Catholics and first-born daughters to be allowed on throne in massive reform to constitution

Daily Mail 25 September 2008

The 300-year-old rule excluding Catholics from the throne is set to be abolished under plans drawn up by Downing Street.

The reforms would also put an end to the automatic male succession - so if Prince William's eldest child turned out to be a girl she would be his heir.

The blueprint is the work of MP Chris Bryant, who has been charged by Gordon Brown with reviewing the UK constitution.

It would also limit the power of the Privy Council.

Catholics have been effectively excluded from the succession since the 1688 Bill of Rights, the Act of Settlement in 1701 and Act of Union in 1707.

Archbishops condemn City traders

BBC News 25 September 2008

The two most senior figures in the Church of England have condemned the behaviour of City traders, and questioned their value to society.

Writing in the Spectator, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams criticises those who buy and sell debt solely for their own profit.

It follows a speech to bankers by the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu.

In it, he called share traders who cashed in on falling prices "bank robbers and asset strippers".

Capitalist mythology

In the piece which is due to be published in the magazine on Friday, Dr Williams attacks "unbridled capitalism" and defends the socialist theorist Karl Marx's critiques of the system.

He said it had become - much as Marx suggested - "a kind of mythology" in which people invested their faith, wrongly assuming it would work for the common good.

He urges that "short-selling" and some other financial practices be banned and wrote: "It is no use pretending that the financial world can maintain indefinitely the degree of exemption from scrutiny and regulation that it has got used to."

He accepts the need and desire for entrepreneurship but claims it is not the only way to create wealth. He denounces the notion that it is as a type of "fundamentalism".

On Wednesday Dr John Sentamu told bankers the market system seems to have taken rules "from Alice in Wonderland".

The Archbishop also noted the contrast between the US government bank bail-out and the lack of funding for efforts to reduce poverty.

Lloyds TSB announced last week it had agreed a £12.2bn takeover of HBOS after shares in the latter plummeted.

Since the takeover, many commentators have criticised traders who sold borrowed shares below their current price, betting that prices would fall further before they bought them back.

The Financial Services Authority has temporarily banned the practice, known as short selling.

"To a bystander like me, those who made £190m deliberately underselling the shares of HBOS, in spite of a very strong capital base, and drove it into the arms of Lloyds TSB, are clearly bank robbers and asset strippers," Dr Sentamu told the annual dinner of the Worshipful Company of International Bankers.

"We find ourselves in a market system which seems to have taken its rules of trade from Alice in Wonderland, " he said.

Poverty goals

Dr Sentamu noted the contrast between the bailouts to banks and the lack of funding for efforts to eradicate poverty.

The US Treasury has proposed a fund worth up to $700bn (£382bn) to buy back much of the bad debt held by banks and other financial institutions.

The Archbishop acknowledged the need for stable financial systems if poverty is to be eradicated but quoted commentators who said: "One of the ironies about this financial crisis is that it makes action on poverty look utterly achievable. It would cost $5bn to save six million children's lives.

"World leaders could find 140 times that amount for the banking system in a week. How can they tell us that action for the poorest is too expensive?"

On Thursday, world leaders will meet in the US to mark progress in the Millennium Development Goals, a set of targets to reduce global poverty and improve living standards by 2015.

The goals range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education.

Schoolboy terrorist locked up: The 16-year-old who joined Islamic fanatics targeting the Royal Family

Daily Mail 19 September 2008

Schoolboy plotter: Hammaad Munshi

A schoolboy who became Britain’s youngest convicted terrorist has been locked up for two years.

Hammaad Munshi was 15 when he joined a cell of Islamic fanatics targeting
the Royal Family.

Munshi, the grandson of a British sharia
judge, was recruited by Aabid Hussain
Khan, a leading ‘cyber terrorist’ who radicalised impressionable Muslims, grooming them and encouraging them to attend military camps in Pakistan.

While studying for his GCSEs, Munshi
downloaded detailed information on deadly chemical weapons and sent instructions on how to make napalm to Khan, a former Bradford burger bar worker.

Together with postal worker Sultan
Muhammad, 23, Khan assembled a dossier on the most senior members of the Royal Family.

They had plans of the London Underground and Buckingham Palace, bomb-making guides and personal details of 15 royals.

Last month Khan, 23, was jailed for 12 years and Muhammad was jailed for ten years.

Dangerous: Guide to making your own firearms recovered from Hammaad Munshi when he was arrested on his way home from school

Munshi, now 18, was sentenced to two years in a young offenders’ institution by
Judge Timothy Pontius at the Old Bailey yesterday.

