Indian cabbie pleads not guilty in rape case in Oz

An Indian-origin cabbie,accused of raping a female passenger,on wednesday pleaded not guilty.

An Indian-origin cabbie,accused of raping a female passenger,on wednesday pleaded not guilty after he was ordered to stand trial at the conclusion of a three-day hearing in the Melbourne Magistrates Court.

Twenty-one-year-old Rajveer Singh has been accused of picking up the woman in his taxi outside the Corner Hotel in inner-city Richmond on November 21 last year. He later raped the 40-year-old woman in Northcote,it is alleged. Singh pleaded not guilty before Magistrate Peter Reardon. He was released on bail,The Age reported.

Magistrate Reardon ordered Singh face the Victorian County Court for a directions hearing on October 26,it said. His trial is expected to commence in June next year.

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In a statement to the court,the woman said she was drunk and had gone into auto mode in the cab and had no memory of what happened.

The womans teenage son opened the door of their home in the middle of the night to find her half naked,drunk,disoriented and saying she had been raped,the court heard this week.

The boy told the court as he opened the door he saw a taxi driver speed away. His mother had no pants on,he said.

He later heard a friend of his mothers ask her on speaker phone if she had been sexually abused,the mother replied: Yeah,the court heard.

US firm sued for calling Sikh staffer bin Laden

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Boston: Automobile parts retailer AutoZone has been sued by a federal agency for discriminating against a Sikh employee,who was not allowed to wear a turban and was called bin Laden and terrorist by the companys employees and customers. The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has filed a lawsuit against AutoZone,alleging that it created a hostile work environment for Frank Mahoney Burroughs because of his Sikh religion. The lawsuit alleges that a manager at AutoZone asked Burroughs if he was a terrorist and had joined al-Qaeda and whether he intended to blow up the store.