On Monday, Lovemore Matombo and Wellington Chibebe, respectively the President and General Secretary of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trades Unions (ZCTU), will stand trial to face charges of ’spreading falsehoods prejudicial to the state’. Those falsehoods are, in fact, criticisms they made on May Day of Mugabe’s government and telling the truth about the violence today in Zimbabwe.

As part of their bail conditions, they may not address any political or public gatherings until the conclusion of their case, effectively removing them from the election campaign. The ZCTU has been increasingly opposed to Mugabe since the 1990s and were involved in setting up the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. The MDC President, Morgan Tsvangarai, is a former general secretary of the ZCTU.
This is where you come in.
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There are 650 million people with disabilities in the world; four-fifths of them live in the developing world. While much has been done in the developed world to improve the lot of people with disabilities and to bring us closer to equality, we are not there yet; things are that much worse in the developing world.

One year ago yesterday, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was opened for signing. It has been signed by 126 states, including the UK, but only ratified by seventeen: Bangladesh, Croatia, Cuba, El Salvador, Gabon, Guinea, Hungary, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Namibia, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, San Marino, South Africa and Spain.
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The Financial Times reports on the government’s proposals to do ’something’ about illegal file sharing. That something is to make ISPs the law enforcer; they will be penalised if people use their networks to share files. There has been talk of a ‘three-strikes’ system whereby ISPs would be obliged to remove service from their customers if they’re found to be illegally file-sharing on three occasions. If ISPs have not acted by April of next year, the government will legislate.

The big objection I have is that it makes the ISPs responsible for policing. This is a really bad idea. Spectacularly bad. I’m hoping that Tom Watson, as a minster responsible for this who was, as a backbencher, supportive of Tim Ireland et al during the Usmanov affair, will take note and make this point to his colleagues.
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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, is in trouble over his comments on the incorporation of Sharia law into UK law.

It is my opinion that Dr Williams’ suggestions deserve reasoned consideration; that they do not require a change in the nature of the law; and that much of the opposition to them, implicitly, requires a very grave change in the law from defining what is illegal to defining what is legal.

I think it’s important to work out exactly what the most reverend Primate is saying. It has generally been reported as ’sharia law is unavoidable’ along with cries of Londonistan and dhimmitude.

According to this transcript of an interview between the Archbishop and Jonathan Landau, what Dr Williams believes is that

“the application of Sharia in certain circumstances if we want to achieve this cohesion and take seriously peoples’ religion seems unavoidable”

What I intend to do in this post is briefly to sum up Dr Williams’ argument before giving my reasons for supporting it. I will then seek to show not only that the arguments used to oppose his comments are based on misconceptions, accidental or otherwise, of his opinions and that they, in fact, to a great deal to damage community relations in the UK. Finally, I will reflect on the implications of Dr Williams’ comments and the reaction they have provoked.

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For what it’s worth, I think that the new proposal from the Conservatives is actually rather good. It entails each newborn and their mother having the services of a maternity nurse for the first week after leaving hospital.

According to the Observer, it would cost ‘at least £150m a year’. I think a closer figure is £212m per year* (my workings are at the end of this post). Whether or not it survives, I think the Conservatives - and I mean this genuinely - are to be congratulated on putting forward an ambitious, policy proposal. I hope that full, detailed costings and implementations are brought forward.
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