A woman has said a gift from her neighbour to celebrate Eid has restored her “faith in humanity”.

Shafaq Hassan, from Streatham, south London, said her neighbour treated her and son Ayaan, 14, to dates and a prayer mat in celebration of Eid, which this year began on Wednesday evening and will end on Thursday evening.

Posting a photo of the gifts to Twitter, Ms Hassan said: “Our non-Muslim neighbour (our biryani pal!) totally surprised us with Algerian dates and a prayer mat for my 14-year-old, who fasted the whole month.”

Ms Hassan, 40, told the PA news agency: “He’s been our neighbour for over 20 years, but completely surprised us with the Eid gifts.

“I didn’t realise he noted Ayaan was fasting the whole month… we were all surprised at his gesture and my son felt really special.

“They’re friendly neighbours, they’re fans of my mum’s biryani so we always send over a box.”

Ms Hassan said the family is celebrating with a meal and a special Eid cake, as they are unable to have a big party due to Covid-19 restrictions.

She told PA: “The whole family fasted but missed a few days, Ayaan fasted the whole month… he was determined to fast the whole month which is quite impressive, if I may say so myself.

“Due to Covid we can’t have big family party, obviously, we’re having a special meal with family to celebrate my son’s achievement.”

Muslims around the world are celebrating Eid al-Fitr in a subdued mood for a second year as Covid-19 forced mosque closures and family separations on the holiday marking the end of Ramadan.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan shared a photo of Trafalgar Square lit in purple lights to celebrate the occasion.

Ms Hassan told PA: “It’s hard we are not able to meet extended family or go to the mosque to pray. It’s isolating not being able to attend the mosque but we’re blessed we’re together as a family.

“Our neighbour’s gesture helps put faith in humanity. We’re a diverse community and its heart-warming that our neighbour was so thoughtful and encouraging of Ayaan and his religious beliefs.

“Eid is about sharing, being charitable and is a blessing.”

Hindus and Muslim men have had a disproportionately high risk of dying with coronavirus throughout the pandemic compared with Christians, figures suggest.

After adjusting for age, location, socio-demographic factors and certain pre-existing health conditions, Hindus and Muslim men were still more likely to die with Covid-19, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

The ONS looked at mortality rates among religious groups between January 2020 and February 2021 and compared differences between both waves of the pandemic, adjusting these for age and other factors.

It defined the second wave as deaths occurring from September 12 2020 onwards, but noted that this analysis is provisional as it only covers up to February 28 2021.

It found that Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and Jewish people all had an increased Covid-19 mortality rate compared with Christians across the whole period when adjusting for age.

People who identified as having no religion were 20% less likely to die than the Christian group.

When taking into account location, measures of disadvantage, occupation and living arrangements, and pre-pandemic health status, rates for Jewish and Sikh women were similar to those for Christian women.

But rates for Muslims, Hindus, and Jewish and Sikh men remained significantly higher.

Muslim men were 70% more likely to die with Covid-19 than Christian men, the ONS analysis found.

Muslim women had a 30% greater risk of dying with coronavirus, while for Hindu men it was 30% and for Hindu women it was 20%.

Jewish men had a 20% greater risk and Sikh men a 10% greater risk.

For Jewish and Buddhist men, the excess risk was only observed in the first wave.

Excess risk for Sikhs and Muslim women was only observed in the second wave.

The ONS said the factors it adjusted for account for a large proportion, but not all, of the additional risk.

The residual unexplained risk may be due to factors it did not consider, such as some pre-existing health conditions.

For some religious groups there is considerable overlap with ethnic background, meaning it is difficult to separate any association between risk and religion from risk and ethnicity.

Credit: PA News

Terrorists are hunting for fresh targets because there are fewer crowds amid the coronavirus pandemic, the new boss of MI5 has warned.

Director general Ken McCallum said the security service has been “rapidly adapting” how it works to keep the country safe during the outbreak as well as helping research efforts in combatting the virus and trying to protect work on the vaccine from potential interference.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday for the first time since taking on the top role in April, he said: “I stepped into this role at the height of the Covid lockdown, and for MI5 just like everyone else, 2020 has been dominated by the pandemic.

“We’ve sought where we can to help on Covid itself – advising on the safe construction of Nightingale hospitals; repurposing research originally done on toxic chemicals to help understand how Covid in droplets might disperse in certain environments; offering our skills in data analytics and modelling; simply allowing medically-qualified MI5 officers to step away from their duties here and directly support our NHS.

“And, crucially, on the vaccine, we’ve been working to protect the integrity of UK research.

“Our larger task has been rapidly adapting how we perform our core role of keeping the UK safe.

