Switzerland to ban construction of new minarets

An imam at the mosque of the Islamic Cultural Foundation at Grand-Saconnex in Geneva. Switzerland will hold a referendum on banning the construction of new minarets on November 29 after a group of politicians from the Swiss People’s Party and Federal Democratic Union gathered enough signatures last year to force the vote. The country is home to more than 300,000 Muslims.

Lanka flash floods: 58,000 homeless

Colombo: Nearly 60,000 people were left homeless in Sri Lanka on Thursday following flash floods in the capital Colombo and the suburbs, an official said. “We have a list of over 58,000 individuals who were left homeless in and around Colombo,” Kodipillai said, adding that they were being housed in public buildings. Thousands of homes were flooded on Wednesday, forcing people to seek temporary shelter in public buildings, he said.

Hand over Fazlullah, Pak tells Afghanistan

Islamabad: Pakistan is investigating reports about Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah’s escape to Afghanistan and will ask authorities there to hand him over, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Thursday. “I will appeal to the Afghan government that if he (Fazlullah, head of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan) has really gone to Afghanistan, he should be caught and handed over to Pakistan,” Malik said.

Man in UK barred from seeing family

london: A man of Pakistan origin, who threatened to kill his wife and cut off her tongue after she blocked an arranged marriage for their daughter, has been barred from seeing his family by a British court. In the first prosecution of its kind here, Aurang Zeb has been convicted of breaching a Forced Marriage Protection Order taken out to stop him from taking his daughter Rozina Akhtar out of Britain to get her married.

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