Credibility of project damaged by widespread belief in Muslim communities that it was used to gather intelligence

The government's £60m "preventing violent extremism" programme is to be dismantled after a widespread loss of confidence in it within Muslim communities, it was confirmed today.

Read more @ The Guardian

Eight Indian states account for more poor people than in the 26 poorest African countries combined, a new measure of global poverty has found.

The Indian states, including Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, have 421 million "poor" people, the study found.

This is more than the 410 million poor in the poorest African countries, it said.

Read more @ BBC News

The Somali Islamist group al-Shabab has said it was behind twin blasts which hit the Ugandan capital Kampala on Sunday, killing 74 people.

In a statement in Mogadishu, spokesman for the group Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage threatened more attacks.

Police said the bombings targeted football fans watching the World Cup final.

A Ugandan official said a Somali's head was found at the scene of one blast, and he may have been a suicide bomber.

Ugandan peacekeepers are in Somalia, and al-Shabab has previously threatened Kampala.

"Al-Shabab was behind the two bomb blasts in Uganda," Ali Mohamud Rage said.

Read more @ BBC News

Bosnia remembers Srebrenica massacre 15 years on

Tens of thousands on Sunday mark 15 years since the Srebrenica massacre of nearly 8,000 Bosnian Muslims by Bosnian Serb troops, the darkest episode of the violent break-up of Yugoslavia.

Read more @ Hurriet Daily News

A Libyan ship carrying aid and activists is heading for Gaza in a mission that Israel has described as an "unnecessary provocation".

The Israeli navy is monitoring the vessel's progress and preparing to intervene if it continues on a course to Gaza.

"I say very clearly, no ship will arrive in Gaza. We will not permit our sovereignty to be harmed," the foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, said in a radio broadcast.

Read more @ The Guardian

It is expected to arrive on wednesday but I suspect it will be re-routed to Egypt this time.

The Methodist conference has voted for a boycott on good produced in illegal Israeli settlements

The Methodist Church voted on Wednesday to boycott products from Israeli settlements recognised as illegal under international law at its annual Conference in Portsmouth. It took the decision following a call from a group of Palestinian Christians, a number of Jewish organisations, both within Israel and worldwide, and the World Council of Churches.

Read more @ The Guardian

Deadly blasts hit Sufi shrine in Lahore

Suicide bombers have launched a deadly attack on a Sufi shrine in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore.

At least 35 people died in the blasts at the popular Data Darbar shrine late on Thursday evening, officials say.

At least 175 other people were hurt in the blasts, believed to be the first targeting a shrine in Lahore.

Read more @ BBC News

Its a story from the AFP where it is reported that there has been a 65% increase in the reported cases.

This is still the minority and often overlooked, but what stood out to me was that one of the reasons for the forced marriage was suspicion of homosexuality or bisexuality of the people who were then being forced into marriage. Is this the Eastender's effect?

For seven years, Britain has wanted to see how the legal case for invading Iraq was made. Yesterday, at a public inquiry that is going on unnoticed, official documents were released for the first time that showed the grave reservations of the Attorney General, his remarkable U-turn, and how the basis for the Iraq war was built on sand

By Kim Sengupta, Defence Correspondent

Read more @ The Independent

Masked gunmen in the Gaza Strip have set fire to a United Nations-run summer camp for children.

This follows a similar attack in May on another UN-run summer camp.

Some militants view the UN as a symbol of the West and claim that the summer camps allow boys and girls to mix freely - something that the UN denies.

The attackers tied up the guard at the camp in central Gaza before setting fire to chairs, tables, easels and other equipment.

The UN says about 25 armed men attacked the beach camp in the middle of Sunday night.

obody was hurt, and nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack.

But in a similar incident last month a previously unknown Islamist group said its had attacked a UN summer camp in Gaza city.

Read more @ BBC News