Auto
parts firm sued for
discriminating against
Sikh employee
BOSTON,
Sept 29: Automobile
parts retailer AutoZone has been sued by a
federal agency for discriminating against a Sikh
employee, who was not allowed to wear a turban
and was called ‘bin Laden’ and
‘terrorist’ by the company’s other
employees and customers.
The US Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a
federal agency that enforces laws against
workplace discrimination, has filed a lawsuit
against AutoZone alleging that it "created a
hostile work environment for Frank Mahoney
Burroughs because of his Sikh religion".
The lawsuit
alleges that a manager at AutoZone asked
Burroughs "if he was a terrorist and had
joined Al-Qaeda and whether he intended to blow
up the store".
Further, AutoZone
failed to intervene when customers referred to
Burroughs as "bin Laden and made terrorist
jokes".
AutoZone also
refused to let Burroughs, who had converted to
Sikhism, wear a turban and ‘kara’ (a
religious bracelet) as required by his religion.
When Burroughs
complained against the discrimination, AutoZone
retaliated by firing him "because of his
religion".
"It was very
painful to be humiliated and insulted by them
(AutoZone). They made me feel as though I had no
right to practice my faith," Burroughs said
in a statement.
He added that when
he complained, he was "discarded like a
piece of trash".
Burroughs, who
says he spent more time with AutoZone staff than
with his own family, does not want "AutoZone
to do this to anyone else".
The lawsuit filed
in US District Court for the District of
Massachusetts yesterday adds that Burroughs was
subjected to "bigoted harassment" and
Autozone "refused to accommodate his
religious need to wear a turban".
The matter was
brought to the EEOC’s notice by the Sikh
Coalition, the nation’s largest Sikh civil
rights organisation.
The Sikh Coalition
filed the charge of discrimination with the EEOC
in March 2010 on behalf of Burroughs that led to
the lawsuit.
Staff Attorney at
the Sikh Coalition Sandeep Kaur said Burroughs
had been a "model employee" for years
but things changed after he converted to Sikhism
and started wearing a turban.
AutoZone managers
called him a terrorist, told him he was offending
customers and terminated him, Kaur said.
"As evidence
by the lawsuit filed, clearly it was AutoZone
that did the terrorising," Kaur added.
In the years since
9/11, "misperceptions" about the
appearance of Sikhs have led to hate attacks and
discrimination against Sikhs across the country.
The Sikh Coalition
said it has recorded over 600 incidents of bias
against Sikhs on its website since 9/11. (PTI)
Smokers
‘waste a year of their lives on fag
breaks’
LONDON,
Sept 29: Seems
the boss is right! Smokers work an hour a day
less than non-smoking colleagues—wasting
over a year of their lives on office cigarette
breaks, a study has revealed.
The study of 2,500
adults by UK-based market research company
‘OnePoll.Com’ found that an average
smoker takes four 15-minute breaks daily,
amounting to nearly 445 days out of a working
life.
Moreover, four in
five smokers didn’t cut down on their breaks
during the recession and that women spent longer
outside than men, according to the findings.
Surprisingly, only
one in 10 smokers admitted going outside for a
chat without lighting up.
"These stats
are bound to be annoying for employers. It will
also irritate non-smokers, who wouldn’t get
away with taking four 15-minute coffee
breaks," a spokesman was quoted by the
‘Fox 26’ online as saying. (PTI)
Former
US Prez Jimmy Carter hospitalised
WASHINGTON,
Sept 29: Former
US President Jimmy Carter has been hospitalised
after being suddenly taken ill on a flight to the
city of Cleveland, a media report said.
The 85-year-old
Nobel Peace Prize winner was yesterday rushed to
the Metro Health Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio,
where he has been under observation and resting
comfortably, the ‘CNN’ quoted his
spokesperson as saying.
Carter was said to
be suffering from stomach pains and his doctor
recommended that he spend the night at the
hospital to rest, the report said.
"He is fully
alert and participating in all decision-making
related to his care. The decision to admit him
overnight is purely precautionary," the
hospital said about Carter, who received a phone
call from President Barack Obama.
However, the
spokesman added Carter was "expected to
resume his book tour this week".
In fact, an
ambulance had met the former President’s
flight into Cleveland and immediately rushed him
to hospital.
