Egypt at a Turning Point

Is this the point where Egypt's revolution turns into a disaster? Have the Egyptians just replaced one dictator with another? This time it could be worse with a religious dictatorship similar to Iran taking hold. Men in power always say these measures are temporary to protect the people but what happens is always the opposite. The people are oppressed, minorities persecuted and everyone lives in fear. Egypt is an important, pivotal country in the Arab world and for it to be consumed in a one man religious dictatorship is a disaster not just for Egyptians but also their neighbours. Pray to whatever god you have that this man will and can be stopped, otherwise the future dos not look good.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20488986

The office of Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi has said that the decree giving him sweeping new powers is temporary and not intended to concentrate power in his hands.

Mr Mursi was committed to finding "common ground" with other parties. He will meet senior judges on Monday.

The decree was intended to prevent democratically elected bodies from being undermined, the statement said.

Thursday's decree led to angry protests and a big stock market fall.

Clashes continued on Sunday, with police firing tear gas in the Tahrir Square area, and large demonstrations are planned by supporters and opponents of Mr Mursi on Tuesday.

On Saturday the Judges Club, which represents judges throughout the country, called for a nationwide strike in protest at the decree.

But top judicial body the Supreme Judicial Council appeared not to reject the decree outright, saying it should only apply to "sovereign matters", and urged judges to return to work.

Justice Minister Ahmed Mekky has begun efforts to mediate between the president and the judges.

The minister said he himself had some reservations about the president's decree, Reuters reported.

'Committed to engage'

The BBC's Jon Leyne in Cairo says Mr Mursi has begun efforts to reach a compromise after the strong opposition to his decree.

A statement by the presidency attempted to calm opposition concerns that he was becoming increasingly dictatorial in his leadership.

"The presidency reiterates the temporary nature of those measures, which are not intended to concentrate power, but to avoid ... attempts to undermine democratically elected bodies and preserve the impartiality of the judiciary," the statement said.

Mr Mursi said he was committed to engaging all political forces to reach common ground on the constitution.

Later local media reported that he would meet the Supreme Judicial Council on Monday to discuss the decree.

But several prominent opposition leaders, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed elBaradei, have said they will not engage in dialogue with the president until he rescinds the measure, known as the constitutional declaration.

According to President Mursi's decree, announced on Thursday, no authority can revoke presidential decisions.

There is also a bar on judges dissolving the assembly, which is drawing up a new constitution.

Mr Mursi sacked chief prosecutor Abdel Maguid Mahmoud, who was first appointed by ex-President Hosni Mubarak.

Mr Mahmoud's replacement, Talaat Ibrahim, has been given the job of re-examining all investigations into the deaths of protesters when Mr Mubarak was in power.

Indian Meat Eaters Commit Sex Crimes

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I read this one. Deceiving impressionable children in lies such as this is disgusting. It's obviously to further someone's agenda and the expense of Indian kids getting a real education. Education should be about facts, enquiry, testing theories and allowing young minds to chew though the facts and decide for themselves. Not for brainwashing, pushing supernatural or dubious theories.  Messing with a child's education affects them for life and is one of humanities greatest crimes.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-20354669

India textbook says meat-eaters lie and commit sex crimes

Meat-eaters "easily cheat, lie, forget promises and commit sex crimes", according to a controversial school textbook available in India.Continue reading the main story

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New Healthway, a book on hygiene and health aimed at 11 and 12 year-olds, is printed by one of India's leading publishers.

Academics have urged the government to exercise greater control.

But the authorities say schools should monitor content as they are responsible for the choice of textbooks.

"This is poisonous for children," Janaki Rajan of the Faculty of Education at Jamia Millia University in Delhi told the BBC.

"The government has the power to take action, but they are washing their hands of it," she said.

It is not known which Indian schools have bought the book for their students, but correspondents say what is worrying is that such a book is available to students.

"The strongest argument that meat is not essential food is the fact that the Creator of this Universe did not include meat in the original diet for Adam and Eve. He gave them fruits, nuts and vegetables," reads a chapter entitled Do We Need Flesh Food?

The chapter details the "benefits" of a vegetarian diet and goes on to list "some of the characteristics" found among non-vegetarians.

"They easily cheat, tell lies, forget promises, they are dishonest and tell bad words, steal, fight and turn to violence and commit sex crimes," it says.

The chapter, full of factual inaccuracies, refers to Eskimos (Inuit) as "lazy, sluggish and short-lived", because they live on "a diet largely of meat".

It adds: "The Arabs who helped in constructing the Suez Canal lived on wheat and dates and were superior to the beef-fed Englishmen engaged in the same work."

The publishers, S Chand, did not respond to the BBC's requests for a comment.

Human Rights Outrage in Saudi

An undercover reporter from the blog livingfreeinqatar discovered a disturbing sight this week when uncovering illegal Indian racing just outside Jeddah. Over three days he watched as thousands of Saudis and other gulf nationals, plus one Filipino and two Lebanese men with pointing shoes watched and gambled as 8 Indians per race chased a 20 Riyal note.

