A senior Saudi cleric has said purveyors of horoscopes on Arab television should face the death penalty

"Sorcerers who appear on satellite channels who are proven to be sorcerers have committed a great crime ... and the Muslim consensus is that the apostate's punishment is death by the sword," Sheikh Saleh al-Fozan told al-Madina daily. "Those who call in to these shows should not be accorded Muslim rites when they die," the prominent cleric added. Many of the hundreds of Arab satellite channels have sprung up in recent years specialize in horoscopes and other advice to callers on solving problems that is seen as "sorcery". In their capacity as judges, clerics of Saudi Arabia's austere form of Islam often sentence "sorcerers" to death. Fozan, a member of the Higher Council of Clerics, was responding to a controversy ignited by a Council colleague, Sheikh Saleh al-Lohaidan, who said that owners of Arab TV shows should be tried and face death over some shows. Lohaidan, who is the head of Saudi Arabia's Islamic sharia courts, told Saudi radio: "I want to advise the owners of these channels that broadcast programs with indecency and vulgarity and warn them of the consequences ... They can be put to death through the judicial process." He was referring to comedy shows and soap operas airing in Ramadan, a month of fasting when Muslims are supposed to focus on God. Critics say Ramadan has become an orgy of food and television consumption once the fast ends at sunset. Fozan said entertainment channel owners should be "banished" but stopped short of advocating the death penalty for them. "The position of Muslims and their rulers about these channels is that they should be talked to and if they continue airing depravity and shamelessness they should be banished from this place and others brought in their place." Turkish soap operas that became hugely popular in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries provoked a storm of anger among Saudi conservatives who fear the spread of secular culture in the key U.S. ally. The government's official advisor on religious affairs, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdelaziz Al al-Sheikh, said in July 2008 it was not Islamically permissible to watch the Turkish serials.

Jewish academic says that he would not be able to tolerate living next door to Jamaican neighbors

George Steiner, 79, said he believed racism was inherent in everyone and that racial tolerance was merely skin deep. "It's very easy to sit here, in this room, and say 'racism is horrible'," he said from his house in Cambridge, where he has been Extraordinary Fellow at Churchill College since 1969. "But ask me the same thing if a Jamaican family moved next door with six children and they play reggae and rock music all day. Or if an estate agent comes to my house and tells me that because a Jamaican family has moved next door the value of my property has fallen through the floor. Ask me then!" Steiner, whose Jewish family fled to America from Paris before the Nazi invasion of 1940, adds: "In all of us, in our children, and to maintain our comfort, our survival, if you scratch beneath the surface, many dark areas appear. Don't forget it."

Iraqi refugees in the Netherlands

Dutch Deputy Justice Minister Nebahat Albayrak says Iraqi refugees will no longer be granted automatic refugee status because the security situation in their country is improving.

A former Archbishop of Canterbury has warned that uncontrolled immigration could lead to violence on Britain's streets

Lord Carey, who was head of the Anglican Communion between 1991 and 2002, said there was "deep distress" among members of the public about the large numbers of people moving to the country. He claimed this could turn to anger and even violence if the problems are not addressed, and added that the unprecedented scale of people arriving from different faiths and cultures could change what it means to be British. Lord Carey is part of a new cross-party group on immigration, which is calling for a "one in, one out" policy to balance the number of people arriving in the country with those leaving and reduce pressure on public services. He wrote in a newspaper article: "For years it has been impossible to question the wisdom of large-scale immigration without being branded a racist'.

Has mass immigration and political correctness turned Britain into a haven for Islamic fanatics?

British historian A N Wilson examines the negative effects of Islamic immigration on Britain.

Scientists say that the genetic variance related to height, weight and body fat of humans is wider in Caucasians than in Asians

This suggests that people of different ethnic backgrounds should be treated differently for medical conditions like growth disorders and obesity, Chonnam University's Hur Yoon-mi said. Huh led a team of researchers who studied the data of 3,735 pairs of Caucasian twins from countries such as the United States, Australia, Finland and the Netherlands born between 1975 and 1993 and compared them with the details of 1,584 twins from South Korea, Japan and China born between 1968 and 1994. In both males and females, Caucasian twins in general were taller, weighted more and showed a higher percentage of body fat than their East Asian peers. However, the variability in the measures of height, weight and body mass index (BMI) was also consistently larger among Caucasians. The study also suggested that genetic factors make most of the difference in determining physical features. The researchers found genetic influences greater than environmental factors, such as physical activities and dietary habits, in 91% of the variances in height. Genetic differences were also associated with 86% of the differences in weight. "This is one of the first studies about genetic and environmental factors effect on the differences in height, weight and BMI between Caucasians and Asians," said Huh. "This also shows that the prevention or treatment of growth-related disorders and obesity must differ between Caucasians and Asians," she said.

Philadelphia: 1 in 10 white students is classified as mentally gifted; just 3 in 100 black students are

Philadelphia School District officials have known they had an achievement gap on their hands for years. Recently, they saw the raw data, and were collectively horrified. One in 10 white students is classified as mentally gifted; just 3 in 100 black students are. Black and Latino students make up 79% of the district's 167,000 students, but make up just 54% of students in the district's prestigious magnet schools. Those groups make up 90% of all children labeled emotionally disturbed, and most of the students at the district's lowest-performing schools.

The population of sub-Saharan Africa will not have access to adequate sanitation until the 22nd century

Charities have also claimed that such little progress has been made on poverty targets that the population will also lack adequate access to safe water until 2035. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) Tearfund and WaterAid made the claims in a report entitled Sanitation and Water - Why We Need a Global Framework for Action. They follow the publication of the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Report, which shows what progress has been made on poverty targets set out at the organisation’s Millennium Summit eight years ago. The report is expected to show the international community is falling behind in its efforts to relieve global poverty, with inadequate progress made on targets such as promoting gender equality and combating HIV/AIDS by 2015. The figures reveal some goals are close to being met. For example, the large population’s of China and India are achieving greater access to food, therefore helping to fulfil the MDG to eradicate hunger. But sub-Sahara African countries are falling behind, it says, with millions of the world's poorest people moving deeper into poverty.

Blacks and Hispanics continue to be disproportionately affected by increasing rates of HIV infection

Blacks and Hispanics continue to be disproportionately affected by increasing rates of HIV infection, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported, with minority women and men who have sex with men at particularly high risk. Previously, the CDC reported that at 56,300 new cases in 2006, the rate of new HIV infections was roughly 40% higher than earlier estimates had indicated. At that time, they found that 75% of new infections that year were among men. In the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the CDC reports more detailed analysis of data from the HIV Incidence Surveillance System. Dr. Kevin Fenton and Dr. Richard Wolitski, at the CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, discussed the findings in a telebriefing. "For the first time we're able to provide new HIV incidence estimates for specific subpopulations, with further breakdowns of new infections among various races, transmission categories, age groups, and gender," Fenton said. "These data will allow us to target HIV prevention efforts and evaluate their impact with much more precision than ever before." According to Fenton, the data show a "strikingly high incidence of new HIV infections among young (ages 13 to 29) black males who are gay or bisexual; the heavy impact among white men who have sex with men in their 30s and 40s; and that, compared with other women, black women bear the heaviest burden of HIV." Dr. Wolitski pointed out that "individual differences in rates of risk behavior and substance use do not account for the disparity in infection rates in young black men who have sex with men, which means that factors outside the individual are increasing the risk associated with any risky sexual encounter." Such factors include higher background prevalence of HIV among African Americans, he said, the risk is increased because the infection rate among African Americans is already higher than in other groups. Another factor is the "different patterns of age mixing, in which younger black men who have sex with men may be more likely to have slightly older partners compared with other races or ethnicities." Fenton said that the HIV prevalence (overall number of individuals already infected) is driving the disproportionate disease incidence (the rate of new infections) among black women, as well as "patterns of sexual mixing in which they are having intercourse with men who are themselves at high risk, such as bisexual men or men who inject drugs or who were exposed while in prison." Also at issue among black women, he added, are "power imbalances with men in sexual relationships that limit their ability to protect themselves."

A Nigerian woman who produced human fingers in court in a bid to explain her involvement in a £925,000 tax credit fraud has been jailed for 5 years

Remi Fakorede, 46, from Hackney, east London, told Snaresbrook Crown Court, she had been forced into crime by a voodoo curse on her and her family. Fakorede claimed the same voodoo curse caused the fingers belonging to one of her six children to fall off. She was convicted of one count of fraud between 1 August 2002 and 26 June 2007. Her daughter, Denise Shofolawe-Cokerenise, 21, also from Hackney, was jailed for 12 months at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Thursday after being found guilty of laundering £70,000 of the stolen money. Judge Jacqueline Beech said the 46-year-old Nigerian-born defendant's behavior was utterly disgraceful and a cynical attempt to manipulate the jury. DNA test results have since been ordered to determine who the body parts belonged to, although it is understood the defendant's three-year-old daughter had lost part of her hand after suffering renal problems and developing gangrene. Social Services and the Child Protection Agency were also contacted following the incident in court. Passing sentence the judge, who said the fingers incident was the most horrific she had experienced, told Fakorede she had been responsible for a wholesale assault on the benefit system.

