From reading this, one is led to believe that these men appeared to look like Japanese, or Chinese, or Korean. But no mention anywhere of where these men actually were from.
I don't believe for an instant that the media would ever distort the facts, or intentionally mislead people. /sarcasm off>
But imagine these men were Indian or Pakistani. They would be southeast "Asian" men, which sometimes are called Asian.
To most westerners, Pakistani's and Indians are virtually the same. By appearances they are identicle. As they should be, as India and Pakistan used to be one.
But Pakistan and India split. And there seems to be constant tension between the two. The biggest difference between the two is that India is primarily Hindu, and Pakistan is primarily MUSLIM.
So in that light, is it possible that these two "Asian" men were possibly Southeast "Asian" men, who could have been talking in arabic, or similar sounding language.
Also, Indonesia is part of southeast asia, and the people there can more closely resemble what we call asians. And we know that that area is free from any muslim terrorist strife. /sarcasm off>
Sorry. sarcasm button seems to inadvertantly get hit.
With the large population of Pakis and Indians in the UK (the Empire strikes back), I believe that their use of the term "Asian" implies southwest Asian while we would infer east Asian (e.g. Japanese, Chinese, Korean). I think this is long-term colloquial use there, not just PC to protect the poor muslimes' feelings.