If these were normal times, the American view of the conflict in Lebanon might look something like the street scenes that have electrified the suburbs of Detroit for the past four weeks. In Dearborn, home to the Ford Motor Co. and the highest concentration of Arab Americans in the country, up to 1,000 people have turned out day after day to express their outrage at the Israeli military campaign and mourn the loss of civilian life in Lebanon.

MPACUK the most ground breaking Muslim group in Britain today, pioneering concepts from Muslim women’s rights in the mosque to political empowerment for Britain’s Muslims. Our pioneering concepts have made MPACUK probably the most influential Muslim group in Britain today. Recently we unveiled our “rational Centre” concept. It explained our belief in Islam in the context as British citizens. Now MPACUK unveil our latest concept – “The Democratic Mosque.”

The ceasefire in Lebanon was holding by a thread last night after Israel sanctioned a commando raid in the east of the country. Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, said Israel had violated the truce, and he was 'deeply concerned' about it. But the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, claimed that the attack was intended to prevent the supply of new weapons and ammunition to Hizbollah.

Schools are failing to warn children of the dangers of drugs and alcohol and are not focusing enough attention on the emotional aspects of sex, the education watchdog, Ofsted, said today. Ofsted's latest survey considered 18 primary, secondary and special schools, which were chosen for their health policies. Inspectors also used evidence from 102 other school inspections for the report, which covered issues including school sport, meals and sex education.

We will soon have no world-class universities left in this country. Oxford and Cambridge struggle to retain a position among the top 10; I expect that they will soon drop out through the bottom. It is easy to assume that better government resourcing would make all the difference, but the problem is not wholly, or even perhaps mainly, financial.

UN special envoy Stephen Lewis yesterday accused the G8 countries of betraying Africa by their failure to find the money to fulfil their Gleneagles promise on the treatment, care and prevention of Aids. In a speech at the international Aids conference in Toronto, Mr Lewis said that African governments attempting to treat their citizens were struggling with the cost and their chief fear was that the money from donor countries would dry up.

Alhamdulillah a vigorous campaign by Muslim activists on the MPACUK Forum has resulted in a high-profile success. Mobile phone company Orange has suspended its Community Affairs Manager and launched an investigation following a flood of complaints from customers outraged at comments he made about Muslims and Palestinians on a Conservative Party Members Blog.