African immigrants have rioted in Spain after a Senegalese man was stabbed to death in the street of a southern town

Police said the rampage led to houses and cars being set on fire. After the 28-year-old man was killed in a fight in Roquetas de Mar, an angry gathering degenerated into violence and public disorder. Police said they did not know what led to the attack, but they were looking for a local man. A witness said the man was killed as he tried to intervene in a dispute between Senegalese and Roma (Gypsy) families in the area. Rioters set fire to two homes of relatives of the man suspected of the killing, police said. They also said rioters attacked firefighters with stones, and clashed with police. There are a high proportion of immigrants in Roquetas de Mar, in the province of Almeria, many of whom work in the agricultural sector.

A minister in the Democratic Republic of Congo has ordered a Kinshasa jail to release a dozen goats, which he said were being held there illegally

Deputy Justice Minister Claude Nyamugabo said he found the goats just in time during a routine jail visit. The beasts were due to appear in court, charged with being sold illegally by the roadside. The minister said many police had serious gaps in their knowledge and they would be sent for retraining. Nyamugabo was conducting a routine visit to the prison when, he said, he was astonished to discover not only humans, but a herd of goats crammed into a prison cell in the capital. He has blamed the police for the incident. It is not clear what will happen to the owners of the goats, who have also been imprisoned. There was no word on what the goats' punishment would have been, had they been found guilty.

Is school segregation the answer to black crime in London?

The increasingly unruly nature of elements of black Londoners has led to black politicians such as Lee Jasper - former aide to former Mayor Livingstone - calling for support to have black only schools. In Toronto,Canada the Toronto District School Board approved for the establishment of "Afrocentric or black-focused schools" in 2009 which aims to address the high level dropout of black children estimated to be at 40% per cent in the city. In London the dropout rate is around 20-30% in certain areas of London, with crime figures indicating that murders amongst young people show blacks to be the victims and perpetrators in 80% of cases. The black school in Toronto has been a very emotive issue with emotions raised during the debates evaluating the merits of the school.

Three Jewish teens were attacked by a gang of Muslim African immigrants in Paris

The Jewish teens, ages 17 and 18, who have been identified as Dan Nebet, Kevin Bitan and David Boaziz, are leaders of the Bnei Akiva youth group in Paris' 19th District. Thiery Nebet, Dan's father, said that according to his son, as they were walking down the street, "Four or five Arabs of African origin started to throw walnuts at Kevin. When he went up to them to ask them why they did it, they surrounded him and knocked him down. Dan and David moved in and very quickly more Arabs joined in and started to beat the three with their fists and with chains." The Jewish teens were hospitalized, one with a broken nose and jaw and all three with bruises, and filed a police report after their release. Police opened an investigation and are looking for the Muslim teenagers allegedly responsible for the attacks. According to the chairman of the Jewish Students Union in France, Raphael Haddad, barrages of stones were thrown at the three teens during the attack. Haddad also said the incident occurred on Petit Street in the 19th District, not far from where a 17-year-old Jewish youth was attacked and seriously injured by immigrants on June 21, 2008. The attack is one of a long series of racial attacks in Europe in general and in France in particular. France has Western Europe's largest population of both Jews and Muslims.

University of California: Officials are perverting the law in a desperate attempt to increase black enrollment

Ever since California voters banned the use of racial preferences in government and education in 1996, the University of California has tried to engineer admissions systems that would replicate the effect of explicit racial quotas while appearing color-blind. To some observers, the legality of those efforts has long been suspect, but proof of wrongdoing has been hard to come by. Now a professor who sat on UCLA's committee on undergraduate admissions is charging that the school is deliberately taking race into account when deciding which students to admit. The university has refused to give him access to the data to test his claim, prompting the professor - political science faculty member Tim Groseclose - to resign from the school's admissions oversight committee in protest. UCLA's stonewalling is misguided and futile. Though the University of California has always jealously guarded information on its students' qualifications and its admissions procedures, enough details have come out over the last 10 years to suggest that race remains a factor in many parts of the system. More important, hard evidence is accumulating that enrolling students in a college for which they are academically unprepared does them a disservice. The story begins with the passage of Proposition 209, the 1996 anti-quota ballot initiative, which reduced the number of African Americans admitted to campuses across the state and sent UC officials into crisis mode. They began implementing a series of admissions changes intended to bring underqualified blacks and Latinos back to the system's most demanding campuses. They tried a preference scheme for low-income students, but it backfired when it boosted the number of Eastern European and Vietnamese admissions -- not the sort of "diversity" the university had in mind. Administrators cut the low-income preferences in half and went back to the drawing board. The subsequent admissions gambits, which continue to be rolled out to this day, are intended to increase "diversity" without running afoul of the law. Whether they have succeeded in substituting other factors for race in a permissible manner, or whether they are illegally seeking to pervert the requirements of the law, will probably be decided, in the end, in court.

Australia has been singled out as a target for forest jihad by a group of Islamic extremists

US intelligence channels have identified a website calling on Muslims in Australia, the US, Europe and Russia to start forest fires, claiming "scholars have justified chopping down and burning the infidels' forests when they do the same to our lands". The website, posted by a group called the Al-Ikhlas Islamic Network, argues in Arabic that lighting fires is an effective form of terrorism justified in Islamic law under the "eye for an eye" doctrine. The posting — which instructs jihadis to remember "forest jihad" in summer months — says fires cause economic damage and pollution, tie up security agencies and can take months to extinguish so that "this terror will haunt them for an extended period of time". "Imagine if, after all the losses caused by such an event, a jihadist organisation were to claim responsibility for the forest fires," the website says. "You can hardly begin to imagine the level of fear that would take hold of people in the United States, in Europe, in Russia and in Australia."

Hat tip, Brenda Walker!

Obama, the community organizer

Steve Sailer blogs about the role of the "community organizer".

The enduring power of ethnic nationalism

In short, ethnonationalism has played a more profound and lasting role in modern history than is commonly understood, and the processes that led to the dominance of the ethnonational state and the separation of ethnic groups in Europe are likely to reoccur elsewhere. Increased urbanization, literacy, and political mobilization; differences in the fertility rates and economic performance of various ethnic groups; and immigration will challenge the internal structure of states as well as their borders. Whether politically correct or not, ethnonationalism will continue to shape the world in the twenty-first century.

The ability to sweat may do more than keep the body cool - it may mean a lower chance of exercise-related asthma, say scientists

University of Michigan researchers say those who make less sweat, tears and saliva when exercising may have more breathing problems. It is possible there is also too little fluid in their airways, they suggest. While the symptoms of "exercise-induced asthma" are similar to those of chronic asthma, people with the condition only develop attacks after several minutes of intense exercise. It is a common condition among trained athletes but the reasons are poorly understood. The team looked at 56 volunteers suspected of having the condition, measuring their responses to a drug called pilocarpine, which induces sweat and saliva production, and another which constricts the airways in people with exercise-induced asthma. Those who had the greatest response to the airway drug tended to have the lowest response to the sweating drug and vice versa. Even without the help of the drug they also found a correlation in their volunteers between the amount they sweated and the amount of saliva and tear secretion. While this did not prove that the mechanism behind lack of sweat was responsible, Dr Warren Lockette, who led the study, speculated that low sweating might also mean less fluid in the airways. He said: "It now appears that how much fluid your airways secrete could be a key determinant in protecting you from exercise-induced asthma. So, if athletes sweat, drool, or cry, at least they won't gasp."

A novel about Aisha, the 6-year-old wife of Mohammed, was deemed too controversial to print in America

The Jewel of Medina was due to be published by Random House in the US, but was cancelled, because of fears of offending Muslim sensibilities. Helle Merete Brix described the book as well written, but is worried about how some might react to the content. 'The novel describes the prophet getting a glimpse of the naked wife of his adopted son, and as a result sets his sights on marrying her. I don't really know how well that story will be received.' The book was published recently in Serbia, but strong reactions from the religious community forced the publishers to pull all copies from the bookstores.

Pakistani girl who had been forced into marriage with a 45-year-old man at the age of 9 has been killed by her parents

Despair among human rights workers in Pakistan over a rash of so-called "honor killings" intensified when it was disclosed that a girl forced into marriage with a 45-year-old man at the age of nine had been killed by her parents because she asked for an annulment. The girl, Saira Nusrat Bibi, 17, who had been fighting a lonely but successful legal battle, was coming out of court in the Punjabi city of Sahiwal after being granted the annulment by a judge when she was surrounded by a group of men and shot in view of police.

EU clears Berlusconi over Roma gypsies

The center-Right Government of Silvio Berlusconi has declared that it had been fully vindicated after the European Commission said the fingerprinting of Roma gypsies in Italian camps did not amount to ethnic discrimination and was in line with EU law. Roberto Maroni, the Interior Minister, said the statement by Jacques Barrot, the European Justice Commissioner, showed that "the accusations and insults we have received were unjustified. Justice has been done".

