Society of Homeopaths says controlled trial is not the way to test homeopathy. … Read the rest
All entries by this author
Two Sides to Animal Rights Story
Aug 25th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Accounts of debate on Parkinson’s and animal research differ.… Read the rest
Birmingham Rep Riot: Behind the Scenes
Aug 25th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Investigative journalist Amardeep Bassey uncovers the story behind the riot.… Read the rest
Two Thirds Oppose State Aided ‘Faith’ Schools
Aug 25th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Most respondents against ministers’ plans to increase number of religious schools.… Read the rest
Governments Should Not Push Religion in Schools
Aug 25th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Some people’s religious certainties are putting everyone in danger.… Read the rest
Writers’ Guild Anti-Censorship Committee
Aug 25th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Attacks on JSTO and Behzti and religious hatred law inspired guild to relaunch committee.… Read the rest
Women Victims of Islam
Aug 25th, 2005 | By Ayaan Hirsi AliDue to the sensitivity of this subject I will start by making a distinction between Islam and Muslims. Islam can be described as a civilization, as a source of spiritual guidance, as a way of life and so on. Most of all Islam is a moral framework, and central to this moral frame is the decree that a believer or follower submit his will to Allah. How this submission should be practiced is worked out in the Qur’an and hadith.
A Muslim is any one – regardless of race or sex – who subscribes to or testifies to believing, among other things, that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is his prophet. Besides accepting god as Allah, … Read the rest
Colin Blakemore
Aug 25th, 2005 2:28 am | By Ophelia BensonI can’t help wondering…was it really about the guinea pigs? Or was it mostly about being a Protester, an Activist, a Rebel. Was it more about tormenting people than about rescuing animals. I can’t help suspecting, just as I can’t help suspecting similar things about those four guys on July 7. Zealots are like that. That’s why zealots are mostly so horrible.
… Read the restSome protests at Darley Oaks farm have been peaceful. But other activists launched a campaign of intimidation against the Halls, their family, staff and suppliers. Their tactics, denounced as mob rule by some in the medical research industry, included hate mail, malicious phone calls, fireworks, a paedophile smear campaign, paint stripper on cars and arson attacks. The protests
Hands Off the Sorghum
Aug 24th, 2005 11:18 pm | By Ophelia BensonYet another installment in the continuing series: Behold how women are treated like livestock if not worse in many parts of the world. Sometimes it’s hard to believe what you read…
… Read the restJournalists who have visited Niger are reporting finding a strange phenomenon: villages in which women and children are going hungry, while there is still food in their households. Kim Sengupta of the UK’s Independent newspaper found that men had left their families, locking the grain store, while they were away. “They’ve gone away to look for work or look for money and sometimes across the border in Nigeria. And you have this strange situation where there were women in the villages with stocks of sorghum and millet with hungry
Animal Rights and Medical Research
Aug 24th, 2005 | By Ophelia BensonSome UK animal rights campaigners take the movement to have won a great victory. More rational proponents of animal rights may well think the victory is decidedly Pyrrhic.
The Darley Oaks Farm in Newchurch, Staffordshire, which has been breeding guinea pigs for medical research for more than 30 years, has decided to stop because of a campaign of intimidation by ‘activists’. The owners of the farm and employees have received death threats, and the body of a relative was stolen from a churchyard in October 2004 and has never been found. Suppliers of the farm were also subject to intimidation, as the BBC reported:
… Read the restRod Harvey supplied fuel to the farm and endured four years of abuse from activists
Kim Sengupta Reports From Maradi, Niger
Aug 24th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The women do all the hard work while men hoard all the food.… Read the rest
Declaration on Animals in Medical Research
Aug 24th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Text of Research Defence Society endorsement of animal research.… Read the rest
Resist Intimidation, Scientists Urge
Aug 24th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Hall family was subjected to a six-year hate campaign by fanatics.… Read the rest
Anger at ‘Victory’ for Animal Rights Campaign
Aug 24th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Warning that there could be severe consequences for clinical research in the UK.… Read the rest
Scientists Support Animal Testing
Aug 24th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Research Defence Society declaration says small, vital part of medical research involves animals.… Read the rest
Women Bear the Brunt of Food Shortages
Aug 24th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘When you say food crisis, you say women,’ says Aissata Bagna.… Read the rest
Women in Niger Go Hungry Despite Food in House
Aug 24th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Women in villages with stocks of sorghum and millet but no access to the food.… Read the rest
You Call That a Campaign?
Aug 24th, 2005 12:00 am | By Ophelia BensonPat Robertson is a funny guy, but Madeleine Bunting is just silly. (I know, that’s grossly unfair. PR is funny because the stuff he says is so loony. He’s not funny at all, really, since a great many people listen to him and think he makes sense. But look, living in the US these days, you have to laugh at people like Patto if you don’t want to go plain nuts.)
A campaign is being orchestrated through the media to destroy the credibility of many of the most important Muslim institutions in Britain, including the Muslim Council of Britain.
Yeah, a campaign – she cites all of two features, one in the Observer and one on Panorama. That’s a campaign? … Read the rest
Society for the Prevention of Kindness
Aug 23rd, 2005 8:33 pm | By Ophelia BensonJesus Christ. There is just no limit to human disgustingness, is there.
… Read the restI am here to talk about her catastrophic childhood in an industrial school — a euphemism for workhouse — in Ireland in the 1940s and 1950s, and as anyone who survived this experience will confirm, it is a painful subject. There, incarcerated by 6ft walls and under the tutelage of the Sisters of Mercy nuns, Kathleen was beaten, starved and humiliated to a point where she felt worthless and wanted only to be invisible. Her education was scant; instead she was put to work scrubbing floors, in the laundry and, barefoot and dressed in rags, in the surrounding fields…Denied water between what passed for meals, she drank
Pat’s a Sweetie
Aug 23rd, 2005 7:33 pm | By Ophelia BensonPat Robertson’s a funny guy. He has his own ideas about things. Kind of deranged ideas.
Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson has suggested that American agents assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop his country from becoming ‘a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism.”
For what? Muslim extremism? Er – why would Venezuela be that, especially? Is the Patster maybe a little confused?
… Read the restWe have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don’t need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator…You know, I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I