Lifestyle
GREECE: The Greek parents too poor to care for their children
Greece's financial crisis has made some families so desperate they are giving up the most precious thing of all - their children. One morning a few weeks before Christmas a kindergarten teacher in Athens found a note about one of her four-year-old pupils. "I will not be coming to pick up Anna today because I cannot afford to look after her," it read. "Please take good care of her. Sorry. Her mother." In the last two months Father Antonios, a young Orthodox priest who runs a youth centre for the city's poor, has found four children on his doorstep - including a baby just days old. Another charity was approached by a couple whose twin babies were in hospital being treated for malnutrition, because the mother herself was malnourished and unable to breastfeed. Cases like this are shocking a country where family ties are strong, and failure to look after children is socially unacceptable - they feel to Greeks like stories from the Third World, rather than their own capital city.
London 2012: Funds for school-site sport clubs
Funding for a community sports club at every secondary school in England has been announced by the government. Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt said it was part of a £1bn strategy to encourage young people to take up sport - as pledged in the 2012 Games bid. Mr Hunt said despite huge investment of public funds since winning the Games, less young people were playing sport and he wanted a "radical change". A further £32m of funding was also announced for the School Games. Money pledged from the Department of Health (£14m), Sainsbury's (£10m) and Sport England (£8m) will extend the initiative from two to four years until 2015. Under the five-year youth and community sport strategy, Sport England will help set up some 4,000 clubs where expert coaches will run sessions to create ties between schools and existing local sports clubs. Already, 2,000 football clubs have pledged to be linked to secondary schools by 2017, in rugby union 1,300 clubs, cricket, 1,250 clubs and rugby league and tennis 1,000 clubs each, according to the government.
INDIA: Kashmir ideally suited for Saudi tourists
A high-level delegation of tourism and culture ministers, government officials, bureaucrats, airline operators and tourism experts from different states of India is currently visiting the Kingdom to familiarise Saudis with all that “Incredible India” has to offer. Among the biggest contingents is from Jammu and Kashmir, a state that is rated as one of the best tourism destinations in India. The state delegation is being headed by Tourism and Culture Minister Nawang Rigzin Jora, and it includes Minister of State for Home, Tourism and Housing Nasir Aslam Wani, Tourism Commissioner Atal Dulloo, J&K Tourism Development Corp. Managing Director Satish Nehru and Kashmir Tourism Director Farooq Shah. “Kashmir is without a doubt a paradise on earth and we believe that it is the natural crown of Incredible India,” said Shah. “Like a multifaceted diamond, Kashmir changes its hues with the seasons, and its honey-dewed orchards, rippling lakes and blue skies have a magical impact on tourists.” For the average Saudi tourist, Kashmir has a lot to offer...
INDONESIA: The Halal beauty debate is more than skin deep
Heggy Kearens was totally determined when she posted a status update on her Facebook wall questioning the motivations of some of her more pious friends. They had recently joined a multi-level marketing scheme to sell a popular Swedish cosmetics brand distributed here. According to Heggy, two issues bothered her: First, there is the fact that the brand has no Halal label on its products; second, she believes the whole concept of multi-level marketing is still a “grey zone” in terms of Islam because it allows one to profit from the labour of others. So, the 25-year-old graduate student steamed ahead with her Facebook campaign. She wrote on her status message: “I am questioning the Halal status of [the brand]. I know many of my friends are selling these products but according to twitter account @Halalcorner, these products are not Halal. My dear friends, please be careful, for the Halal status, we can check them through Halalmui.org.” After that, she was barraged with comments from her friends, some of whom supported her concerns, while others disagreed. Some of the blowback came in the form of what she called “unpleasant” e-mails...
Al Ghazali: 900 Years Later and Still Relevant
Exactly 900 years ago today, on Dec. 19, 1111, the world bid a sad farewell to one of its most influential contemporaries: Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali. That same world still has a reason to be nostalgic. Al-Ghazali was a Persian theologian, philosopher, jurist and mystic, acclaimed in both East and West as the most influential Muslim after the Prophet Muhammad. His works shaped how generations of Muslims would understand their religion and even influenced European theologians such as St. Thomas Aquinas. His great feats include bringing orthodoxy and mysticism into closer contact and leading Islamic theology into an epic battle against Arabic Neo-Platonism. But perhaps he is most relevant to us today in terms of his personality. Great religious figures transform society by who they are, as much as what they say. His life was one of fame, doubt, confusion, introspection and searching. His journey was riddled with the eternal questions of life and meaning which still face us today.
Poetry as a Panacea in our Troubled World
Today, living in U.S.A., my adopted country, while my personal world is in unison, I am even more convinced of the need for interfaith understanding, as the external world seems to be tearing apart under the notions of religious strife and senseless violence. We live in a multicultural society, ruled by technology, in which contact among different faiths is inevitable. As individuals we are constantly challenged to live in harmony with people from different faiths and backgrounds. The dilemma is how do we conceive of God today? How do we combine the practical everyday life with our own personal religious beliefs? I personally have found the answer in sharing multicultural expressions through the arts. Poetry especially, heals and compels us to study the human situation from various perspectives. Through the ages poets from different religious faiths have expressed their love for the Divine...
Crescentrating announces the Top 10 Halal-Friendly Holiday Destinations for 2012
Crescentrating just announced its Top 10 Halal Friendly Holiday Destinations for 2012. This year’s top 10 destinations were split into two categories; Top 10 among the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) countries and the top 10 among the other countries. In addition to Crescentrating’s own surveys and research, this year’s Ranking also included voting by the visitors to www.crescentrating.com.
Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam
“Hajj: journey to the heart of Islam” will be the first major exhibition dedicated to the Hajj – the pilgrimage to Mecca which is central to the Muslim faith. The exhibition will examine the significance of the Hajj as one of the Five Pillars of Islam, exploring its importance for Muslims and looking at how this spiritual journey has evolved throughout history. It will bring together a wealth of objects from a number of different collections including important historic pieces as well as new contemporary art works which reveal the enduring impact of Hajj across the globe and across the centuries. The exhibition will examine three key strands: the pilgrim’s journey with an emphasis on the major routes used across time (from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East); the Hajj today, its associated rituals and what the experience means to the pilgrim; and Mecca, the destination of Hajj, its origins and importance.
U.S.A: Reality TV catches up to reality with Muslim show
Among the themes of “All-American Muslim,” a cable reality show about the daily lives of five families in Dearborn, Mich., is the suspicion and bias that ordinary Muslims face in a nation uneasy about all things Islamic after Sept. 11, 2001. As it happens, reality has caught up to reality TV. Peppered by a conservative group’s complaints about the program, the Lowe’s home-improvement chain last week pulled its sponsorship — and has been fielding counter complaints that the company had caved in to the very prejudices faced by the program’s protagonists.