UK police chiefs warn of increased Islamophobia as British government defunds Tell Mama service

Senior police officials have issued a warning that the British government’s plans to cut funding for Tell Mama, the UK’s leading anti-Muslim hate-monitoring service, could severely impact efforts to tackle Islamophobia. (Reuters/File Photo)
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Updated 20 March 2025
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UK police chiefs warn of increased Islamophobia as British government defunds Tell Mama service

  • Tell Mama, the UK’s leading anti-Muslim hate-monitoring service, faces imminent closure unless the decision is reversed

LONDON: Senior police officials have issued a warning that the British government’s plans to cut funding for Tell Mama, the UK’s leading anti-Muslim hate-monitoring service, could severely impact efforts to tackle Islamophobia.

The charity, which has been entirely funded by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government since its establishment in 2015, faces imminent closure unless the decision is reversed, The Times reported on Thursday.

Earlier this year, Tell Mama recorded the highest number of anti-Muslim hate incidents in its history.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council has urged the government to reconsider, stressing the charity’s “invaluable” role in providing police forces with critical data.

The NPCC, which has a data-sharing agreement with Tell Mama, says the organization’s work has been instrumental in preventing hate-fueled social disorder.

“This research lays bare the hostility and abuse faced by many in our Muslim communities,” said Mark Hobrough, NPCC lead for hate crime and chief constable of Gwent police.

“Our longstanding and trusted relationships with key partners like Tell Mama have been invaluable amidst these events, and I am confident that the strength of our partnerships will continue to help us reassure communities and bring hate crime offenders to justice.

“We all have a right to live our lives free from targeted abuse, and I would urge anyone who suffers anti-Muslim hate crime to report it to the police or to Tell Mama.”

Experts in policing and hate crime have echoed concerns about the consequences of defunding Tell Mama. Mike Ainsworth, chair of the National Independent Advisory Group on Hate Crime for Policing and Criminal Justice, warned against downplaying the seriousness of Islamophobia in Britain.

“Tell Mama have provided the clearest picture we have of the extent of anti-Muslim hate crime and prejudice in the country,” he said. “It’s an uncomfortable picture to look at, but it is essential that we do not look away.

“The figures are stark, but they help us understand the scale of the problem and what we must do to move forward. Tell Mama have provided the foundations that government departments and the legal justice system must build on to restore trust and confidence.”

Tell Mama’s founder, Fiyaz Mughal, expressed frustration over what he saw as a failure by British ministers to appreciate the organization’s vital role in tackling hate crime.

“Tell Mama has worked tirelessly with many police forces in the United Kingdom,” he said. “We have met with officers from every corner of the country and met committed, dedicated, and true professionals who have tried to get victims of anti-Muslim hate access to justice.

“They are the unsung heroes with the victims themselves, and some people, including a handful of politicians, reduce our work to numbers and figures and disrespect the whole picture of the range of activities, statutory agencies, and the good men and women in law enforcement in our country that we work with on a daily basis.”

Tell Mama has yet to receive £500,000 from last year’s government grant. While discussions about a potential six-month extension to its funding are ongoing, there is no guarantee the charity will be able to continue its operations.

Despite the widespread criticism, the government has maintained that it remains committed to tackling religious hatred.

An Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: “Religious and racial hatred has absolutely no place in our society, and we will not tolerate Islamophobia in any form.

“That’s why we will tackle religiously motivated hate crime and provide a comprehensive service to monitor Anti-Muslim Hatred, so we can deliver on the government’s Plan for Change mission for safer streets.

“We will soon be opening a call for grant applications to ensure we can meet the challenges communities face today and continue to provide support for victims, with further detail to be set out in due course.”


Homeland Security Secretary Noem's purse stolen at DC restaurant, officials say

Updated 4 sec ago
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Homeland Security Secretary Noem's purse stolen at DC restaurant, officials say

  • The department said Noem had cash in her purse to pay for gifts, dinner and other activities for her family on Easter

WASHINGTON: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s purse was stolen at a Washington, D.C. restaurant Sunday night, according to department officials.
The department in an email said Noem had money in her purse to buy gifts for her children and grandchildren and to pay for Easter dinner and other activities.
The department in an email didn’t specify what was stolen, but CNN — which was first to report the story — said the thief took about $3,000 in cash, as well as Noem’s keys, driver’s license, passport, checks, makeup bag, medication and Homeland Security badge. The department said Noem had cash in her purse to pay for gifts, dinner and other activities for her family on Easter.
The Homeland Security Secretary is protected by US Secret Service agents. The Secret Service referred questions about the incident to Homeland Security headquarters.

