When is it fair to lump people together as 'Muslims' or 'Germans' or in some other group, and when is it prejudice?
Many of the comments on my piece about Islamophobia and antisemitism took a familiar line: "Muslims do disgusting things. It is not…
Click here to read the full story
--To build a universal definition of secularism, we must first understand its complex historical relationship with secularisation
The question: What is secularism?
What is the relationship between secularism, the state policy; and secularisation, the…
Click here to read the full story
--Other academic enterprises are rather more like theology than they know
Over 40 years ago, I was taking part in a seminar during which the Australian Jesuit theologian Gerald O'Collins defined the theologian as someone who "watches their language in…
Click here to read the full story
--The arguments about Islam put forward by Michael Nazir-Ali make it difficult to take him seriously
I was at Hammicks bookshop in London's Fleet Street on Wednesday to hear Michael Nazir-Ali launch a book on sharia law, Sharia in the West. I don't…
Click here to read the full story
--WikiLeaks cables have revealed that Catholic bishops played a key role in 2002's abortive military coup in Venezuela
In 1997 Eamon Duffy, president of Magdalene College, Cambridge, brought out the best one-volume history of popes that has ever been…
Click here to read the full story
--Allegations against Sogyal Rinpoche highlight the dangers of Buddhist injunctions against gossip and insistence on loyalty
In November 1994 an American woman known as Janice Doe filed a $10m lawsuit against the Tibetan lama Sogyal Rinpoche, charging…
Click here to read the full story
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Email powered by PicoMail - www.picowireless.com - free email for any Java or Symbian cellphone!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Email powered by PicoMail - www.picowireless.com - free email for any Java or Symbian cellphone!
Hu Jintao says party will lose support if corruption is not dealt with effectively
The Chinese president, Hu Jintao, warned that the Communist party was still suffering from corruption and other "growing pains" as the 90-year-old organisation…
Click here to read the full story
--French Socialists discuss DSK comeback after credibility of New York hotel victim is challenged
The prosecution case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund and French presidential hopeful accused of…
Click here to read the full story
--Independent journalist accused of lifting quotes in interview with activist Malalai Joya
Fresh evidence of Independent journalist Johann Hari's habit of alleged plagiarism has emerged from a lengthy interview with Afghan women's rights activist…
Click here to read the full story
--In the third of his series Jason Burke reports on growing tensions as clergy oppose incremental moves away from conservative Islam
Part two: 'A very different society from Egypt, Tunisia or Syria'
Part one: Stability, security and Iran
On a Friday…
Click here to read the full story
--Quotable quotes from Hu Jintao's speech on CPC's 90th founding anniversary
Chinese President Hu Jintao, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, delivered a keynote speech on Friday at a meeting commemorating the Party's 90th founding anniversary.
The following are some quotable quotes from Hu:
-- History and the people have chosen the CPC, Marxism, the socialist road, and the reform and opening up policy.
-- The CPC truly deserves to be called a great, glorious and correct Marxist political party.
-- The path of socialism with Chinese characteristics is the only way for China to achieve socialist modernization and create decent lives for its people.
-- Success in China hinges on the Party.
-- We are facing long-term, complicated and severe tests in governing the country, in implementing reform and opening up and in developing the market economy, as well as tests in the external environment.
-- The whole Party is confronted with growing danger of lacking in drive, incompetence, divorce from the people, lacking in initiative, and corruption.
-- It has thus become even more important and urgent than ever before for the Party to police itself and impose strict discipline on its members.
-- We never take Marxism as an empty, rigid, and stereotyped dogma.
-- Talent is the most important resource and a strategic resource for a country's development.
-- Maintaining close ties with the people gives the Party its biggest political asset while alienation from the people poses the greatest risk to the Party after it has gained political power.
-- The people will care about and feel close to the Party only when the Party feels the same toward them.
-- The Party is soberly aware of the gravity and danger of corruption.
-- If not effectively curbed, corruption will cost the Party the trust and support of the people.
-- All the comrades in the Party should bear in mind that all people are equal before the law.
-- It was thanks to reform and opening up that China has developed rapidly in the past 30 plus years, and we must promote China's future development by continuing to carry out reform and opening up.
-- China's international status as the largest developing country in the world has not changed.
-- Without democracy there can be no socialism and socialist modernization.
--We should ensure that development is for the people and carried out by the people and that they share in the fruits of development.
-- To strike a balance among reform, development, and stability and achieve unity of the three is an important guideline for achieving overall success in China's socialist modernization.