The judge told him: ‘It is regrettable and tragic that you find yourself in court on such a serious charge. You have brought very great shame upon yourself, your family and your religion.

‘However in the light of the evidence I have no doubt that you, amongst others of similar immaturity and vulnerability, fell under the spell of fanatical extremists who took advantage of your youthful naivety.

Sultan Mohammed and Aabid Khan were convicted of terror offences

'Were it not for Aabid Khan’s malign influence, I doubt whether this offence would ever have been committed.

Well-respected family: Yakub, the grandfather of Hammaad Munshi, is the leader of the Dewsbury Sharia court

‘Yet there is no doubt that you knew what you were doing and were well aware of the nature of the record of information that you sent to Aabid Khan who took it to Pakistan.

‘In those circumstances a custodial sentence is inevitable and unavoidable.’

Munshi’s family is  of the Muslim population in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, and his grandfather Yakub Munshi runs the town’s sharia court.

The schoolboy, who was studying for his GCSEs at Westborough High School in  Kirklees, West Yorkshire, was traced through his online conversations with Khan.

In one MSN chat, they argued how best to sneak a metal sword through airport security.

Munshi had painstakingly scoured the internet for details on how to make napalm and grenades.

He claimed he had only done the research out of curiosity but handwritten notes hidden under his bed revealed his burning desire to travel abroad to become a martyr.

Munshi also had a library of videos, documents and audio clips showing acts of jihad, mujaheddin fighters and Al Qaeda preachings.

He was arrested as he walked home from school after an exam..

In mitigation his barrister Harendra de Silva QC told the Old Bailey that shame had been brought on a well-respected family and added: ‘This was a vulnerable youth who was manipulated by others.’

Mohammed Atif Siddique departs at the High Court in Edinburgh after being found guilty of a series of Islamist terrorism offences. He was 'groomed' by Khan

Khan, who acted as an administrator on an extremist website called Activion Publications, downloaded information on the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Charles and Camilla, Prince Edward, the Countess of Wessex, The Duke of York and
the Princess Royal.

Munshi was convicted last month of making a record of information likely to be useful in terrorism. He has spent 128 days in custody.

Khan was found guilty of three offences of possessing articles for a purpose connected with terrorism. Muhammad was convicted of three similar offences.

Hamaad Munshi was just 15 when he was recruited into Osama Bin Laden's army of fanatics by online terror mastermind Aabid Hussain Khan

Islamic sharia courts in Britain are now 'legally binding'

Daily Mail 14th September 2008

Islamic sharia law courts in Britain are exploiting a little-known legal clause to make their verdicts officially binding under UK law in cases including divorce, financial disputes and even domestic violence.

A new network of courts in five major cities is hearing cases where Muslims involved agree to be bound by traditional Sharia law, and under the 1996 Arbitration Act the court's decisions can then be enforced by the county courts or the High Court.

Officials behind the new system claim to have dealt with more than 100 cases since last summer, including six involving domestic violence which is a criminal rather than civil offence, and said they hoped to take over growing numbers of 'smaller' criminal cases in future.

Women are likely to suffer more if Sharia Law, which does treat women equally to men, becomes an accepted legal avenue

The revelations sparked uproar yesterday, with warnings that the fundamental principle of equal treatment for all - the bedrock of British justice - was being gravely undermined.

Critics fear Britain's Islamic hard-liners will now try to make sharia law the dominant legal system in Muslim neighbourhoods, and warn that women often receive less favourable treatment at the hands of the traditional Islamic courts.

The Archbishop of Canterbury sparked controversy when suggesting recognition of Sharia Law seemed 'unavoidable'

The issue erupted into a major controversy earlier this year after the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams claimed publicly that formal recognition of sharia law 'seemed unavoidable', and Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips gave his backing to the use of Islamic courts to deal with family, marital and financial disputes.

Sharia courts have operated unofficially for years among Britain's Muslim communities but until now their rulings could not be enforced, relying instead on parties agreeing voluntarily.

The Muslim Arbitration Tribunal panels, set up by lawyer Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siddiqi, are now operating in London, Bradford, Manchester, Birmingham and Nuneaton, with more planned for Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Mr Siddiqi said: 'We realised that under the Arbitration Act we can make rulings which can be enforced by county and High Courts.

'The Act allows disputes to be resolved using alternatives like tribunals. This method is called alternative dispute resolution, which for Muslims is what the sharia courts are.'

