top of page
Handshake

News & Commentary for the Digital UK

Welcome

© Getty Images


French President Emmanuel Macron planned to present an anti-religious extremism bill on Wednesday that would ban “virginity certificates” for Muslim women and restrict home-schooling in the nation. The administration is unveiling the bill with the goal of protecting “republican principles” and curbing Islamist extremism within France after extremists carried out two fatal terror attacks in October, the Financial Times reported. The French president intended to present the bill at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday. Macron’s bill would extend France’s traditional secular neutrality in government services to private sector companies if they are contacted by the government. The French president has received backlash for the bill and has been condemned for alleged Islamophobia by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan. Macron has dismissed these concerns saying the proposal is designed to target Islamist extremists, in particular, not all Muslims. “We are not targeting Muslims,” one of Macron’s advisers said, according to the Financial Times. “We are targeting movements that in the name of religion have a discourse against the republic.” The bill would prohibit virginity certificates, which are a doctor's confirmation that a person's hymen is intact that some require before marriage. The World Health Organization has confirmed virginity certificates are unscientific, according to Al Jazeera. The drafted bill will also further regulate hate speech on social media and the internet, making it illegal for people to identify and intend to hurt public servants like teachers. This provision will come after French teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded in October for showing his class satirical Charlie Hebdo cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. French officials said the restrictions on home-schooling will come as some French children are being sent to unregistered Koranic classes, according to the Financial Times. Although some French people dispute the home-schooling limits and the criminalization of parents who request doctors of certain genders in state hospitals, the majority of the French population is supportive of Macron’s actions against Islamic extremism.


Source: The Hill

France’s first farm outbreak of the virus this year comes as bird flu spreads rapidly in Europe, putting the poultry industry on alert after previous outbreaks led to the culling of tens of millions of birds.


Agriculture Ministry of France says a highly pathogenic H5N8 bird flu had been found on a duck farm in the southwest of the country, confirming France's first farm outbreak of the virus this year.

The outbreak was first reported on Monday but at the time it was unclear what strain of the virus it was.

Bird flu has been spreading rapidly in Europe, putting the poultry industry on alert after previous outbreaks led to the culling of tens of millions of birds.


Slaughtered ducks in Samatan, southwestern France on November 9, 2020. (AFP)

CIFOG director Marie-Pierre Pe said the latest case was discovered on Friday at a farm of about 6,000 ducks due to be force-fed — a technique used to make foie gras — in the town of Benesse-Maremne, near the city of Biarritz and the Spanish border.

"Initial tests have shown that it is an outbreak of H5 avian influenza but it remains to be seen whether it highly or low pathogenic and whether it is the H5N8 strain or another one," Pe told Reuters.

A security zone was set up around the farm even before the confirmation, something that was not done in 2016/2017 when a wave of bird flu led to the death and culling of millions of poultry, she said.

France has already detected the H5N8 virus on birds sold in three pet stores. Investigations found that the wild birds had been sold by the same person in northern France, the agriculture ministry said last week.

The spread of the virus in Europe prompted France to raise its bird flu security alert to "high" in early November, which requires keeping birds indoors or installing protective netting to prevent contact with wild birds that spread the disease.


Source: TRTWorld

A Russian court has ordered the arrest of a physicist specializing in hypersonic aircraft on suspicion of high treason.


Anatoly Gubanov took part in international conferences and projects involving hydrogen-powered hypersonic aircraft, the Interfax news agency reported on December 3, citing unnamed sources.


“According to the investigation, Gubanov handed over secret aviation development data abroad,” the TASS news agency reported, citing another source.


The closed-door court ordered Gubanov to be held in detention until February.


The scientist is said to be a lecturer at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.

Russia views hypersonic aircraft and missiles as providing a strategically important military advantage.


In October, the Russian military said it had successfully test-launched a Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile that flew more than eight times the speed of sound, in what President Vladimir Putin hailed as a “big event” for the country.


Source: American Military News

Blog
bottom of page