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Multi-faith schools planned to fight extremism By Graeme Paton, Education Correspondent, and Richard Holt Last Updated: 8:06am GMT 07/02/2007 A new generation of controversial multi-faith academies will be built to combat extremism in England’s most segregated towns and cities, a leading Downing Street advisor said yesterday. The new-style schools will educate children from Christian, Muslim and Jewish backgrounds, forcibly integrating pupils of different faiths, according to Sir Cyril Taylor, chairman of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust. The announcement comes as Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary, is due to announce a £35 million fund to help town halls lead the...

The House on Tuesday approved a resolution urging the United States to pull out of a cooperative economic, security and public health agreement with Mexico and Canada. Rep. Stephen Sandstrom, R-Orem, said he is sponsoring HJR7 because he sees the Security and Prosperity Partnership as potentially, "wiping away our borders and becoming a common nation with a common currency" similar to the European Union. Before Tuesday's 47-24 vote, Rep. Scott Wyatt, R-Logan, questioned what the so-called SPP really entails. He pointed to the government's Web site, spp.gov, which describes the partnership as a "dialogue" and not a signed agreement. "I...

Immigrants have a duty to integrate into British society, Prime Minister Tony Blair said as he warned that those who propound intolerance and extremism would not be made welcome. In a keynote speech delivered at his Downing Street office, Blair admitted that Britain's much-vaunted multi-cultural model had come in for intense scrutiny since last year's bomb attacks on London's public transport network. The attacks, which killed 52 commuters, were carried out by four Islamic extremist suicide bombers, three of them Britons of Pakistani origin and the fourth a naturalised Britain from the Caribbean. It prompted a wide-ranging debate about how...

Tony Blair formally declared Britain's multicultural experiment over yesterday as he told immigrants they had ''a duty" to integrate with the mainstream of society. In a speech that overturned more than three decades of Labour support for the idea, he set out a series of requirements that were now expected from ethnic minority groups if they wished to call themselves British. These included "equality of respect" - especially better treatment of women by Muslim men - allegiance to the rule of law and a command of English. If outsiders wishing to settle in Britain were not prepared to conform to...

LONDON (Reuters) - People wanting to settle in Britain had a duty to integrate and must conform to its values or stay away, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Friday. Blair said the government would take a series of measures to encourage immigrants and minorities to mix with mainstream British society. Migration had been good for Britain and London's hospitality to many nationalities had made it perhaps the most popular capital city in the world, Blair said. "But we protect this attitude by defending it. Our tolerance is part of what makes Britain Britain. So conform to it; or...

The New York Times reports on an important case the Supreme Court heard yesterday: By the time the Supreme Court finished hearing arguments on Monday on the student-assignment plans that two urban school systems use to maintain racial integration, the only question was how far the court would go in ruling such plans unconstitutional. There seemed little prospect that either the Louisville, Ky., or Seattle plans would survive the hostile scrutiny of the court's new majority. In each system, students are offered a choice of schools but can be denied admission based on their race if enrolling at a particular...

THE HAGUE -- The Dutch government announced plans yesterday for legislation banning full-length veils in public places and other clothing that covers the face -- putting the Netherlands at the forefront of a general European hardening toward Muslim minorities. The Netherlands, once considered one of Europe's most welcoming nations for immigrants and asylum seekers, is deeply divided over moves by the government to stem the tide of new arrivals and compel immigrants to assimilate into Dutch society. "From a security standpoint, people should always be recognizable, and from the standpoint of integration, we think people should be able to communicate...

What Does Sovereignty Mean to You?In 1991 when globalism became a buzzword . . . Mel Hurtig who was the founder of the Council of Canadians, acknowledged the uniqueness of independent countries in contrast to a globalized world when he said: The advantage of the nation-state is that it allows the people the freedom to determine their own future to the best of their ability. People of common values and inclinations [who] build traditions and develop a legal framework for the society they have evolved…for the preservation of their heritage, their culture, their moral standards, their ethics, and their...

Milan, 10 Oct. (AKI) - Milan, Europe's capital of integration in 2007, is at the centre of a nationwide controversy over an Arab school detractors say will boost the segregation of the Arabic-speaking community in Italy's financial capital and supporters claim will champion integration. The elementary and middle high school, which will reportedly follow both the Italian and Egyptian curricula, opened on Monday though it had yet to gain the proper certification from both local and national authorities. So as 130 students, mostly of Egyptian origin, started their lessons at the 'Naguib Mahfouz' school, education minister Giuseppe Fioroni protested on...

Had it not been for the terrorist attacks in the United States, the headlines on September 12, 2001 might have read: "Inter-American Democratic Charter Signed -- New Day for Democracy in the Hemisphere." The people of the Western Hemisphere would have focused on what happened the day before in Lima, Peru instead of New York City, Washington, DC, and rural Pennsylvania. Of course, the headlines were very different. For while foreign ministers from the member countries of the Organization of American States were gathered in Lima, Peru to sign the Inter-American Democratic Charter, 19 terrorists were carrying out their murderous...

