Five sharia courts have been set up in London, Birmingham, Bradford and Manchester and Nuneaton, Warwickshire. The government has quietly sanctioned that their rulings are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system, through the county courts or High Court. Previously, the rulings were not binding and depended on voluntary compliance among Muslims.
Lawyers have issued grave warnings about the dangers of a dual legal system and the disclosure drew criticism from Opposition leaders.
Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, said: "If it is true that these tribunals are passing binding decisions in the areas of family and criminal law, I would like to know which courts are enforcing them because I would consider such action unlawful. British law is absolute and must remain so."
Douglas Murray, the director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, added: "I think it's appalling. I don't think arbitration that is done by sharia should ever be endorsed or enforced by the British state."
Muslim tribunal courts started passing sharia judgments in August 2007. They have dealt with more than 100 cases that range from Muslim divorce and inheritance to nuisance neighbours.
It has also emerged that tribunal courts have settled six cases of domestic violence between married couples, working in tandem with the police investigations.
Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siddiqi, whose Muslim Arbitration Tribunal runs the courts, said that sharia courts are classified as arbitration tribunals under a clause in the Arbitration Act 1996.
The rulings of arbitration tribunals are binding in law, provided that both parties in the dispute agree to give it the power to rule on their case.
The disclosures come after Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, sparked a national debate and calls for his resignation for saying that the establishment of sharia in the future "seems unavoidable" in Britain.
In July, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, the Lord Chief Justice agreed that Muslims in Britain should be able to live according to Islamic law to decide financial and marital disputes.
Mr Siddiqi said he expected the courts to handle a greater number of "smaller" criminal cases in coming years as more Muslim clients approach them. Two more courts are being planned for Glasgow and Edinburgh.
"All we are doing is regulating community affairs in these cases," said Mr Siddiqi, chairman of the governing council of the tribunal.
There are concerns for women suffering under the Islamic laws, which favours men.
Mr Siddiqi said that in a recent inheritance dispute handled by the court in Nuneaton, the estate of a Midlands man was divided between three daughters and two sons.
The judges on the panel gave the sons twice as much as the daughters, in accordance with sharia. Had the family gone to a normal British court, the daughters would have got equal amounts.
In the six cases of domestic violence, Mr Siddiqi said the judges ordered the husbands to take anger management classes and mentoring from community elders. There was no further punishment.
In each case, the women subsequently withdrew the complaints they had lodged with the police and the police stopped their investigations.
Mr Siddiqi said that in the domestic violence cases, the advantage was that marriages were saved and couples given a second chance.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2957428/Sharia-law-courts-operating-in-Britain.html
Other articles of different dates, so you can see the progression.
Adopt sharia law in Britain, says the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2008/02/08/noindex/nrowan108.xml
Muslims in Britain should be able to live under Sharia, says top judge http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2008/07/04/noindex/nsharia.xml
Sharia law is spreading as authority wanes
CALENDULA – East to grow and attractive flower. Get the deepest orange petal type for medical properties. Petal tincture used to treat wounded in WW 1. Good component in immune stimulant tinctures
CATNIP – Easy to grow to the point of being a weed. Very gentle, mild sedative and for treating headaches and upset stomachs for children & babies. It stimulates sweating and is useful in reducing fevers. Good food plant for predatory garden wasps.
CHAMOMILE - Use the German type large annuals easy to grow & reseed. Very mild sleep aid to settle the stomach.
YARROW – Likes dry sand, we just collect from the wild. Reduces fevers by stimulating sweating. Dried flower leaves to use stop bleeding.
FEVERFEW – Fairly easy to grow & will self sew. Eating leaves daily will irritate the mouth, much better to make a tincture for year round use on migraines
HYSSOP – easy to grow perennial excellent bee plant. The very best herb for bronchitis as a tincture or sugar syrup.
PURPLE CONEFLOWER (Echinacea Purpurea) – One of the very best immune stimulant but best used as a tincture. Note both roots and flower head can both be used but should be extracted differently.
ST JOHN'S WORT – Very slow to act (3 month) treatment for mild depression (only). Infused oil is good for burns and skin irritation.
THYME – Good antiseptic properties but too difficult to grow this far north. Oregano makes a very good substitute. Good food plant for predatory garden wasps.
VALERIAN – Root powder pressed into pills or tincture are wonderful for muscle cramps and tension, relieves the pain so you can rest. Taking over my flower beds and asparagus beds. Good food plant for predatory garden wasps.