Spain's government has defended a plan to fight soaring unemployment by shutting the door on foreign workers

The Socialist government has been under fire from unions, immigrant advocacy groups and opposition parties since the labor minister announced that the number of work visas granted abroad to people eager to take low-skill jobs in Spain "will get close to zero". The minister, Celestino Corbacho, said on that it did not make sense to keep recruiting workers in other countries when Spain has 2.5 million people unemployed, 500,000 more than in August 2007, largely as a result of a collapse in the construction industry. Spain's population of 45 million is now about 10% immigrant - compared to an insignificant proportion a decade ago - largely from Latin America, North Africa and eastern Europe. Spain's economy has all but stagnated in less than a year, and gone from being one of the EU's top job-creators to having its highest jobless rate - 10.7%, according to Eurostat, the bloc's statistical agency.

Vietnamese Americans who came to the United States as political refugees are suffering from higher rates of mental health problems than whites

In the first analysis of its kind for Vietnamese Americans in California, researchers found that Vietnamese Americans over 55 were twice as likely as whites to report needing mental health care, but were less likely to discuss such issues with their doctors. "The message I want to bring across is that the medical community needs to realize that Vietnamese Americans are a high-risk group," said Dr. Quyen Ngo-Metzger, who led the survey.

Genetic code once written off as meaningless played a potential role in the evolution of the human ability to hold tools and walk upright

The study is the latest in a long line of evidence to show that the genetics textbooks will have to be rewritten. It underlines how, even though the human genetic code was read letter by letter for the first time in 2000, geneticists are still struggling to figure out what it means almost a decade later. When scientists refer to genes, they mean stretches of DNA code that contain the instructions to make the proteins that build and operate the body. When the genome was first unveiled, it was thought all human genes resided in only around 1.5 per cent of the cell's DNA, prompting some scientists so dismiss the other 98.5 per cent as "junk". Now, in the journal Science, Dr James Noonan of Yale University and colleagues report that one of these supposed non coding "junk" regions may have played a starring role in the evolutionary changes in human limbs that enabled us to manipulate tools and to walk upright. The comparison of the human, chimpanzee, rhesus macaque and other genetic codes provided evidence that changes in junk areas of the genome helped to separate us from our ape ancestors, notably by "humanising" our hands and feet. Working with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, the Genome Institute of Singapore, and the Medical Research Council's Human Genetics Unit in Edinburgh, Dr Noonan searched vast regions of the human genome for DNA sequences whose function may have changed during the evolution of humans from our ape-like ancestors. The most rapidly evolving sequence they identified, termed HACNS1, is highly conserved among vertebrate species - that is, it hardly varies - but has accumulated variations in 16 letters since the divergence of humans and chimpanzees from a common ancestor six million years ago. This was especially surprising, as the human and chimpanzee genomes are extremely similar overall, Dr Noonan said. The importance of the changes in HACNS1 was confirmed bystudies that showed the same stretch of code could turn on a "reporter gene" in developing mouse limbs, in contrast to the equivalent chimpanzee and rhesus sequences. Most intriguing for human evolution, the human sequence influenced the use of genes at the base of the primordial thumb in the forelimb and the great toe in the hind limb. The results provided tantalizing, but researchers say preliminary, evidence that the functional changes in HACNS1 may have contributed to adaptations in the human ankle, foot, thumb and wrist-- critical advantages that underlie the evolutionary success of our species. Remarkably, some five per cent of the genome - including DNA in addition to that found in genes - is similar in a range of mammals, from dog to human, suggesting it plays a crucial enough role for evolution to preserve it while species have evolved. In the last several years, scientists have also discovered that non-coding regions of the genome contain thousands of regulatory elements that act as genetic "switches" to turn genes on or off. An exhaustive analysis of one per cent of the genome, some 30 million letters of DNA, published by an international team called the ENCyclopedia of DNA Elements (Encode) Consortium, along with 28 companion papers published in the journal Genome Research, revealed that much of the "junk" DNA seems to be the cell's "operating system" that runs genes.

Scientists uncover genetic variant which makes some males prone to infidelity

Men who inherit a genetic variant that affects an important attachment hormone are more likely than usual to have weaker relationships and marital problems, and less likely to be married, according to the research. Their wives and girlfriends are also more likely to be less satisfied with them as partners. While the study did not look directly at infidelity, the findings suggest that male monogamy might also be influenced by variations in a single gene. The study's authors cautioned that any effect would apply only on average, and that it was impossible to predict whether any individual would be unfaithful or a bad partner on the basis of his genes. The gene in question affects the receptor for a hormone called vasopressin, which plays an important role in social behaviour, pair-bonding and sexual attachment. Its effects were first characterised by studies of different species of voles. Although the meadow and prairie voles are close cousins, their sexual behaviour is dramatically different. Like most mammals, male meadow voles are highly promiscuous, but male prairie voles are monogamous. When boy prairie vole meets girl, the two indulge in 24 to 36 hours of nearly continuous mating, which cements a bond that invariably lasts for life. When one partner dies, the survivor usually opts to remain celibate rather than find another mate. Male prairie vole brains contain much higher levels of vasopressin than those of meadow voles. There also genetic differences in the receptor for vasopressin in the two species. The role of the hormone in promoting attachment was proved in 2004, after scientists enhanced the gene for the vasopressin receptor in male meadow voles. This turned them from promiscuous lotharios into loyal and attentive spouses. Vasopressin is also active in the human brain, and scientists have long wondered whether it might play a similar role in human relationships. Humans are among the less than 5 per cent of mammals that form at least partially monogamous bonds, even if our standards of fidelity are lax in comparison to prairie voles. Scientists investigated three genetic variations in the human vasopressin receptor, and tested a database of 2,186 twins and their partners to determine which types they had inherited. The team, led by Hasse Walum, of the Karolinska Institute, in Stockholm, then gave each couple a standard test to assess the strength of their relationship, and asked them whether they had experienced a marital crisis or threat of divorce or separation in the past year. They found that one of the genetic variants, known as 334, had a moderately significant effect, but in men only. Men with two copies of this variant were twice as likely to have had a marital crisis, and they scored lower on the pair-bond quality index. They were less likely to be married to their partners, and their wives and girlfriends were more likely to be dissatisfied with their relationship. All the men used in the study had been in a relationship for at least five years. The results, which are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, indicate that genetic variations in vasopressin uptake may influence how men behave in their relationships. The scientists suggest tentatively that the association would be even stronger in a population that also comprised subjects who were not involved in long-term romantic relationships, and are planning to conduct further research into this.

Intelligence is 25% environmental and 75% genetic

Studies of identical twins show the importance of nature over nurture when it comes to human intelligence.

Hat tip, Half Sigma!

HIV-positive couples are being paired up for marriage by a northern Nigerian state in an attempt to reduce the spread of the disease

But international AIDS experts have voiced concern at the plan. Warren Naamara from UNAIDS said the two people could have different strains of the virus, which could interact. He said the couples should use condoms. Around 70 couples have been matched up in the last few weeks, according to Bauchi state authorities. Authorities in the state say they are trying to stop HIV spreading and battle the "isolation and stigma" of the disease. Some 3% of Nigeria's adult population - 2.4 million people - is estimated to be HIV-positive. Bauchi State operates under Sharia, or Islamic laws, and the use of condoms is not encouraged.

Five Pakistani women were buried alive by their tribe in a mass honor killing prompted by their wish to choose their own husbands

The victims, who included three teenagers, were abducted at gunpoint, beaten and shot before being thrown into a ditch. They were still breathing as their bodies were covered with rocks and mud, according to media reports and human rights activists. The incident occurred in Baba Kot, a remote village in Jafferabad district, after the women decided to defy tribal elders and arrange marriages in a civil court, according to the Asian Human Rights Commission. They were said to have been abducted at gunpoint by six men, forced into a vehicle and taken to a remote field, where they were beaten, shot and then buried alive, it said, accusing local authorities of trying to hush up the killings. A Pakistani lawmaker provoked outrage by defending men from the Baluch tribe who had carried out the killings. Israr Ullah Zehri told stunned members of Pakistan's parliament: 'These are centuries-old traditions and I will continue to defend them. Only those who indulge in immoral acts should be afraid.' He claimed the tribal traditions helped stop obscenity - and then asked fellow lawmakers not to make a big fuss about it.

Women tend to choose husbands who look like their fathers, a study shows

The latest work from the University of Pécs in Hungary provides yet more evidence for the phenomenon, known as sexual imprinting. Others have shown women use dads as a template for picking a mate even if they are adopted, suggesting imprinting is led by experience not simply genes. This notion is backed by other work showing the imprinting link is lost on women who did not have good relationships with their fathers. The Hungarian team measured the facial proportions of the members of 52 families. They found significant correlations between the young men and their fathers-in-law, especially on facial proportions belonging to the central area of face - nose and eyes. Women also showed resemblance to their mothers-in-law in the facial characteristics of their lower face - lips and jaw. Lead researcher Tamas Bereczkei said: "Our results support the sexual imprinting hypothesis which states that children shape a mental template of their opposite-sex parents and search for a partner who resembles that perceptual schema." Familiarity alone does not appear to account for choosing a partner because the participants did not adopt templates for their same-sex parents, they said. They say males and females choose different facial areas of parents to be models in accordance with their general sexual preferences for facial traits. Experts say there may be an advantage to selecting a mate somewhat similar to themselves genetically. Dr Lynda Boothroyd from the University of Durham, a psychologist who has carried out similar research, said: "There is an argument that a certain degree of similarity makes people more fertile and genetically compatible."