How right wing the left sounds after its moment of racial truth Rod Liddle Quick, somebody buy a wreath. Last week marked the passing of multiculturalism as official government doctrine. No longer will opponents of this corrosive and divisive creed be silenced simply by the massed Pavlovian ovine accusation: “Racist!” Better still, the very people who foisted multiculturalism upon the country are the ones who have decided that it has now outlived its usefulness — that is, the political left. It is amazing how a few by-election shocks and some madmen with explosive backpacks can concentrate the mind. At any...

"There is no country on Earth where legal values play a more prominent role in the nation's conception of itself than the United States," Mary Ann Glendon, a distinguished law professor at Harvard, writes in an essay on immigration in the current issue of the journal First Things. "That was one of the first things Tocqueville noticed in his travels here in the early 1830s, and, as the country has grown larger and more diverse, its reliance on legal values has become ever more salient." A government of laws, not of men, is what such thinking aspires to, and on...

Hakan Yildirim says he is fully behind Germany in the World Cup. If Turkey were in the competition, however, it would be a different story. In the Nordmarkt area of Dortmund, a quarter with many Turkish families, Mr Yildirim, 20, helps run his father's restaurant, the Saray grill. There are many German flags hanging from balconies and lampposts, and protruding from car windows. "We support Germany, of course. We live here, we eat their bread!" says Mr Yildirim. "Our families are here and our future is here." In other Turkish areas it is no different. There were reports of celebratory...

A DRACONIAN new law is expected to force immigrants to the Netherlands to sit a tough exam on Dutch history, geography and culture or face heavy fines. The rules, drafted by the country’s hardline immigration minister, “Iron Rita” Verdonk, and likely to be approved this autumn, will set a challenge for up to half a million mainly Muslim immigrants, including some who have lived in Holland for 30 years. The legislation, which is due to come into force on January 1 next year, requires immigrants to attend 600 hours of coursework before being tested. Failure to attend the course or...

Back in 2004, I published The Real Matrix, in seven parts (read them here). I had little idea how the process outlined there would accelerate in 2005 and 2006. Indeed, even those still "plugged in" ought to be wondering why the U.S. Senate just gave thumbs-up (62 yeas vs. 26 nays) to an immigration bill that most of the public does not want, and that would clearly be destructive of this country's long-term best interests – educationally, culturally, and economically. Those of us out here in the Desert of the Real are aware that the Senate just took us one...

What's happening to our country? I'm all for Bush, but what in the world is he doing? (Wolf in sheep's clothing) changing my mind. "...the White House's effort to implement a trilateral agreement with Mexico and Canada that could lead to a North American union, despite having no authorization from Congress." "WND reported this week Bush administration working groups have not disclosed the results of their work despite two years of massive effort within the executive branches of the U.S., Mexico and Canada." "The groups, working under the North American Free Trade Agreement office in the Department of Commerce, are...

Presidents George W. Bush and Michelle Bachelet underscored the increasingly strong and close ties that Chile and the United States enjoy, based on common values and objectives, including the promotion of democracy, development, economic growth, hemispheric integration, trade liberalization, international security, and combating terrorism. They recognized the link among development, peace, security, human rights, and social justice. They reaffirmed their commitment to further strengthen the bilateral relationship based on these principles and to deepen the two nations' ongoing strategic dialogue on democracy and regional development, and other key shared priorities. They agreed that Chile and the United States, like all...

Brutality In Mexico The Horror. The Horror. April 19, 2006 Bobbling about on the web, like flotsam in some drear tidal pool, is a piece purporting to show that Mexico mistreats immigrants in all manner of ways offensive to the North American soul. Most curious. I am one of those immigrants, and still waiting to be mistreated. The specific charges: “In brief, the Mexican Constitution states that: Immigrants and foreign visitors are banned from public political discourse. Immigrants and foreigners are denied certain basic property rights. Immigrants are denied equal employment rights. Immigrants and naturalized citizens will never be treated...

Sam Dillon, The New York Times Ernie Chambers is Nebraska's only African-American state senator, a man who has fought for causes ranging from the abolition of capital punishment to the end of apartheid in South Africa. A magazine writer once described him as the "angriest black man in Nebraska." He was also a driving force behind a law passed by the Nebraska Legislature on Thursday and signed by the governor that calls for dividing the Omaha public schools into three racially identifiable districts, one largely black, one white and one mostly Hispanic. The law, which opponents are calling state-sponsored segregation,...

While intense debate about illegal immigration continued in Congress, President Bush arrived in the Mexican resort town of Cancun for a trilateral summit with Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Border security and trade issues—particularly a long dispute over U.S. tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber (Reuters)—are hot topics for the meeting. But immigration will be at the forefront, and Fox, who hopes to revive his party's flagging popularity ahead of elections, will pressure Bush to push for a guest worker program (NYT). For Mexico, the lack of a pathway to legalization for Mexican migrant workers represents...