 


US lawmakers in new push to free wrongly deported migrant

Updated 16 min 12 sec ago
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US lawmakers in new push to free wrongly deported migrant

  • Yassamin Ansari: ‘I’m in El Salvador to shine a light on Kilmar’s story and keep the pressure on Donald Trump to secure his safe return home’
  • Maxwell Frost: ‘Trump is illegally arresting, jailing, and deporting people with no due process’

SAN SALVADOR: A delegation of Democratic lawmakers arrived in El Salvador on Monday in a new push to secure the release of a wrongly deported US resident at the center of a mounting political row.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was sent back to his country and remains imprisoned despite the Supreme Court ordering the administration of President Donald Trump to facilitate the man’s return to the United States.
“I’m in El Salvador to shine a light on Kilmar’s story and keep the pressure on Donald Trump to secure his safe return home,” congresswoman Yassamin Ansari of Arizona said on social media.
“We want to make sure that Kilmar is still alive. We want to make sure that he has access to counsel,” added Ansari, who was accompanied by fellow US House Democrats Robert Garcia, Maxwell Frost and Maxine Dexter.
“Trump is illegally arresting, jailing, and deporting people with no due process,” Frost wrote on X.
“We must hold the Administration accountable for these illegal acts and demand Kilmar’s release. Today it’s him, tomorrow it could be anyone else,” the Florida representative added.
The visit comes days after Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen managed to meet with Abrego Garcia, though only after a considerable effort.
Van Hollen, who represents Maryland where Abrego Garcia and his family have lived for years, accused the Central American nation of staging a photo of him supposedly sipping margaritas with Abrego Garcia.
Trump’s administration has paid El Salvador President Nayib Bukele millions of dollars to lock up nearly 300 migrants it says are criminals and gang members — including Abrego Garcia.
The 29-year-old was detained in Maryland last month and expelled to El Salvador along with 238 Venezuelans and 22 fellow Salvadorans who were deported shortly after Trump invoked a rarely used wartime authority.
The Trump administration admitted that Abrego Garcia was deported due to an “administrative error,” and the Supreme Court ruled that the government must “facilitate” his return.
But Trump has since doubled down, insisting Abrego Garcia is in fact a gang member.
Bukele, who was hosted at the White House last week, said he did not have the power to return Abrego Garcia.
The migrant’s supporters note he had protected legal status and no criminal conviction in the United States.
“My parents fled an authoritarian regime in Iran where people were ‘disappeared’ — I refuse to sit back and watch it happen here,” Ansari said in a statement.
“What happened to Kilmar Abrego Garcia is not just one family’s nightmare — it is a constitutional crisis that should outrage every single one of us,” said Dexter, a congresswoman from Oregon.
Abrego Garcia told Van Hollen that he was initially imprisoned at the Terrorism Confinement Center, a mega-prison for gang members, but was later transferred to a jail in the western department of Santa Ana.


Asian scam center crime gangs expanding worldwide: UN

Updated 38 min 22 sec ago
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Asian scam center crime gangs expanding worldwide: UN

  • A new report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) warned the networks are building up operations in South America, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and some Pacific islands
  • Illicit cryptocurrency mining — unregulated and anonymous — has become a “powerful tool” for the networks to launder money, the report said

BANGKOK: Asian crime networks running multi-billion-dollar cyber scam centers are expanding their operations across the world as they seek new victims and new ways to launder money, the UN said on Monday.
Chinese and Southeast Asian gangs are raking in tens of billions of dollars a year targeting victims through investment, cryptocurrency, romance and other scams — using an army of workers often trafficked and forced to toil in squalid compounds.
The activity has largely been focused in Myanmar’s lawless border areas and dubious “special economic zones” set up in Cambodia and Laos.
But a new report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) warned the networks are building up operations in South America, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and some Pacific islands.
“We are seeing a global expansion of East and Southeast Asian organized crime groups,” said Benedikt Hofmann, UNODC Acting Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
“This reflects both a natural expansion as the industry grows and seeks new ways and places to do business, but also a hedging against future risks should disruption continue and intensify in Southeast Asia.”
Countries in east and southeast Asia lost an estimated $37 billion to cyber fraud in 2023, the UNODC report said, adding that “much larger estimated losses” were reported around the world.
The syndicates have expanded in Africa — notably in Zambia, Angola and Namibia — as well as Pacific islands such as Fiji, Palau, Tonga and Vanuatu.

Besides seeking new bases and new victims, the criminal gangs are broadening their horizons to help launder their illicit income, the report said, pointing to team-ups with “South American drug cartels, the Italian mafia, and Irish mob, among many others.”
Illicit cryptocurrency mining — unregulated and anonymous — has become a “powerful tool” for the networks to launder money, the report said.
In June 2023 a sophisticated crypto mining operation in a militia-controlled territory in Libya, equipped with high-powered computers and high-voltage cooling units, was raided and 50 Chinese nationals arrested.
The global spread of the syndicates’ operations has been driven in part by pressure from authorities in Southeast Asia.
A major crackdown on scam centers in Myanmar this year, pushed by Beijing, led to around 7,000 workers from at least two dozen counrties being freed.
But the UN report warns that while such efforts disrupt the scam gangs’ immediate activities, they have shown themselves able to adapt and relocate swiftly.
“It spreads like a cancer,” UNODC’s Hoffman said.
“Authorities treat it in one area, but the roots never disappear, they simply migrate.”
Alongside the scam centers, staffed by a workforce estimated by the UN to be in the hundreds of thousands, the industry is further enabled by new technological developments.
Operators have developed their own online ecosystems with payment applications, encrypted messaging platforms and cryptocurrencies, to get round mainstream platforms that might be targeted by law enforcement.
 

