Government aid to victims of the 6 April earthquake that hit L’Aquila, Italy, has been held up by a small problem. The city and surrounding area have 70,000 registered residents, but 100,000 people have applied for a grant.
The local authority’s chief executive, Massimiliano Cordeschi, has noted an “incongruity” in the total numbers of residents [...]

A British judge went out of his way to denounce “honour” crimes in a case involving three children of Pakistani descent being cared for by a non-Muslim family. The children’s mother is in prison for setting her sister-in-law’s house on fire in a dispute involving alleged violations of family honour. The father [...]

A report prepared by the Council of Europe reveals that murders of women by family members are more prevalent than previously thought.  The report was discussed at a meeting in Istanbul.
The draft report calls for immediate action to deal with what it describes as the growing problem of honor killings. British member of parliament John [...]

I know very little about Estonia, but I still found this video hilarious.
h/t: Edward Lucas

A British Muslim mother has been sentenced to three years for forcing her school-age daughters to marry cousins in Pakistan.
A Muslim mother who forced her two daughters to marry their cousins in Pakistan has been jailed for three years and ordered to sign the Sex Offenders’ Register.
She told her elder daughter that if she didn’t [...]

So says Baroness Sayeeda Warsi (at right), a British Muslim peer, Conservative MP, and Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion and Social Action.
PC SENSITIVITIES must not block efforts to protect women from forced marriage and violence, a leading Muslim peer said yesterday.
Sayeeda Warsi believes “white liberalism” – the belief people cannot talk about such matters because [...]

A mountain of evidence has accumulated indicating that children living with step-parents are at far greater risk of abuse than those living with biological parents. The Times of London columnist Camilla Cavendish wonders why British child-protection authorities are ignoring the elephant in the room.
The Cinderella Effect is the name given to analysis in Canada, the [...]

Stewardship, a Christian financial support charity in the UK, finds that giving has increased three percent during the last six months.
Since October last year, some 30,000 Sovereign Account holders with the ministry have donated more than £24 million in support to charities, churches and mission workers.
Stewardship Chief Executive, David Jones, said: “Our clients tend to [...]

A Glasgow jewellery shop has decided to bar individuals wearing face coverings after being robbed by two men in Muslim female dress. BBC News reports.
ATAA Jewellers in the west end of Glasgow was raided by two Asian men entirely covered apart from their eyes.
[…]
The two girls working at the time were left so shaken [...]

This has got to be the strangest video by a prominent politician that I’ve ever seen. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown grins inanely, jerks back and forth, and even flaps his arms a bit while delivering a message to bolster public confidence in Parliament by tightening up MP’s expense allowances.
One wonders if this tomfoolery [...]

The British Home Office calls it “search engine optimisation”, but that’s just a euphemism for “manipulation”.  Whatever you call it, it’s idiotic and futile.
Whitehall officials will train pro-West Islamic groups to manipulate their Google search ranking in an attempt to drown out extremist voices online, The Register has learned.
The policy is being developed despite recent [...]

A new study by the Immigrant Council of Ireland finds that hundreds of girls and young women have been trafficked into Ireland and forced to work as prostitutes.
In a report out today, the council says hundreds of women are working in prostitution in Ireland and the industry is worth at least €180m every year.
It says [...]

At the G-20 summit, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was miffed that US President Barack Obama appeared to ignore him. Now it’s payback time.
The American President’s call “to free the world of the menace of a nuclear nightmare” was hot air, said a report to Sarkozy by his staff. “It was rhetoric, not a speech [...]

Recent comments by Valery Zorkin, head of Russia’s Constitutional Court, would chill the blood of freedom-loving people.
In a speech in St. Petersburg on April 7, the chairman of Russia’s Constitutional Court argued that due to the economic crisis, Russia could descend into anarchy and then turn to totalitarianism. To prevent this, he said, the Kremlin [...]

Human rights activist Dania Avallone was seriously injured in Rome last October while participating in a peaceful protest at an Eritrean festival when rocks and bottles were thrown at her. Now, some Eritreans living in Italy have charged Ms Avallone with “disruption”. She is to appear in court next week.
Maria Daniela (Dania) Avallone [...]