Church criticisms on 'poverty stigma'
Church Action on Poverty has launched a shocking new report which exposes the huge harm done by politicians and the media to poor and vulnerable people. 'The blame game must stop' offers a Christian response to the growing stigmatisation of people who are in poverty. The report features powerful stories, gathered from people on benefits…
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Women ordered virginity tests
Iraqi women face court-ordered virginity tests that often show they were virgins until marriage but shame them nonetheless, doctors at an institute that carries out the tests and a lawyer said. Remaining a virgin until marriage can be an issue of life or death for women in the Middle East, where those who are seen as having dishonoured the family by hav…
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Iraq violence grinds on
Iraqi authorities say bombs have killed four people in two cities as violence continues to surge six months after the last American troops withdrew. A provincial official says three coordinated bombs exploded within minutes Sunday morning in the central city of Tikrit, 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of Baghdad. One civilian walking by died and two …
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Iraq backs off media outlets closure
Iraq has suspended orders to close 44 media operations in the country, including the BBC and Voice of America, after an outcry by press freedom advocates, an official said Tuesday. The Communications and Media Commission that regulates the news media in Iraq will give the targeted organizations more time to pay outstanding fees and renew lapsed lice…
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Iraq tightens noose on media
Iraq's Communications and Media Commission has decided to place restrictions on 39 media outlets including the BBC and Voice of America over alleged licence problems, a CMC official said on Monday. But the Journalism Freedoms Observatory (JFO), an Iraqi media rights organisation, said that the CMC had in fact recommended banning 44 news outlets,…
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Iraq’s Journalists Under Attack
An Iraqi group monitoring violations against journalists warned of a new government decree that could force the shutting of 44 media agencies, including the BBC and Voice of America outlets. The Journalistic Freedoms Observatory obtained a document purportedly sent by the Communications and Media Commission to the Interior Ministry. The documen…
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Media freedom deteriorating
Violence against journalists and restrictions on media have worsened in the past year in Iraq, a local rights group said, in a country already thought to have among the least press freedoms in the world. The Journalism Freedoms Observatory (JFO), ahead of Thursday’s World Press Freedom Day, voiced concern over arbitrary arrests, curbs on movement an…
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Refugees in a Desperate Limbo
Iraqi refugee women in Jordan offer an example of hope and resilience. But their desperate limbo is heartbreaking for Samia Qumri to witness in her work for the Collateral Repair Project, a charity started in 2004. Nine years after the toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad in April 2004, the refugee population here offers a rebuke to th…
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All going swimmingly for Ahmed
Swimmer Ahmed Kelly has drawn praise from Greg Hartung, President of the Australian Paralympic Committee (APC), after closing in on his ambition of competing at the London 2012 Paralympic Games for his adopted country. The 20-year-old (pictured) was born in Iraq with significant deficiencies in all four limbs and was spent the majority of the firs…
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The Onward Soldiers March
My recent blog post Healing Injuries Through Sports , focused on the role that service men and women were making in the world of disabled sports and how with the use of adaptations are able to participate in activities, that some may have felt no longer able to do. Service members who participate in adaptive sports, especially through training cam…
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Terror could be made British
Hill Al-Jedda, a former Iraqi, allegedly helped an explosives expert travel to Iraq and conspired with him to target coalition forces there. He was also accused of being a terrorist recruiter. He was arrested in Iraq in 2004 and held for three years before being released without charge. But the Government may now be powerless to stop him living in the UK a…
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Airbrushing Hate out of Toulouse
Like Jews across the world, I was shocked, sickened and frightened by the senseless murder of a rabbi and three small children in France last week. With the end of Mohammed Merah’s life came the start of an operation on the psychosis that drove him to murder with such callousness. Analysts and political pundits attempting to establish cause and motive have …
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Widower addresses Alawadi death
The husband of an Iraqi-American woman who was found bludgeoned to death with a threatening note beside her made his first public remarks Tuesday and demanded to know what motivated her killer. Kassim Alhimidi addressing reporters at a mosque east of San Diego after a memorial service for 32-year-old Shaima Alawadi. "The main question we would like to…
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Toulouse school targeted by Hate Mail
The French Jewish school where three children and a teacher were murdered this month has received a wave of anti-Semitic hate mail and calls, the local prosecutor said Wednesday. Michel Valet said he had received a complaint from the school and had ordered a police investigation to discover the "origin of these calls and letters and the identities of t…
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How Mohammed Merah took up Jihad
Mohammed Merah had plenty of stamps in his passport, according to French intelligence officials. He traveled through at least seven Middle Eastern and central Asian countries on his way to Afghanistan in 2010. It was a meandering journey that might have been a metaphor for a young man in search of a purpose and identity. But it's also clear that by the…
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Iraqi Christians’ Slow Decline
Iraq’s dwindling Christians, driven from their homes by attacks and intimidation, are beginning to abandon the havens they had found in the country’s north, discouraged by unemployment and a creeping fear that the violence they had fled was catching up to them. Their quiet exodus to Turkey, Jordan, Europe and the United States is the latest chapter of a se…
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