Sunday is set to be the hottest day so far this year and temperatures may hit 30C, the BBC weather centre predicts.

The previous high for 2010 was on 24 May, when it reached 28.8C at Heathrow Airport.

The prediction comes as millions are set to watch England play Germany in the World Cup and Glastonbury festival-goers bask in the sun.

"The heat just continues to build and build and Sunday could be its peak," BBC forecaster Dan Corbett said.

The hot weather has been caused by an area of low pressure to the north-west of the UK which is allowing warm air to travel in from southern Europe.

Sunstroke

"There could be some cloud and showers across parts of north-west Britain and even some thunder. The south-east of England up to Birmingham will see the highest temperatures," the BBC forecaster said.

Read more @ BBC News

These are the shocking injuries inflicted upon schoolgirl Sureyya Ozkaya during a brutal daylight assault near her Thornton Heath home.

The 14-year-old’s hair was set on fire and her hands and feet were cut with glass during the attack in Grangewood Park, before her attackers smashed her head against a tree and left her bleeding in a bush.

She was stumbled upon by a woman walking her dog and carried home to nearby Kitchener Road following the attack, at about 7.30pm on June 9.

Read more @ Croydon Guardian

Halal and kosher meat will have to be labelled under new European Union rules.

Millions of cows, goats and chickens are slaughtered without stunning each year in the UK under Muslim and Jewish practices, which enjoy an exemption from animal welfare laws.

The RSPCA, other welfare organisations and the Government's veterinary experts say the practice is cruel and should be ended, but another concern is that the meat re-enters the general food chain where it is unwittingly consumed by the general population.

Read more @ The Independent

EDIT - just breaking this away from here

[quote=Anonymous1]Just look at even scholars lieing and distoring what elections actually mean to justify their fataawa of participating - they must really think we are all dumb and have no access to research papers and expert opinions on the topic...[/quote]

Or they may be in the right and know better...

Why do you always expect Muslims to be so callous as to lie in order to justify their fataawa? The process works in the other way - they looka t the evidences and then make their rulings.

and the rulings of the vast majority of the Muslim scholars is uninimous that it is allowed. Only the odd few say it isn't. I bet many of those are mak-belief scholars too. Pretenders to the throne.

Last week Michael Gove of the Con Dem Government announced a new initiative where people and communities will be able to get funding in order to start up new schools.

One small hitch he may have overlooked is that Many Muslims should find this idea extremely interesting - it allowes the Muslim community to open new schools if they can get together and suitably organised.

Cool innit?

[quote]

Coventry farmer defends bacon substitute for Muslims

A Coventry farmer has insisted he is reacting to demand from traders in trying to give Muslims a taste of pork by producing bacon-style rashers from halal-slaughtered turkeys.

Rod Adlington's attempts to imitate the meat, which Muslims cannot eat because of their religion, has seen a Muslim scholar voice concerns that it could lead to people eating real bacon from pork.

The turkey farmer told BBC Asian Network he was reacting to requests from convenience stores he supplies to and said they wanted a "really good turkey bacon".

"We kept being asked for it and so we decided to produce it," he added.

"There's a want for the product for the halal market, for the pork-free market and for the slimming market."

Muslims can eat other types of meat apart from pork as long as it is halal, which means it is blessed as it is killed.

Maulana Naveed Ashrafi, a Muslim scholar from Blackburn, said he was concerned as to where eating the turkey bacon rashers could lead to for other Muslims.

"It can ultimately lead to people who only eat halal food ending up eating the real bacon - bacon from pork," he said.

"The Islamic opinion on this subject would be to avoid eating such foods which have a remote resemblance (to pork) because it could well lead towards eating the real thing."

However, Dr Haifaa Jawed lectures in Islamic Studies at the University of Birmingham, said she did not believe there was a problem in eating bacon-style turkey rashers.

"The aim of the prohibition in Islam is not to eat non-halal meat or bacon," she said.

"If there is no bacon in that form of food or, if the meat is Islamically slaughtered, it should be ok."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/coventry_warwickshire/8745812.stm [/quote]

Bags are to be put over scores of surveillance cameras in parts of Birmingham with large Muslim populations, after local objections.

Safer Birmingham Partnerships (SBP) said 216 cameras were put up, including hidden ones, mainly in the Washwood Heath and Sparkbrook districts.

The cameras were financed through a counter-terrorism fund, but the SBP said they would tackle all crime.

Councillor Salma Yaqoob said people had lost faith in the authorities.

Read more @ BBC News

ok, this is one that has slipped under the radar a bit and I had not expected it to have been all that bad considering the almost silence on what is happening there.

Then Dear Aggregator opened my mind.

There are people claiming attempted genocide. Some of the descriptions are horrendous too - from the linked article, the very first paragraph is:

It was early afternoon when the mob surged down an alley of neat rose bushes and halted outside Zarifa's house. The Kyrgyz men broke into her courtyard and sat Zarifa down next to a cherry tree. They asked her a couple of questions. After confirming she was an ethnic Uzbek, they stripped her, raped her and cut off her fingers. After that they killed her and her small son, throwing their bodies into the street. They then moved on to the next house.

inna lilla wa inna ilaihi raaji'oon.

Rory Bremner, the political impressionist, said he fears joking about Islam could lead to his death due to the "chilling" issue of fundamentalism.

Bremner said self-censorship was the biggest obstacle today for comedians addressing topical issues, due to fears of retribution by extremists.

His comments came as he discussed the future of satire with Sir David Frost on a BBC documentary, Frost on Satire, to be broadcast on Thursday.

He said: "The greatest danger now is that one of the toughest issues of our time is religion.

"When [I'm] writing a sketch about Islam, I'm writing a line and I think, 'If this goes down badly, I'm writing my own death warrant there.' Because there are people who will say, 'Not only do I not think that's funny but I'm going to kill you' – and that's chilling."

Read more @ The Telegraph

Afghanistan may have more than a trillion dollars worth of untapped mineral deposits, a spokesman for the ministry of mines has suggested.

A joint team from the Pentagon, US Geological Service and USAID has calculated Afghanistan's mineral deposits are worth at least $900bn.

Geological surveys discovered large quantities of iron and copper as well as valuable deposits of lithium.

But questions are being asked about the timing of the release of information.

Read more @ BBC News