Gang warfare on the streets of London as South Asian and black youths battle

Armed with spades, screwdrivers, bars and sticks, two gangs clashed and sent locals fleeing into shops for safety. This running battle between black and South Asian youths - a sickening example of brutal Britain today - was captured by a photographer who had been waiting in the street to take a photo of the actress Julie Christie, who lives nearby. In one picture, youths wielding sticks and spades attack each other and in another, a youth wearing a hoodie and a baseball cap uses a screwdriver in a stabbing motion. Some of the gang members wore masks as they charged down the street waving sticks and other assorted weapons - one even brandishing a Wellington boot as a makeshift weapon. The confrontation happened around Columbia Road, East London, which is home to a popular Sunday morning flower market. The fracas lasted around 20 minutes and involved at least ten gang members. It is understood to have flared after an Asian man accused several black youths of vandalising his property.

Why don't Jews want to live in Israel?

Philip Weiss writes that many Jews prefer to live amongst non-Jews.

Holocaust hoax author asks court to ignore her deception

An author who fabricated a best-selling memoir about surviving the Holocaust by living with wolves has asked a US court to ignore the book's veracity in a £17.7 million battle against her former publisher. Misha Defonseca, a 71-year-old Belgian, told a judge in Massachusetts that whether Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years was true or not should have no bearing on a seven-year-old court verdict that she and her ghost writer won in a fight over the book's profits. Jane Daniel, the memoir's American publisher, claims that the 2001 court award against her should be reversed because it later turned out that the book was a hoax. She also argues that Defonseca only won because the jury was sympathetic towards someone they thought to be a Holocaust survivor. Her harrowing tale, which was translated into 18 languages and made into a French feature film, was exposed as a fraud in February 2008. Defonseca, who was born Monique De Wael, confessed that her parents had never been sent to Auschwitz and weren't even Jewish. She also admitted that, contrary to the book, she was never adopted by wolves, she did not kill a German soldier in self-defence and she did not walk 3,000 miles across Europe. Defonseca said at the time that she had always "felt Jewish" and, representing herself in Middlesex Superior Court in Woburn, argued that she had never consciously misled anyone. "Nothing was concocted to defraud the court. I had been telling my story for years and believed it to be true," she said. She and Veronica Lee, her ghost writer, argue that the statute of limitations has expired on Mrs Daniel's case. However, Joseph Orlando, the publisher's lawyer, said the statute did not apply as the jurors had "based their decision on lies". Mrs Daniel, who persuaded Defonseca to write a book and later worked with a genealogist to expose the fraud, says that the original contract had stipulated that the story had to be true. Despite its European success, the book only sold 5,000 copies in the US. The jury in 2001 found that Mrs Daniel had failed to promote the book and had hid profits from the author.

A Somali woman who came to Norway more than 10 years ago is harshly criticizing her fellow Somalian immigrants and Norwegian authorities

In a new book, she claims Somalians themselves don't want to integrate into Norwegian society, and that Norwegian welfare programs make it easy for them to remain isolated. The book written by Amal Aden, a pseudonym for the Somalian author, is already creating an uproar. Amal Aden wouldn't use her own name because of fears for her own safety. The author said she hopes to launch a new debate on immigration and what can be done to further integration. "I wrote the book in the hopes that children will get better lives," she said. "I want to see more integration, and the responsibility for that lies with the Somalians themselves and with the authorities." She claims that resistance to integration is widespread especially among Somalian men, who fear losing their culture and religion. Many are afraid of Norwegians and view them as infidels who can't be trusted. In her book, entitled "See us!" (Se oss!), Amal Aden claims the Somalians also exploit the Norwegian welfare state and have many children in order to qualify for more welfare payments. Many couples also "divorce" under Norwegian law in order for the women to receive even more welfare payments as single mothers, only to continue to live under Somalian customs with their Somalian husbands and have more children, the author claims. She writes that violence is a part of life in Somalian homes, that young girls are often molested and women and children are intentionally kept isolated. Many Somalian men, she claims, prefer to live on welfare than accept jobs seemingly below their social status. "I'm tired of being patient with a situation where children aren't getting enough food at home, where women are beaten by their husbands, where welfare payments to the (Somalian) families are used by the men to buy (the narcotic) khat, where the willingness to simply obtain more welfare money is stronger than the ability to care for children," writes Amal Aden. She accuses many spokesmen for the Somalian community of hypocrisy, saying they say they support integration when in reality they don't.

Police in the Mexican state of Yucatan have found the bodies of 11 men, decapitated and piled on each other

They were discovered in a rural area outside the city of Merida. Police have given few details. Correspondents say Yucatan state has largely been spared the deadly drug-related gang violence that has appeared in many other parts of Mexico. Police in Tijuana found three headless bodies in the latest incident of gang-related violence. The victims were found with their hands tied, along with messages referring to drug-trafficking. Their heads, found nearby, appear to have been burnt. Officials said the incident appeared to be a settling of scores by cartels.

An Asian man who killed his British National Party activist neighbor in a fight has been jailed for eight years

Habib Khan, 50, of Stoke-on-Trent, was convicted in May 2008 of the manslaughter of 52-year-old Keith Brown who he stabbed with a kitchen knife in July 2007. The two men had been involved in a long-running dispute over land. Stafford Crown Court was told Khan had killed Mr Brown in a fight outside their homes in Uttoxeter Road, Normacot. The court heard that in the incident last July, Khan held a knife against his neighbor. A post-mortem examination found Brown died from a single stab wound. Khan, described by a Muslim colleague as a respected, religious and helpful person, was also found guilty of wounding Brown's son, Ashley Barker, during the fight. Khan's other son, Kazir Saddique, was sentenced to a year in prison and a year on licence after admitting unlawful wounding. At a news conference outside the court, Brown's widow Julia said she felt justice had not been done. She said: "At the end of the day, it should have been murder not manslaughter. If he did not have the intention to go out and murder he should not have taken the knife out." Local BNP councillor, Martin Coleman, told reporters the party would start a campaign to expose what has gone on in court and said he viewed the case as insanity and madness. He added: "It bears no relationship with any form of justice that I understand, can understand recognise or accept. We've got a man who has been murdered in the street. Someone has ran out into the public street with a knife and murdered a man and the judge says there's literally no case to answer. I think what we've witnessed here is an outrageous betrayal of justice." Khan denied murdering Brown but was convicted of manslaughter on 23 May, 2008.

French police are hunting for a man who raped a Canadian student at a camp near Calais used by illegal immigrants

Police said the 31-year-old woman, who has spent most of her life in Britain, was attacked while photographing the site called "the jungle". The camp is used by migrants waiting to cross the Channel to Britain. Vice-prosecutor Philippe Muller told a press conference that the rape had been committed "by an individual who is currently being searched for". He added: "The Pas-de-Calais Victim Support Association has been called upon to provide help and support for the victim." The camp lies in woodland near the Calais ferry terminal. It is made up of shelters constructed from plastic sheets and camp-fires built by the migrants. The press conference was told that investigators have fingerprints and DNA samples from the suspect. They believe he came from the Middle East, and fear he may have left the area - either for Britain, Belgium or Holland.

Two mothers in South Africa are waiting for DNA results after their newborn babies were mixed up and one of them subsequently died

After they gave birth at the Alexandra Clinic, nurses allegedly forgot to tag the infants' wrists. The women were each given a child and told to return later for results, but one of the baby girls died. “I am torn between grief of losing a child and the thought of explaining to the other woman how her child died, if it’s hers," Lebo Nkadimeng, the mother in whose care the baby died, has said. "I cannot even mourn the baby’s death because I am not sure if she was mine,” she said.

A fifth of Indian herbal medicines sold on the Internet contain potentially lethal substances, according to a new study in the United States

The study at Boston university analysed 193 products and found that 20% of them contained lead, mercury or arsenic. Herbal medicine has been used in India for thousands of years and is growing in popularity in the West. The researchers said their findings showed that there should be stronger control of herbal supplements. Writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, lead researcher Dr Robert Saper said there was some evidence that herbs used in ayurvedic (Indian herbal) medicines could help against diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. "But the key thing is we need to separate out what's helpful and.... what needs to be looked at and perhaps set aside," he added. "Our first priority must be the safety of the public. Herbs and supplements with high levels of lead, mercury, and arsenic should not be available for sale on the Internet or elsewhere." The researchers discovered the presence of toxic metals in ayurvedic medicines made both in India and the US.

Bauchi State in northern Nigeria has banned co-education at all junior and senior schools

The bill listed a number of reasons including the need to fight teenage pregnancies and poor performance. Bauchi MP Aminu Tukur said that teenagers especially had difficulty controlling their sexual urges.

