Friday morning catchup

Just a few items that caught my eye but didn't have time to give proper attention to:

1. This Is London reports that:

'Schools are allowing Muslim families to withdraw their children from music lessons because learning an instrument is forbidden according to some Islamic beliefs.

Hundreds of pupils are thought to have been removed from state school music classes despite the subject forming part of the statutory National Curriculum.

Parents have no automatic right to withdraw their children from subjects such as music, although legal exemptions exist for religious and sex education.

...

The Open University's Dr Diana Harris, an expert on music education and Muslims, said she had visited schools where half of the pupils were withdrawn from music lessons during Ramadan. She claimed Ofsted inspectors sometimes turned “a blind eye” to the issue.'

2. The Mail reports that:

'British taxpayers were left with a staggering £1.2billion bill to tackle a swine flu pandemic that never materialised, it emerged today.

Health officials spent millions on a vast stockpile of vaccines, antibiotics and anti-virals - many of which remain unused.

Even when it became clear that the medicines were not needed, the Government was locked into inflexible contracts with no get-out clauses, a report into the crisis concluded.'

Hey it was only taxpayers' money, something the last Labour government were always keen to spend/waste. Whose company got the contract?


3. The BBC report that: 'Israeli air strike kills Palestinian man, wounds two'. In fact the story concerns a Palestinian terrorist killed after firing a rocket at Israel. It would seem that the BBC have moved from describing these people as militants to just men.


4. The BBC report that an 'Israeli pig-farming kibbutz draws religious ire'. How silly religious Jews are to take offence at the pig, seems to be the subtext. I wonder how they would treat a similar story if it happened in Saudi Arabia, for example? I think we all know why such a story would never happen...