-- Without stability, nothing could be done, and even the achievements already made could be lost.
-- We should energize society to the greatest possible extent, maximize factors of harmony and minimize factors that undermine harmony.
-- Young people represent the future of both China and its people. They also represent the future and hope of the Party.
-- We have every reason to be proud of what the Party and the people have achieved, but we have no reason to be complacent. We must not and will never rest on our laurels.
-- We will not vacillate, relax our efforts or act recklessly.
Cost-benefit analysis of nature is rigged in favour of business – and delivers the countryside to those who would destroy it
Love, economists have discovered, is depreciating rapidly. On current trends, it is expected to fall by £1.78 per…
Click here to read the full story
--Factbox: Thai opinion polls put pro-Thaksin party ahead - Yahoo! News
Most opinion polls for Thailand's July 3 general election put the opposition Puea Thai Party, controlled by ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, ahead of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's ruling Democrat Party.
Previous incarnations of Puea Thai have finished first in every election in the past decade. Thaksin was toppled by the military in 2006 and lives in Dubai to escape a jail term for corruption handed down in 2008. His sister, Yingluck, is Puea Thai's candidate to be prime minister.
Thai surveys tend to have fairly large margins of error, often as high as seven percentage points. Below is a snapshot of the most recent. (Opinion polls are not allowed in the final week of campaigning).
BANGKOK POLL (Bangkok University)
Its June 16-22 poll in Bangkok put Puea Thai as the favorites to win in the capital, a Democrat stronghold, with 37.9 percent, up from 33.6 percent previously. The Democrats scored 22.2 percent, an improvement from 17.1 percent in an earlier poll. Some 22.1 percent, of the 3,338 eligible voters were undecided.
DHURAKIJ PUNDIT UNIVERSITY/NATION MULTIMEDIA GROUP
This survey of Bangkok voters showed Puea Thai had stretched its lead to 22 of the capital's 33 constituencies from an earlier poll, while the Democrats led in six wards. Asked who their preferred prime ministerial candidate was, 47 percent said Yingluck and 39 percent backed the incumbent, Abhisit.
The leaders of two small parties were the next most popular choices, with 7 percent of respondents backing former policeman Purachai Piumsombun, the leader of the new Rak Santi Party and 4 percent favoring colorful former massage parlor tycoon Chuwit Kamolvisit of the Rak Prathet Thai Party.
ABAC (Assumption Business Administration College
A poll of 5,349 potential voters in 28 provinces including Bangkok on June 1-21 projected that Puea Thai would win 55 of the 125 "party list" seats in the new parliament, while the Democrats would win 49.
Some 30 percent of respondents were undecided.
The other seats in the 500-member parliament will be determined by votes for individuals in 375 constituencies.
DUSIT POLL (Suan Dusit Rajabhat University, Bangkok)
Its largest pre-election poll so far showed Puea Thai would win 51.5 percent of the vote, up from 43.1 percent in its May 23-28 survey. The Democrats slipped to 34 percent from 37.4 percent previously. Of the 102,994 people polled from June 4 to 18 in all 375 constituencies, just 2.4 percent were undecided.
NIDA POLL (National Institute of Development and Administration)
A June 13 survey nationwide, with a sampling of 1,247, said Puea Thai would take 30.5 percent of the vote, up from 18 percent a week earlier, with the Democrats on 17.4 percent, an improvement on the 9 percent it scored previously.
(Compiled by Martin Petty and Vithoon Amorn; Editing by Alan Raybould)
Factbox: Election promises of Thailand's two main parties - Yahoo! News
The two main parties contesting Thailand's July 3 parliamentary election have proposed strikingly similar policies that focus heavily on winning over the rural poor, building up infrastructure and other populist measures.
Below are the election promises of the Democrats, who lead the outgoing government coalition, and the main opposition party, Puea Thai:
DEMOCRAT PARTY
Its "Moving Thailand Forward" pledges include:
- Raise daily minimum wage by 25 percent in two years from current levels of 159-221 baht ($5-7), depending on the region, and improve labor skills
- Give land title deeds to 250,000 farmers on state land
- Free universal quality medical treatment and childcare centers in every area
- Twelve electric train lines and high-speed rail links to the north, south and the eastern seaboard
- Extend subsidies on diesel and cooking gas prices, and provide some free electricity for low-income households
- Raise farm incomes by 25 percent through subsidies for fertilizer, with financial guarantees for farm production
- Two-year interest-free mortgages for first-home buyers
- Free education up to 18 years, soft education loans for 250,000 university students, $12 billion approved for a six-year education reform plan.
