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Pray| Showing page 19 of 33 1... 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 ...33 | Last update: Wednesday 25th March |
| According to the online survey, carried out at bbcgoodfood.com, 87 per cent of respondents bought a Fairtrade product every week or every month. This finding supports figures from the Fairtrade Foundation which show that sales of Fairtrade products have increased by 40 per cent or more each year since 2002, to an estimated £430m in 2007. But the research also found that 80 per cent of consumers think that brands carrying the Fairtrade logo work directly with growers and build long-term partnerships and reinvest in grower trainging and development. In fact, the Fairtrade mark simply guarantees a fair and stable price for farmers and an extra permium to help improve their lives. Only a small number of brands go further than the Fairtrade standard, including Cafédirect and Divine Chocolate. | |
| Money | The War Cry April 19th 2008 |
| Children who attend day care or playgroups have about a 30 per cent lower chance of developing leukaemia, research suggested today. A review of studies found that children who interact with other youngsters early in life are at lower risk of the most common type of childhood leukaemia. | |
| Health | The Sentinel April 29th 2008 |
| Office of Fair Trading (OFT) investigators have contacted manufacturers of leading household brands as part of an inquiry into alleged price fixing. Procter & Gamble, Unilever, GlaxoSmithKline, Coca-Cola and Kimberly-Clark confirmed that they recieved visits or letters from the competition watch–dog last week. | |
| Money | The Sentinel April 29th 2008 |
| A way to outfox the HIV Aids virus has been discovered that may avoid the problems of drug resistance which limit current treatments. Scientists working in the labatory were able to block the HIV infection. The new approach targets a protein produced by human cells rather than HIV, and is therefore impervious to the virus’s mutations. | |
| Health | The Sentinel April 29th 2008 |
| A web-based game that encourages girls as young as nine to create virtual characters who embrace plastic surgery and extreme dieting in the search for the perfect figure has been condemmed as lethal by parents’ groups and health care experts. The Miss Bimbo site has attracted young girls who then buy their virtual characters breast enlargement surgery and keep them “waif thin” with diet pills. Almost half of 11-14 year olds are told off by parents for not engaging with “proper books”. However, National Year of Reading and online teen community Piczo complied a survey which found that young people enjoyed reading everything from film scripts and lyrics to traditional literature. | |
| Education | Youth Work May 2008 |
| Evidence from three national cohort studies point to a clear rise in emotional problems amongst 16 to 17-year-olds between 1986 and 1999. Girls in particular showed increasing signs of physchological distress, low self-esteem, and worries about their performance at school, as well as a rise in self-harming behaviour. The data also suggest a doubling of conduct problems between 1974 and 1999, especially for boys and for non-aggressive behaviours such as lying, stealing and disobedience. The suicide rate amongst 15 – 19 year-old boys increased by 45 per cent over the same period. | |
| Young People | The Church Of England April 25th 2008 |
| In the ComRes poll, designed to examine social attitudes and perceptions of the Bible, 27% of people questioned, wrongly believed that the statement: “ You must defend those that are helpless and have no hope. Be fair and give justice to the poor and homeless” (Proverbs 31:8) came from a speech by the singer, songwriter and activist Sir Bob Geldof. A further 20% thought it was from a report form UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan. Only 13% of people correctly identified the statement as coming from the Bible. Despite this, the majority of people (52%) rightly stated that the Bible offered more teaching on poverty and justice, compared with hell (11%), adultery (10%) and homosexuality (2%). The findings of Theo’s research were released to coincide with the launch of a new Poverty and Justice Bible by Bible Society. | |
| Social Issues | Inspire:Bits’n’Pieces May 2008 |
| A map of Britian’s flora and fauna produced in 2002 showed that habitats here are being destroyed by pollution from cars and lorries. Area’s in particular decline are chalk and limestone grasslands, heaths and bogs. Ten species familiar to our grandparents have been lost entirely from the British countryside since 1930. And this is a trend that’s likely to continue. But A Rocha’s passion is to conserve environments and stop this happening. “We will see some very sad things in terms of extinction and destruction of habitats,” says Bookless. “There’s a real urgency about this. We have 10 to 15 years at most in which our lifestyles, our economic system and our dependency on fossil fuels need to change if we are to give the world a long-term future. We are already seeing changing habitats in th UK. We are losing species”. | |
| Environment | Idea May/June 2008 |
