Blog Archives
Muslims in England and Wales doubled in 10 years
Source: theguardian.com
By: Aisha Gani
The Muslim population of England and Wales is growing faster than the overall population, with a higher proportion of children and a lower ratio of elderly people, according to an analysis of official data.
One in three Muslims is under 15, compared with fewer than one in five overall. There are also fewer elderly Muslims, with 4% aged over 65, compared with 16% of the overall population.
In 2011, 2.71 million Muslims lived in England and Wales, compared with 1.55 million in 2001. There were also 77,000 Muslims in Scotland and 3,800 in Northern Ireland.
The Muslim Council of Britain’s (MCB) study of data from the 2011 census found that Muslims are still a small minority of the overall population – one in 20. This contrasts with popular perceptions held by Britons, who overstate the proportion of Muslims in the country by a factor of four, according to a recent survey by Ipsos Mori.
Half the Muslims in England and Wales were born there and almost three-quarters (73%) identify themselves as British. Two-thirds of Muslims are ethnically Asian and 8% are white.
Turkey’s Prime Minister Caught Arming al-Qaeda, ISIS
Turkey’s prime minister, a NATO ally, is shipping arms to al-Qaeda and ISIS via Syria-bound trucks operated by the country’s intelligence agency, according to Turkish military officials. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu banned media from reporting on three of the trucks searched by the military’s Gendarmerie General Command, which discovered 45 to 55 missiles or rockets, 30 to 40 crates of ammunition, including mortar rounds, and Douchka anti-aircraft ammunition.
Study: humans may cause mass extinction in oceans
Source: informationclearinghouse.info
By: Carl Zimmer
A team of scientists, in a groundbreaking analysis of data from hundreds of sources, has concluded that humans are on the verge of causing unprecedented damage to the oceans and the animals living in them.
“We may be sitting on a precipice of a major extinction event,” said Douglas J. McCauley, an ecologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an author of the new research, which was published on Thursday in the journal Science.
But there is still time to avert catastrophe, Dr. McCauley and his colleagues also found. Compared with the continents, the oceans are mostly intact, still wild enough to bounce back to ecological health.
“We’re lucky in many ways,” said Malin L. Pinsky, a marine biologist at Rutgers University and another author of the new report. “The impacts are accelerating, but they’re not so bad we can’t reverse them.”
Scientific assessments of the oceans’ health are dogged by uncertainty: It’s much harder for researchers to judge the well-being of a species living underwater, over thousands of miles, than to track the health of a species on land. And changes that scientists observe in particular ocean ecosystems may not reflect trends across the planet.
Deadly Sea Star Plague Stumps Scientists (Video)
Seattle Aquarium tries experimental treatment in hope of staving off a deadly sea star plague. KING’s Gary Chittim reports.
THE BREAKING NEWS CONSUMER’S HANDBOOK
Source: onthemedia.org
By: Alex Goldman
This week’s shooting at the DC Navy Yard was the latest in a long string of breaking news reporting to get many of the essential facts wrong.
In fact, the rampant misreporting that follows shootings like this is so predictable that OTM has unintentionally developed a formula for covering them. We look at how all the bad information came out. We suggest ways that the news media could better report breaking news. This time, we’re doing something different.
This is our Breaking News Consumer’s Handbook. Rather than counting on news outlets to get it right, we’re looking at the other end. Below are some tips for how, in the wake of a big, tragic story, you can sort good information from bad. We’ve even made a handy, printable PDF that you can tape to your wall the next time you encounter a big news event.
Pakistan angered at ‘hellhole’ depiction in ‘Homeland’ – report
Source: rt.com
The Emmy-winning ‘Homeland’ series portrays Pakistan as an ugly, ignorant, terror-plagued “hellhole,” the country’s officials have complained to the New York Post, stressing “nothing is further from the truth.”
The Pakistani authorities reportedly complained directly to the show’s producers at Showtime, noting every detail they found irrelevant to the modern Pakistan, including the lack of green landscapes in the depiction of the capital, Islamabad.
“Maligning a country that has been a close partner and ally of the US <…> is a disservice not only to the security interests of the US, but also to the people of the US,” Pakistan Embassy spokesman Nadeem Hotiana told the New York Post.
Season four of ‘Homeland’ tells a story of a CIA station chief on a mission in Pakistan. The show explores the twists and turns of intelligence operations on the ground, as well as the troubled relations between the CIA and Pakistan’s security services.
The biggest concern of the country’s authorities is that Pakistan is depicted as undemocratic and linked with militants.
“Repeated insinuations that an intelligence agency of Pakistan is complicit in protecting the terrorists at the expense of innocent Pakistani civilians is not only absurd, but also an insult to the ultimate sacrifices of the thousands of Pakistani security personnel in the war against terrorism,” one source said.
Israelis buy properties in ISIL-held Iraqi cities
Source: presstv.com
A report says Israeli businessmen are buying properties belonging to the displaced minorities in the ISIL-held regions in northern Iraq to prepare the ground for accommodation of more than 2,000 people there.
Citing a local source, Fars News Agency reported that estate agencies in Mosul and other cities of the Nineveh province in northern Iraq have began purchasing the houses and lands of Iraqi minorities including Christians and Izadis and Turkmens.
The estate agents offer “attractive prices” in exchange for the properties and later sell them to Israeli businessmen, the unnamed source said.
The source added that more than 2,000 Jews have recently returned to Iraq’s Kurdistan region to resettle in Iraq’s northern areas.
Thousands of Iraqi Christians and other communities have been forced out of their homes in Mosul since June following an ultimatum by ISIL terrorists. Most Christians in the northwestern Nineveh province escaped after the Takfiris overran the region.
The ISIL terrorists control some parts of Syria and Iraq. They are engaged in crimes against humanity in the areas under their control.
Turkey is No. 1 in global humanitarian aid
Source: worldbulletin.net
Turkey managed $4.3 billion in humanitarian aid sent through its official channels and non-profit organizations around the world, and that amount, with respect to Turkey’s Gross National Product, ranks it as first in the world. Countries are ranked in the report by the amount of aid provided with respect to the country’s GNP.
The report explains that the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency played an important role in conducting Turkey’s “soft power” foreign policy.
Why The CIA Won’t Be Prosecuted For Torture (Video)
Why won’t the CIA agents who practiced torture under the agency’s “enhanced interrogation program” be prosecuted for their crimes? Under U.S. and international law, torture is illegal, but Obama isn’t planning on holding anyone accountable. We tell you why.
PASS THE KNOWLEDGE (LIGHT & LIFE) 