LONDON: Outspoken Irish singer Sinead O’Connor has announced she has converted to Islam and changed her name to Shuhada.
Having adopted the name Magda Davitt last year, the 51-year-old is now called Shuhada Davitt.
She also changed her Twitter avatar to a black-and-white image of the Nike Swoosh logo and the slogan: “Wear a hijab. Just do it.”
“This is to announce that I am proud to have become a Muslim. This is the natural conclusion of any intelligent theologian’s journey,” she tweeted.
“All scripture study leads to Islam. Which makes all other scriptures redundant. I will be given (another) new name. It will be Shuhada.”
Her Twitter account says the singer now lives in “Direland.”
O’Connor’s 1990 hit “Nothing Compares 2 U” became a global hit, with her haunting voice, shaved head and single-tone outfits turning her into both an enigmatic and captivating figure.
But her career began to falter after she tore up a picture of the late Pope John Paul II while appearing as a musical guest on US television in 1992.
She said she was protesting sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, but her gesture was roundly condemned in the media and she was eventually forced to apologize.
Yet her fight against the Catholic Church continued, and in 1999 O’Connor was ordained as a priest by a breakaway church based in the French city of Lourdes.
Catholicism does not sanction priesthood for women.
O’Connor told Billboard magazine in 2014 that she was still ordained but had stepped away from priesthood because “I’m not interested in causing more trouble than I already am.”
Singer Sinead O’Connor converts to Islam
Singer Sinead O’Connor converts to Islam
- O’Connor’s 1990 hit “Nothing Compares 2 U” became a global hit, with her haunting voice, shaved head and single-tone outfits turning her into both an enigmatic and captivating figure
Fans bid farewell to Japan’s only pandas
TOKYO: Panda lovers in Tokyo said goodbye on Sunday to a hugely popular pair of the bears that are set to return to China, leaving Japan without the beloved animals for the first time in half a century.
Loaned out as part of China’s “panda diplomacy” program, the distinctive black-and-white animals have symbolized friendship between Beijing and Tokyo since the normalization of diplomatic ties in 1972.
Some visitors at Ueno Zoological Gardens were left teary-eyed as they watched Japan’s only two pandas Lei Lei and Xiao Xiao munch on bamboo.
The animals are expected to leave for China on Tuesday following a souring of relations between Asia’s two largest economies.
“I feel like seeing pandas can help create a connection with China too, so in that sense I really would like pandas to come back to Japan again,” said Gen Takahashi, 39, a Tokyo resident who visited the zoo with his wife and their two-year-old daughter.
“Kids love pandas as well, so if we could see them with our own eyes in Japan, I’d definitely want to go.”
The pandas’ abrupt return was announced last month after Japan’s conservative premier Sanae Takaichi hinted Tokyo could intervene militarily in the event of any attack on Taiwan.
Her comment provoked the ire of Beijing, which regards the island as its own territory.
The 4,400 lucky winners of an online lottery took turns viewing the four-year-old twins at Ueno zoo while others gathered nearby, many sporting panda-themed shirts, bags and dolls to celebrate the moment.
Mayuko Sumida traveled several hours from the central Aichi region in the hope of seeing them despite not winning the lottery.
“Even though it’s so big, its movements are really funny-sometimes it even acts kind of like a person,” she said, adding that she was “totally hooked.”
“Japan’s going to be left with zero pandas. It feels kind of sad,” she said.
Their departure might not be politically motivated, but if pandas return to Japan in the future it would symbolize warming relations, said Masaki Ienaga, a professor at Tokyo Woman’s Christian University and expert in East Asian international relations.
“In the future...if there are intentions of improving bilateral ties on both sides, it’s possible that (the return of) pandas will be on the table,” he told AFP.
