Category: English

LONDON — Muhammad has become the most popular name for boys in England and Wales, overtaking Noah.

The figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) do not group together the different spellings of Muhammad, meaning that all the various iterations of the name together have made it the most popular for many years.

Mohammed and Mohammad both appear in the top 100 names for boys born in England and Wales in 2023.

There were 4,661 children registered as Muhammad, increasing from 4,177 in 2022.

The name was popular in regions with higher Muslim populations, such as London, the West Midlands, Yorkshire, and the North West.

Mohammed was the 28th most popular, with 1,601 newborns registered, while Mohammad was 68th, with 835.

Other Muslim boys’ names in the top 100 include Yusuf, Ibrahim, and Musa.

The third most popular boys’ name was Oliver, followed by George and Leo.

For girls, Olivia has remained the most popular name for eight years. Amelia and Isla have been second and third for two years in a row.

The top 100 girls’ names included Layla, Maryam, and Fatima, which are all favorites with Muslim families.

The ONS said popular culture remained a key influence for parents choosing names for their babies.

Increasing numbers were names after music stars Billie Eilish and Lana Del Rey, and actors Margot Robbie and Cillian Murphy.

Even the names of celebrity babies such as the offspring from the Kardashian-Jenner family, Reign and Saint, gained popularity.

AN, Dec 5, 2024

GAZA — At least 12 Palestinians were killed and several others injured in Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, according to Palestinian sources.

Israeli aircraft targeted a house behind Kamal Adwan Hospital in the Beit Lahia city in northern Gaza, local sources and eyewitnesses said.

The raid killed seven people and wounded several others, Palestinian Civil Defense spokesperson in Gaza Mahmoud Basal told Xinhua.

According to Basal, Israel launched another airstrike later in the day at a gathering of Palestinians in the Shuja’iyya neighborhood, east of Gaza City, killing three and wounding five others with varying degrees of injuries.

Meanwhile, paramedics told Xinhua that medical workers recovered two bodies of Palestinians killed in an Israeli drone attack on a gathering in Khirbet al-Adas, north of Rafah city, in southern Gaza.

The Israeli army has not commented on the attacks yet.

Israel has been conducting a large-scale offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip to retaliate against a Hamas rampage through the southern Israeli border on Oct. 7, 2023, during which about 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage.

The Palestinian death toll from ongoing Israeli attacks in Gaza has risen to 44,580, Gaza-based health authorities said in a statement on Thursday.

XINHUA

DAMASCUS — The Syrian army announced Thursday that it has redeployed its forces outside the western-central Syrian city of Hama after fierce battles with rebel groups, confirming that rebels have entered the city following intense attacks from multiple fronts.

“Over the past few days, our armed forces have fought fierce battles to repel and thwart the violent and successive attacks launched by terrorist organizations on the city of Hama from various directions and in large numbers, using all types of military equipment and assisted by infiltration groups,” said a statement issued by the Syrian General Command of the Army and Armed Forces.

“In the past hours, with intensified confrontations between our soldiers and the terrorist groups and the rise of martyrs in our ranks, those groups managed to penetrate several fronts in the city and enter it, despite suffering heavy losses,” it said.

It added that the Syrian army will “continue to carry out its national duty to reclaim the areas entered by the terrorist organizations.”

The Syrian army’s withdrawal marks a significant development in the ongoing conflict in Syria, as Hama, the fourth-largest city in Syria, has largely remained under government control throughout the 13-year civil war in the country.

Earlier reports from local media and activists indicated that rebel militants from the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) had entered the northeastern neighborhoods of Hama after launching one of the most intense attacks in the area to date.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, reported that the HTS and allied factions advanced from multiple fronts — north, northeast, and west — to reach Hama and attack government forces.

The recent escalation in Hama and other regions underscores the intensifying conflict between Syrian government forces and rebel groups, including HTS, which controls parts of northwestern Syria.

The United Nations and humanitarian organizations have repeatedly called for the protection of civilians and unimpeded access to aid delivery, expressing concern over the impact of the ongoing conflict on the Syrian population.

XINHUA

LOS ANGELES — Two students were wounded and the suspected gunman was dead after shooting at a school in Northern California on Wednesday, authorities said.

Deputies were “on scene of an active incident involving a shooting at Feather River School of Seventh-Day Adventists in Palermo,” the Butte County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

Students were being taken to a nearby church and parents were asked to respond to the church to be reunified with their children, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

The office received multiple 911 calls at around 1 p.m. local time (2100 GMT) regarding an adult male firing shots at students, KRCR-TV, a local TV station, reported, citing the Sheriff’s Office.

Multiple agencies immediately responded to the incident and located the shooter, who died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, said the report.

Two students sustained gunshot wounds, one of whom was airlifted to a nearby hospital, it added.

The school, operated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, is a K-8 school with over 30 students, according to its website.

Palermo, home to over 5,000 residents, is about 104 km north of Sacramento, the capital of the U.S. state of California.

XINHUA

SHENZHEN — Thirteen workers went missing following a sudden ground collapse at a railway construction site in Shenzhen City, south China’s Guangdong Province, local authorities said Thursday.

