Armoured & Luxury
Chauffeur Driven Cars

What does the aftermath of last week’s lynching of a 50-year-old Muslim man by a Hindu mob over rumours that his family had been consuming beef say about political imagination in India?

Mohammad Akhlaq, an ironsmith, was killed in his village in Dadri in Uttar Pradesh, barely 50km (31 miles) from the Indian capital. His 22-year-old son Danish was seriously injured in the attack. Another son, Mohammad Sartaj, who works as a technician with the Indian Air Force, survived the attack because he does not live in the village.

A week into the horrific incident in his backyard, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, usually so active on social media, has maintained a studied silence. He has expressed his “gratitude to American people” for their hospitality during his recent trip to the US, greeted a cabinet colleague and a governor on their birthdays and the people of China on its National Day, offered his condolences on the death of a singer’s son and congratulated a billiards champion on his prolific twitter feed. Not a word on Mr Akhlaq. Mr Modi’s soundlessness on Dadri, according to historian, Shiv Visvanathan, is the “silence of indifference which becomes obscene, because it denies dignity to the victim”.

Astonishing

His BJP party, which rules India with a whopping majority, has done worse. Tarun Vijay, a senior party MP, wrote in a newspaper that “lynching a person merely on suspicion is absolutely wrong, the antithesis of all that India stands for and all that Hinduism preaches”, almost implying that lynching a person when you are sure that he has consumed beef could possibly be condoned. “Vijay has accomplished the astonishing feat of even making apology look almost homicidal,” wrote outraged columnist Pratap Bhanu Mehta, adding that the “blame for this has to fall entirely on Modi”.
The poverty of political imagination did not end with Mr Modi’s silence and Mr Vijay’s article.

Read More

A Chinese customer left a seafood restaurant in the city of Qingdao with a bad taste in his mouth after claiming he was overcharged for prawns.

The diner ordered a dish of prawns that appeared to be marked at 38 yuan (£4, $6) on the menu, reported local media. But he was later told the menu had specified the price was for each prawn, and was asked to pay 1,520 yuan (£160; $240) for the dish.

The restaurant has attracted intense criticism on Chinese social media.

Threats

The customer, identified as Mr Zhu by local media, was a Nanjing native on holiday in Qingdao with his family. On Sunday they visited the Shande Live Seafood and Barbecued Home-Cooked Dishes restaurant for dinner. Pictures of the restaurant’s menu carried by news outlets showed it had listed “ocean-caught large prawns” for 38 yuan. Mr Zhu said he ordered the dish and was served a platter of 40 prawns stir-fried in garlic.

When presented with the bill, which came up to 2,700 yuan including the cost of other dishes, Mr Zhu confronted the restaurant owner, who pointed to a line at the bottom of the menu which stated that “the seafood listed above is priced per item”. Mr Zhu refused to pay, and said the restaurant owner pulled out a stick and threatened to beat him up. The police were called in, and after negotiations Mr Zhu paid 2,000 yuan.

The unnamed restaurant owner told Beijing Youth Daily that he charged such high prices because his prawns were freshly caught. The case has made waves on microblogging network Sina Weibo, where “38 yuan large prawn” has become a trending topic. Netizens have lambasted the restaurant owner as greedy and shameless. Said user Maitianiam: “After cheating people he still wants to justify himself, he knows no shame.” “The next time I’m having a meal in Qingdao I’d better ask how much each grain of rice or each noodle costs, or else I might get beaten up!” said YanchixiaS.

Others noted that Mr Zhu still had to pay a large sum of money for the meal, and took issue with local authorities for failing to help him. “What’s hateful about this isn’t just this unscrupulous merchant, but also the police and industry bureau… where can consumers get help from?” said user ACmilanshefuqinke.

An Australian prisoner who escaped from a New South Wales jail earlier this year has been found hiding in a kitchen cupboard, police say.

The 58-year-old man had been on the run from St Helier’s Correctional Centre in Muswellbrook since 24 July.

He was discovered on Sunday inside the kitchen cupboard of a home in Alfords Point, 164 miles (264km) away.

New South Wales police say he has been charged with escaping custody and was due to go to court on Monday.

It was not immediately clear why the man was being held at the correctional centre.

He was first noticed missing in July after a head count and could not be found after a search of the grounds and surrounding area.
The man has not been named by police.

Turkey has warned the EU that millions more refugees could flee Syria as the civil war intensifies, European Council President Donald Tusk has said.

He said Russian and Iranian engagement in Syria was making a victory for President Bashar al-Assad more likely. According to Turkish estimates, it could mean another three million refugees from Aleppo and the area. The International Organization for Migration says it has so far had no reports of more people leaving Syria. “Violence and increased military activity breed displacement of civilians,” IOM spokesman Leonard Doyle commented.
He said his organisation was currently checking the situation on the ground, adding that Mr Tusk’s comments were “speculative”.
In other developments: Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann is visiting the Greek island of Lesbos to see the impact of the migrant crisis on one of the main entry points to the EU.

UK Home Secretary Theresa May is expected to say that Britain does not need immigration in the hundreds of thousands every year because this makes building a cohesive society impossible.
Nearly 100 migrants are reported to have died in the Mediterranean off Libya since Sunday, the IOM says, citing unconfirmed reports from the Libyan Red Crescent. The body of a man – believed to be from Eritrea – was found after a fire broke out on Monday in a shelter for asylum seekers in eastern Germany, reports say.

Read More

Two Air France managers have had their shirts torn as they were forced to flee a meeting on job cuts by angry workers.

Human resources manager Xavier Broseta and senior official Pierre Plissonnier had to clamber over a fence, while several others were injured.
The men were taking part in talks about plans for 2,900 job losses when hundreds of workers stormed into Air France headquarters at Roissy.
Pilots had earlier rejected an offer to work longer hours.

Parent firm Air France-KLM said it would take legal action over the protesters’ “aggregated violence”.

The airline later confirmed the job losses as part of a big restructuring plan dubbed “Perform 2020” that also involved several routes to India and south-east Asia being cut in 2017.

The measures include cutting 1,700 ground staff, 900 cabin crew, and 300 pilots, as well as a 10% reduction in its long-haul business, a reduction in the size of the aircraft fleet and an increase in pilots’ working hours.

Read More