Protesters to Hit France en masse
THE TELEGRAPH: Protesters are due to hit the streets in France en masse in the sixth such demonstration in two months against Nicolas Sarkozy's unpopular pension reforms.



Airport staff, bus and train drivers, teachers, postal workers and armoured truck drivers who stock cash machines will join refinery workers and others in a day of nationwide strikes against Mr Sarkozy's plan to raise the retirement age.

Fuel shortages will worsen as refinery strikes go into an eighth day, and the authorities will be alert for any escalation of sporadic violence on Monday in some cities, with small groups of troublemakers torching vehicles and scuffling with police.

A school in Le Mans, northwest France, burned down in the early hours of Tuesday after an apparent arson attack but it was unclear if the apparent arson attack was linked to the protests.

Michele Alliot-Marie, the justice minister, told Europe 1 radio the situation was not a crisis, but warned protesters that "the right to demonstrate does not mean the right to smash things up."

Tuesday's protests are a last-ditch challenge to the centre-right government before a final Senate vote this week on the pension bill, which the government says is vital to rein in a ballooning pension shortfall as the population ages. >>> | Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Church to Vote on Greater Rights for Partners of Gay Clergy
THE TELEGRAPH: The Church of England is poised to give greater recognition to homosexual clergy in relationships, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

A proposal to give the partners of gay priests some of the same rights that are awarded to priests' spouses is likely to spark a new row over homosexuality.

Bishops and senior clergy will debate at next month's General Synod whether the Church should provide same-sex couples with the same financial benefits as are awarded to married couples.

Traditionalists have expressed strong opposition to the move, which they claim would give official recognition to homosexual relationships.

They warn that affording equal treatment to heterosexual and homosexual couples would undermine the Church's teaching on marriage.

At present, the Church bars clergy from being in active gay relationships, although it bowed to pressure to allow them to enter civil partnerships on the condition that they are celibate.

Liberals believe that the motion, to be unveiled this week, could be a major breakthrough in securing rights for gay clergy.

It calls on the Archbishops' Council, chaired by Dr Rowan Williams, to introduce changes that would "provide for pension benefits to be paid to the surviving civil partners of deceased clergy on the same basis as they are currently paid to surviving spouses".

However, there are serious concerns over the effects that such a change would have on the Church's finances as well as on the thin hopes of maintaining unity in the Anglican Communion, which is deeply divided over the issue of homosexual clergy. >>> Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Religious Affairs Correspondent | Saturday, January 16, 2010

Brown Betrays Stay-at-Home Mums!
This government is about as inept as any government could be! Children need mothers at home. It makes a huge difference to their development. Children do not, cannot, raise themselves! Hence, our government should enable and encourage mothers to stay at home to care for their children. Apart from children benefiting from stay-at-home mums – we can see the results of decades of the neglect of the rôle of conventional motherhood everywhere around us – the country benefits from them, too. Mothers who stay at home are far more likely to have more children. And the fact is that the United Kingdom needs children, children called Jack, Timothy, or Christian! The demographics are turning against the indigenous population. If things go on as they are, it won’t be long before an Islamic flag, depicting the ‘sword of Allah’, will be hoisted above Downing Street. What are our politicians thinking about? How idiotic it is for any government to to demean the rôle of motherhood! – ©Mark

DAILY MAIL: More than eight million women who took time out of work to care for their children have lost their chance of a full state pension after a Christmas u-turn by the Government.

Ministers have dropped plans to give women with a partial pension entitlement the chance to make up the shortfall before they retire, it emerged last night.

The decision was slipped out in the Lords as Parliament adjourned for the holiday break, to the astonishment of peers who had been promised action earlier this year.

The Government had offered to back an amendment to the Pensions Bill that would have allowed women to make up shortfalls in their state pension entitlement by paying in extra cash.

But in what the Tories claimed last night was a 'betrayal of stay at home mums', ministers said they have now decided not to back the scheme. Betrayal of stay-at-home mothers: 8m women lose state pensions after Government u-turn >>> By Benedict Brogan

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