Wood USMC wrote (copied here with permission)
This article is provided by my friend Ez
The great honey drought
In 26 years of beekeeping, Ged Marshall has never seen anything as bad as the 2008 honey harvest. A miserable summer that has confined his bees to their hives following a winter bedevilled by deadly viruses means that production this year will be barely a third of its usual level of around five tonnes of honey. Unfortunately for the nation's honey lovers and apiarists, Mr Marshall's experience is far from unique. According to the British Beekeepers' Association (BBKA), up to a third of Britain's 240,000 hives failed to survive last winter and spring due to disease and poor weather. The result is a drop of more than 50 per cent in honey production across the country.Rowse, the UK's biggest honey supplier, warned yesterday that the harvest has been so poor that major supermarkets will run out of stocks of English honey before Christmas. A global shortfall in production from Argentina to Australia has also driven up raw honey prices by 60 per cent in the last 12 months.Mr Marshall, 53, who keeps more than 500 hives around the country from his base in Buckinghamshire, said: "Everyone is crying out for English honey but there is just very little of it around. Around now we are expecting to harvest heather honey but keepers are opening their hives and finding them virtually empty. The reasons are complex and very much include the impact of disease but the weather has been crucial this year. "If you are a commercial beekeeper, being an optimist is a prerequisite but people are beginning to wonder how bad it is going to get. In a bad year, I would expect to lose about 10 per cent of my hives over winter. This year it was 30 per cent. I have a friend who has been through two dreadful years with disease and falling production levels, and he has said if next year is the same he will simply have to pack it in."The dearth of honey this summer is due to a number of issues linked to changing climate and trends in agriculture which belie the bucolic image of beekeepers in protective masks harvesting dripping honey combs from their village gardens.A soggy August following on from a late spring confined bees to their hives – honeybees do not forage in the rain – at a crucial time for honey production. The decision by farmers to profit from high wheat prices by increasing arable production has been at the expense of crops such as borage, used in pharmaceutical manufacturing and a prolific source of nectar for bees.Along with a 75 per cent drop in borage planting, there has also been a general reduction in the amount of clover and meadowland available for bees. As a result, honey yields at the key harvest times of April to May, mid-June to mid-July and early September, which have been far below expected levels. Britons consume around 30,000 tonnes of honey a year – a figure that is rising by about 11 per cent a year – of which between 5,000 and 7,000 tonnes a year is domestically produced. This year the amount produced in the UK is expected to be barely 2,000 tonnes.The problems have been exacerbated by similar difficulties elsewhere in the world. Argentina, the world's largest honey producer, has a 20,000 tonnes honey shortfall due to drought and pasture being planted with soya beans for biofuels while drought and hot weather in Australia and eastern Europe has already drastically reduced production.The prospect of discerning consumers not having enough British honey to pour over their muesli by the new year might not seem much of a catastrophe.But the poor harvest is symptomatic of a wider malaise which beekeepers and researchers believe threatens the long term prospects of not only the nation's bee colonies but the 25 per cent of the UK's food production that relies on crops being pollinated by bees.The Government estimates that the nation's honey bee hives – most of them cared for by 44,000 amateur beekeepers – contribute around £165m to the economy by pollinating crops including apples, pears, strawberries, blackberries, carrots, broccoli, onions and oilseed rape. In short, much of British horticulture is reliant on the health of the nation's bees.The problem is that they are struggling to overcome a far more intractable crisis than two miserable summers in the form of a small mite called varroa that attaches itself to honey bees and progressively makes them susceptible to lethal viruses.Francis Ratnieks, the UK's only professor of apiculture based at Sussex University, said: "Historically, large-scale losses of bee colonies are something that have happened periodically in Britain and it is easy to forget that. But colony losses of 30 per cent are worrying and it looks like it could be a signal that something is going wrong."A combination of varroa infestation and associated viruses is suspected as being a key factor in Colony Collapse Disorder, the mysterious phenomenon whereby hives are suddenly emptied of their bees, which has claimed more than a third of the colonies in America and spread to Canada, Italy, France and Germany.The phenomenon has yet to reach Britain but varroa has already taken a heavy toll on domestic colonies. The leech-style mite had previously subsisted at a low level on Asian honey bees but spread rapidly worldwide in the 1990s after crossing over to European and American species, which have lower resistance. To add to the problem, varroa has developed its own resistance to Apistan, the pesticide previously used to control its numbers.John Howat, secretary of the Bee Farmers' Association, which represents the UK's 300 commercial beekeepers, who perform services such as pollinating fruit orchards, said: "Varroa and the loss of habitat has already all but destroyed our wild bee populations and now it is badly affecting our managed bees. The mite progressively weakens the honey bee and makes it more difficult for hives to get through the winter."Historically, we would expect a lost of about four per cent of hives each winter and spring but this has risen over the last three or four years. We are now at about 15 per cent this year and the losses for hobbyists are much higher. Wet weather means the bees stay longer in the hive which in turn means the varroa and viruses are able to spread more effectively. Our members are very concerned because we don't yet have a clear answer as to how to deal with it."The Independent understands that such is the level of growing desperation to stop varroa losses among some commercial producers that they