Carter, who served
as the 39th President of the US between 1977 and
1981, was on a promotional book tour for his
recently published memoir White House Diary when
he was taken ill. (PTI)
‘CWG
will be off to a flying
start once Rahman starts
singing’
NEW
YORK, Sept 29: There might have been delays and
lapses in the run-up to the Commonwealth Games,
but External Affairs Minister S M Krishna says
the troubled event will be "off to a flying
start" once A R Rahman renders the welcome
song on October three.
Speaking at the
Asia Society here, Krishna assured the world
community that the Games would be a success and
hoped that the athletes will be satisfied with
the preparations.
"This much I
can assure you as an Indian and as a minister of
the external affairs of India that on October 3
when A R Rahman starts with his welcome
orchestra, I think we will be off to a flying
start," Krishna said in response to a volley
of questions on the Games.
The Games will be
inaugurated on Sunday at the Jawaharlal Nehru
Stadium in New Delhi.
Krishna, however,
admitted that there have been lapses in the
run-up to the mega event in Delhi, and attributed
some of the problems to the unusually long and
heavy monsoon in northern India this year.
"We did not
anticipate that the monsoons will be so prolonged
and so heavy and as a result of that the
preparations got delayed but the news that is
coming out of New Delhi in the last two days that
things are improving," he said.
"The athletes
have started coming to New Delhi and they will be
very pleased with the arrangements," he
said.
Krishna, who is in
New York for attending the opening session of the
General Assembly, has responded to several
queries by the Indian and foreign media about the
problems associated with the Games.
Several
comparisons have been made of India’s
failure to get its act together against
China’s spectacular conducting of the
Olympics and South Africa’s successful
holding of the Football World Cup earlier this
year.
Krishna said the
criticisms might have been glaring in the
pre-Games period but ultimately what would matter
is how the event was held and staged.
"This has
been said about every international athletic
event before it starts... Questions are always
asked and doubts are always expressed... The
ultimate proof is eating of the pudding,"
Krishna said.
"I am going
to be back here again next year and then you can
put to me this question how well we conducted the
Commonwealth Games," the External Affairs
Minister said. (PTI)
Anti-outsourcing
bill blocked in US senate, Blow to Obama
WASHINGTON,
Sept 29: In
a move that augured well for India, Senate
Republicans successfully blocked the passage of
an anti-outsourcing bill that denied tax breaks
to US companies which move jobs overseas, dealing
a blow for President Barack Obama.
Republicans in a
53-45 vote blocked the bill which fell six votes
short for passage. At least 60 votes were needed
to clear the Republican procedural hurdle to the
Democrat Bill which failed a key test.
The bill envisaged
a ban on government contractors from using
American taxpayers’ money to move jobs
offshore.
As part of efforts
to boost employment in the US, Obama is
vigorously pushing to end the tax break for
companies who ship jobs overseas saying it should
go to firms who create jobs in America.
India, which
already holds at least 50 per cent of the global
outsourcing market, has become the world’s
back office as Western firms set up call centres,
number-crunching and software development outlets
to cut costs.
Democratic
backers, who vow to make the vote a campaign
issue in the November 2 Congressional election,
claimed that Republicans have undermined their
efforts to create jobs. On the other hand,
Republicans and business groups dismissed the
bill as a political stunt that would increase
taxes on companies and undermine job growth.
In what is seen as
an electoral populist move, the Creating American
Jobs and End Offshoring Act aims at small
manufacturers and included a payroll tax
exemption for firms that move jobs to US, but the
bill also contains provisions to prevent
businesses from deferring US taxes on the income
they make from foreign subsidiaries.
Indian IT honchos
have maintained that the bill won’t make
much of an impact on India. However, they warned
that US companies operating in other countries
may be beaten by the same stick.
Several business
groups such as the National Association of
Manufacturers (NAM) were strongly opposed to the
legislation. It had sent a letter to senators
arguing the measure would make US corporations
less competitive and hurt job creation.
Terming the bill
as an election gimmick, Republican senator Orrin
Hatch slammed the Democrats for their
"height of irresponsibility" that would
put the US economy at "greater risk."
"Desperate
times call for desperate measures and the
majority is showing how desperate they are with a
bill that increases the tax burden on job
creators and ship much-needed US jobs
overseas."