“The big shifts in everyone’s lives – reduced travel, more online, and the rest – mean shifts in how our adversaries are operating.

“Fewer crowds mean terrorists look at different targets; online living means more opportunities for cyber hackers; and so on.

“Equally, 2020 has demanded shifts in how MI5 itself has to operate; you wouldn’t expect me to get into detail, but common sense will tell you that covert surveillance is not straightforward on near-empty streets.”

Mr McCallum, who is in his forties, became the youngest ever director general when he took over from Sir Andrew Parker, who retired after leading the organisation since 2013.

The maths degree graduate, who grew up in Glasgow, has been the deputy director general since April 2017 and has 25 years of experience at MI5 including work on Northern Ireland-related terrorism, Islamist extremism and cyber security.

His career has seen him take charge of the service’s response to the attempted assassination of former spy Sergei Skripal in the Salisbury nerve agent attack as well as leading the response to the 2017 terror attacks and taking charge of counter terrorism investigations and risk management surrounding the 2012 London Olympics.

Read more: Osama Bin Laden’s London Spokesperson Cannot Simply Walk into the U.K.

Tensions between police and members of New York City’s Hasidic Jewish community have flared up again after a crowded funeral procession was interrupted by officers.

Video posted on social media showed officers in protective masks chasing a minivan through Brooklyn’s Borough Park neighbourhood as it carried the body of a deceased rabbi.

The officers can be heard shouting at dozens of people marching behind the van to get out of the street and onto the pavement.

A 17-year-old boy was taken into custody and issued a summons for disorderly conduct after he was accused of pushing a police official, according to a police spokeswoman.

The confrontation came two days after Mayor Bill de Blasio stoked divisions with a series of tweets after he went to Brooklyn to oversee the dispersal of thousands of people who crowded the streets of Williamsburg for the funeral of another rabbi.

New York has banned any gatherings, of any size, for any purpose as the coronavirus has been linked to at least 18,000 deaths in the city in just a few weeks.

Mr De Blasio called the large gathering “absolutely unacceptable” in one tweet.

In another, he said: “My message to the Jewish community, and all communities, is this simple: the time for warnings has passed.”

Republican senator Ted Cruz has sent a letter to Attorney General Bill Barr urging the Justice Department “to closely monitor New York City” for potential religious discrimination in the wake of Mr de Blasio’s tweets.

State Senator Simcha Felder, who represents Borough Park, posted a tweet after Thursday’s confrontation saying “terrorising people by sending in armies of cops during such stressful times is not helpful at all. @NYCMayor – we need real leadership. Stop the chaos now.”

Dov Hikind, a former state assembly member who is the founder of a group fighting anti-Semitism, said people violating social distancing rules in Brooklyn are relatively small in number and are behaving in ways that goes against Judaism’s central tenant of preserving life.

He said: “I’ve begged and pleaded with the minority that exists within our community that don’t give a darn – don’t give a damn – about themselves, their families or the community.

“You can’t have funerals with hundreds of people. You can’t have people praying in synagogues. You can’t do those things when people’s lives are on the line. It violates everything in Judaism.”

Silences in memory of key workers who have lost their lives in the coronavirus pandemic have been held across Northern Ireland.

The acts of tribute were particularly poignant in hospitals where health workers thought of fallen colleagues.

More than 100 healthcare staff have died with Covid-19, including Pat McManus, 60, a nurse from Co Tyrone who had been working in a Staffordshire hospital.

From the Assembly chamber at Stormont to hospitals across the region, the minute of silence was observed.

Socially distanced staff lined the roads at Craigavon Area Hospital in Co Armagh and Daisy Hill Hospital in Newry while there were gatherings outside the Belfast City Hospital, which houses the region’s Nightingale facility.

At the Mater Infirmorum Hospital in Belfast, doctors, nurses and support staff gathered briefly in the atrium to pay tribute to fallen frontline workers.

There was a burst of spontaneous applause as the minute ended before staff swiftly returned to their posts.

Across the city at the Ulster Hospital, senior nurse Roisin Devlin was among those who took part in the tribute, and described it as “very poignant”.

She said staff gathered in a communal area of the ward to allow everyone to show their respect and patients to join to “remember the dead and highlight that they will never just be a number, but a much-loved member of staff”.

“In healthcare, teamwork is so important and when you lose a member of that team, it is like losing a family member,” she told the PA news agency.

“My thoughts will be with the families of those who died, but also with their work colleagues who need to continue working, knowing a member of their team is no longer there.

“Staff feel very strongly that we should all honour those who lost their lives by carrying out the minute’s silence so we will be forming a guard of honour in the ED (emergency department) along the corridor to show solidarity with our colleagues.”