| What seemed like a relatively low-profile consultation gained a significant public profile when Christian lobby groups presented a proposal to the Scottish Law Commissions (SLC) 2007 Report on Rape and Sexual Offences. The SLC’s most controversial recommendation centred on the protection of vulnerable individuals, specifically children. The Commission suggests that younger children (13-16 year olds) have the capacity to consent to sexual activity and recommends that, while “the law should not be seen as ignoring or condoning sexual conduct between young people”, getting the criminal court and law involved is “not the appropriate response”. Whiel referring a child to a special children’s hearing may perhaps help promote the welfare of the child, the lack of a legal dimension surely sends a clear mssage that the law is no longer intersted in the principle that vulnerable persons are protected. While a young person may be physically mature enough to engage in sexual activity, this may not be matched by emotional capability. A child is more vulnerable to exploitation because of their age and therefore lacks the capacity eithe to give or withhold consent. Arguably if the proposals went through, children aged 13 – 16 would be encouraged to engage in sexual experimentation. | |
| Sex | Idea May/June 2008 |
| Poverty blights the lives of almost 1 million rural households in England alone. Blue tongue, TB, foot and mouth disease and floods have all hit Britian’s farming community hard. So what are the major issues affecting Britian’s farmers and just how can Christians help? Agriculture occupies 70 per cent – 9.2 million hectars – of the land area in England. But the amount of crops grown is falling as farmers leave the industry. In 2007, a survey carried out for the Department of Food and Rural Affairs showed that around a third of farmers questioned plan to either give up farming or to diversify. But they are worried about what else they could do. | |
| Work/Employment | Idea May/June 2008 |
| In 2001, reports started to emerge about children being trafficked from their homes in the countries of Benin, Mali and Burkina Faso into neighbouring Ivory Coast and its many cocoa plantations. “They were not being paid, but were subjected to the worst forms of child labour,” says Phil Lane, Europe projects director for Stop the Traffik. | |
| World Issues | Idea May/June 2008 |
| Millions of women and children in the developing world walk miles every day to fetch 20 litres of water, barely enough to meet their family’s basic needs. This gruelling task often takes all day; the weight of the water buckets these women carry is the same as the average UK airport luggage allowance. And after all that work, the water is often contaminated and deadly. Globally, an estimated 1.1 billion people live without access to safe wate. And every 20 seconds a child dies from diseases related to drinking dirty water. Labelling this an outrage, Samaritian’s Purse UK has launched Turn On The Tap, encouraging organistions, churches, schools and individuals to hold a four-mile walk on or around 10 May. | |
| World Issues | Idea May/June 2008 |
| More than 3.4 million people are currently cheating on their partners, according to a survery released by Scripture Union. The poll discovered that 7 per cent of the population has admitted that they are seeing someone else behind their partners’ back, and four out of 10 people admitted to fantasising about being with someone other than their partner. James Burden of Scripture Union’s WordLive online resource said, “This research uncovered some uncomfortable truths about our society, revealing the erosion of morality and basic rights and wrongs. The detrimental effect of moral indifference and casual negligence threatens to break up the foundations of our communities.” The survery also revealed that morality was falling across the board. Some 38 per cent of people admitted to stealing, but two-thirds of them said that they did not “feel-bad” about it. A further 67 per cent said that they would lie to cover their backs, and more than seven in 10 said that they would not own up if given too much change in a shop. | |
| Crime | Idea May/June 2008 |
| According to the government’s actuary department, the UK’s population of centenarians is forecast to soar from about 10,000 now to as many as 1.2 million by 2074. That’s a lot of telegrams from Queen Camilla. The independent think-tank Demos recently issued a report which suggested life expectancy would rise to 150 in 30 years time. It also made the astonishing claim that the first person who will live to the age of 1,000 may be alive today. | |
| Odd Facts | Life and Work May 2008 |
| Nations World Food Programme (WFP) announced that, starting this week, they will be forced to cut monthly rations in Darfur because banditry agaainst WFP-contracted trucks is preventing sufficient stocks of vital food relief from getting through. This month, the cereal ration will be cut will be cut in half to 225 grams per person per day, pulses will be cut in half to 30 grams and sugar by half, to 15 grams. At this time of year, WFP-contracted trucks should be delivering 1,800 metric tons of food daily to Darfur to supply warehouses ahead of the rainy season, due to begin next month. But deliveries have dropped to less than 900 tons per day. In this year already, 60 WFP trucks have been hijacked, 39 are missing and 26 drivers unaccounted for – many presumed dead. | |
| Health | The Universe May 4th 2008 |
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