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Pakistan, with one of the world`s largest out-of-school population, about 7.3 million, spends over seven times as much on arms as on primary schools, says a report of the UN Educational, Scientific and CulturalOrganisation (Unesco).The discrepancy between primary education and military expenditure is so large that just one-fifth of Pakistan`s military spending would be sufficient to finance the universal primary education, asserts the `Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report 2011` published on Tuesday.
An anti-Islamic group’s opposition to a weekly Muslim prayer session being held in Melbourne’s inner suburbs has been condemned by a civil liberties organisation, Liberty Victoria. Q Society opposes what it calls the “Islamisation of Australia”, saying accommodating Islamic custom and law threatens Australia’s basic freedoms. It has started a petition against a planning amendment at Melbourne’s Port Phillip Council that would formalise an existing weekly hour-long prayer session at a St Kilda community house. Muslims have been praying at the weekly Friday session for years.Liberty Victoria president Spencer Zifcak said Q Society’s campaign “bears all the hallmarks of a deliberate attempt to deny to one religion the freedom of religious belief accorded to every other religion”.