In what seemed to be a copy of greyhound racing popular in other counties of the world, 8 Indians chased round an oval dirt circuit to be the first to capture the 20 Riyal note, which tantalisingly always stayed just out of reach. Human Rights group, Self Congratulating White People of the 1st World Easing Their Consciouses United, while have a ridiculously long name made some salient points. 'This takes Saudi to a new all time low. If economic slavery was not enough they exploit these poor brown people for their own amusement. Not since my grandfather using a Sikh as a table in the last days of the Raj have I been so miffed'

However Mohamed Al Camellover was defining, 'no one forces them to come and they know the salary when we approach them in the slums of Mumbai swimming in their own filth. If they weren't happy they would still be eating their own shit, instead of being clapped and applauded. In fact we treat them better than our camels and I should know I'm a camel lover'

Ahemd Al Easyjob used an economic argument, 'while I was studying for me degree in the UK I feel in love with greyhound racing, the sights, the smells, the gambling....... Ah, back on subject. I was going to import greyhounds to Saudi but they are really expensive and they kept dying in the heat. We found the Indians much more hardy and they could race on just one byriani a day. I have my personal favourite, Ashraf the fast. Clever eh? We named it that because he is faster than the others. See what my 9 year degree in the UK gave me' When your brave reporter pointed out that degrees take a maximum of 4 years, Ahmed shouted I was anti nationalisation and told the police I said something bad about Mohamed.

As the US and Europe condemned the practise, Iran and China said they should not interfere in the internal affairs of a sovereign country.

Obama, Really?

So it's four more years of Obama but what did he really achieve in the last four years? I would say not much. Forget the economy as he inherited the mess and not much he could do about that but what else has he done. Obamacare, what a disaster that is. The USA spends more as a percentage of GDP on healthcare than any other country in the world, yet healthcare is not free for all in fact it is still really expensive. I don't really believe that governments should get involved in individual citizens business but free education and free healthcare for all is a must to give each person the same chances in life. (What they do with that life is their business but at least they get the opportuntity)

The best thing I can say about Obama is he is not Mitt Romney. Are these really the two best candidates American can come up with? Apparently so but then again does it really matter. The machine behind the President does not change so how much influence can he really have.

New posts coming shortly

Again sorry a bit busy. Been wrestling a rabbit in a Russian bar and it has had me distracted. However, more posts coming very soon and if yourself would like to add something for posting, please email me and I always give credit for others work. Well accept for Hitler, Ariel Sharon and Brad Pitt......

A futile battle

Enforcing laws to protect a language and even denying students the right to choose a university education is futile and abusive. Yes give school children the opportunity to learn French at school, even have schools that teach in French but it's up to the parents to choose which school to send them to. It should not be dictated to by the State.

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Language in Canada

"O, Canada", now also in Tagalog, Mandarin and Hindi

EVER since the British victory on the Plains of Abraham in 1759, which led to New France becoming a colony of Britain, French-speakers in what is now the province of Quebec have fought to keep their language alive. Tough laws requiring the use of French in the workplace, in schools and on signs, enforced by a vigilant language police (Office québécois de la langue française), have kept French from being obliterated by the tide of English from the rest of Canada and the United States. However, a linguistic breakdown of Canadians published on October 24^th by Statistics Canada, a government agency, indicates there has been some erosion.

While the number of Canadians who said French was their mother tongue rose to just over 7m out of the total 33m, and those claiming they could conduct a conversation in French was up to almost 10m in 2011 compared with the 2006 census, both categories have declined slightly as a proportion of the population, in Canada overall and in Quebec. Those able to have a conversation in both English and French in what is officially a bilingual country now number 5.8m, or 17.5% of the population, a slight rise. But closer look at those figures shows that it was mainly a result of Quebeckers learning English rather than the other way round.

Statistics Canada says international immigration is having the strongest effect on what it politely calls “the evolution of French in Canada". Over the last 20 years, Canada has accepted an average of 235,000 immigrants a year, and more than 80% of them have neither French nor English as their mother tongue. About 5% of the total move to Quebec. They are mainly from countries where French is already spoken, such as Morocco, Algeria and Haiti. The good news for the language guardians in that province is that an increasing number of immigrants to Quebec report speaking French in combination with their mother tongue at home. But most immigrants move to provinces where English is overwhelmingly predominant, and that is the language they learn. While French is just about holding its own in Quebec, it is slipping elsewhere in Canada.

Bilingualism is growing at a healthy rate in Canada, and just not the French-English variety. Immigrants are mixing one of the 200 languages reported as a mother tongue in the census with English in the home. Tagalog was the fastest growing language in Canada between 2006 and 2011. It leapt an astounding 64% in the five-year period, a reflection of the Philippines’ status as the top source country of immigrants to Canada. The four fastest growing languages—Tagalog, Mandarin, Arabic and Hindi—all had growth rates of more than 40%. The immigrant languages losing ground—Greek, Polish and Italian—reflect the shift in immigration to Canada away from the former source countries in Europe to Asia. Canada's 60-odd aboriginal languages are now spoken by just over 200,000 people.

In a country where multiculturalism is seen as a virtue, the language revelations in the census were mostly noted as a positive sign. The exception was Quebec, where the Parti Québécois government, which supports the eventual separation of the province from the rest of Canada, is preparing to toughen its language laws with new legislation expected this week. The bill proposes to eliminate loopholes in the existing law used by parents to send their children to English-language schools, would bar students graduating from a French-language secondary school from attending an English-language college, and would extend a requirement that French be used in the workplace to cover more businesses. “French is losing ground,” said Pauline Marois, the Quebec premier. “We have to correct that situation.” The battle continues.