A Million Children Go Missing In Europe Every Year

A Million Children Go Missing In Europe Every Year.
I’m an emotional person.
I struggle with that a lot in this kind of situation.
There was one little baby, a girl, and I was standing at this cot and I just thought, “I will take her”.
It was utterly irrational but that is your human response.
There was no earthly way I could take this baby home but that is your most powerful reaction.
You think as a mother, “I will save this baby, this one baby.”
( J K Rowling )

What She Has Witnessed Has Turned Her Into A Committed Campaigner.
Nine years ago she saw newspaper photos of children caged in beds in Romania and swore to end such suffering.
For the past few years, J K Rowling has been making secret visits to see her charity’s work in Moldova, the Czech Republic, Ukraine and Romania.
What she has witnessed has turned her into a committed campaigner.

“We must bring about lasting change so such atrocities no longer take place. The ex-communist mindset, that the State should take children and put them in a dustbin, must be made a thing of the past,” she says, “The fact a million children go missing in Europe every year has to be shouted from the rooftops.”

The UN estimates there are eight million children in care institutions, a million in central and Eastern Europe.
Joanne Rowling is sweetly embarrassed she has given so much of her own money to her charity.
It is many millions of pounds.

She is acutely aware that it may look like the indulgence of an extremely rich woman.
But there is no doubt that it stems from an urgency within her, a desire to bring about change far beyond the redemptive message of her Harry Potter books.
( An extract from an interview in CoverEvent, 27.10.2013 ) 

A home is not just a house or a building, it is much more than that.
It should be a place full of warmth, encouragement, fun, laughter and, most of all, love.
( J K Rowling )

Girls As Young As Nine Years Old Given Away In Marriage.
It is the responsibility of all those who believe that marrying a girl as young as nine years old was an accepted norm of the Arab culture, to provide at least a few examples to substantiate their point of view.
I have not yet been able to find a single dependable instance in the books of Arab history where a girl as young as nine years old was given away in marriage.

Unless such examples are given, we do not have any reasonable grounds to believe that it really was an accepted norm.
In my opinion, neither was it an Arab tradition to give away girls in marriage at an age as young as nine or ten years, nor did the Prophet (pbuh) marry Aisha (ra) at such a young age.
The people of Arabia did not object to this marriage, because it never happened in the manner it has been narrated.
( Ali Sina )

We Don’t Feel Secure In Our Own Home.
I don’t know why disabled people are being made scapegoats.
I voted Conservative in the last election.
I trusted them.
Now, I think, what have I done?
Why does the Government think we are the answer to the country’s money problems?
We don’t even feel secure in our own home.
( Lindsey Heard has a disabled daughter and is being made to pay an extra £80 a month ‘Bedroom Tax’ for a 57 sq.ft. box room )

The Facts Speak For Themselves.
Britain banned most guns after Dunblane, has not had a school shooting since, and has just 35 gun murders a year.
America does nothing, endures endless school shootings, and has 11,000 gun murders a year.
The facts speak for themselves.
A 13-year-old boy stole his parents’ gun in Reno, Nevada yesterday, went to school, shot and killed a teacher and wounded two 12-year-old classmates.
And so it goes on.
( Piers Morgan, 22.10.2013 )

London Is A Safe Refuge For The Rich.
London is no longer affordable for the merely rich.
There is a more seriously troubling side to the new wealth, too.
If privacy is part of London’s appeal, so too is the generous tax regime for ‘non-doms’ and the lack of scrutiny of how the fortunes have been obtained.
British hedge fund founder Bill Browder says, “A lot of the money sloshing around Mayfair, Belgravia, Chelsea and Knightsbridge is what I’d describe as blood money, flowing from horrific crimes. Not every member of the Russian super-rich is guilty of criminal behaviour, but a large proportion is.”

London is a place where the rich can buy £50million houses with offshore companies to hide their cash, where they can avoid tax, escape from legal prosecution from their homeland, and – for the most part – avoid being kidnapped and murdered.
It is a safe refuge from extradition when charges of fraud and embezzlement are raised.
President Putin may be right to say that no one pays attention to Great Britain.
Certainly that is the view taken by the millionaires and billionaires flocking to this country.
They value the privacy we offer and – in a worrying number of cases – our readiness to turn a blind eye.
( Mark Hollingsworth, 08.09.2013 )

Royal Mail Sold Off Cheap At The Expense Of The Taxpayer.
The two biggest private investors in Royal Mail have between them made more than £80million profit on the shares since the postal service was privatised.
Hedge fund TCI, which emerged last week as the largest single investor, has made a profit on paper of more than £57million according to calculations by The Mail on Sunday.
Meanwhile GIC, the Singapore government’s investment fund, is showing a profit of more than £24million on its stake in Royal Mail declared last week.
Between them the two funds now own almost ten per cent of the postal carrier.
The likely profits made by the two funds – the only private investors to declare their stakes so far – will fuel claims that Royal Mail was sold too cheaply and that the under-valuation has lined the pockets of big City investors at the expense of the taxpayer.
( Simon Watkins, 27.10.2013 )