An important event in Prague on 23 and 24 November this year will mark the 25th anniversary of the UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief.

Visit this website to find out all about it. Why not attend? I’m certainly thinking about going to Prague for that weekend.

If you want to see the dire state of freedom of religion and belief in the world, it’s worth reading the 9 January 2006 report of Asma Jahangir, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, to the now replaced UN Commission on Human Rights.

A reminder to visit the UK Baha’i community’s Freedom to Believe website. It supports our work in this important field.

And just a thought about UN nomenclature: what about a UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerably Long Titles in UN Documents and Declarations? Just a thought, as I say.

Technorati Tags: Intolerance, Discrimination, Religion, Belief, freedom

Erica and I drove the ten miles over to Ware this morning to visit a firm called Morley Stoves. We want to install a Cove 2 woodburning stove made by Charnwood in our sitting room, which really needs a live fire as a focal point. We have a brick-built fireplace, but no chimney, so there’ll be work to be done to make this possible. Once it’s done, we can have real firesides in the winter.

Our journey took us splashing over rain-wet roads through Datchworth, which looks like the quintessential southern English village: houses cluster around the village green, with its cricket ground; there are country pubs; there’s a church, a school, there’s even a duckpond. But, given the location of Datchworth and the size and character of the houses, I wouldn’t mind betting it’s an expensive place to buy a home. Very nice, but expensive.

On, then, through Watton-at-Stone to Ware. Ware struck me as very quiet for a Saturday morning, but it was only twenty to ten. It’s the kind of southern English town that flourished particularly during the era of stagecoach travel and on into the 1950s, but which were knocked back by increasing car ownership and out-of-town shopping. The high street seemed to have quite a few independent shops not owned by national or international chains, including the usual charity shops (always a bad sign if charity shops begin to take over a high street).

But appearances can be deceptive and the Ware Online site would suggest an altogether livelier place than that of my fantasy.

Technorati Tags: Ware, woodburning stove, Datchworth

Saturday 12 August, 2006 You can find the text of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 here. It’s worth reading closely and pondering.