- Ease financial burden of 1 million small borrowers by extending state refinancing of personal debts owed to non-conventional creditors outside the banking system.
- Expand social safety net to include 25 million farmers and workers, covering illness, disability or death
- Give pension to those over 60 years of age; grant monthly living allowance for elderly people
- Double production of alternative energy, especially solar, turbine and bio-gas
- Expand national 3G broadband networks to link all districts in Thailand
- Anti-drug campaign.
- The Democrats and Puea Thai agree on indefinitely suspending plans for nuclear power in Thailand. Thailand's first nuclear plant had been scheduled for 2020 but plans were frozen after Japan's nuclear disaster.
PUEA THAI PARTY
Policy pledges include:
- Guarantee a uniform daily minimum wage of 300 baht ($10) throughout the country; this would rise to 1,000 baht by 2020.
- Raise salaries of civil servants and state workers
- Universal medical care; patients pay 30 baht ($0.97) per visit
- Credit cards for farmers to buy fertilizer and other things needed for production; rice intervention scheme with a guaranteed 15,000-20,000 baht per tonne for unmilled rice
- Three-year household debt moratorium for those with up to 500,000 baht in debt, focusing on teachers, farmers and civil servants; debt restructuring for those with more than 500,000 baht.
- Starting monthly salary of 15,000 baht ($500) for new university graduates, up from the current 10,640 baht.
- Free tablet computers for about 800,000 new school children each year. Puea Thai says these would cost 5,000 baht ($160) each and operate with open-source software.
- Corporate tax cut from 30 percent to 23 percent in first year, 20 percent in second year
- Tax cuts for buyers of first homes and first cars
- A flat 20 baht fare for all 10 mass transit rail lines in Bangkok
- Promote Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport as regional hub
- High-speed rail lines linking key cities in the north, northeast, east and upper south regions. Trains to link with outskirts of Bangkok and eastern tourism, industrial hubs
- Annual rural village development funds of between 300,000 and two million baht for each of Thailand's 73,000 villages.
- Monthly welfare allowance of 600 baht for elderly citizens of over 60, rising to 700 baht at 70, 800 baht at 80, and 1,000 baht at 90
- Free Wi-Fi and Internet connections in public places.
- Build 30-km (18-mile) anti-flooding levees to protect Bangkok and satellite towns from tide surges around the Gulf of Thailand
- Special administrative status for southern Muslim provinces
- Campaign to wipe out illicit drugs ($1 = 30.805 Thai Baht)
(Compiled by Martin Petty, Vithoon Amorn and Orathai Sriring; Editing by Alan Raybould)
A billboard supporting atheism has been taken down from property owned by an Ohio church after the pastor complained.
The ad put up in Columbus by the Freedom From Religion Foundation featured the beaming face of a local nonbeliever and the man's message: "I can be good without God."
The sign had upset Rev. Waymon Malone of Christ Cathedral Church. The church owns the land where the billboard went up. Malone was unavailable for comment, but his mother-in-law told The Columbus Dispatch on Tuesday that the pastor ordered the ad be removed.
Account executive Jay Schmidt with Matrix Media Services calls the billboard's placement "an unfortunate oversight." The ad agency says the sign came down days after it was installed last week and is back up at another site.
A Muslim weightlifter in Atlanta, Ga., will now be allowed to compete nationally after the sport's international ruling body said she may wear a hijab and body-covering unitard.
Kulsoom Abdullah began lifting last year at her gym in Atlanta, and discovered she was surprisingly good at the sport. She qualified for the American Open Weightlifting Championships last December, but the event's sponsoring body, USA Weightlifting, told her that she would not be able to compete in her modified uniform that covers everything but her hands, feet, and face.
Officials with the group said they had to follow the guidelines of the International Weightlifting Federation, which mandated that elbows and knees be uncovered so judges could tell that athletes had fully locked them out when they lifted. After the U.S. Olympic Committee and Abdullah petitioned the group, the IWF decided this week at a meeting in Malaysia that a tight-fitting unitard would be acceptable, since judges would still be able to see whether the knees and elbows were locked.
The new rule means Abdullah may now attend a national competition in July. She can lift 70 kilos (about 154 pounds) to her shoulders, and 60 kilos (or about 132 pounds) over her head, in a move called the "clean-and-jerk."
"The newly approved competition costume modification promotes and enables a more inclusive sport environment and breaks down barriers to participation," the IWF said in a press release. The group added that a hijab has always been allowed, as long as the athlete doesn't touch it with the barbell.
