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Haredi Orthodox school in London ordered to close

• British chief rabbi supports teaching Islam in Jewish schools

• UK Muslim schools may institute Jewish studies

Inspectors said the school was founded to prevent students from “developing a wider, deeper understanding of different faiths, communities, cultures and lifestyles, including those of England.”

Members of the Jewish community in north London . (photo credit:REUTERS)

Britain’s Department for Education has ordered a haredi Orthodox school in north London to close by next month.

The Charedi Talmud Torah Tashbar school has operated illegally for 40 years, does not teach children English and, according to inspectors, was failing to meet “minimum” standards, the Independent reported Thursday.

The school, which has more than 200 students, encourages “cultural and ethnic insularity because it is so narrow and almost exclusively rooted in the study of the Torah,” inspectors said following an investigation of the school, according to The Independent.

Inspectors said the school was founded to prevent students from “developing a wider, deeper understanding of different faiths, communities, cultures and lifestyles, including those of England.”

The school was unavailable for comment, according to the Independent.

Sir Michael Wilshaw, the education department’s chief inspector of schools, said in December that the country’s Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills may also prosecute those running unregistered Islamic religious schools.

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U.S. Church Puts Five Israeli Banks on Investment Blacklist

 Republished from haaretz.com
 The pension fund of the United Methodist Church, the largest Protestant group in the U.S., makes the move in an effort to exclude companies that profit from abuse of human rights; Officials: Israel will try change the decision.
The Associated Press and Barak Ravid Jan 13, 2016 12:03 PM




A tourist photographs a sign painted on a wall in the West Bank biblical town of Bethlehem, June 5, 2015. AFP/Thomas Coex

    Protestant churches split over anti-Israel divestment resolutions
    United Church of Christ votes to divest from companies with ties to Israeli settlements
    United Methodist Church's pension board divests from Israel-linked company
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.697148

The pension fund for the United Methodist Church has blocked five Israeli banks from its investment portfolio in what it describes as a broad review meant to weed out companies that profit from abuse of human rights.

Senior officials in Israel's Foreign Ministry said they are still examining the decision, but added that Israel will make quiet efforts to convince the leaders of the church to change or soften the measure ahead of the Methodist General Conference in May.

The fund, called the General Board of Pension and Health Benefits, excluded Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, First International Bank of Israel, Israel Discount Bank, and Mizrahi Tefahot Bank, according to the pension board's website.

The Israeli bank stock the board sold off was worth a few million dollars in a fund with $20 billion in assets. The fund also sold holdings worth about $5,000 in the Israeli real estate and construction company Shikun & Binui, and barred the company from the pension group's investment portfolio.

The pension board identified Israel and the Palestinian territories among more than a dozen "high risk" countries or regions with "a prolonged and systematic pattern of human rights abuses." Other countries on the list include Saudi Arabia, the Central African Republic and North Korea.

The Methodist church has about 13 million members worldwide and is the largest mainline Protestant group in the United States.

The pension board had initiated the review in 2014 with a focus on protecting human rights and easing climate change. A total of 39 companies around the world were excluded from the fund's investments over human rights concerns and nine more were blocked over worries about their alleged contribution to global warming. The fund remains invested in 18 Israeli companies, according to board spokeswoman Colette Nies.

The banks had been among several companies targeted by United Methodist Kairos Response, a coalition of church members who advocate for divestment from companies with business in the Israeli occupied territories.

"This is the first step toward an effort that helps send a clear message that we as a church are listening and that we are concerned about human rights violations," Susanne Hoder, a leader of United Methodist Kairos Response, said Tuesday. "We hope it will also be encouraging to people in the Jewish community who are working for justice."

A competing group, United Methodists for Constructive Peacemaking in Israel and Palestine, said in a statement that the pension board action should not be viewed as divestment from Israel, since the top Methodist legislative body rejected proposals in 2012 to divest from companies that produce equipment used by Israel in the territories. The same body, called General Conference, passed a resolution denouncing the Israeli occupation and expanding Jewish settlements in the territories.

The pension board's decision came at a time when divestment is gaining momentum among liberal Protestants as a tool to pressure Israel over its policies toward Palestinians. Last year, the United Church of Christ voted to divest from companies with business in the Israeli-occupied territories. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) took a similar vote in 2014.

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The Associated Press
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.697148

Canadians Panic As Food Prices Soar On Collapsing Currency

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/13/2016 23:18 -0500

inShare73

It was just yesterday when we documented the continuing slide in the loonie, which is suffering mightily in the face of oil’s inexorable decline.

As regular readers are no doubt acutely aware, Canada is struggling through a dramatic economic adjustment, especially in Alberta, the heart of the country’s oil patch. Amid the ongoing crude carnage the province has seen soaring property crime, rising food bank usage and, sadly, elevated suicide rates, as Albertans struggle to comprehend how things up north could have gone south (so to speak) so quickly.

The plunging loonie “can only serve to worsen the death of the 'Canadian Dream'" we said on Tuesday.


As it turns out, we were right.

The currency's decline is having a pronounced effect on Canadians' grocery bills.
 As Bloomberg reminds us, Canada imports around 80% of its fresh fruits and vegetables. When the loonie slides, prices for those goods soar. "With lower-income households tending to spend a larger portion of income on food, this side effect of a soft currency brings them the most acute stress" Bloomberg continues.

Of course with the layoffs piling up, you can expect more households to fall into the "lower-income" category where they will have to fight to afford things like $3 cucumbers, $8 cauliflower, and $15 Frosted Flakes. 

As Bloomberg notes, James Price, director of Capital Markets Products at Richardson GMP, recently joked during an interview on BloombergTV Canada that "we're going to be paying a buck a banana pretty soon."

Have a look at the following tweets which underscore just how bad it is in Canada's grocery aisles. And no, its not just Nunavut: it from coast to coast:

And while some Canadians might think this is a regional phenomenon ...

... folks in the northern parts of the Great White North do have the most cause to cry foul:




No "Jack Nasty" it's not The Great Depression, but as we highlighted three weeks ago, it is Canada's depression and it's likely to get worse before it gets better. "Last year, fruits and veggies jumped in price between 9.1 and 10.1 per cent, according to an annual report by the Food Institute at the University of Guelph," CBC said on Tuesday. "The study predicts these foods will continue to increase above inflation this year, by up to 4.5 per cent for some items."

If you thought we were being hyperbolic when we suggested that if oil prices don't rise soon, Canadians may well eat themselves to death, consider the following from Diana Bronson, the executive director of Food Secure Canada: 

"Lower- and middle-class people — many who can't find a job that will pay them enough to ensure that they can afford a healthy diet for their families" — also feel the pinch of rising food prices"

"The wrong kind of food is cheap, and the right kind of food is still expensive."

In other words, some now fear that the hardest hit parts of the country may experience a spike in obesity rates as Canadians resort to cheap, unhealthy foods. As we put it, "in Alberta it's 'feast or famine' in the most literal sense of the phrase as those who can still afford to buy food will drown their sorrows in cheap lunch meat and off-brand ice cream while the most hard hit members of society are forced to tap increasingly overwhelmed food banks." 

And the rub is that there's really nothing anyone can do about it.
Were the Bank of Canada to adopt pro-cyclical measures to shore up the loonie, they would risk choking off economic growth just as the crude downturn takes a giant bite out of the economy - no food pun intended.

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