Boy who egged Australian Senator for blaming Muslims for attack against NZ mosques released after arrest

Agencies
March 17, 2019

Melbourne, Mar 17: An Australian senator had a raw egg cracked over his head and faces censure from his fellow lawmakers after sparking outrage by blaming Muslim immigration for the New Zealand mosque shootings.

Sen. Fraser Anning came under blistering criticism over tweets on Friday including one that said, "Does anyone still dispute the link between Muslim immigration and violence?"

"The real cause of the bloodshed on New Zealand streets today is the immigration program which allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate to New Zealand in the first place," he said in a statement.

Television cameras caught a 17-year-old boy breaking an egg on Anning's head and briefly scuffling with the independent senator while he was holding a news conference Saturday in Melbourne.

Police said the boy was arrested but was released without charge pending a further investigation. No motive was offered for the egging.

The government and opposition party agreed to pass a censure motion against Anning over his stance on the Christchurch shootings when Parliament resumes in April.

While such a reprimand is a symbolic gesture, the major parties expect to demonstrate how isolated Anning's views are among Australia's 226 federal lawmakers. The major parties' support ensures the censure motion will be passed by both chambers.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he denounced Anning's comments.

"In his conflation of this horrendous terrorist attack with issues of immigration, in his attack on Islamic faith specifically — these comments are appalling and they're ugly and they have no place in Australia, in the Australian Parliament," Morrison said. "He should be, frankly, ashamed of himself."

Bilal Rauf, spokesman for the Australian National Imams Council, the nation's top Muslim group, likened the senator's views to the rambling manifesto published online by suspect Brenton Tarrant before the slayings.

"When one looks at his statement, it may as well have been an extract from the manifesto of the person that perpetrated these heinous crimes, this act of terrorism in Christchurch," Rauf said.

Rauf said Anning was unfit for the Senate.

Opposition lawmaker Penny Wong accused Anning of attempting to use the tragedy to grab attention ahead of elections in May.

Anning only received 19 votes in the last election in 2016. But because of a quirk in the Australian electoral system, he was elevated to the Senate by the anti-immigration, anti-Muslim One Nation party after a court ruled that its senator, Malcolm Roberts, had not been eligible to run for election due to his dual citizenship.

Anning later defected from One Nation to another anti-immigration party, then became an independent. Analysts say Anning is unlikely to be re-elected as an independent candidate in May.

Anning was widely condemned for his first speech to the Senate in August advocating reviving a white-only immigration policy and using the term "final solution" in calling for a vote on which migrants to admit into the country. Critics accused him of making a veiled reference to the Nazi extermination of Jews.

The government also announced on Saturday it had banned right-wing commentator Milo Yiannopoulos from touring the country over his social media response to the Christchurch shootings.

Immigration Minister David Coleman said Yiannopoulos' social media comments are "appalling and foment hatred and division."

Coleman didn't specify which comments he was referring to.

Yiannopoulos said on Facebook that attacks like Christchurch happen because "the establishment panders to and mollycoddles extremist leftism and barbaric, alien religious cultures."

Lawmakers within Australia's conservative government had been quarreling in recent weeks over whether the firebrand commentator should be allowed to tour Australia this year.

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News Network
April 11,2020

Washington, Apr 11: China is considered a developing country, make the United States too a developing one, US President Donald Trump said on Friday, alleging that Beijing has taken advantage of his country.

"China has been unbelievably taken advantage of us and other countries. You know, for instance, they are considered a developing nation. I said well then make us a developing nation too,” Trump told reporters at his daily White House news conference on coronavirus.

The president was responding to a question on China.

“They get big advantages because they are a developing nation. India, a developing nation. The United States is a big developed nation. Well, we have plenty of development to do,” he said.

Reiterating that United States was taken advantage of by the World Trade Organization, Trump said the Chinese economy started booming after it joined WTO with the help of the US.

“If you look at the history of China, it was only since they went into the WTO that they became a rocket ship with their economy. They were flatlined for years and years,” he said.

“Frankly, for many, many decades. And it was only when they came into the WTO that they became a rocket ship because they took advantage of all -- I'm not even blaming them. I'm saying how stupid were the people that stood here and allowed it to happen,” he said.

For latest updates on coronavirus outbreak, click  here

The Trump Administration will now allow that to happen, he said.

“If they don't treat us fairly, will leave. But now we're starting to win cases,” he said.

Alleging that China has taken advantage of the United States for 30 years, he said, China has taken advantage of the US through WTO and using rules that are unfair to the United States.

"They should have never been allowed it, this should have never been allowed to happen", he added.

“When China joined and was allowed to join under those circumstances the WTO, that was a very bad day for the United States because they have rules and regulations that were far different and far easier than our rules and regulations,” he said.

“Plus. They took advantage of them down to the last. China took advantage of them like few people would even think to take advantage of them and again they are considered right a developing nation,” he added.

The United States, he rued, is not considered a developing nation.

“The were given advantages (for being a developing nation). For many years China has ripped off the United States. Then I came along and right now, as you know, China is paying 25 percent," said Trump, adding that the US is now gaining "billions and billions and billions of dollars in tariffs from China”.

The US is not paying, he asserted.

“Not every country is China but China would devalue their currency and they would also pour out money and they essentially were paying most of those tariffs not us,” he said.

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News Network
January 20,2020

Langkawi, Jan 20: Malaysia will not take retaliatory trade action against India over its boycott of palm oil purchases amid a political row between the two countries, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Monday.

India, the world’s largest edible oil buyer, this month effectively halted imports from its largest supplier and the world’s second-biggest producer in response to comments from Mahathir attacking India’s domestic policies.

“We are too small to take retaliatory action,” Mahathir told reporters in Langkawi, a resort island off the western coast of Malaysia. “We have to find ways and means to overcome that,” he added.

The 94-year-old premier of Muslim-majority Malaysia has criticised New Delhi’s new religion-based citizenship law and also accused India of invading the disputed region of Kashmir.

Mahathir again criticised India’s citizenship law on Monday, saying he believed it was “grossly unfair”.

India has been Malaysia’s largest palm oil market for the past five years, presenting the Southeast Asian country with a major challenge in finding new buyers for its palm oil.

Benchmark Malaysian palm futures fell nearly 10% last week, their biggest weekly decline in more than 11 years.

New Delhi is also unhappy with Malaysia’s refusal to revoke permanent resident status for controversial Indian Islamic preacher Zakir Naik, who has lived in Malaysia for about three years and faces charges of money laundering and hate speech in India.

Mahathir said even if the Indian government guarantees a fair trial, Naik faces the real threat of vigilante action and that Malaysia will only relocate the preacher if it can find a third country where he would be safe.

“If we can find a place for him, we will send him out.”

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News Network
May 28,2020

Geneva, May 28: The global death toll from the novel coronavirus has risen over the past 24 hours by 5,581 to 349,095, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in its daily situation report.

The number of confirmed cases has increased by 84,314 to 5,488,825, the WHO said.

Most cases of infection are recorded in the Americas (North and South America) - 2,495,924, with 145,810 deaths. While Europe has reported 2,061,828 cases and 1,76,226 deaths so far.

As per WHO tally, the US has the highest number of cases in the world with 1,63,4010 infections.

The global health body declared the outbreak of the new coronavirus a pandemic on March 11.

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