Uses for a multi-faith prayer room – News and views for Monday 13 January

From this morning’s Australian papers. A glance at the front pages will confirm that it was hard to find much serious reading this morning.
  • Abbott’s hard line on boat arrivals pays off – “The Abbott government has won a mighty, if still provisional, victory against people-smugglers. Today, it is just under four weeks during which no illegal immigrant has arrived in Australia by boat, nor been taken into Australian immigration authority for transfer to Manus Island or Nauru.” – Greg Sheridan in The Australian.
  • ‘Repeal day’ to target government red tape - “The Coalition will seek to abolish more than 8000 redundant federal laws with its first “repeal day”, scheduled for the final parliamentary sitting week in March as part of its plan to slash red and green tape by $1 billion a year. Tony Abbott is expected to make a special statement to the House of Representatives on March 19 outlining the government’s progress in reducing red and green tape after writing to all cabinet ministers just before Christmas giving them a six-week deadline to submit proposed regulatory reductions for policy approval and drafting.” – Damon Kitney in The Australian.
  • Farmers say bird flu will affect free range – “An outbreak of bird flu near Young in October could throw free-range egg production in Australia into long-term disarray.” – John Thistleton in the Sydney Morning Herald
Some links to other things I’ve found interesting today
13-01-2014 alex
  • From Media Monkey in the GuardianAlex, the Daily Telegraph’s cartoon strip about a brazenly amoral banker, is known for its insights into organisations’ secrets, but last week the results of this remarkable ability perhaps came a little too close to home. Wednesday’s strip centred on the bank’s multi-faith room, ending with Alex saying he used it for sleeping off long lunches; it would have gone to press on the day the latest issue of Private Eye hit desks, containing a tale about a “female Muslim member of staff” entering the Telegraph’s own multi-faith prayer room only to find “a woman on her knees performing fellatio on a male colleague”. Was the strip a mischievous nod to the Eye story, or was the timing just another uncanny Alex coincidence? Whatever the answer, the following day’s effort wisely chose another topic, although its creators’ usual approach is to play variations on the same theme.
  • The Lion in West Africa Is Critically Endangered – “The African lion has declined to <35 25="" africa="" african="" and="" are="" central="" conservation="" considered="" critical="" distinctiveness="" elevating="" endangered.="" establish="" extant="" for="" from="" genetic="" geographically="" historic="" in="" individuals="" interventions="" is="" isolated="" its="" li="" lions="" molecular="" most="" occupying="" of="" other="" populations.="" populations="" range.="" recent="" regionally="" required.="" save="" significance="" situation="" species="" studies="" the="" their="" to="" urgently="" west="" where="">
  • A Point of View: See no evil – “Some things we know but prefer not to think about, says John Gray – whether it’s the truth about the invasion of Iraq or the failures of the financial system that led to the banking crisis… ‘While we live surrounded by unknown unknowns, we live on the basis of unknown knowns – intractable facts that we prefer to forget. We’d do better to confront these awkward realities and muddle through more intelligently. We humans are sturdy and resilient animals, with enormous capacities of creativity and adaptability, but consistently realistic thinking seems to be beyond our powers. This may well be the biggest unknown known of them all – in an age that prides itself on its advancing knowledge and superior understanding, we’re as anxious as ever to avoid facing up to our actual condition.’ “

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