Earlier today Mary Beard, the Cambridge historian well-known for championing the role of women in academia as well as for her TV series, posted tweet defending aid workers accused of sexual abuse in disaster zones such as Haiti. She said, … Continue reading
Somebody has already been imprisoned for offences relating to the Grenfell Tower fire in west London, and it’s not someone who signed off on the dodgy cladding; no, it’s a local who had been helping fire-fighters and who then saw … Continue reading
So, after the intial flurry of sympathy and devastation for the people affected by the Grenfell Tower fire last Wednesday, by Friday evening the Tory press had started to show their true colours: as early as Thursday morning the Daily … Continue reading
Grenfell Tower: Tory minister declined to include sprinklers in fire safety rules as it could discourage house building | The Independent This pretty much sums up why I’ll be supporting Labour in any repeat general election, whatever my reservations about … Continue reading
This shouldn’t need to be said, but … In the wake of the fire in the Grenfell Tower, a 24-storey public housing block in west London, in which at least six people have died (the number is expected to rise … Continue reading
Last Saturday night there was a terrorist attack in London, and as often happens in these situations, Facebook activated its “safety check” or “I’m safe” feature, by which people identified as living in London or who have recently checked in … Continue reading
The other day I came across a story which a lot of people were sharing on my social media feeds since the appalling terrorist attack in Manchester on Monday night. The story, published on the pro-Corbyn ‘news’/’analysis’ site The Canary, … Continue reading
I heard the most extraordinary and ridiculous interview on Radio 4’s Today programme this morning. John Humphrys was interviewing John Turner from the British Air Display Association about the accident outside Shoreham, West Sussex on Saturday in which a 1950s … Continue reading
Last week a GermanWings airliner was crashed into a moutainside in south-western France, killing everyone on board. The evidence seems to suggest that the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, crashed it deliberately, and investigations have turned up evidence of fairly minor mental … Continue reading
I got this message today through the TROID Yahoo group. It’s about the needs of Muslims in those islands in the Carribean which were hit by several hurricanes recently. The following are the needs of the 100 Muslims in Dominica: … Continue reading
There were two articles that caught my eye today in the Guardian about the Blacksburg massacre, one by Simon Jenkins and the other, in the G2 supplement, by Lionel Shriver, the author of a novel about a school shooting. Jenkins’s … Continue reading
The BBC are interviewing Raheel Ashraf, an eyewitness to this morning’s explosions at the Hemel Hempstead oil plant, who stated quite clearly that he smelled fumes before the place went up. In other words, there was a leak. Got that, … Continue reading
Today is Blog Quake Day and we’re all being asked to post an appeal for donations to the relief fund with a link to a suitable charity, so one I recommend, which is an Ahlus-Sunnah charity which is concerned with … Continue reading
I’ve added a link to the new South Asia Quake Help blog, which was set up by the same people who ran the “SEA EAT” (South East Asian Earthquake and Tsunami) blog and wiki after the Boxing Day tsunami last … Continue reading
Joni Mitchell famously sung that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone, and this is surely the case with quite a few places along the US Gulf Coast which are suddenly world famous now that they’ve been torn … Continue reading
While in no position of great authority on US race relations, I find it sad, but by no means surprising, to hear people already rushing to make a race issue out of the looting and other disorder in New Orleans. … Continue reading
I’ve just finished a posting to the group blog, The Sharpener, in response to the idiotic speculation from certain Christian groups about the “real cause” of the devastation of New Orleans: Much Vain Speculation Possibly Related Posts: I see Biloxi, … Continue reading
Theological Lessons from the Sumatra Earthquake, by Abdul-Hakim Murad, at Mere Islam: Part of the brilliance of the Qur’an is that it makes no compromises over God’s transcendence, as it battles against pagan and Christian attempts to ‘localise’ God; while … Continue reading
It’s been reported that a Christian missionary organisation based in Virginia have relocated 300 Acehnese orphans to a Christian home in Jakarta: The appeal said WorldHelp was working with native-born Christians in Indonesia who want to “plant Christian principles as … Continue reading
There is a website of amazing pictures of mosques in Aceh which survived the recent tsunami disaster in Aceh. Aceh was the nearest land (except for the small islands off the west Sumatra coast) to the site of the earthquake, … Continue reading