Good morning, as Ros said today’s programme is a special broadcast on multiculturalism, but there are still issues around to discuss online and perhaps on tomorrow’s programme.
Crossing Continents today investigates the housing crisis in France. In Paris, homelessness is on the rise and some landlords seek “services” – often sex – instead of rent. That’s an extreme situation, but is there sufficient affordable housing in your country? Does the government do enough to make sure people have a roof over their heads?
A debate already on the site is What is the best way to prevent STDs? Abstinence? Safe sex? And how should people be educated about the options?
On the environment, climate change is the focus of the EU’s spring summit in Brussels. British and French leaders are expected to seek changes to the tax regime to allow countries to reduce taxes on so-called green goods. But the UK budget announced yesterday – which was promoted as having a green hue – has been criticised by environmental campaigners and green taxes have been declining in the UK for the past decade. Are taxes the right instrument to fight climate change?
Short men are the most jealous, apparently. What physical characteristics make you jealous? Who do you envy?
RSS feed
Should we learn in our native languages?
Many can stand by me if I say that children who learn in their native languages in their basic period like nursery-school and primary school before proceeding with either English or French in their secondary school are more intelligent than those who take-off with English and French.
A good example can be the people educated in Easter African region where the basics are given in Swahili language and those in countries like Rwanda and Burundi and part of Nigeria.
So, I would like to hear what other people think about this.
Many thanks,
Arnaud Ntirenganya Emmanuel
Rwandan in Cameroon
Hi Ros,
I was reading the following article about voilence against migrant workers Mumbai and other places in Indian state of Maharastra.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7287007.stm
Will it be possible for you to include this subject in discussion for have your say. I am a Bihari working in US. Using your forum I wanted to see what other people, especially from Mahrastra who are working in US have to say about this voilence.
Mukul
Dayton, OH
Today morning I received an interesting e-mail from a friend in Tanzania telling me that his “holiness” the pope has added more sins on the list of the already existing sins. I got chocked!
As I was walking by the street of Jinja, I saw the same headline in the Monitor newspaper, this is serious, I told myself!
Do we really think that people will stop doing wrong things by frightening them?
I really doubt whether such threats will have any positive impact on an already disintegrating world.
Would it not be right, instead of compiling sins in a golden book, to tell people that each one of them is a protagonist for the betterment of this world and that we have to regard the whole world as a human body whereby if the little finger is hurt, the whole body feels the pain.
By the way, we should do good not because we fear hell or want to go to heaven. What if we are told today that these two things do not exist? Shall we start killing each other because after all we will be going nowhere????
This poor Congolese wants an answer.
Masaidio in Uganda.
Unless I blinked and missed it (in which case apologies), I’m disappointed that WHYS hasn’t mentioned or attempted to address events in Tibet over the past few days.
Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and torture are regular topics on WHYS, all with the common thread of the US and its misdeeds. Tibet, occupied for more than half-a-century by a country that clearly intends to remain there permanently and to forever dispossess the Tibetan people by creating a Chinese majority in the Tibetan homeland is, I believe, a far more significant story than Iraq or Afghanistan. One day the occupiers will withdraw from those two countries and Iraqis and Afghans will again become the masters of their countries. The Tibetans are close to having their country stolen from them by a bullying and merciless superpower that has already inflicted untold damage in an attempt to exterminate Tibet’s cultural heritage and break the will of the Tibetan people.
Anti-American demonstrations/riots in Kandahar or Bagdhad would not have gone unnoticed. Demonstrations by people suffering a 50+ year occupation by a dictatorship known for its brutality and readiness to murder its own dissidents surely deserve better. These people are at least as brave as the monks of Burma, and how often was that story on WHYS?
Very disappointing.
“Dr Death” Jack Kevorkian, a supporter of euthanasia who served jail time for helping end patient’s lives, has announced he wants to run for Congress. Could be a talking point about euthanasia?
“Short men are the most jealous, apparently.”
I’m short and I ain’t no jealous of nobody I tell ya!
No, really – I am short, 5′ 6 and I really am not jealous – what I have found is taller men have said to me quite a few times that I have a chip on my shoulder – that is usually after having a discussion and proving their argument not to hold water.
My wife, by the way, is 5’11
We should learn firstly and fore-mostly in our native language and then in International languages.