Hatch feared that
"raising taxes on companies’ overseas
profits will just incentivize them to move their
domestic facilities to another country... That is
not the prescription that will cure our ailing
economy." (PTI)
Qatar
set to reach world’s largest LNG capacity:
Minister
DUBAI,
Sept 29: Qatar
is set to reach a liquefied natural gas (LNG)
production target of 77 million tonnes per annum,
the world’s largest LNG capacity, the
country’s energy minister has said.
Mohammed bin Saleh
Al Sada, the Minister of State for Energy and
Industry Affairs, said preparations are underway
to celebrate the country reaching the target.
As a global leader
in LNG industry, Qatar plays an essential role in
delivering energy to regional markets as well as
those in North and South America, Asia and
Europe, he said while addressing the
International Conference of the Association of
International Petroleum Negotiators (AIPN) in
Doha yesterday.
Despite the
instability of the global economy particularly
since 2008, Qatar remained focused on achieving
long-term strategic targets and objectives,
Al-Sada added.
"We have done
so, confident in the knowledge that the success
of investments in the energy industry is measured
over decades, not months, and that the global
economy will rebound, restoring the underlying
fundamentals upon which Qatar’s investment
strategies were based," the minister said.
He also said many
of Qatar’s oil and petrochemical projects
are under implementation and on target. (PTI)
Amendments
on H1B and L1 visas blocked
WASHINGTON,
Sept 29: Two
amendments moved by a US Senator on restricted
hiring of foreign workers and another aimed at
preventing fraud and abuse of H-1B and L1 visa
could not pass the Senate floor as it was was
blocked by the Democratic Party.
The two amendments
moved along with the Creating American Jobs and
End Offshoring Act, was blocked by the Democratic
Party, Senator Chuck Grassley, its author said
yesterday.
Incidentally, the
off shoring act in itself was blocked by the
opposition Republican party.
"Despite the
number of Americans without a job, companies are
still allowed to import thousands of foreign
workers with little or no strings attached. My
amendments would make it possible for qualified
Americans to fill the vacant positions
first," Grassley said.
His first
amendment would have prevented any company
engaged in a mass lay-off of American workers
from importing cheaper labour from abroad through
temporary guest worker programs.
The second would
have taken aim at fraud and abuse of the H-1B and
L Visa programs, while making sure Americans have
the first chance at high-skilled jobs in the
United States.
Both amendments
were being blocked by the Democratic Senate
Majority Leader, the Senator said in a statement.
The ‘H-1B and
L-1 Visa Reform Act of 2009’ would improve
two key visa programs by rooting out abuse while
making sure Americans have the first chance of
obtaining high-skilled jobs in this country,
Grassley said in the Senate floor.
"Many
Americans are unemployed, yet we still allow
companies to import thousands of foreign workers.
These businesses should be asked to look first at
Americans to fill vacancies, and they should be
held accountable for displacing Americans to hire
cheap foreign labour," he said.
"These two
amendments go directly to the concerns about job
creation and prevention of off-shoring of US
jobs. Both amendments are bipartisan. Yet, if
cloture is invoked, these amendments would fall
on the Senate cutting room floor," he added.
Grassley said the
H-1B program is well-known for encouraging
companies to take their work offshore. (PTI)
Transport
hit hard during Spanish general strike
MADRID,
Sept 29: Transport
workers gave broad support to a general strike to
protest harsh cuts intended to reduce
Spain’s budget deficit, and few buses or
trains were in operation in Madrid early today
morning.
The first general
strike in eight years will be a test for Prime
Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s
Socialist government, though with polls showing
only 9 percent of workers will definitely turn
out it will not shake his austerity plans.
Zapatero was
forced to impose spending cuts after investors
punished Spanish borrowing costs earlier this
year over fears the country could be heading for
a debt crisis that would trigger a Greek-style
bailout.
"Not one bus
has left the station," said a photographer
at one of the main bus depots in Madrid.
At Madrid’s
main Atocha train station, all main line trains
had been cancelled with one exception until 1230
IST, although suburban and underground trains
were running almost normally.
Unions said
industrial and cleaning workers gave strong
support overnight after the strike began at
midnight.
"There was
wide support (for the strike) on night shifts in
the Madrid region," unions Comisiones
Obreras and Union General de Trabajadores said in
a joint statement.
Electricity demand
was almost one fifth lower than it normally would
be in the morning, according to grid operator
REE.