Abdullah has a PhD in electrical computer engineering from Georgia Tech, and still does research at the university. She told The Lookout that what she likes about lifting is "there's a lot of technique involved. Someone could be very strong and not be able to lift as much."
Excelling at lifting "gave me confidence," she said, adding that she hopes more women will take part in the sport if they hear about her story.
Abdullah's problem is not unique in the world of sports. The Iranian woman's soccer team showed up to a Olympic qualifying match against Jordan wearing hijabs earlier this month, and officials with the global soccer governing body, FIFA, promptly disqualified them. FIFA banned headscarves in 2007, citing choking hazards.
The swastika, unmistakable symbol of Nazi power, has been banned in Germany for some time. However, neo-Nazis are finding ways around that law, initiating alternate graphics and codes to promote their Hitler-inspired beliefs.
A new brochure titled "Hide and Seek," featured in German news magazine Der Spiegel, explains the troubling trend. Of course, the symbols appear innocuous so most people don't recognize them as anything hate-driven. The neo-Nazi signs can be seen on banners at sporting events, as tattoos, etc. Michael Weiss, author of the brochure, told Der Spiegel that its purpose is to raise public awareness of the current generation of neo-Nazi codes, especially among teachers and social workers and others with access to German youths.
Consider, for example, a symbol as seemingly far from the swastika as the number 14. This is code for "14 words," a phrase first coined by American white separatist David Lane. His 14-word statement, "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children" is a mantra for many neo-Nazis.
"BH" is another secret hate code. This stands for Blood and Honour, an extreme right-wing group banned in Germany more than a decade ago. The number 88 is gaining popularity, too, a reference to the outlawed phrase "Heil Hitler." With "H" being the eighth letter of the alphabet, to Nazis, "88" means "Heil Hitler."
According to Weiss, around 150 neo-Nazi codes are in use in Germany. In addition to emerging symbols, some neo-Nazi groups have repurposed old ones. Der Spiegel points out the example of the kaffiyeh scarf, a longtime symbol of Palestinian nationalism, which neo-Nazis have adopted not as a symbol of support for Palestine but of the fight against Israel.
This act of Nazis stealing symbols is nothing new. The swastika itself was once associated with peaceful themes in other cultures before Hitler and the Nazi Party made it synonymous with racism and mass murder.
- Deborah Sprzeuzkouski and her husband both work well-paid, full-time jobs in New York City with days that stretch until 6 pm. But they’ve just signed up for a second shift: Deborah just gave birth to their first child, a baby girl. Her position at a nonprofit grants her three months of unpaid maternity leave; his job as a digital compositor offers him three weeks. Once they’ve used up all of their parental leave, they’ll face a dilemma more than 70 percent of American parents struggle with: the difficulty of finding affordable childcare. “We’re just going to have to watch our budget and live the same way we’ll live during my maternity leave, with is on one salary,” says Deborah. “Because the way I’m looking at it, my salary goes to daycare.”
Ideally, Deborah would work part-time with help from a mix of family and babysitters. But neither her nor her husband’s family is local: hers is in France (“My mom is pretty shocked at how bleak the [childcare] options are [in the United States],” she says) and her husband’s is in Washington, DC. She worries that leaving her job or reducing her schedule will hurt her career. Her neighborhood doesn’t have many daycare options, and the available ones cost as much as paying a domestic worker. So although she and her husband aren’t sure how they will afford it—or even whether their daughter needs one-on-one care—they are considering hiring a nanny.
Choosing between different kinds of care is tough for many families, not just Deborah’s. Only 16 percent of the population lives in multigenerational households in which grandparents might be around to help with childcare (nationwide, 48 percent of children are cared for by a relative). On top of that, more and more grandparents are working later into life. Nearly a third of children are in childcare centers or preschools, but while some help children learn and grow, one study found that most centers have poor to mediocre care. Twelve percent provided care that could harm children’s health, safety and development.
So many families turn to in-home care. A full-time nanny can cost over $30,000 a year—and yet about one in five children are in the care of nannies, babysitters or in-home daycare providers. Many wealthy families employ nannies, but there are plenty of others who find it is the only choice or the better of bad options.
