Issue 05-02-2010
Featured story
Kenya: Eldoret testimonies
‘My house was burned on the third day’, explains Esther Kinadoso gently as I sit at a desk at the front of the church, recording the absorbing personal testimonies of Eldoret Friends as they sit in the first row of pews, hunched towards me, keenly hearing each others’ stories, but...
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Eldoret testimonies 1
Esther Kinadoso is a Quaker and attends Eldoret Friends Church. During the post-election violence her house was burned down After the elections in 2007, when they announced the person who had won, there was a tension that started that night. We were not sleeping in our house: we went and gathered...
Eldoret testimonies 2
Wilson Ngaira Shirambira is clerk of Eldoret Friends Church. He explains how his church met the challenge of caring for the seventeen families who took refuge with them It came up after politics. People had the other side. In Kenya, we talk of tribes, in that maybe a certain tribe...
NGO visas restricted by Israeli government
Aid agencies and peace groups have expressed concern about the future of international work in Palestine and Israel, following an Israeli government decision to restrict visas for workers from non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Instead of providing NGO staff with working visas, the Israeli authorities now plan to issue many of...
Called to account?
I have never seen Tony Blair looking so nervous. He appeared flustered and scared as I sat in the media room at the Iraq Inquiry, watching his interrogation on screens placed on the walls for the assembled journalists. The former prime minister had snuck in by a side door...
A look at the report of the National Equality Panel
Confronted by 460 pages of this report, or forty-five pages of summary, you may be daunted or confused. As Peter Kenway said (Poverty breakdown, 15 January), even if you focus on just one measure, such as child poverty, it is possible for several apparently contradictory statements to be true. But the way...
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Campaigning to control ‘super’market powers
Friends are among the campaigners pressing politicians for action to rein in the power of supermarkets, with the aim of preventing global wage reductions and the destruction of small businesses. They are urging the government to appoint a supermarket ombudsman who could respond to allegations of abuse. Business secretary...
Diversity myth guarantees Quaker extinction
Quakers in Britain are almost wholly white, middle class, educated and over fifty. We pretend to have a wide range of faith positions and spiritual practices, but in fact these are just ‘notions’: distractions, entertainments, games to fill the void left by comfort and the need to hide from...
Listening to each other with appreciation
It might help us consider in a friendly and supportive manner matters such as non-theistic Quakerism, belief, and language, if we appreciate that each Friend’s own position can and normally will differ, perhaps slightly, perhaps greatly, from our corporate position. Our form of Quakerism is inclusive and diverse. A...
Moving on from Copenhagen
How should we respond as Quakers to the Copenhagen summit? After the build up to the Copenhagen conference, people are sifting through the embers to see what went wrong. Ed Miliband, secretary of state for energy and climate change, blames China for not setting its own targets for emission...
Letters - 5 February 2010
Eyewitness - 5 February 2010
Those wonderful steam trains! We would stick our corporate necks out and say that travel by rail is the preferred Quaker transport. Many of you have been watching Michael Portillo’s television series on British journeys and you will be pleased to hear that the Quaker Tapestry in Kendal is...