Spaniards will
face transport disruptions throughout the day
although most places have a minimum transport
services agreement at least during rush hour.
Aviation officials said 20-40 percent of
international flights would go ahead.
NEWSPAPERS
Even if they do
manage to board an infrequent and packed bus or
train, Spaniards might not have too much to read.
Newspaper workers walked out a day early
yesterday so they could return to provide
coverage of the strike.
Unions, which
represent 16 percent of workers in the country,
say the government will be forced to reverse some
of its austerity plans that include wage cuts for
civil servants, pension freezes and job reform
laws.
But analysts
believe a U-turn on the the government’s
plans to meet European Union deficit targets is
unlikely, while many Spaniards believe striking
is not the best form of protest in a country
where 20 per cent are unemployed.
"The strike
will not do anything at all to remedy
Spain’s economic situation and will also
worsen our image abroad even more," said
Camilo Abietar, chairman of the Organisation of
Professionals and Self-Employed Workers.
"The economy
improves when employment is created, not when
obstacles are put to work," said Abietar,
whose organisation represents more than 195,300
self-employed workers.
The strike in
Spain coincides with union action in Brussels,
Athens and other European cities as austerity
measures bite across the continent.
On Tuesday,
Spanish stocks closed down by 0.21 per cent ahead
of the strike, while the key spread of 10-year
government debt to euro zone bunds was around 195
basis points, about 60 higher than where it was
in mid-July.
Spain’s main
unions say the strike will draw more than the
2.5-3 million workers who went on strike in
France earlier this month.
It has also
attracted the attention of artists across the
country, with top film director Pedro Almodovar
due to stop shooting his latest movie in protest
at the government’s cuts.
But it is doubtful
it will do much to influence the government,
which is due to present full details of its 2011
budget tomorrow.(AGENCIES)
Russia
says 10 suspected rebels killed in Dagestan
MOSCOW,
Sept 29: Russian
security forces said they killed ten suspected
rebels in clashes in the restive southern region
of Dagestan today, state-run news agencies
reported.
Fighting between
rebels and security services was continuing on
the outskirts of the regional capital Makhachkala
and in the nearby port of Kaspiysk, the RIA and
ITAR-TASS news agencies reported, citing the
Federal Security Service (FSB).
"A group of
rebels were surrounded. When asked to surrender
they opened fire," an official in the
FSB’s anti-terror committee of told
ITAR-TASS. An FSB spokesman contacted by Reuters
declined immediate comment.
An insurgency is
raging across the mainly Muslim region, where
poverty has helped foster an armed campaign to
carve out an independent state governed by
Islamic law.
A decade after
separatists were driven from power in the second
of two wars in Chechnya, adjacent to Dagestan,
the North Caucasus is plagued by near-daily
clashes between law-enforcement agencies and
Islamist rebels. (AGENCXIES)
China
says emissions goal already tough, no cap for now
BEIJING,
Sept 29: China’s
goals to slow greenhouse gas growth will be tough
and costly, the nation’s top climate change
official said today, presenting an absolute cap
and major carbon market in the world’s top
emitter as distant plans.
China’s key
policy for fighting global warming is to reduce
its "carbon intensity"—the amount
of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide,
emitted for each dollar of economic
activity—by 40-45 percent by 2020 compared
to the 2005 level.
That domestic goal
will let China’s overall emissions grow with
the economy, while shrinking the average amount
of carbon dioxide emitted to make each car, build
each home and so on.
Xie Zhenhua, a
deputy head of China’s National Development
and Reform Commission, told a news conference the
policy will be part of the country’s next,
12th five-year economic plan, which officials are
preparing for its launch from 2011.
Xie did not say
directly whether he saw much hope of China
embracing a tougher greenhouse gas goal before
2020.
But his
description of the difficulties facing the
intensity goal might not encourage other
governments and experts that want China to do
more soon to curb its emissions.
Xie dismissed
assertions that the 40-45 per cent carbon target
was undemanding for China’s fast-growing
economy, citing what he said was a big price-tag
for meeting an energy-saving target set in the
current 11th five-year plan, which ends this
year.
"CONSIDERABLE
EFFORT"
"To achieve
the 2020 target will need considerable effort,
because the easiest problems were already
generally dealt with in the 11th five-year plan,
and in the 12th and 13th ones (to 2020) it will
be more difficult," he said.