The care these workers offer is crucial to parents, and not just because children are in an important developmental stage. Childcare allows working moms to get to their jobs. The number of stay-at-home mothers has dropped four years in a row and is now at 5 million, or about one in four women in a married-couple household. (Nearly half of such households consisted of a stay-at-home mom in 1969.) So it’s no wonder that each day an estimated 12 million children under five spend time being cared for by someone other than a parent—nearly two-thirds of all kids that age. “We are still using an archaic model that there’s a woman at home providing unpaid labor,” says Dr. Mary Gatta, senior scholar at Wider Opportunities for Women. “That’s not the reality now and for many groups throughout history it hasn’t been their reality.”
For the nannies themselves, however, the job is tough and leaves them vulnerable. For too long domestic workers have provided critical childcare services while missing out on fair wages, decent hours and benefits. Because the government has failed to provide and subsidize quality childcare, families, including many in the middle class (68 percent of respondents to a 2010 national survey of in-home childcare providers were employed by two working parents) struggle to find the money for in-home care. And that results in inadequate pay and benefits for caregivers. “The problem we have in the US is that we don’t have a system of supporting working parents and their childcare needs,” says Dr. Robert Drago, research director at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. “So parents often end up spending a quarter of their income on childcare, and many parents worry about the quality of the childcare they’re getting.” In a recent survey, the largest group of nannies, about 11 percent, reported earning $600 per week, which amounts to $31,200 a year. While hourly wages fluctuate by location, in many major cities it isn't enough to live on. But even these low wages will come as a heavy cost for a middle-class family.
Domestic workers have a long history of exclusion from labor protections. In 1974, an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act extended coverage to domestic workers, but an overly broad reading of its exemptions has left many domestic workers unprotected. As a result, most have missed out on minimum wages, overtime pay, benefits and protection from discrimination. Families who employ nannies may mean well, but the vast majority don’t pay into Social Security, provide any paid sick leave or vacation time, or offer overtime pay for extra hours worked. Without regulations, nannies are at their employers’ whim, without anywhere to turn in the event of harassment or discrimination. “My employers never suggested we have a written contract,” says Jennileen Joseph, a nanny and founder of a nonprofit for domestic workers called Massachusetts Association of Professional Nannies. “Because there’s no industry standard, there’s no guideline for a conversation.” Joseph loves working with children, but she hates that her industry is “like the wild, wild west.”
That may begin to change. After years of activism, New York just passed the first law requiring time-and-a-half for overtime, at least three vacation days a year and an eight-hour workday and forty-hour workweek for domestic workers. It also grants temporary disability benefits and provides redress for harassment and discrimination. Four other states—California, Illinois, Massachusetts and Colorado—are considering similar bills.
New York’s is a momentous victory for domestic workers, but it also has some parents concerned. “I think [increased rights are] necessary and totally fair,” says Deborah, “but I probably would never be able to afford a full-time nanny at the rate” those protections would require. While the New York bill doesn’t establish a per-hour minimum wage above the state’s minimum, families will be paying far more to keep nannies past the forty-hour workweek if they need extra care. A paid vacation day still costs about $100 or more, while parents have to find a back-up childcare worker. There will be no government subsidies for these extra costs, even though they are crucial to valuing the work nannies do.
If and when more bills enforcing better rights for nannies pass, “the burden would fall on parents almost exclusively,” says Drago. “And they can’t afford it.”
Daycare would be a suitable option if more quality care were available and working parents were offered real help to cover the cost—but daycare workers need to be paid better too. Low pay and benefits have lead to a turnover rate of up to 39 percent in the daycare industry, part of why the care can be poor. But absent that, the government should be at least partially on the hook for the high costs of paying domestic workers, particularly as those costs increase to make the work up to par with living standards. Parents shouldn’t be frantic to find and pay for quality care of young children when so many families rely on two incomes and women are finally catching up in workforce participation. It’s one of the best investments the government can make.
Unfortunately, little effort has been made to legislate better work/family policies. Even though the White House created a Forum on Workplace Flexibility in 2010, President Obama has tabled a bill giving working parents paid sick leave and money in last year’s budget for such programs hasn’t been spent—and these are much easier measures to tackle than national, subsidized childcare. Michelle Obama was rumored to be interested in taking on these matters, but in the end she went with the less controversial issue of childhood obesity.
The case for increasing the rights of domestic workers is clear. These people perform vital jobs that come with few, if any, protections and far too little in pay and benefits. But the rising awareness of this issue offers a perfect occasion to also think about how we got here: while some wealthy families can afford to pay well, many others are caught in a noman’s-land of inadequate options. “As long as we say it’s a private problem and not a social problem,” says Gatta, “it really falls upon the parents and the work that’s being done is never really valued.” Government has to get involved by providing parents with an option that pays workers well and takes the burden off family budgets.
