Schools that fail to show enthusiasm in rooting out prejudice against homosexuals should be reported to the police by pupils and parents, a Home Office report recommended yesterday.
It called for parents and children to identify schools that ignore "homophobic" language in the playground and teachers who produce "homophobic" lessons.
And it called for head teachers to bring lessons about "homophobia" on to school timetables and to involve their pupils in gay "awareness weeks".
The advice from Home Secretary John Reid's officials comes at a time of deep concern among churches that new gay rights laws due next spring will bar traditional teaching on sexual morality in schools and force them instead to include gay rights dogma in lessons.
The paper on "homophobic hate crime" is aimed at guiding police forces, local authorities, social services and schools among other public bodies.
It defined homophobia - a word invented by gay lobby groups to apply to their critics - as "resentment, or fear, of gay and lesbian people" which "can be just a passive dislike of gay people".
The report asked police and other groups to consider whether homophobia is happening in schools and in lessons.
It said: "Schools can be ...   more »

By HARVEY RICE
GALVESTON — Technology developed to keep track of prisoners by scanning their irises became available Thursday to identify missing children or elderly people afflicted with Alzheimer's disease in Galveston County.
The Galveston County Sheriff's Department is the first sheriff's department in Texas and the 47th nationwide to join the Children's Identification Database, or CHILD Project.
The addition of Galveston County is part of an effort to image the irises of 5 million children into a nationwide database over the next few years, said Robert Melley, vice president and CEO of Biometric Intelligence & Identification.
"We have 1,800 sheriff's departments representing 46 states who have committed to participating," Melley said.
So far, the CHILD Project is in 26 states after more than 18 months, said Biometric President Sean Mullin. Children with an iris scan in the national database cannot be identified unless they are in a county that has the CHILD Project equipment, he said.
The system can scan an eye and match an iris in 3 to 5 seconds after comparing it with stored images in a national database, Mullin said.
Mullin and Galveston County Sheriff Gean Leonard appeared together at a news conference at the Galveston ...   more »

On January 1, 2007, Europe celebrates the fifth anniversary of the launch of euro notes and coins by welcoming a thirteenth member of the eurozone – Slovenia, the tiny former Yugoslav republic. But the eurozone’s geographical expansion is modest in comparison with the rapid growth in euro notes in circulation within the region and beyond.
Earlier this month, the value of euro notes pushed through the €600bn (£402bn; $787bn) level – roughly double the value of the then-national currencies in circulation at the end of 2001. The signs are that in December the currency came of age by overtaking the US dollar in terms of the value of notes in circulation. The figures used for the comparison by the Financial Times include notes held in the vaults of commercial banks but exclude reserves of notes held by central banks.
Slovenia’s small size – its population is just 2m – means that the impact of its entry will be hard to separate from the usual spike in demand for cash around Christmas and New Year, according to Antti Heinonen, head of the European central bank’s bank notes directorate. So what has driven rapid growth in euro notes?
After the 2002 launch, ...   more »

By Bob Unruh
For parents who wish to teach their own children in the Judeo-Christian tradition, Germany today is not much better than it was under Nazi party control in the 1930s and 1940s, according to a man who lives there and is pleading for international help for his country.
"We are not far away from an intolerant dictatorship in our country," the man wrote WND. "Parental rights are more and more abolished. If you do not the way the state wants, to so-called Jugendamt (youth welfare office) is quickly to check out if they can take away the custody of your children."
He said for homeschoolers, the crackdown is getting so "draconian" they are fleeing to other countries, leaving homes and sometimes jobs behind, in order to protect their children from the anti-Christian teachings of the secular school system.
The man identifies himself as being part of the German homeschool support organization Netz-Bildung Freiheit (Net-Education Freedom). He contacted WND after the news website broke the story that a German government official had warned that families' religious beliefs will have to be brought into alignment with required school attendance laws.
His name is being withheld by WND so that he ...   more »

The High Court of Justice partially approved Tuesday a petition by nine human rights organizations regarding the issue of compensatory payments to residents of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip following IDF operations in the area.
However, the court rejected the eligibility for compensation to citizens of enemy state or members of terrorist organizations.
The NGO "human rights" groups which petitioned the court demanded cancellation of legislation which prevents Palestinians from claiming compensation from the State.
The organizations claimed that "the amendment to the Civil Damages Law, which deprives (Palestinians) of their right to claim compensation also for damages caused not during war activities, is a racist and unethical law, and it also leads to lack of control over the army's activities in the occupied territories."
The petitioners also asked the High Court to rule that Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty applies to all the residents of the areas controlled by Israel.
According to the amendment to the law, which is also called the "Intifada Law" and was approved by the Knesset about a year and a half ago, residents of the territories, citizens of "enemy countries" and operators of "terrorists' organizations" are deprived of the right for ...   more »