 


Pakistan, UAE sign multiple pacts to strengthen trade and culture cooperation

Updated 21 April 2025
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Pakistan, UAE sign multiple pacts to strengthen trade and culture cooperation

  • UAE Deputy PM Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan is in Islamabad on 2-day visit

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and the UAE on Monday signed multiple agreements to further cooperation in trade, culture and consular affairs.

This took place during a visit by the UAE’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan to Islamabad.

Sheikh Abdullah arrived in Islamabad on Sunday for a two-day visit aimed at strengthening cooperation in energy, trade and security, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said in an earlier statement.

Pakistan and the UAE have deepened their economic partnership in recent years.

The UAE is Pakistan’s third-largest trading partner after China and the US, and a major source of foreign investment, with over $10 billion invested in the last two decades.

“I must say that our relationship has been growing on a good pace,” Sheikh Abdullah said during a joint media briefing with his Pakistan counterpart Ishaq Dar at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“I think both our leaders, the people of Pakistan and the UAE do want to see more development in the relationship,” he added.

Sheikh Abdullah said relations between the two countries, over the past few years, have been “moving faster than they have for a while.”

“And I really look forward that the good spirit that has been moving the relationship in the last few months would continue on so many different cycles, if it’s trade, investment, aviation,” he added.

Dar and Sheikh Abdullah signed several agreements to promote cooperation between the two countries in multiple sectors including culture, trade and consular affairs, the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan said.

They signed a pact between the UAE’s Ministry of Culture and its Pakistan counterpart. And they also inked an agreement to establish a joint committee for consular affairs.

The officials also witnessed the signing of a pact to set up a UAE-Pakistan Joint Business Council. The agreement was inked between the Federation of UAE Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The UAE royal is also scheduled to meet Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif during his visit.

The UAE is home to over a million expatriates from the Asia nation, the second-largest overseas Pakistani community globally, and a major source of remittances.

Policymakers in Islamabad view the UAE as an ideal export destination due to its geographic proximity, which lowers freight costs and facilitates smoother trade.

In recent years, the two countries have signed a series of agreements to boost economic ties.

In February, during the Abu Dhabi crown prince’s visit to Pakistan, the two sides signed accords in mining, railways, banking and infrastructure.

Last year in January, Pakistan and the UAE signed deals worth more than $3 billion covering railways, economic zones and infrastructure development.

The UAE has become a crucial partner for Pakistan amid Islamabad’s efforts to achieve sustainable growth after suffering from a prolonged macroeconomic crisis.


Carney ahead in polls as Canada enters last week of election campaign

Updated 21 April 2025
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Carney ahead in polls as Canada enters last week of election campaign

  • Mark Carney is looking for a strong mandate to deal with Donald Trump’s tariff threat
  • Mark Carney: ‘We need a government that has a plan that meets the moment’

CHARLOTTETOWN, Prince Edward Island: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, ahead in polls in the run-up to an April 28 election, renewed calls on Monday for voters to give him a strong mandate to deal with US President Donald Trump’s tariff threat.
Carney says Trump’s tariffs and talk of annexation pose a huge threat and mean that Canada needs to reduce its reliance on the United States and restructure its economy.
“We need a government that has a strong mandate, a clear mandate. We need a government that has a plan that meets the moment,” Carney said during a campaign event in Charlottetown in the Atlantic province of Prince Edward Island.
The 60-year-old ex-central banker, who had no prior political experience before running to become Liberal leader earlier this year, billed himself as “someone who knows how to negotiate ... (and) how to manage a crisis.”
The Liberal platform, which promises additional spending of around C$130 billion over the next four years, predicts that the 2025/26 deficit will be C$62.3 billion, far higher than the C$42.2 billion forecast in December.
Carney replaced Justin Trudeau, who had been in power for more than nine years and was the focus of opposition attacks about inflation, high immigration levels and a housing crisis.
The official opposition Conservatives had been 20 points ahead at the turn of the year but now trail the Liberals.
A rolling three-day Nanos poll released on Monday put the Liberals on 43.7 percent public support with the Conservatives on 36.3 percent. The left-leaning New Democrats, who compete with the Liberals for the center-left vote, trailed at 10.7 percent.
If repeated on election day, that would give the Liberals a majority of the 343 seats in the House of Commons.
Elections Canada said a record 2 million people had cast their ballots in the first of day of advance voting on Friday, which was a national holiday. Around 28 million Canadians are registered to vote.
Voter turnout in federal elections from the 1950s to the early 1990s ranged between 70 percent and 80 percent, but it has gradually declined. In the 2021 election, only 62.3 percent of eligible voters cast ballots.
Ipsos Public Affairs CEO Darrell Bricker said the advance polls could indicate that overall turnout will be higher, or merely reflect parties’ efforts to boost early voting.
“Too early to say which it is this time,” he said in a post on X.
The Nanos poll of 1,289 people was carried out on April 17, 19 and 20 and is considered accurate to within 2.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.