Somali asylum seeker with super deadly TB

The patient, believed to be an asylum seeker in his 30s from Somalia, East Africa, is the first to be diagnosed in Britain with extreme drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB). His case was picked up in Glasgow in January 2008 but a court order detaining him in hospital for treatment lapsed after his condition stabilized and he travelled south to Leeds, West Yorks. He has been admitted to an isolation room at a hospital in the city where he is being given high-dose drugs by specialist medical teams. The man travelled to Leeds to be near relatives and attended A&E in the city within 24 hours. It remains unclear if his application for asylum, made when he arrived in Britain in 2007, has been successful but the bill for treatment - which would run into tens of thousands of pounds a year - is being picked up by the NHS in Leeds. XDR TB poses a worldwide threat amid major concerns over increasing resistance of tuberculosis to antibiotics which originally proved highly effective against the illness. The World Health Organisation has warned that if the strain becomes established, it could lead to a TB epidemic leaving few options for treatment.

Prisoners and their children

Among minor children in the U.S. resident population, 6.7% of black children, 2.4% of Hispanic children, and 0.9% of white children had a parent in prison.

Average national SAT scores for the high school class of 2008 were the same as last year, even as a larger, more diverse group took the test

A record 1.52 million students took the SAT, an increase of 1.6 percent from 2007. Scores on math and critical reading had declined in recent years, and average scores dip as the pool of test takers increases, "so we're encouraged by the stability" of this year's scores, said Gaston Caperton, president of the non-profit College Board, the SAT's owner. Even so, average scores for blacks, Hispanics and some other minorities dropped while those of white and Asian students rose.

New data indicate New York City residents are contracting the virus that causes AIDS at three times the national rate

The city health department said that almost 4,800 New Yorkers were infected with HIV in 2006. The number represents 72 in every 100,000 residents, compared to a national rate of 23 per 100,000. The figures are the first to pinpoint when people became infected, not just when they were diagnosed. Better blood tests have helped make that possible. Health officials attribute the city's relatively high rate of new infections to its large populations of gay men, blacks and other groups on whom HIV has traditionally taken a heavy toll.

Israel and the conflict in Georgia

Did Israel bet on the wrong horse?

The achievement gap isn't caused by differences in funding

The 2007 Prairie State Achievement Exam test results (reading, science and math combined, for 11th graders in Chicago Public Schools, which spends $10,400 per student, show that 22% of black students meet or exceed standards while 63% of white students meet or exceed standards. Same schools, same funding levels and a large achievement gap. In Evanston District High HSD 202, where funding exceeds $17,000 per student, the same PSAE test show that 31% of black students meet or exceed standards while 89% of white students meet or exceed standards. District 211 in the Northwest suburbs, with funding around $13,500 per student, the PSAE shows that 27% of black students meet or exceed Standards while 74% of white students meet or exceed standards. This data strongly suggest that increased funding for Chicago Public Schools will not affect the black-white education achievement gap.

A white Muslim convert is being held by detectives investigating alleged threats to kill the British Prime Minister and Tony Blair

The 25-year-old man was arrested at a flat in the Whalley Range area of Blackburn. He is believed to be a friend of two other men arrested by counter-terrorism officers at Manchester Airport on August 14, 2008. The pair, who had been about to board a flight to Finland, live less than 100 yards from the home of the 25-year-old suspect. A fourth suspect, also from Blackburn, was arrested in Church, near Accrington, shortly after the arrests at Manchester Airport. All four men are being questioned about a posting on an Arabic website that often carries messages from senior members of al-Qaeda. The message, written in English, allegedly included a threat to target "all the political leaders, especially Tony Blair and Gordan (sic) Brown". It appeared only briefly on January 24, 2008 and purported to have been written by Shaykh Umar Rabie al-Khalaila, who described himself as "the leader of al-Qaeda in Britain". The latest man to be arrested changed his name when he converted to Islam four years ago.

Islam brings out the worst in people.

Genetic studies are helping to piece together the puzzle of how our genes contribute to mental illness

"There is a strong genetic component to most psychiatric disorders, with evidence coming from studies of twins and families," said Prof Peter McGuffin from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College in London, who spoke about genes, behaviour and mental illness at a European Behavioural Pharmacology Society conference in University College Cork. Speaking in advance of his talk, he described the complexities of the interactions between genes and the environment in mental illness, and said that genetic studies were starting to unpick those relationships and highlight the need for an individualized approach to drug treatment. Prof McGuffin was recently involved in a study - published online in the journal Nature Genetics - that newly links two genes to bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness). The study, to which researchers at Trinity College Dublin also contributed, looked at more than 4,000 people with bipolar disorder and found variations in two "ion channel" genes that function in the transmission of messages in brain cells. "A lot of inherited forms of epilepsy seem to be to do with defects in ion channels and various anti-convulsants are good mood stabilizers, but we have never known why. It's all coming together now," he said. His group has also found that an individual's response to antidepressants is affected by their genetic profile: if their genes mean they transport the brain chemical serotonin less effectively, they will have a poorer response to a commonly prescribed type of antidepressant known as an SSRI. It argues the case for a more personalised approach to treating mental illness, said Prof McGuffin: "The hope is that we will be able to take existing compounds and predict who will actually respond to what." Behavior can also be in part down to genes, he added. "There's a lot of evidence from good old-fashioned twin and adoption studies that criminal behaviour is influenced by genes," he said. "It's a touchy topic to talk about but the evidence is consistent."

Genes may also predispose people to anxiety disorders.

At least 25 African migrants have died from hunger, thirst and exposure after trying to reach Spain by boat

A cargo ship rescued 25 survivors off the coast of southern Spain's Almeria province. Five women and five children were reportedly among the survivors. A boat patrolling waters between Malaga and Melilla rescued the migrants from a half-submerged boat. Every year, tens of thousands of Africans try to enter Spain by boat to find work in Europe. "We can never know the exact number," a Red Cross employee at the port of Malaga said. The Red Cross representative said one woman had lost her husband and three small children at sea. "She was in shock, in a state of great anguish," the representative added. A total of 921 migrants died in 2007 from exposure or accidents as they made the journey by sea to Spain, according to a Spanish NGO, the Organization for Human Rights in Andalusia. The wave of would-be migrants has prompted the government to toughen its stance on migration. It has pledged to repatriate all illegal migrants and has set up joint naval patrols with European partners. The number of migrants who reached the country by boat has dropped almost 10% from the same period a year earlier and has more than halved since 2006, according to interior ministry figures.

San Francisco's immigrant sanctuary policies played a role in the slayings of 3 people by shielding the killer from deportation

San Francisco's immigrant sanctuary policies played a substantial role in the slayings of a father and two of his sons by allowing city officials to shield the alleged killer from deportation, despite his violent history, according to a legal claim filed on behalf of the victims' family. The claim is likely to be followed by a wrongful death lawsuit in which the family of Tony Bologna and his sons could seek millions of dollars from the city. Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16, were shot to death on a street in the Excelsior district June 22, 2008. Edwin Ramos, 21, of El Sobrante, who authorities say is a member of a street gang, has been charged with three counts of murder. Tony Bologna's wife, Danielle, and other relatives denounced the city's sanctuary practices after learning that Ramos, a Salvadoran native suspected of being in this country illegally, had committed felony attempted robbery and assault as a juvenile. Officials with the Juvenile Probation Department, relying on their interpretation of San Francisco's sanctuary city ordinance, had not referred Ramos to federal immigration authorities for possible deportation. The ordinance bars city officials from cooperating with federal crackdowns on illegal immigrants.

Islamic supremacism in British mosques

A new documentary shows how mosques in Britain are encouraging hatred towards non-Muslims.

Accusations of racism in Ireland

David Quinn explains how the Left uses accusations of racism to stifle political debates in Ireland.

A controversial initiative that pays NYC high-school students for passing Advanced Placement tests has failed to spur more kids to make the grade

Students at 25 low-income city public schools and six parochial schools were offered private money on a sliding scale - from $500 to $1,000 - if they passed their five-point AP subject tests by scoring between 3 and 5. The new program, largely targeting black and Hispanic students, was meant to prepare more kids for college and give them a financial boost to get there. Despite the dangle of dollars, the number of students passing their AP tests in the 31 schools actually dipped to 1,476 in 2008 - down five from 2007, when no cash was on the table, according to data released by the Council of Urban Professionals, which distributes the money. The passing rate fell from 35% in 2007 to 32% in 2008 in a result that surprised even those who have been skeptical of cash-for-kids programs.

Border control

Guess how the majority of Americans feel about illegal immigration?

Sports and testosterone

The New York Times finally comes around to Steve Sailer's way of thinking regarding the gender gap in sports.

An influx of workers from China is receiving a mixed reception in Africa, where people both admire and resent the hard-working newcomers

Awe at the efficiency with which Chinese build roads, run shops and manage factories is matched by unease at a growing Chinese presence in Africa's fragile labor markets. Delight at cheap shirts, toys and shoes sits aside concern at the undercutting of local retailers. The ambivalent response poses a potential risk to China's push to win hearts and minds in Africa, a priority for Beijing amid Western accusations that it is cutting corners on labor and human rights' safeguards in its African investment drive. Keen to address foreign investment sensitivities, African finance ministers and central bankers meeting in Mauritania on Aug 1, 2008 pledged greater transparency in their dealings with China and other new investors pouring money into the continent. They stressed the importance of developing local skills and industries beyond the extraction of raw materials. However, most African leaders show no reservations in welcoming the billions of dollars spent by China to gain African oil and minerals for its growing economy.

