United Kingdom

The UK government is once again navigating legal and political hurdles over its plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. The latest debate is over the emergency bill that legally declares Rwanda a safe place to send refugees (despite the supreme court ruling the opposite).

The government has now told civil servants that, if a minister tells them to, they must ignore rule 39 orders from the European court of human rights in Strasbourg.

The court enforces the European convention on human rights, to which the UK and 45 other European countries are party. Rule 39 allows the court to issue interim measures to stop any of these governments from taking action that could or would violate someone’s human rights.

If only the British state had control over these sorts of things, what a world that would be.

According to The Mail on Sunday, court documents reveal that a group of around 30 pupils intimidated other pupils who would not fast during Ramadan, pressured a girl into wearing a hijab, and coerced another girl into leaving the school choir by telling her it was forbidden in Islam.

The pupils also started holding prayer rituals in the playground, and put pressure on pupils who chose not pray.

The school said the prayer rituals created an "intimidatory and aggressive atmosphere" and "resulted in a division in the playground between the Muslim and the non-Muslim children which had never happened before".

Birbalsingh said the school's governing body decided to ban the prayer rituals after weighing up all other options because they had become a "catalyst for abuse and threats".

Email threatens: "you will be dealt with like the filthy dog that you are"

In March, TTT was suspended for two days after displaying "extreme rudeness" towards a teacher who objected to her bringing a prayer mat to the playground.

The suspension prompted "the most appalling abuse and threats" to teachers, including threatening phone calls and emails.

One email said: "If you carry on disrespecting our Muslim children you will be dealt with like the filthy dog that you are."

Another warned: "'We have planted several bombs in the building, many of which are hidden in toilets, hall rooms and classes on all floors. These are the consequences of your actions."

Individual staff members were also attacked. One teacher's home had a brick thrown through the window. A break-in was also attempted at a teacher's home. A black teacher was subjected to racist abuse, and other teachers received death threats.

Sure seems like an awful lot of this was caused by the school being overly heavy handed in their actions towards the child.

Also the argument that pupils shouldn't be wearing 'signs of political allegiance' looks a bit odd when they're flying a Union flag over the front gate.

"All the bugs and errors have been known at one level or not, for many, many years. Right from the very start of deployment of the system, there were bugs and errors and defects, which were well-known to all parties," said Paul Patterson, co-CEO of Fujitsu's European division. Ars Trending Video

That goes back to 1999, when the Horizon software system was installed in post offices by Fujitsu subsidiary International Computers Limited. From 1999 to 2015, Fujitsu's faulty accounting software aided in the prosecution and conviction of more than 900 sub-postmasters and postmistresses who were accused of theft or fraud when the software wrongly made it appear that money was missing from their branches.

This is focused, from what I've read, on shutting down the blast furnaces.

Not really an area of my expertise, so I asked a friendly language model for a summary of the difference between arc and blast furnaces.
Take it away, Kagi:

The main differences between a blast furnace and an electric arc furnace are:

• Raw materials: A blast furnace can melt both raw iron ore and recycled metal, while an electric arc furnace can only melt recycled or scrap metal.

• Energy source:
  A blast furnace uses coke as fuel and hot air or oxygen as an oxidizing agent blown into the top of the furnace to sustain the chemical reactions and heat required.
  An electric arc furnace uses electric arcs to melt scrap steel.

• Emissions: An electric arc furnace produces a mere fraction of the carbon emissions and requires less energy intensity than a blast furnace.

• Flexibility: Blast furnaces operate continuously for years, while electric arc furnaces can rapidly vary production and shut down more easily.

In summary, while blast furnaces can process raw materials, electric arc furnaces are more energy efficient and produce lower carbon emissions when recycling scrap metal. Most steel production today uses electric arc furnaces due to their operational flexibility and environmental advantages.