Malaysia’s government has barred Muslims from a concert by US hip-hop stars the Black Eyed Peas next month because the event is organized by Irish beer giant Guinness, an official said yesterday.
The prohibition comes amid a clampdown on alcohol consumption among Malaysia’s Muslim majority. A Muslim woman who drank beer in public was sentenced to caning by an Islamic court last month, though authorities this week agreed to review the penalty.
In family and personal matters, Muslims in Malaysia are governed by Shariah law, which forbids the consumption of alcohol.
The Black Eyed Peas will perform at a theme park near Kuala Lumpur on Sept. 25 as part of worldwide celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of Guinness’ flagship brewery in Dublin.
The Malaysian show’s official Web site said “the party is only open to non-Muslims aged 18 years and above.”
Previous major pop concerts in Malaysia, including one by the Black Eyed Peas in 2007, have always been open to Muslims.
“Muslims cannot attend. Non-Muslims can go and have fun,” an official at the Ministry of Information, Communication and Culture said.
She said the concert would not have been permitted at all under normal circumstances because government regulations forbid alcohol companies from organizing concerts. But authorities made an exception on the hopes the event would boost tourism, the official said on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to make public statements.
It was not immediately clear how the ban on Muslims will be enforced. Concert organizers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A retired US colonel behind a privately financed rocket launch site in the Dominican Republic sees the project as a response to China’s dominance of the space race in Latin America. Florida-based Launch on Demand is slated to begin building a US$600 million facility in a remote region near the border with Haiti late this year. The project is designed to meet surging demand for the heavy-lift rockets needed to put clusters of satellites into orbit. It is also an answer to China’s growing presence in the region, said CEO Burton Catledge, a former commander of the US Air Force’s 45th Operations
Germany is considering Australia’s Ghost Bat robot fighter as it looks to select a combat drone to modernize its air force, German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said yesterday. Germany has said it wants to field hundreds of uncrewed fighter jets by 2029, and would make a decision soon as it considers a range of German, European and US projects developing so-called “collaborative combat aircraft.” Australia has said it will integrate the Ghost Bat, jointly developed by Boeing Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force, into its military after a successful weapons test last year. After inspecting the Ghost Bat in Queensland yesterday,
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RSS