Anger over call to moderates: The week that was April 11 to 17, 2004.

Members of Yorkshire's Muslim community condemned comments by senior Christians who were calling for moderates to speak out against terrorism.
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PA PHOTOS.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, leader of Roman Catholics in England and Wales, said Dr Carey had spoken “very bravely” and added his own opinion that Muslims had not done enough to denounce such actions.

Now Bary Malik, president of Bradford’s Ahmadiyya Muslim Association said he was “shocked”. He said: “To hear senior figures in the Christian Church speak like this is unhelpful and is disturbing.

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“To me it shows what little knowledge they have of Islam and how out of touch with Muslims they are. We have repeatedly spoken out against terrorism, but how often have they spoken against terrorism against Muslims?”

Prison chiefs faced fresh embarrassment when a second prisoner released in error spoke of “chaos” in the courts system.

Colin Watson, 32, who was nearing the end of a two-year sentence for housebreaking, said he was “stunned” to have been set free by Glasgow Sheriff Court. He had gone to court on another matter, only to find himself suddenly released. He was later returned to Low Moss Prison. The previous week a teenage killer was released in error from Hamilton Sheriff Court and was still at large.

Thousands of teachers’ jobs would be at risk if the Government did not properly fund its education changes, warned Harrogate and Knaresborough MP Phil Willis.

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The Lib Dem education spokesman said he would be telling the annual conference of the National Union of Teachers that one in three schools was likely to face a budget cut for the second year running. So far teaching assistants had borne the brunt of the cuts, but it was only a matter of time before teaching staff was reduced, too. Also on the agenda were performance-related pay, teachers’ workloads and the publication of league tables of SAT results.

Scores of volunteer butterfly watchers were set to descend on the limestone pavements of Scar Close in North Yorkshire’s Ingleborough National Nature Reserve for an official count of the rare Brown Argus.

Members of Butterfly Conservation and English Nature planned to monitor the butterfly – also known as the Durham Argus – once a week until September as part of an effort to return their numbers to 1970 levels and gather information that would help to restore habitats.

Scar Close provided a breeding ground because its peat islands and thin soil layers supported a unique combination of plants. But a recent study in the journal Science found Britain’s butterflies were dying out faster than its birds and plant species.

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An accountant from Harrogate was recruiting Yorkshire applicants to join him on Ascension Island in the South Atlantic. In return for their ideas and possibly cash to invest, they would enjoy a newly-built home, and an island that was free of crime, VAT and mobile phones.

Andrew Kettlewell, chair of the island’s first democratically elected government, said immigrants would also have to acclimatise to life without restaurants, trees and organised education for the over-15s. He was on a mission to boost the population from 900 to 1,500.