Cases handled by the courts so far include Muslim divorce and inheritance to nuisance neighbours, he said.

But as well as civil disputes they have also handled six cases of domestic violence.

In all six cases, he said, sharia judges ordered husbands to take anger management classes and mentoring from community elders, but issued no further punishment.

All the women subsequently withdrew their complaints to the police, who halted investigations.

Mr Siddiqi claimed the advantage was that marriages were saved and couples given a second chance.

But critics fear Muslim women victims will be pressured into accepting a sharia court settlement, and husbands will escape with lighter punishments than in a mainstream criminal court.

In one recent inheritance dispute in Nuneaton, a Muslim man's estate was spit was between three daughters and two sons with each son receiving twice as much as each daughter - in keeping with sharia law.

In a mainstream court all siblings would have been treated equally.

Douglas Murray, the director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, condemned the latest development as 'appalling.'

'I don’t think arbitration that is done by sharia should ever be endorsed or enforced by the British state.'

Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve said: 'These tribunals have no place in passing binding decisions in divorce or criminal justice hearings.

'Far from handling more criminal cases. They should be handling none at all.

'British law is absolute and must remain so.'

Muslim groups pointed out that Jewish Beth Din courts have handled civil legal cases for more than 100 years in Britain on a similar basis, and now operate under the 1996 Arbitration Act.

Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: 'We support these tribunals. If the Jewish courts are allowed to flourish, so must the sharia ones.'

The Ministry of Justice said: 'Sharia law is not part of the law of England and Wales, and the Government has no intention of making any change that would conflict with British laws and values.

'In all arbitrations, decisions will be enforceable by the English courts if the requirements of the 1996 Arbitration Act are satisfied. If any decisions by these Tribunals were illegal or contrary to public policy under English law, they would not be enforceable.'

A recent survey by the Centre for Social Cohesion found 40 per cent of Britain's Muslim students want the introduction of sharia law in the UK, while 33 per cent want a worldwide Islamic sharia-based government.

UK Lockdown point of view
Sharia law is simply a tool being used to make EU law look reasonable while the EU transforms our society into a police state enslavement grid the Zionist media diverts our attention towards an irrelevant side issue, the agenda here is to continue to push the terror propaganda through a legal front tricking the gullible public into accepting the EU's tyranny with open arms so we can be safe from the so-called terrorists.
The Zionist/EU controlled government are the terrorists and it is they who are taking away all of our freedoms not the Muslims.

Church makes ‘ludicrous’ apology to Charles Darwin - 126 years after his death

Daily Mail 13th September 2008

The Church of England will tomorrow officially apologise to Charles Darwin for misunderstanding his theory of evolution.

In a bizarre step, the Church will address its contrition directly to the Victorian scientist himself, even though he died 126 years ago.

But the move was greeted with derision last night, with Darwin’s great-great-grandson dismissing it as ‘pointless’ and other critics branding it ‘ludicrous’.

A meeting of minds: Charles Darwin and, right, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams

Church officials compared the apology to the late Pope John Paul II’s decision to say sorry for the Vatican’s 1633 trial of Galileo, the astronomer who appalled prelates by declaring that the earth revolved around the sun.

The officials said that senior bishops wanted to atone for the vilification their predecessors heaped on Darwin in the 1860s, when he put forward his theory that man was descended from apes.

The Church is also anxious to counter the view that its teaching is incompatible with science. It wants to distance itself from fundamentalist Christians, who believe in the Biblical account of the creation of the world in seven days.

An article to be posted on the Church’s website will say: ‘Charles Darwin, 200 years from your birth [in 1809], the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still.

‘But the struggle for your reputation is not over yet, and the problem is not just your religious opponents but those who falsely claim you in support of their own interests.’

The article has been written by the Rev Dr Malcolm Brown, the director of mission and public affairs of the Archbishops’ Council, the Church’s managing body, which is headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams.

Revolutionary: Darwin's best-known book, published in 1859

Dr Brown writes: ‘People, and institutions, make mistakes and Christian people and Churches are no exception. When a big new idea emerges that changes the way people look at the world, it’s easy to feel that every old idea, every certainty, is under attack and then to do battle against the new insights.

‘The Church made that mistake with Galileo’s astronomy and has since realised its error. Some Church people did it again in the 1860s with Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

'So it is important to think again about Darwin’s impact on religious thinking, then and now.’

Dr Brown argues that there is nothing incompatible between the scientific theories adopted by Darwin and Christian teaching.

The English naturalist, geologist and collector, best known for his 1859 book On The Origin Of Species, scandalised Victorian society with his theory that all species of life evolved from common ancestors.

