Labour would "immediately" end the government's academy and free schools programme
in England, the shadow education secretary has said. Religious groups are among those who have set up state-funded free schools. Jewish school leaders have
suggested the
policy will change little.
A gay pride march through the centre of Inverness has been given the go-ahead, despite a petition opposing the event from a
home mission worker with the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing).
An Islamist group banned in more than a dozen countries has launched a recruitment drive in an
inner-city neighbourhood that is linked to more homegrown terrorists than anywhere else in the UK. Hizb ut-Tahrir, whose purpose is to re-establish the caliphate
in the Middle East with Sharia law, has relocated to the Sparkhill area of Birmingham.
A judge in Spain has said there are "sufficient reasons" to
prosecute actor Willy Toledo for using "potentially offensive phrases for the Catholic religion and its practitioners". Toledo is accused of offending religious
sentiments by insulting God and the Christian virgin Mary on Facebook.
Primary and intermediate schools in New Zealand will have to ask families for
their consent to teach religious instruction, and provide alternatives for those who refuse, if new guidelines are adopted.
Police in the Maldives have demolished
an underwater sculpture museum after deeming it anti-Islamic.
Politicians in Nova Scotia have unanimously passed a bill which makes the province the
third in Canada to introduce a ban on 'conversion therapy'.
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