A law student has been found guilty of stabbing to death a doctor who gave him lodgings and acted as his guardian

David Quartey, 22, of Humber Road, Dartford, was convicted at Maidstone Crown Court of murdering consultant paediatrician Victoria Anyetei. The 54-year-old was stabbed 56 times in her car in Teynham Road, Dartford, on 14 August 2007, as she left for work at St Thomas' Hospital in London. Quartey was jailed for life and ordered to serve at least 15 years. Sentencing him, Judge Jeremy Carey said: "You gravely abused the trust that she put in you. "It was indeed a frenzied attack of enormous brutality." He described Quartey - the son of a High Court judge in Ghana - as a "highly dangerous young man".

Nigeria's Islamic authority has told a man who has 86 wives to choose only four and repent within three days or else he will be sentenced to death

The Jamatu Nasril Islam (JNI) passed their verdict on Mohammed Bello Abubakar, 84, according to Sharia law. The former teacher and Muslim preacher lives in Niger State with his wives and at least 170 children, and says he is able to cope only with the help of God. "A man with 10 wives would collapse and die, but my own power is given by Allah. That is why I have been able to control 86 of them," he said.

Hundreds of Swazi women have marched through the streets of the capital to protest about a shopping trip taken by nine of the king's 13 wives

They chartered a plane to go to Europe and the Middle East. The protesters handed in a petition to the finance ministry saying the money could have been better spent. "We can't afford a shopping trip when a quarter of the nation lives on food aid," they chanted. Swaziland, Africa's last absolute monarchy, is one of the poorest countries in the world and more than 40% of the population is believed to be infected with HIV.

The United States has suspended a program aimed at reuniting refugees from Africa with relatives in the US because of widespread fraud

The US state department said DNA tests showed the majority of those applying had no family relationships in the US. Thousands of Africans have been allowed to settle in the US under its P3 family reunification program. The scheme offers close family members the chance to join loved ones who have already made America their home. But DNA tests on applicants in seven African countries showed that only around 20% of those trying to enter the US actually had a blood relationship. The DNA tests were initially carried out in Kenya on some 500 refugees, mainly Somalis and Ethiopians, who were awaiting resettlement. "After the samples suggested high rates of fraud, we expanded testing to Ethiopia, Uganda, Ghana, Guinea, Gambia and Ivory Coast," said state department spokesman Robert Wood. Apart from Ivory Coast, which had smaller samples, the results from those tests indicated a similar level of fraud, prompting officials to suspend the scheme.

Men with round faces tend to be more aggressive, a study of sportsmen has shown

The male sex hormone testosterone makes faces more circular and now scientists have studied whether this characteristic is also linked to behavior. A Canadian team studied 90 ice hockey players and found the rounder the face, the more aggressive the players. For male varsity and professional hockey players, the facial ratio was linked in a statistically significant way with the number of penalty minutes per game, report Justin Carre and Prof Cheryl McCormick of Brock University, Ontario. The penalties were incurred by players for violent acts including slashing, elbowing, checking from behind, fighting and so on. However, there was not a link between facial shape and aggression in women. "The facial structure of a man provides an indication of how aggressive he will be in a competitive situation," says Prof McCormick. "Therefore, we are able to predict, with some accuracy, the behavior of men on the basis of their facial features. If men's faces are providing cues as to their potential for aggression, then likely people are probably picking up on this cue, although likely on a subconscious level." The findings, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences suggest that the shape of the face may have been honed by evolution as a marker of the propensity for aggressive behavior: ancestors who did not pick up this warning sign could have found out to their cost that they were dealing with a more volatile and violent person. By one theory, testosterone is responsible for the development of rugged looks, a jutting jaw and brow, a deep voice and other trappings of masculinity but it also damps down the body's protective immune system, so only high-quality (that is those with healthy, good 'genes') men can afford to display these macho characteristics. But the hormone affects more than appearance and a range of earlier work has shown that testosterone levels affect behavior, other than aggression. For example, women's judgements of the extent to which a man was interested in infants based on his face predicted his actual interest in infants: more feminized faces were seen as more trustworthy. People also show some accuracy at identifying 'cheaters' from their looks in an idealised game of cooperation. "Together, these findings suggest that people can make accurate inferences about others' personality traits and behavioral dispositions based on certain signals conveyed by the face," say the researchers.

The head of a Nigerian government agency has been charged with stealing money to hire a witchdoctor or "juju" sorcerer to bring him success

Sam Edem, chairman of the Niger Delta Development Commission, is accused of taking $6.8m (£3.4m) of state money. He has been charged with theft and criminal conspiracy by a court who heard he spent millions on black magic. Police allege in one ritual he burned millions of naira and rubbed the ash on his body. Edem denies the charges. The case came to the attention of the police when Mr Edem reported he had been the victim of a spell forcing him to hand over millions of naira. But suspicions were raised as to where he got the money from. "We believe that this is money from the Nigerian government, money that should have been used to develop the Niger Delta," Police Commissioner Ali Amodu said.

Senator Barack Obama's long lost brother has been tracked down for the first time living in a shanty town in Kenya

The Italian edition of Vanity Fair said that it had found George Hussein Onyango Obama living in a hut in a ramshackle town of Huruma on the outskirts of Nairobi. Obama, 26, the youngest of the presidential candidate's half-brothers, spoke for the first time about his life, which could not be more different than that of the Democratic contender. "No-one knows who I am," he told the magazine, before claiming: "I live here on less than a dollar a month." According to Italy's Vanity Fair his two meter by three meter shack is decorated with football posters of the Italian football giants AC Milan and Inter, as well as a calendar showing exotic beaches of the world. Vanity Fair also noted that he had a front page newspaper picture of his famous brother - born of the same father as him, Barack Hussein Obama, but to a different mother, named only as Jael. He told the magazine: "I live like a recluse, no-one knows I exist." Embarrassed by his penury, he said that he does not does not mention his famous half-brother in conversation. "If anyone says something about my surname, I say we are not related. I am ashamed," he said. For ten years George Obama lived rough. However he now hopes to try to sort his life out by starting a course at a local technical college. He has only met his famous older brother twice - once when he was just five and the last time in 2006 when Senator Obama was on a tour of East Africa and visited Nairobi. The Illinois senator mentions his brother in his autobiography, describing him in just one passing paragraph as a "beautiful boy with a rounded head". Of their second meeting, George Obama said: "It was very brief, we spoke for just a few minutes. It was like meeting a complete stranger." George added he was no longer in contact with his mother and said:"I have had to learn to live and take what I need. Huruma is a tough place, last January during the elections there was rioting and six people were hacked to death. The police don't even arrest you they just shoot you. I have seen two of my friends killed. I have scars from defending myself with my fists. I am good with my fists."

Skin, hair and eye color in Europe

Peter Frost blogs about the physical differences between Europeans and non-Europeans.

Egyptian police have shot dead a Sudanese man attempting to cross the border illegally into Israel, Egyptian officials say

They say the man was shot south of the Rafah border crossing. The death brings to 20 the number of African migrants - seeking political asylum and jobs in Israel - killed at the border so far in 2008. Separately, an Egyptian policeman was killed by people traffickers - the third to die this year. Israel estimates that 2,800 people have entered the country illegally through its border with Egypt in recent years. Many are believed to be from Sudan, refugees from the civil war and the crisis in Darfur. Activists say they face economic marginalization and racism in Egypt.

The rate of inflation in Zimbabwe jumped to just over 11,250,000% in June 2008, official figures show

"It gained 9,035,045.5 percentage points from the May rate of 2,233,713.4%," said state media quoting the Central Statistical Office (CSO). However, experts believe the actual rate of inflation may be much higher. Zimbabwe is in the midst of a dire economic crisis with unemployment at almost 80%, most manufacturing at a halt and basic foods in short supply. High money supplies have also been fuelling hyperinflation. Critics have accused President Robert Mugabe's government of printing money to finance his election campaign and prop up the economy. Month-on-month inflation in the country accelerated to 839.3% from 433.4%. "Our inflation figures are way above that, but what it tells us is that the productive base of the economy has really shrunk," said one unnamed economist at a domestic bank. "We really need to change the way we do business," he added. Zimbabwe, once one of the richest countries in Africa, has descended into economic chaos largely blamed on the policies of President Mugabe.