The collapse occurred at around 11 p.m. Wednesday at a construction site of a section of the Shenzhen-Jiangmen Railway in the city’s Bao’an District, according to the district’s emergency management bureau.

An all-out rescue has been launched.

Nearby residents have been evacuated and temporary traffic control has been carried out around the site. An investigation into the accident is underway.

XINHUA

SHENZHEN — Thirteen workers went missing following a sudden ground collapse at a railway construction site in Shenzhen City, south China’s Guangdong Province, local authorities said Thursday.

The collapse occurred at around 11 p.m. Wednesday at a construction site of a section of the Shenzhen-Jiangmen Railway in the city’s Bao’an District, according to the district’s emergency management bureau.

An all-out rescue has been launched.

Nearby residents have been evacuated and temporary traffic control has been carried out around the site. An investigation into the accident is underway.

XINHUA

THE HAGUE — Amnesty International on Thursday accused Israel of “committing genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza since the start of the war last year, saying a new report was a “wake-up call” for the international community.

The London-based rights organization said its findings were based on “dehumanizing and genocidal statements by Israeli government and military officials,” satellite images documenting devastation, fieldwork and ground reports from Gazans.

“Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its intent to physically destroy them,” Amnesty chief Agnes Callamard said in a statement.
“Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now,” she added.

The Palestinian group Hamas launched an unprecedented attack inside southern Israel on October 7, 2023, triggering a deadly Israeli military offensive as Israeli officials vowed to crush the militants.

Israel has repeatedly and forcefully denied allegations of genocide, accusing Hamas of using the Palestinian people as human shields.

“There is absolutely no doubt that Israel has military objectives. But the existence of military objectives does not negate the possibility of a genocidal intent,” Callamard told AFP at a press conference in The Hague.

The 300-page report points to incidents where there “was no Hamas presence or any other military objectives.”

It cites 15 air strikes in Gaza between October 7, 2023 and April 20, which killed 334 civilians including 141 children, for which the group found “no evidence that any of these strikes were directed at a military objective.”

In addition to tens of thousands of deaths and physical and psychological trauma, the report also points to the conditions on the ground, where it said Palestinians are subjected to “malnutrition, hunger and diseases” and exposed to a “slow, calculated death.”

“States that transfer arms to Israel violate their obligations to prevent genocide under the convention and are at risk of becoming complicit,” Callamard added during the press conference.

Since the start of the war, at least 44,532 people have been killed in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, deemed reliable by the UN.

Amnesty International has also announced that it will publish a report on the crimes committed by Hamas during the October 7 attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which includes hostages killed in captivity.

Hamas also seized 251 hostages during the attack, some of whom were already dead. Of those, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 35 the Israeli army says are dead.

AN-AFP

KHARTOUM — Sudan’s Darfur region governor on Wednesday announced that 20 civilians were killed in an attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on an area in North Darfur State in western Sudan.

“The RSF has committed a massacre in the Abu Zeriga area, south of El Fasher city, killing 20 civilians and injuring 20 others,” Governor Minni Arko Minnawi said in a post on his Facebook page.

Minnawi said that the attack took place on Tuesday.

He called on the international community and humanitarian organizations to send international investigation teams to document the crimes and work to bring the perpetrators to justice.

He further urged aid organizations to intensify efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to the affected population amid the deepening humanitarian crisis in the region.

In the meantime, the non-governmental Sudanese Doctors Network said the attack left 21 civilians killed and 13 others wounded.

The RSF has not issued any comment on the attack on the Abu Zeriga area.

Since May 10, fierce clashes have raged in El Fasher between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF, which have been embroiled in a brutal conflict since mid-April 2023.

The ongoing war in Sudan has claimed the lives of over 27,120 people and displaced more than 14 million others, either within the country or abroad, according to estimates from international organizations.

XINHUA

ABUJA — At least six people were killed and eight others injured early Wednesday when suspected bandits detonated improvised explosive devices planted under a bridge in the northwestern state of Zamfara, the police said.

Mohammed Dalijan, the police chief in Zamfara, told Xinhua by telephone that two vehicles driving on the explosives were destroyed under the Mai Lamba bridge, along the Dansadu-Gusau road in the Maru local government area.

The explosive attack was the second of the kind in that location this week, Dalijan noted, after an earlier attack on Sunday killed a passerby, destroyed a vehicle, and damaged a bridge where the explosive was planted.

The victims of Wednesday’s incident were locals, including women traveling from Gusau, the state capital, to Dansadu, said the police chief.

He said the police had deployed a tactical squad to ascertain the type of explosives through laboratory tests.

XINHUA

PRAGUE — Police search continued after a report of gunshots heard on a university campus in the western Czech city of Pilsen on Wednesday, authorities said.

Czech police said at around 5 p.m. they received a report about shots fired on the premises of the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, and “a large number of police forces and resources immediately went to the scene.”

“The reported shooting has not yet been confirmed and no one was injured at the scene. We had to close and create a safe perimeter around the university. Now we will search the whole area,” police said in the latest update on X.

“Police evacuated about 1,000 people from the university campus and are continuing to search the buildings,” Interior Minister Vit Rakusan confirmed on social media platform X.

Last December, a student opened fire at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague, killing 14 people and wounding 25 others.

XINHUA