One of the most venomous clashes over his ideas took place in 1860 during a debate at Oxford University. The Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, asked the evolutionist and Darwin champion, Thomas Huxley, whether it was through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed to be descended from a monkey.

Huxley replied that he would not be ashamed to have an ape for his ancestor but he would be ashamed to be connected with a man who used his gifts to obscure the truth.

In his article, Dr Brown writes: ‘His [Darwin’s] theory caused offence because it challenged the view that God had created human beings as an entirely different kind of creation to the rest of the animal world.

‘But while it is not difficult to see why evolutionary thinking was offensive at the time, on reflection it is not such an earth-shattering idea.’

The Church’s move will reignite the debate over creationism. In the United States, Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin argues that it should be taught in schools.

In this country, the Rev Professor Michael Reiss, a biologist director of education at the Royal Society, provoked a furore last week when he called for creationism to be treated in school science lessons as a legitimate world view.

Ann Widdecombe: 'We've already apologised for slavery and the Crusades. When is it all going to stop?'

Last night, the Church, which apologised for its role in the slave trade two years ago, came in for fierce criticism for its latest mea culpa.

Former Conservative Minister Ann Widdecombe, who left the Church of England to become a Roman Catholic, said: ‘It’s absolutely ludicrous. Why don’t we have the Italians apologising for Pontius Pilate?

‘We’ve already apologised for slavery and for the Crusades. When is it all going to stop? It’s insane and makes the Church of England look ridiculous.’

Andrew Darwin, a great-great grandson of the eminent scientist, said he was ‘bemused’ by the apology, which seemed ‘pointless’.

‘Why bother?’ he said. ‘When an apology is made after 200 years, it’s not so much to right a wrong, but to make the person or organisation making the apology feel better.’

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Association, said: ‘It does seem rather crazy for an institution to address an apology to an individual so long after his death.

‘As well as being much too late, the message strikes me as insincere, as if there is an unspoken “but” behind the text.

'However, if it means that from now on the Church of England will say “No” to the teaching of creationism in school science lessons, then we would accept the apology on Darwin’s behalf.’

A less critical tone was struck by Horace Barlow, 87, from Cambridge, who is Darwin’s great-grandson.

He said he thought his ancestor would have been pleased to hear the Church’s apology.

‘They buried him in Westminster Abbey, which I suppose was an apology of sorts,’ said Mr Barlow.

‘Darwin was very concerned about offending other people as his wife Emma was a committed Christian. So I think this apology would have pleased him.’

UK Lockdown point of view
126 years after his death the Church now decides to apologise to a man whose theory has yet to be proven, with no missing link as actual evidence to prove the evolution theory the motive behind yet another in a long line of fake apologies must be brought into question, could the church not have apologised earlier or could there an ulterior motive behind the timing of this apology ?, and why does the Church of England always seen to be directly in line with the ideology of the Zionist controlled think tanks ?

Humanists sue as exam agency blocks GCSE

Guardian 13th September 2008

Humanists are suing the government's exam agency over its decision to prevent a board giving humanism equal status to faiths in a religious education GCSE.

The OCR board had proposed allowing children to study humanism in as much depth as Christianity, Islam and Judaism in the GCSE but the move was barred by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority's regulator Ofqual. It said the syllabus put forward meant students would be able to study only humanism, rather than any of the major religions, which meant it did not fulfil their regulatory criteria.

The British Humanist Association (BHA), backed by supporters including Philip Pullman and AC Grayling, this week issued proceedings for a judicial review, claiming it was discriminatory and in breach of the QCA's own criteria and the European convention on human rights, which gives non-religious beliefs equal status. Andrew Copson, BHA director of education, said: "It threatens to turn back the progress of recent decades towards a more inclusive, educationally valid and objective subject of RE."

Humanism has been included in RE for more than 30 years. The OCR curriculum would have been the first time it was given equal weighting to religions in a GCSE.

A spokesman for Ofqual said: "The subject criteria for the GCSE in religious studies require the study of one or more religions. These criteria were created by experts following extensive consultation."

UK Lockdown point of view
Humanism is to be the religion that will dominate Britain and the world after the successful elimination of the free market and introduction of the police state this is the plan of the Zionist elite that run the planet, don't be deceived by this story humanist ideology has permeated every aspect of our society and is prevalent in every non religious school subject already being taught in the curriculum, it is also heavily present in the television programmes aimed at children, the cancer of humanism in our society must be stopped.