by admin | May 25, 2021 | Halal Food, Halal Industries
London : Muslims are expected to replace Jews as the second largest religious group in the US after Christians by 2040, according to a new study.
There were 3.45 million Muslims living in the US in 2017, and Muslims made up about 1.1 percent of the total US population, said the report from US think tank Pew Research Centre (PRC). “Muslims in the US are not as numerous as the number of Americans who identify as Jewish by religion, according to our estimate,” however the US Muslim population will grow “much faster” than the country’s Jewish population, it said. In 2007, when the study was first conducted by PRC, the body estimated that there were 2.35 million Muslims in the US By 2011, the number of Muslims had grown to 2.75 million.
Since then, the Muslim population has continued to grow at a rate of roughly 100,000 per year, driven both by higher fertility rates among Muslim Americans as well as the continued migration of Muslims to the US. Scott Lucas, professor of American Studies at the Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of Birmingham, told Arab News he believed the Muslim community in the US is “thriving,” particularly in major cities such as New York, Minneapolis and Detroit.
Lucas said: “Some might find these statistics of interest because of the tensions raised around Islamophobia and the anti-Muslim rhetoric that is whipped up by some leaders and some media outlets, but it’s important to emphasize that Muslims are very much a part of America, they are us and we are them. Muslims practice their faith just as many others practice their faith. The media has created an artificial division.”
Lucas added that despite the rhetoric espoused by US President Donald and the resultant rise in US hate crimes, “the day-to-day reality of Muslims remains one largely of inclusion and going about their daily lives as we all do.” The professor added that, in parallel with the growing Muslim population in the US, he expected to see the erection of more mosques and the creation of more halal products and services. He added: “However, remember not all Muslims practice their faith by the book, just as not all Jews eat kosher food. People practice their faith in different ways.” Haroon Latif, director of insights at New York-based research firm Dinar Standard, also predicted an impending spike in demand for halal products in the US.
—HA/OIC-UNA
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
By Arul Louis,
United Nations : The US has failed to get the UN Security Council (UNSC) to act on the Iranian protests with most members questioning if it was even the right forum to take up internal affairs of a country while expressing support for the nuclear deal with Tehran that is opposed by President Donald Trump.
At the session convened on Friday at the request of Washington, US Permanent Representative Nikki Haley pledged solidarity with the Iranian protesters and condemned the Tehran government for suppressing them.
Ahead of the meeting it was clear that the Council would not be able to even come up with a resolution or a statement on the Iranian protests because of opposition from veto-wielding permanent member Russia and others.
The demonstrations against economic hardships began on December 28 in Mashad and spread to other places. Citing official media reports, Assistant Secretary-General Taye-Brook Zerihoun said that more than 20 Iranians died during the protests, while over 1,000 protesters were detained.
Council President Kairat Umarov, speaking in his national capacity as Kazakhstan’s Permanent Representative, said that the developments in Iran were a domestic matter and, therefore, did not come under the Council’s purview.
The view was shared by most members, including France and Sweden.
There was concern over the nuclear deal made in 2015 by Iran with the five permanent members, Germany and the European Union that lifted sanctions against Tehran. It has been opposed by Trump who has to certify this month to the US Congress that Iran is complying with it in order for Washington to continue with the terms of the agreement.
“We must be wary of any attempt to exploit this crisis for personal ends,” France’s Permanent Representative Francois Delattre said, adding that the Council must commit to upholding the nuclear agreement.
British Permanent Representative Matthew Ryrcoft gave his country’s backing to the agreement saying that Iran complied with it.
Calling the agreement “one of the international community’s greatest successes in recent memory”, he said Britain was fully committed to it.
Haley said “the people of Iran are rising up” and “if the founding principles of this institution mean anything, we will not only hear their cry, we will finally answer it”.
The statement drew vehement retorts from Russia and Iran, which drew attention to protests within the US that had been put down.
Russia’s Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia said that if the Council followed the reasoning behind convening the the meeting over domestic protests in Iran, it should have met after the protests in the US that followed the killing of an African-American teenager in Ferguson by a white police officer in 2014.
Iran’s Permanent Representative Gholamali Khoshroo brought up the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York in 2011 that was suppressed by law enforcement and other protests.
He said that Trump was joining the Islamic State and its regional patrons to incite attacks on Iran.
(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Employment, Overseas, World
Job candidates are processed during a job fair at the Amazon Fulfillment center in Robbinsville Township, New Jersey last summer. (Credit: oregonlive)
Washington : The US economy added 148,000 jobs in December after a year of steady hiring, according to the figures released on Friday by the Labour Department on hiring and unemployment.
The jobless rate stayed at 4.1 per cent last month, the lowest point since 2001, with healthcare and professional services driving much of the past year’s gains.
In a Twitter post on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump pointed to the 4.1 per cent unemployment rate as evidence that the economy was “only getting better!”. When he took office last January, the rate was 4.8 per cent.