Rat meat in India

With food prices rising, one of India's poorest states is considering adding rat meat to the menus of state-run canteens, a move officials in Bihar say could help provide cheap protein for the state's 80 million people, most of whom live off the land as poor sharecroppers or subsistence farmers. "People in different parts of the world eat lizards and dogs. Why not rats?" said the state's tribal welfare minister, Jeetan Ram Manjhi. While the suggestion - there are no firm plans to start marketing rat meat just yet - may seem repulsive to many inside and outside India, eating rats is not unheard of in Bihar. Among the poorest people in Bihar are a tribe known as Musahars, whose traditional place in the India's caste system was to catch rats, which they would cook and eat along with the rice and wheat they recovered from rat holes. That's changed in the last few decades as many Musahars, under pressure from higher castes that consider rat eating unclean, stopped dining on the creatures, although they are still paid to catch and kill them by farmers. But Manjhi, who is one of Bihar's 2 million Musahars, says the rodents are tasty and hopes the practice could be revived and popularized by putting the rodents on the menu at canteens in government offices. "We've been enjoying eating rats since our childhood," he said. "When vegetables get expensive, it's what we eat." Another official, State Welfare Department Secretary Vijay Prakash, said that popularizing rat meat could also help Musahars, the vast majority of whom are bitterly poor and uneducated. India's elaborate caste system divides people into hundreds of social tiers defined by ethnicity, class, history and livelihood. Discrimination along caste lines had been outlawed for decades but remains prevalent, especially in largely rural and poor parts of eastern India like Bihar.

The scores of black students in Illinois have been flat for the past five years, creating a widening achievement gap

A new report says Illinois students are scoring better on the ACT. ACT's report says the average composite score for the class of 2008 was 20.7 out of a possible 36. That's up two-tenths of a point from 2007. It's also the highest score since the test became mandatory for the class of 2002. But the gains came mostly from white students' scores. Black students' scores have been flat for the past five years, creating a widening achievement gap.

A man whipped himself until he bled during a Muslim religious ceremony, before allegedly forcing two teenage boys to do the same, a court has heard

Syed Mustafa Zaidi, 44, is accused of encouraging the boys, aged 13 and 15, to beat themselves at a community centre in Manchester. Manchester Crown Court was played a film showing Zaidi beating himself with a whip made of knives and chains. Zaidi, of Station Road, Eccles, denies two counts of child cruelty. It is the first case of its kind ever to be prosecuted in Brtain. The 20-minute video shown to the court showed the Shia Muslim Ashura ceremony in Levenshulme, with Zaidi bare-chested among a crowd of about 150 men, chanting and singing. He then used the whip - called a zanjeer zani - on himself. Participants at the men-only event take it in turns, in small groups, to flog themselves, while the crowd around them chant the name of Husayn, a central figure in the Shia faith whose death they are commemorating. The film played to the court also showed the 13-year-old boy, who Zaidi is accused of forcing, flogging himself with the zanjeer zani.

Biracial Asian Americans and mental health

A new study of Chinese-Caucasian, Filipino-Caucasian, Japanese-Caucasian and Vietnamese-Caucasian individuals concludes that biracial Asian Americans are twice as likely as mono-racial Asian Americans to be diagnosed with a psychological disorder.

Color, aggression and sexuality

Are darker vertebrates more aggressive and sexually active than lighter individuals?

African American students continue to lag far behind whites in San Francisco

The number of white students who were proficient or better in both math and English was about 50% points higher than the city's black students. In second-grade English, for example, 23% of blacks were proficient, compared to 74% of whites. Special education students had slightly higher proficiency rates than black students in second-, third- and fourth-grade math as well as fourth-grade English. The district tested 41,000 students, including 4,800 African Americans, in grades two through 11 in the spring. San Francisco schools face a steep uphill battle in boosting the test results of black students, educators noted.

Does the birth control pill promote incest?

Razib reports on new research that shows that the pill may cause women to be attracted to men with immune systems similar to their own.

Is college a waste of time?

Charles Murray believes that we should get rid of the BA and replace it with evidence of competence such as treating post-secondary education as apprenticeships for everyone.

Hat tip, Half Sigma!

The New York Civil Liberties Union and the NYPD

Heather Mac Donald writes about how the anti-police antics of the New York Civil Liberties Union harms blacks and Hispanics.

Israel and Georgia

For many years, Israeli companies have been helping Georgian army to preparer for war against Russia through arms deals, training of infantry units and security advice.

Whites will be a minority in the United States by 2042

The nation's population will look dramatically different by mid-century, becoming more racially and ethnically diverse and a good deal older as it increases from about 302 million to 439 million by 2050, according to projections released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. The findings are in line with recent analyses published by independent demographers, but they are the first such official Census Bureau projections in years. Minorities, about one-third of the U.S. population, are expected to become a majority by 2042 and be 54% of U.S. residents by 2050. The shift will happen sooner among children, 44% of whom are minority. By 2023, more than half are expected to be minority, and by 2050, the proportion will be 62%. The largest share of children, 39%, is projected to be Hispanic, followed by non-Hispanic whites (38%), African Americans (11%) and Asians (6%).

Hat tip, Randall Parker!

Jewish networks and the Russian-Georgian conflict

Steve Sailer blogs about how the fact that a large fraction of American pundits, reporters, editors, owners, and advertisers are Jewish has affected American foreign policy.

Anti-Semitic t-shirts

Anti-Semitic t-shirts have been put on sale in an area of Paris where there have been ongoing scuffles between groups of Jewish youngsters and youths of North African origin.

A collection of bullet-proof clothing by Colombian designer Miguel Caballero has been launched in South Africa

South African businessman Ari Ben David has opened a showroom for the fashion label and intends to open a shop. He said that he was drawn to the collection because of the serious crime situation in South Africa. Caballero's clothes can withstand shots from 9mm pistols to AK-47s and clients fearing knives can pay extra for stab-proofing. The clothing line features suits, suede and leather jackets, raincoats, shirts, vests and denim ware for both men and women. South Africa is infamous for its high levels of violent crime.

The UN has found that its peacekeeping troops from India may have engaged in abuse and exploitation while serving in the Democratic Republic of Congo

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was deeply troubled by the findings. The Indian authorities say they are investigating the allegations and the vice chief of the Indian army had visited Congo in May 2008 to look into them. India has said it will take strict action against the perpetrators if the allegations are proved. One UN official said there may have been abuse of young girls and boys by at least 10 Indian peacekeepers.

South Africa's high court has ruled that camps housing foreigners displaced by xenophobic violence can be shut down

The judge said the authorities had no obligation to reintegrate more than 4,000 African immigrants living in the camps around Johannesburg. The government plans to close the shelters in Gauteng province. Human rights groups had applied to stop the closure, saying it would violate the rights of the displaced. The authorities argue it is now safe for the foreigners to return to their homes. Tens of thousands of immigrants were displaced by the violence, in which 60 people were killed. Many returned to their home countries, some have returned to South African townships – but approximately 4,000 of them are still in the safe havens in Gauteng. The riots began in a township north of Johannesburg before spreading to other parts of the country. It was the worst bloodshed in the county since the end of apartheid in 1994. Those attacked in May were blamed for fuelling high unemployment and crime. Twenty-one South Africans, mistaken by gangs for foreigners, were among those killed.

Poor performance at school could indicate an increased risk of later developing schizophrenia, a study says

British and Swedish researchers followed more than 900,000 children born between 1973 and 1983. The Psychological Medicine paper found getting an E grade in any GCSE-stage exam was linked to a doubling of the small risk of developing schizophrenia. Schizophrenia, which commonly causes people to hear voices and experience paranoid delusions, often becomes evident in the late teens or early 20s. The researchers, from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, looked at Swedish data on exam results taken at the age of 15 or 16. They then looked at hospital data on admissions for psychotic disorders including schizophrenia after the age of 17. Sweden has comprehensive national registers, with every individual having their own identification code, so the data could be compared. The general risk for an adult to be diagnosed with schizophrenia in any given year is seven in 100,000. Getting an E grade in any of the 16 subjects looked at by the researchers was linked to a doubling of that risk. The researchers found those with the poorest school performance overall had four times that risk of developing schizophrenia when they were adults. Other studies have shown that there is a link between schizophrenia and earlier problems with learning or understanding.

Related news

Terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists pose the greatest threat to Switzerland's internal security

The Federal Police have said that the threat was real even though it had no evidence of any attacks being planned in recent years. The director of the Federal Police office, Jean-Luc Vez, said in the introduction to the internal security report for 2007 that "western Europe is a hotbed of jihadism and Switzerland is located in the center of this danger zone". "In western Europe, particularly in Britain, Denmark, Germany, France and Spain, security forces uncovered operational cells whose members were chiefly residents of the respective countries," the report explained. "Moreover, it has become apparent that the network around core Al-Qaeda members in Pakistan maintains operational links to Europe." Last year, four alleged Islamists in Switzerland were either convicted or deported on charges of supporting a terrorist criminal organisation, making public calls to violence or violating laws on racism.

5 Dutch women helping to build an orphanage were raped in western Kenya

The women were attacked just outside Kakamega, police chief John Mwinzi said. He said he didn't know the exact ages of the women, but they were likely in their 20s or late teens. The attackers — armed with a toy pistol, machetes and clubs — also stole a camera, laptop, satellite phones and cash, police said. Five men have been arrested. The women were among a group of 12 people visiting a building site in a village just outside Kakamega, which is about 200 kilometers (130 miles) from the capital, Nairobi. The group's driver and watchmen at the compound were among those arrested, Mwinzi said. Violent crime has long been a problem in Kenya. A surge of politically and ethnically motivated violence erupted after a disputed presidential election in December laid bare frustrations over poverty, corruption and long-standing ethnic rivalries in Kenya.