"So this
goal is not one that will be easy to
reach."
China next week
for the first time hosts long-running UN
negotiations seeking agreement on a new global
regime to rein in the greenhouse gases from human
activity blamed for causing global warming.
A key meeting in
Copenhagen late last year broke up in acrimony
without agreeing on a legally binding pact. The
meeting in the north Chinese port city of Tianjin
will be a stepping stone in efforts to settle
such a pact, possibly by late next year.
Major two-week
climate talks then follow in Cancun, Mexico,
starting on November 29.
China is central
to those negotiations.
Many Western
governments and quite a few developing countries
want China to take on firmer international
commitments eventually to cap greenhouse gas
emissions.
China has
consolidated its place as the world’s
biggest emitter of carbon dioxide from fossil
fuels, having outstripped the United States.
China’s emissions from fuels such as oil and
coal grew to 7.5 billion tonnes of CO2 in 2009,
according to data from BP.
But China
maintains it and other poorer countries must be
given more space to grow their economies and,
inevitably, their total emissions.
China would need a
long time before taking on quantitative caps on
emissions, meaning that any carbon trading market
in the country would remain limited for now, said
Xie.
"As climate
change accelerates, the range of policy measures
taken by China will become increasingly strict,
and emissions goals may become increasingly
quantified," he said.
"I’m
sure China will open up trading in emissions
permits," he added. "But this will
require a certain length of time."
China has
experimental voluntary trading in carbon dioxide
permits in Tianjin, Beijing and Shanghai, noted
Xie. (AGENCIES)
Lost
footage of Armstrong’s
Apollo 11 moon landing
‘found’
LONDON,
Sept 29: The
lost footage of astronaut Neil Armstrong
descending the ladder of Apollo 11 lunar module
for the historic moonwalk in 1969 has been found
and would be screened for the first time in
Sydney, a media report said.
The video runs for
a few minutes and is considered to be some of the
best footage of the 1969 moonwalk, but it was
lost in archives for many years and badly damaged
when found, ‘The Daily Telegraph’
quoted astronomer John Sarkissian.
In fact, the
footage depicts the first few minutes of
Armstrong’s descent which was recorded in
Australia as NASA was still scrambling for a
signal, showing a far clearer image than was
initially screened worldwide.
Telescopes in
remote Australia played a key role in the Apollo
11 mission, including provision of the television
signal, after Armstrong decided to attempt the
moonwalk early, putting the US just beyond the
horizon.
Sarkissian, an
historian and astronomer in charge of the
Australian side of the recordings restoration
project, said the unseen minutes were the
"best quality of Armstrong descending the
ladder".
"NASA were
using the Goldstone (California) station signal,
which had its settings wrong, but in the signals
being received by the Australian stations you can
see Armstrong. In what people have seen before
you can barely see Armstrong at all, you can see
something black, that was his leg.
"It was very
damaged tape as well, that segment of Armstrong
at the beginning. Digitising the recording was
significant in the space flight history context
allowing it to be preserved and copied for future
generations," he said.
The segment which
runs for "a few minutes" will be
screened at the awards night of Australian
Geographic magazine next Wednesday, at which
Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin will be the chief
guest. (PTI)
UAE
mobile clinic treats 3,000 children in Pakistan
DUBAI,
Sept 29: A
110-bed mobile children’s hospital, in the
Pakistani town of Thata, has been providing free
medical care to over 3,000 flood-affected
children.
The paediatric
field hospital was set up for children under 18
affected by Pakistan’s recent floods and is
the first mobile field unit to cater specifically
to the needs of children in a disaster zone.
Adel Al Shamry,
the chief executive of UAE-based Zayed Giving
Initiative, which is funding the hospital, said
the project was aimed to respond to the needs of
the children affected.
"We think we
can make a huge difference. Most of the cases we
have been seeing are preventable, so early
intervention is critical. If not treated, some of
the conditions can lead to death," he told
The National from Karachi.
The mobile
hospital was set up in the middle of a camp for
internally displaced people in Thata, an area
"highly affected" by the flooding,
Shamry said.
The facility,
established in partnership with the Pakistani
ministry of health, is equipped with emergency
and surgical units, a pharmacy, a specialist
clinic and a general paediatric ward. (PTI)
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