Sri Lanka attacks: Face coverings banned after Easter bloodshed
Sri Lanka has banned face coverings in public, following a spate of suicide attacks on Easter Sunday that killed at least 250 people and injured hundreds.
President Maithripala Sirisena said he was using an emergency law to impose the restriction from Monday.
Any face garment which “hinders identification” will be banned to ensure national security, his office said.
The niqab and burka – worn by Muslim women – were not specifically named.
The move is perceived as targeting the garments, however.
Sri Lanka remains on high alert eight days after Islamist attacks that hit churches and hotels.
Dozens of suspects have been arrested, but local officials warned that more militants remained at large.
US builds migrant tent city in Texas as Trump likens treatment to ‘Disneyland’
US border agency, which previously forced migrants to sleep under a bridge, says an influx of arrivals demands more shelter space
The US government has begun erecting tents close to the border with Mexico to house detained migrants – even as Donald Trump likened the treatment of undocumented families entering the US to “Disneyland” on Sunday.
Life at the foothills of the Franklin mountains in El Paso, Texas, has been rudely disrupted in the last few days by construction crews coming and going near the adjacent border patrol station.
The main frames of two large tents popped up last week. They are expected to hold up to 500 migrants amid a level of chaos at the border that has unfolded under the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
New technologies drive military spending: SIPRI
Military spending has surged across the globe, according to a new report published by SIPRI. With new advances in defense technologies, countries are spending more to gain an edge.
Global military spending reached $1.822 trillion (€1.632 trillion) in 2018, according to an annual report published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) on Monday, marking a 2.6% increase.
The US is at the top of the list of biggest defense spenders, recording an increase of 4.6% compared to 2017. SIPRI researcher Nan Tian told DW that it represented the first increase of its kind “in the last seven years,” and it’s expected to grow substantially in the coming decades.
Man accused of being UAE spy ‘commits suicide’ in Turkish jail
A suspected United Arab Emirates spy who was detained by Turkish authorities 10 days ago has committed suicide in prison, a Turkish government source and state media said on Monday.
The suspect was found dead in Silivri prison, on the outskirts of Istanbul, state news agency Anadolu reported. A Turkish justice ministry source confirmed the report to AFP.
The man was taken into custody with another alleged spy as authorities probed whether they were tied to the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi last October in Istanbul.
The suspect was later formally charged with “military and political” and “international espionage”, according to Anadolu.
As churches are demolished at home, Chinese Christians find religious freedom in Kenya
But migrants embracing God in highly Christian Nairobi are often unaware of the atheist Communist Party’s war on religion
Updated 0116 GMT (0916 HKT) April 29, 2019
Every Sunday morning in an affluent suburb of Nairobi, Kenya, the soaring song of Chinese hymns fills the empty corridors of a Monday-to-Friday office block.
White identity politics is about more than racism
A political scientist on the rise of white identity politics in America.
By
When people talk about “identity politics,” it’s often assumed they’re referring to the politics of marginalized groups like African Americans, LGBTQ people, or any group that is organizing on the basis of a shared experience of injustice — and that’s a perfectly reasonable assumption.
Traditionally, identity has only really been a question for non-dominant groups in society. If you’re a member of the dominant group, your identity is taken for granted precisely because it’s not threatened. But the combination of demographic shifts and demagogic politicians has transformed the landscape of American politics. Now, white identity has been fully activated.