Wages continued their slow climb, rising by 9 cents. That’s a 2.5 per cent increase since December 2016 (and still below pre-recession levels), the Washington Post reported, citing the figures.
Retail lost 20,000 jobs in December, according to an estimate by the Bureau of Labour Statistics, capping a year of shrinkage in the sector. About 67,000 positions vanished from stores in 2017, compared a stretch of growth (203,000 jobs) in 2016.
Manufacturing, though, saw strong gains (25,000). The industry added 196,000 jobs last year, compared to a loss of 16,000 positions in 2016.
“There’s almost one job open for every unemployed person,” said Dan North, chief economist at Euler Hermes North America, a credit insurance firm.
There are now six million vacancies in the US and 6.6 million unemployed people. From January to November, the economy added 1.9 million jobs.
On Friday, the government unveiled its estimate for the year: 2.1 million new jobs arrived in 2017, a slight drop from 2.2 million in 2016.
The US jobless rate dropped faster in 2017, though, and it’s expected to keep shrinking.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
By Arul Louis,
New York : Taking the strictest action against Pakistan, the US has announced that it was freezing most security aid and the delivery of military equipment because Islamabad continues to shelter terrorists despite several warnings from President Donald Trump and other leaders.
“We will not be delivering military equipment or transfer security-related funds to Pakistan,” State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said on Thursday.
The freeze will be enforced “until the Pakistani Government takes decisive action against groups, including the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network”, she said.
Nauert said that Pakistan’s failure to take action against Lakshar-e-Taiba leader Hafeez Saeed was not a factor in the action.
“To my knowledge, that has nothing to do with that.”
Thursday’s announcement was in addition to the $255 million in foreign military assistance that the Trump administration in August said it was withholding, she said.
However, Nauert did not give the size of the assistance that was now being suspended.
“We are still working through some of those dollar numbers right now.”
Asked about the types of military equipment covered by the freeze, Nauert said: “I’m not going to be able to get into the specifics of that. A lot of that is under DoD (Department of Defence), so I just won’t have the details about that.”
She said that some exceptions could be made to the suspensions if it was determined that portions of the frozen aid were “critical to national security interests” or “required by law”.
Nauert said that if Pakistan took decisive action against terrorists, it “has the ability to get this money back in the future”.
“We have been clear with Pakistan what they need to do… A lot of this would fall under some of the private diplomatic conversations that the US government is having with Pakistan, so a lot of that stuff I’m not going to be able to share because that would give away information to people we don’t want to have that information.”
In another action against Islmabad, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson placed Pakistan on a “special watch list for severe violations of religious freedom”.
The US depends on Pakistan for ferrying supplies to its troops in landlocked Afghanistan.
Asked at a separate news conference on Thursday if he was concerned that Islamabad might shut down access routes to US troops in Afghanistan, Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said: “We have had no indication of anything like that.”
He declined to comment when he was asked if he favoured cutting off aid to Pakistani.
Nauert added that Pakistan had been given adequate notice to shut down the terrorist networks.
She recalled Trump’s speech in August in which he warned Pakistan against giving sanctuary to terrorists.
“It has been more than four months since the President’s speech, and despite a sustained high-level engagement by this administration with the government of Pakistan, the Taliban and the Haqqani Network continue to find sanctuary inside Pakistan as they plot to destabilise Afghanistan and also attack US and allied personnel,” she said.
In his first tweet of the New Year, Trump said that the US had given Pakistan $33 billion in aid over 15 years and accused Pakistan of harbouring terrorists while making “fools” of US leaders with lies and deceit.
“No more,” he said, of Washington’s aid to Pakistan.
Hours before the tweet, a US Special Forces soldier had been killed in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, which borders Pakistan, and four were injured in a terrorist attack.
(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Washington : The US Treasury Department has announced sanctions against five Iranian entities.
The Treasury Department said late Thursday the five Iran-based entities were subordinate to a key element of Iran’s ballistic missile programme and the US action targeted Tehran’s “destabilising weapons systems”, reports Xinhua news agency.
As a result, US citizens are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them.
Foreign financial institutions that knowingly facilitate significant transactions for, or persons that provide material or certain other support to, the designated entities risk exposure to sanctions that could sever their access to the US financial system or block their property and property interests under the American jurisdiction.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the US will continue to counter Iran with “additional sanctions”.
Last week, riots broke out in some Iranian cities in protest against price hikes and economic woes.
US President Donald Trump and a number of other American officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, have sided with the protesters.
Iran’s Ambassador to the UN Gholamali Khoshroo on Wednesday slammed the US government’s attempts to intervene in the domestic affairs of the Islamic Republic.
“The current US administration has crossed every limit in flouting rules and principles of international law governing the civilised conduct of international relations,” Khoshroo said in a letter to the UN Security Council and to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
Khoshroo added that Iran expects all states to condemn such dangerous statements and policies and urge the US government to act responsibly and adhere to principles of the UN Charter and international law.
—IANS