Was Obama's birth certificate forged?

Independent analysts, working separately, claim to have discovered that the original Hawaiian Certificate of Live Birth used in the fabrication of the Barack Obama "birth certificate" belongs to the Presidential candidate's younger half-sister, Maya.

5 North Africans have been arrested in Italy on charges of conspiring to commit acts of international terrorism

Police in Bologna say they arrested four Tunisians and a Moroccan and are seeking a sixth man. They are investigating an alleged international terrorist ring, which they say recruited suicide bombers for Iraq and Afghanistan. Police raided houses and apartments in Bologna, Ravenna on Italy's Adriatic coast, and Como near Milan. The North Africans are also charged with fraud. They are alleged to have collected money from phoney car accident insurance claims to finance their operations. They recruited and trained people willing to sacrifice their lives in terrorist attacks in war zones, the police said. The alleged leader of the terrorist ring was a former mujahideen colonel who had fought in Bosnia during the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Investigators had gathered information on the activities of the terrorist group through phone taps.

Section 8 housing and crime

Section 8 housing is spreading crime to the suburbs of California.

Hat tip, Half Sigma!

A black youth has been given a life sentence for stabbing to death a white schoolboy in England

Martin Dinnegan, 14, was chased and stabbed near his home in Holloway, north London, in June 2007 after exchanging "dirty looks" with a gang. Joseph Chin was convicted of murder at the Old Bailey. He has been ordered to serve a minimum of 12 years. Kevron Williams, 17, was sentenced to four years for attempting to cause grievous bodily harm during the attack. Judge Brian Barker said: "The public have every right to be concerned about the growth of this sort of violence. It is a tragedy that this sort of triviality caused such a young man to lose his life and (it) has caused enduring heartache to his friends and family." Outside court Martin's mother Lorraine said: "The pain that Martin's death has caused for our family is indescribable. We as a family will never make sense of the unnecessary suffering that was inflicted upon Martin." She added: "Life will never be the same, a piece of our heart has been taken."

Hat tip, Django!

Related story

Politically correct child molester

A pediatrician who believed that poorly performing students are not lazy or dumb, but instead need to be educated in a different way turns out to have been been sexually abusing his boy patients for decades.

South African government says it is extremely concerned by threats by some ruling party supporters to make the country ungovernable

Supporters of African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma have threatened unrest if he is jailed for corruption. Zuma is charged with corruption, money-laundering and racketeering in connection with an arms deal. Supporters of Zuma, who denies the charges, have repeatedly made threats of unrest, and some have said they are prepared to kill for the ANC leader. ANC Youth League President Julius Malema said in June: "If these people think we are only prepared to die for him, we are prepared to take up arms and kill for Zuma."

Microcephalics forced to beg on Pakistan's streets

Outside a Muslim shrine in this dusty Pakistani city, a "rat woman" with a tiny head sits on a filthy mattress and takes money from worshippers who cling to an ancient fertility rite. Nadia, 25, is one of hundreds of young microcephalics -- people born with small skulls and protruding noses and ears because of a genetic mutation -- who can be found on the streets of Gujrat, in central Punjab province. Officials say many of them have been sold off by their families to begging mafias, who exploit a tradition that the "rat children" are sacred offerings to Shah Daula, the shrine's 17th century Sufi saint. "These are God's children. We are proud to look after her," said Ijaz Hussain, the shrine's government-employed custodian, as Nadia shrieked unintelligibly and put coins in a battered wooden box at her side. According to local legend, infertile women who pray at Shah Daula's shrine will be granted children, but at a terrible price. The first child will be born microcephalic and must be given to the shrine, or else any further children will have the same deformity. Hussain said Nadia was just a young child when she was dumped at the shrine 20 years ago in the dead of the night. Her parents were never traced, he says. Pakistan's government says it has tried to crack down on exploitation of the "chuhas" (Urdu for rats) and says it plans to set up a shelter in Gujrat to rehabilitate them. The shrine stopped officially accepting microcephalics in the 1960s when the government took over the site. But not only does it still keep Nadia at its gate, the town's beggar masters also keep the superstition alive. The high incidence of microcephalics in Gujrat, an industrial city of around one million people, has long been a bone of contention. The popular belief among many Pakistanis -- that cruel beggar gangs clamp the children's heads in infancy -- is strongly denied by government and advocacy groups, who say there is no evidence to support this. Recent medical studies say the most likely cause is that the normally rare recessive genes behind many microcephaly cases crop up with greater frequency because of the common custom of marrying cousins in Pakistan.

Immigration and biological differences

Hibernia Girl points out that we must take into account biology and genetics when we are formulating immigration policy.

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick Jailed

Inmate No. 25330, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, will be treated the same way as any other prisoner in the Wayne County Jail, said Wayne County Police Chief Warren Evans. Judge Ronald Giles sent Kilpatrick to Wayne County Jail for failing to notify the court of his trip to Canada and violating the terms of his bond. Despite Kilpatrick's humble apologies to the court beforehand, Giles said he needed to treat Kilpatrick as an ordinary citizen and sent him immediately to jail. Giles revoked Kilpatrick's bond and suspended all travel. "What matters to me though is how the court overall is perceived and how if it was not Kwame Kilpatrick sitting in that seat, if it was John Six-Pack sitting in that seat, what would I do? And that answer is simple," he said.

Israel accused of discrimination after ending Ethiopian immigration

The move evoked a furious reaction from leaders of the 120,000-strong Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel, who said the "discrimination" and "prejudice" of the Israeli government would strand thousands of people in Africa and thwart family reunifications. Government spokesman Mark Regev said the step "will enable us to focus more effectively and invest resources on the successful integration of Ethiopian immigrants". He added that the government was abiding by a cabinet decision in 2003 to bring to Israel a total of 17,000 Ethiopians, known as falash mura, who are descendants of Ethiopian Jews who converted to Christianity but who consider themselves Jewish. In accordance with the quota, the falash mura have been flown to Israel at a rate of about three hundred a month since 2003. Israel mounted major operations – codenamed Moses and Solomon – to bring thousands of Ethiopian Jews to the country in 1984 and 1991, depicting the immigration as fulfilment of the biblical prophecy of a gathering of Jewish exiles to Zion. But the Ethiopian community of about 120,000 immigrants and their descendants is the poorest sector of the Israeli Jewish population and is beset by unemployment and school drop-out rates. In an affirmative action to make up for their impoverished background the government has underwritten their mortgages. Ethiopian Jewish groups in Israel say there are still about 8,000 falash mura in Gondar, Ethiopia, seeking to move to Israel. "It is inconceivable that the descendants of Jews and Jews, who need to emigrate, should have the door shut on them," said Danny Kasahon, director of a coalition of Ethiopian lobbying groups. "There are many families here who have parents or children in Ethiopia waiting to come to Israel. This is discrimination. It cannot be defined by any other word. It could be based on prejudice." Mr Regev denied the charge and said there could still be family reunifications "on a case by case basis", but added that "collective mass immigration is behind us."

Devout Muslims are importing creationist theories into science and are not being challenged because of political correctness

Professor Richard Dawkins argued that as a result teachers were promoting the mythology of creationism over the science of evolution. Professor Dawkins, a geneticist and author of the best-selling book The God Delusion, said: 'Islam is importing creationism into this country. Most devout Muslims are creationists - so when you go to schools, there are a large number of children of Islamic parents who trot out what they have been taught. Teachers are bending over backwards to respect home prejudices that children have been brought up with. The Government could do more but it doesn't want to because it is fanatical about multiculturalism and the need to respect the different traditions from which these children come. The Government - particularly under Tony Blair - thinks it is wonderful to have children brought up with their traditional religions. I call it brainwashing.' He added: 'It seems as though teachers are terribly frightened of being thought racist. It's almost impossible to say anything against Islam in this country because if you do you are accused of being racist or Islamophobic.'

African-American girls using marijuana are more likely to engage in risky sexual acts and contract sexually transmitted disease

Emory University researchers analysed marijuana use and self-reported sexual behaviour of 439 sexually active African-American females between the ages of 15 and 21. They found that girls who took marijuana had significantly higher rates of STDs than non-marijuana users (32% compared to 23%). Marijuana users also had more sex partners, riskier sex partners, including a partner just released from jail, and more recent episodes of engaging in vaginal sex. 'While adolescent African-American females remain a high-risk group for STDs, little research has examined their marijuana use, sexual behaviours and incidence of STD infection,' said study co-author Ralph DiClemente, professor of public health at Emory's Rollins School of Public Health. 'Although no differences in condom use were identified between marijuana users and non-users, results suggest that marijuana users are engaging in sexual acts with riskier partners and under riskier circumstances, and had higher rates of STDs,' DiClemente said.

Is Belgium the most successful failed state of all time?

Will French-speaking Wallonia and Dutch-speaking Flanders finally call it quits?

Chinese immigrants and Islam

Was Vince Weiguang Li, the Chinese immigrant Greyhound Bus Killer, a Muslim?

Religion and disease

Do countries with more diseases have more religions, presumably due to some kind of selection against out-group contact?