are using a treatment, Apivar, which is banned in Britain but legal in countries including America and New Zealand.The BBKA, which represents amateur beekeepers, said it had recorded a loss of up to a third of hives among its members which could cost the British economy £50m in lost pollination and subsequently lower yields from food production. The result is a growing clamour for increased government spending to research the causes of the dramatic decline in the bee population and honey yields and develop a varroa-resistant honey bee. The BBKA has called for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to increase its funding to £8m over the next five years. Defra said last night that it is giving £90,000 this year to investigate the high levels of colony loss and is developing a ten-year programme to improve bee health. Other disastrous harvestsWheatOne of the best harvests in years in Britain has been ruined by weeks of heavy rain that has soaked crops and prevented farmers from operating combine harvesters. The National Farmers' Union estimates that up to half the crop still remains in fields.DamsonsOrchard owners in Cumbria, Kent, Shropshire and Worcestershire have reported a disastrous season with a knock-on effect for damson jam producers. Price rises of 300 per cent have been predicted.PearsBritain's pear crop will be 38 per cent lower this year after late spring frosts, and the European yield of 2.2 million tonnes will be the lowest in a decade.GrapesFrench wine producers have predicted a five per cent drop in wine production to 43.6 million hectolitres due to the poor weather. Experts blamed a cold snap in late March and early April that damaged vines, unseasonably high rainfall and unexpected hailstorms in the traditionally warmer months.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/the-great-honey-drought-924510.html
IMPORTANT INFO ABOUT AREA CODE We actually received a cal l last week from the 809 area code. The woman said 'Hey, this is Karen . Sorry I missed you--get back to us quickly. I have something important to tell you.' Then she repeated a phone number beginning with 809 We didn't respond. Then this week, we received the following e-mail: Do Not DIAL AREA CODE 809, 284, AND 876 THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION PROVIDED TO US BY AT&T. DON'T EVER DIAL AREA CODE 809 This one is being distributed all over the US . This is pretty scary, especially given the way they try to get you to call. Be sure you read this and pass it on. They get you to call by telling you that it is information about a family m ember who has been ill or to tell you someone has been arrested, died, or to let you know you have won a wonderful prize, etc. In each case, you are told to call the 809 number right away.. Since there are so many new area codes these days, people unknowingly return these calls If you call from the U.S. , you will apparently be charged $2425 per-minute. Or, you'll get a long recorded message. The point is, they will try to keep you on the phone as long as possible to increase the charges. Unfortunately, when you get your phone bill, you'll of ten be charged more than $24,100.00. WHY IT WORKS: The 809 area code is located in the British Virgin Islands (The Bahamas). The charges afterwards can become a real nightmare. That's because you did actually make the call. If you complain, both your local phone company and your long distance carrier will not want to get involved and will most likely tell you that they are simply providing the billing for the foreign company. You'll end up dealing with a foreign company that argues they have done nothing wrong. Please forward this entire message to your friends, family and colleagues to help them become aware of this scam. AT&T ALSO SAYS TRUE http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=6045 SNOPES SAYS ALSO IT'S TRUE: http://www.snopescom/fraud/telephone/809.asp
Federal workers owe billions in unpaid taxes September 15, 2008 - 5:13am
The agency with the most delinquent employees is the postal service. (AP)
Mark Segraves, WTOP Radio
WASHINGTON - From the U.S. Postal Service to the Executive Office of the President, thousands of federal workers have not paid their 2007 federal income taxes.
The Internal Revenue Service is trying to collect billions of dollars in unpaid taxes from nearly half a million federal employees. According to IRS records, 171,549 current federal workers did not voluntarily pay their federal income taxes in 2007. The same is true for 37,752 active duty military and nearly 200,000 retired civilian and military personnel.
Documents obtained by WTOP through the Freedom of Information Act show 449,531 federal employees and retirees did not pay their taxes for a total of $3,586,784,725 in taxes owed last year.
Each year the IRS tracks the voluntary compliance rate of all federal workers and retirees. The percentage of employees and retirees who are delinquent has gone up and down over the past five years, but the amount unpaid has increased each year topping $3.5 billion for the first time in 2007.
The agency with the most delinquent employees is the U.S. Postal Service. With more than 747,000 employees, the postal service is the largest employer in the federal government, but with a 4.16 percent delinquency rate, it is a full 1 percent above the average compliance rate this year.
The IRS would not provide comparable data for the general population. But a spokesperson for the IRS did supply the compliance rate for IRS employees -- less than 1 percent. The IRS is the only federal agency where an employee can be fired for not paying his taxes.
The Executive Office of the President, which includes the White House, has 58 employees who did not pay $319,978.
The Federal Housing Finance Board comes in as the agency with the best compliance rate of all agencies with 100 or more employees. The FHFB had four of its 134 employees on the list of delinquents, three of them have now entered into voluntary payment plans with the IRS.
In fact, 152,554 of the delinquent feds have entered into payment plans. Nevertheless, $2.7 billion remains uncollected.
Other notable agencies with high delinquency rates include the Smithsonian Institution, where nearly 5.5 percent of the employees didn't pay their taxes. On Capitol Hill, more than 1,000 workers are on the list. The Government Printing Office has the highest percentage of delinquent employees with 7.23 percent.
http://wtop.com/?nid=116&sid=1478352
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