continuing this aggressive attack," he said in a telephone interview. Nearly 2,700 firefighters and crew were battling the wildfire, their efforts amplified by more than two dozen water-dropping airplanes and helicopters, according to tracking website InciWeb.gov. Less than 483 km to the northwest, a week-old blaze called the Chimney Fire threatened the historic Hearst Castle in San Simeon, the former mansion of the late newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst. But no evacuations had been ordered at the site, according to a California state government fire information website. Officials suspended tours of Hearst Castle due to poor air quality, according to a message on Twitter from the California Department of Parks and Recreation. The Chimney Fire had burned 6,880 hectares and firefighters have built containment lines around a third of it, officials said. Nearly 30 major blazes have burned some 1,373 square kms in eight Western states this week, as prolonged drought and unusually hot weather have intensified wildfire season, the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, said. — Reuters |
| Solitary by nature, India’s new central bank head steps into spotlight Posted: 20 Aug 2016 06:24 PM PDT
Less well known is whether a man who seems to feel most at ease in his own company commands the communication skills to answer to multiple constituencies and keep a 17,000-strong team on side. Patel, deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India since 2013, demonstrated intellectual heft in overseeing landmark changes to the 81-year old institution, including switching to inflation-targeting and establishing a monetary policy panel to set interest rates. Now promoted, Patel offers the promise of continuity with most of the policies of the man he will replace, Raghuram Rajan, who was feted by investors for halving inflation and for pulling the country out of its worst currency crisis in over two decades. Within the RBI, however, Patel is widely viewed as a solitary and at times temperamental figure. He avoids large meetings and gatherings with colleagues and, in contrast to other deputy governors who had busier public schedules, gives few speeches or media interviews. "His biggest challenge is his communication skill," said an official who works closely with Patel. "He prefers to interact with only those whom he is comfortable with, which is a very small group." That raises questions about how Patel will approach the public aspects of a role that is set to be transformed under changes he largely helped spearhead. He will have to seek consensus with five other members of the RBI's new monetary policy committee. He must also work closely with heads of state-owned banks as the sector battles to clean up US$120 billion of soured loans — a relationship that greatly frustrated Rajan as lenders went only half way towards matching 150 basis points of RBI rate cuts. Respected by investors Already known to have a good rapport with government officials, Patel may find his low public profile helps him develop even better ties. Rajan, by contrast, faced a backlash from hard-right elements in Prime Minister Narendra Modi Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for sometimes peppering his public statements with social critiques. "(Patel) is extremely sensitive and pragmatic about not upsetting the government," said another senior RBI official who works with him. "The fact that he was reappointed as a deputy governor ... and now promoted ... shows the strong support he enjoys from the government," the first official said. Patel is also likely to share his predecessor's good reputation among investors. Both men worked for the International Monetary Fund and studied abroad, in Patel's case at the London School of Economics and Oxford University before heading across the Atlantic to Yale for his economics doctorate. Patel has also spent time in the private sector with stints at the Boston Consulting Group and Indian energy conglomerate Reliance Industries and, at the RBI, was seen as the candidate most in tune with Rajan's policy agenda. Having beaten off the challenge of, among others, IMF Executive Director Subir Gokarn to get the top job, analysts believe Patel will not kow-tow to the government either. His reputation suggests he will uphold the independence of the central bank while pushing Modi and his ministers towards fiscal prudence — all welcome traits for investors used to a steady hand at the RBI tiller. "The new governor needs to reinforce the faith that the external world and Indian markets have in the ... central bank," said Mihir Vora, Chief Investment Officer of Max life insurance. — Reuters |
| Stalemate keeps Leicester and Arsenal grounded Posted: 20 Aug 2016 06:19 PM PDT
Beaten 2-1 at promoted Hull City last weekend, Leicester avoided the ignominy of becoming the first English champions to lose their first two games since Aston Villa in 1981. But Claudio Ranieri's side were frustrated by two unsuccessful penalty shouts ― one in each half ― and also lost full debutant Nampalys Mendy to an apparent ankle injury. Arsenal looked far more robust than the team beaten 4-3 by Liverpool a week ago and were able to welcome back Laurent Koscielny, Mesut Ozil and Olivier Giroud from their post-Euro 2016 breaks. But with the season only two games old, both Arsene Wenger's men and Leicester are already five points off the pace set by Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea and Hull. Ranieri had given starts to Demarai Gray and new signings Luis Hernandez and Ahmed Musa at Hull, but he reverted to last season's formula for the visit of Arsenal, three months on from his side's title coronation. Robert Huth returned from suspension in place of Hernandez, along with Marc Albrighton and Shinji Okazaki, and Mendy stepped into the midfield hole created by N'Golo Kante's move to Chelsea. With Arsenal dominating possession on a blustery East Midlands afternoon, it also allowed Leicester to adopt the counter-attacking formula that saw them storm the table in the first half of last season. Arsenal were reduced to potshots, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, in for the injured Alex Iwobi, curling wide and Santi Cazorla, who replaced the hamstrung Aaron Ramsey, shooting straight at Kasper Schmeichel. The first moment of contention in the Arsenal box occurred late in the half, after Petr Cech had saved at the feet of Jamie Vardy. Musa penalty appeal Danny Drinkwater, following up, tumbled over Koscielny's outstretched leg, but referee Mark Clattenburg played on and despite the home fans' boos, television replays vindicated his call. Leicester suffered a setback early in the second half when Mendy had to go off after seeming to injure his right ankle, with Andy King taking his place. But the hosts began to show greater enterprise in attack, Riyad Mahrez drawing an untidy foul from Francis Coquelin and then whipping a shot narrowly over the bar from the free-kick that followed. With the game becoming scrappy, Ranieri introduced Leonardo Ulloa to the mix and with 20 minutes to play Vardy spurned a gilt-edged chance to break the deadlock. Albrighton caught Granit Xhaka dawdling and sent the ball skidding into Vardy's path, but with Koscielny sliding in to close him down, the England man skewed his shot wide. Wenger sent on Jack Wilshere, Ozil and Giroud from the bench and the visitors began to make inroads. Theo Walcott threatened twice, forcing a save from Schmeichel and a fine, stretching block from Wes Morgan, while Alexis Sanchez teed up Ozil for an effort that drew Schmeichel racing from his line to block. But Leicester saw a strong penalty appeal turned away late on when Hector Bellerin appeared to trip substitute Musa in a tangle of legs just inside the box, only for Clattenburg to shake his head once more. There was time for one last scare in the Arsenal box as Mahrez left Koscielny on the deck before taking aim, but Cech parried to extend his side's unbeaten run against Leicester to 22 games. ― AFP |
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