The Londoner

Home - More than 20 British Muslim families have been denied entry to the US, it has been claimed, amid mounting claims of religious discrimination by border officials. The allegation was made after a British father whose family holiday to Disneyland in the US was cancelled at the last minute by border officials spoke of their “devastation”. Fitness instructor Mohammad Tariq Mahmood was among 11 members of his family hoping to fly from Gatwick to Los Angeles last week, but said they were taken from the queue to board the plane by a border control officer. Read the full story here. 

Home - Since the Gherkin pierced London's skyline in 2003, a number of architectural delicacies have popped up around the capital. Prince Charles once likened the capital to an "absurdist picnic table", but has it really started to resemble a giant's feast? "The Gherkin really started the trend," says Peter Rees, ex-chief planner of the City of London and professor at UCL's Bartlett School of Architecture. It is not the first building to earn a nickname inspired by items usually found in the kitchen pantry. Indeed, Prince Charles also dubbed the 309m-high Shard an "enormous salt cellar". With work having resumed on the Can of Ham in January and the Cucumber on its way, BBC News explores some of the capital's most high-profile morsels. Read the full story here. 

Home - The 13-year-old had been missing for almost two weeks after disappearing on 6 December . Detectives are still searching for two sisters, Abir and Ahlam Salah , aged 16 and 15 respectively, also from Wood Green . Abir was reported missing on 6 December, and Ahlam on 12 December. Police believe the pair have not left the country and may be sleeping on buses or elsewhere on the transport network. A Metropolitan police spokesman said: “The girls have been reported missing before. The last time was on 19 November, when they were missing for a week. They were found safe and well in the Wood Green area. Read the full story here. 

House prices in London are the most over-valued of any major city in the world and are in “ bubble-risk territory ”, a  report by economists at UBS  has found. Foreign investment , the help-to-buy scheme, “alluring” yields for buy-to-let landlords, and ongoing population growth have all led property prices in the city to decouple from local incomes , and there could be a “ substantial price correction ” if the conditions for investment deteriorated, the report said. The  UBS   Global Real Estate Bubble Index looked at 15 cities around the world, including Hong Kong, Sydney, New York, San Francisco and Geneva, examining prices against the economic backdrop in each country. Cost of average London home rises to £500,000 Read more It found  London  was less affordable for locals who wanted to buy than any city except Hong Kong, and that it was at most risk of prices falling. The city rated 1.88 on UBS’s bubble index, and th...

Earlier this month, a tube passenger on the Piccadilly line allegedly told a Muslim man to leave a train in North London after he was using an iPad "suspiciously." A witness told the Evening Standard the man had switched the tablet off after he noticed the passenger looking at it, which apparently was cause enough for the passenger to deem it suspicious. Other passengers reportedly came to the Muslim man's defense. The British Transport Police says it has received 35 reports of anti-Muslim incidents on trains nationwide in the four weeks since the Paris attacks — up from seven in the same period a year earlier. (They don't break out numbers of incidents only in the tube.) “We have seen an increase in reporting hate crime since the Paris attacks. Everyone has the right to travel safely, and nobody should feel threatened or intimidated when using the rail network," a spokesman told Mashable. Tell MAMA, a national project to record and monitor anti-Muslim i...

Home  -   A bomb explosion in a market has killed 22 minority Shia Muslims and wounded 45 others in Pakistan’s Kurram tribal region near the Afghan border, officials said. The bomb exploded on Sunday when the market in the town of Parachinar was crowded with shoppers, said Mahtab Hussain, a local government official. Husain said some of the critically wounded people were airlifted to hospitals in other cities. All 22 killed were minority Shia Muslims, said another local government official, Nek Mohammad. The explosion was caused by a remote-controlled bomb planted in the market, the two officials said. Parachinar is the main town in Kurram, a predominantly Shia area that has been troubled by Islamic militant and sectarian violence. Pakistan’s military has carried out regular operations in the region to eliminate militants and control sectarian strife. Read the full story here. 

Former Pakistan captain Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif will be allowed to return to Pakistan's domestic cricket in January, three months after their spot-fixing bans ended, officials announced on Saturday. The pair along with Mohammad Aamer were banned for five years following a spot-fixing scandal during Pakistan's 2010 tour of England, where they took money for deliberate no-balls in the Lord's Test. Aamer was allowed to feature in domestic matches in April this year after the International Cricket Council (ICC) relaxed certain conditions of his ban through an amendment to its code of conduct. Quick Single: ICC lifts ban on Pakistan duo However, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) directed Butt and Asif to complete a rehabilitation program and, despite the duo being selected by former domestic champions Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA), they were not allowed to play in any domestic matches. But PCB chairman Shaharyar Khan announced Butt and Asif would be allow...

A day from today, more than seven million voters in Karachi will choose to exercise their right of electing a local representative who will manage their issues of basic governance. But it is not simple as that. This is Karachi; dynamic and volatile, where even matters of basic governance come with a great amount of baggage, be it from the way local governments have been formed and managed in the past or from political quarters that directly impact the performance of candidates elected on local government posts. The News sat down with key leaders of the four major political stakeholders — Waseem Akhtar of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Ali Zaidi of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and Najmi Alam of the Pakistan People’s Party — and discussed with them their expectations and fears for beyond whatever happens on December 5. Below are the leaders’ exclusive responses to a common set of questions which mostly pertain to matters of basic govern...

The energy crisis in Pakistan which suffers about 12 hours of power cuts a day has worsened in recent years amid 4,000 megawatts of electricity shortfall which the Iran gas pipeline is being fostered to cover. Iran has completed its part of the project with more than $2 billion of investment but Pakistan has fallen behind the target to take gas deliveries in the winter of 2014. Addressing a seminar on business opportunities in the clean energy sector in Washington Tuesday, Pakistan’s Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Khaqan Abbasi said he hoped sanctions on Iran would be removed soon. “The Iran gas line project is the best option for Pakistan. But as long US sanctions are there, we cannot buy gas from Iran,” the website of the Dawn newspaper quoted him as saying. The remarks came as Turkmenistan’s leader last month ordered construction of a $10 billion rival pipeline to Pakistan and India through Afghanistan to begin despite questions about the...

Mir Ghazanfar Ali Khan took oath as Governor Gilgit-Baltistan in Gilgit today (Tuesday), the  Radio Pakistan reported.  Chief Judge Supreme Appellate Court Dr. Rana Mohammad Shamim administered the oath. The oath-taking ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Minister for Kashmir Affairs Barjees Tahir, and Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Minister Hafiz Hafeezur Rehman attended. Mir Ghazanfar Ali, a sitting member of the region’s legislative  assembly  from Hunza  district , had served as the first chief minister of Gilgit-Baltistan, at the time when General (retd) Pervez Musharraf was president.  The decision to appoint him as Governer of Gilgit Baltistan was taken by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. During his visit, the Prime Minister will also meet quake affected people in the region and distribute financial assistance cheques among them. Read the full story here. Home 

The driver, a 38-year-old Moroccan immigrant who moved to the United States some five years ago, told the  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette  that the passenger asked him where he was from and then began to talk about the Islamic State. “He started the conversation and began to ask questions like, ‘You seem to be like a Pakistani guy. Are you from Pakistan?’” said the driver, who spoke to the paper on the condition of anonymity owing to concerns about his safety. Read the full story here.