Usual time, usual place.

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The Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill, has been introduced into the House of Lords by Baroness Caroline Cox (independent), with the support of the One Law for All campaign. The bill doesn’t aim to interfere with religious freedom, but does aim to stop the discrimination against women under the sharia law system. Read the National Secular Society’s report on their website. Currently, many British Muslim women suffer unequal access to divorce, domestic violence and general injustice, while their rights aren’t recognised by sharia courts.

We’ve been concerned that the Conservatives’ ‘Big Society‘ idea offers a lot of encouragement for faith organisations to provide public services, yet faith-based welfare is fraught with problems. Now former MP Dr Evan Harris and grassroots Lib Dems are warning the Government that it shouldn’t press ahead with this policy without ensuring that strict rules are in place to prevent proselytising, among other things. Today’s Guardian quotes Harris as saying,

The Pod Delusion reports that Anthony Grayling has said that he won’t take up the presidency of the BHA on July 1st because of the controversy surrounding plans for his 18,000 a year New College of the Humanities. Current BHA President Polly Toynbee will stay on until she can be replaced.

For Humanist Week, this week, John Palmer and other committee members have created a display in Suffolk Central Library in Northgate Street, Ipswich. June 21st, the midsummer solstice, is World Humanist Day. The display lists the names of some leading humanists and shows some of the books they’ve written, to encourage library users to find out more. It also shows our two websites: www.suffolkhands.org.uk and www.agoodlifewithoutreligion.com. Click here for a map to the library.

British artist Darryl Cunningham is working on a book of Science Stories, due out next spring. It’ll include a comic strip explanation of evolution. Meanwhile, you can see the strip on his blog. Darryl says, “I’m sure there’ll be mistakes here, so do feel free to point them out, so that I can make the necessary changes. Thank you.” On the subject of evolution, have you read our page about Creationism and Intelligent Design?

Professor Edzard Ernst, the retiring Director of the Complimentary Medicine Research Group, said the claims of faith healers investigated on Newsnight last night are “irresponsible, even criminal”. The “healers” claimed to be able to cure cancer. Click here to see the programme.

Successive UK governments have been mucking about with our education system for decades, but it seems to have been almost completely dismantled the previous Labour government, which introduced specialist schools,and academies, and the current government. The comprehensive system may not have been popular with everyone, but it was possible to fix it without destroying it in the process. Nowadays, the emphasis is on parental choice, which usually means that those who shout loudest get the most and their choices aren’t necessarily informed.

In 2005, our webmaster Nathan Nelson took a series of photos in Phnom Penhs Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, S-21. Some of them have been used in the new Museum of Memory and Tolerance, a not-for-profit based in Mexico City. Click here to see more of the photos. Warning: some will find these pictures disturbing.