American Buddhist Net

Tokyo - The Japanese government has come under fire for a tuition-fee-waiver programme approved Friday, which critics say would discriminate against Korean students if North Korean schools in the country are excluded. A House of Representatives committee approved the bill to waive educational fees at public high schools. The bill would also allow private schools to be granted 120,000 yen to 240,000 yen (1,330 to 2,660 dollars) per student depending on the student's household income.

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A school in America has decided to cancel its prom dance after a lesbian student demanded she be able to attend with her girlfriend and wear a tuxedo.

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Minorities in Madhya Pradesh have criticised plans to introduce the Bhagvad Gita in state-run schools, saying the scriptures of other religions should also be part of the syllabus, even as a section of Muslim leaders sees nothing wrong with it.

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Home-school mom Susan Mule wishes she hadn't taken a friend's advice and tried a textbook from a popular Christian publisher for her 10-year-old's biology lessons.

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Freedom of speech and expression, as well as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness must include the right to teach your beliefs and values to your children. These and more reasons can be given for not interfering in how parents educate their children. ABN

RIYADH: A Saudi cleric’s fatwa last week calling for those who promote co-educational environments to be put to death has shocked international and Saudi communities, according to a report.

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Saudi women to be allowed to argue cases in court

India's first international Buddhist University is coming up near Sanchi, the world heritage site, 34 km southwest of Bhopal. Work on the Rs 300-crore Indo-Sri Lanka joint project is expected to start from June on 65 acre land provided by the MP Government.

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Bhopal, Mar 3 : The Madhya Pradesh government has provided 65 acres for establishing a Buddhist University at that faith's world-renowned pilgrim spot Sanchi.

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Heads will be forced to list children as young as five on school 'hate registers' over everyday playground insults.

Even minor incidents must be recorded as examples of serious bullying and details kept on a database until the pupil leaves secondary school.

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Melbourne, Mar 01 : A radical HSC English course in Australia has done away with Shakespeare and Wordsworth to make it more relevant for students who have to stay at school until they are 17 as per the law.

The Board of Studies have shunned the classical works and replaced it with contemporary texts such as Catcher In The Rye, The Motor Cycle Diaries and movies like The Matrix.

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MORRISTOWN, Tenn. — On a quiet street in this little town in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains lives a family of refugees who were granted asylum in the United States because they feared persecution in their home country.

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GUWAHATI, India (Reuters Life!) - Christian outrage at a school book picture showing Jesus Christ holding a beer bottle and a cigarette has spurred authorities in northeastern India to draft an anti-blasphemy law for schools.

Police in Meghalaya state have seized the notebooks and are taking a New-Delhi based private publisher to court on accusations of offending religious sentiments.

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...Our antipathy toward reading the Bible is creating a situation of increasing cultural and intellectual illiteracy. Whether or not one approaches the Bible from the perspective of faith, there can be very little doubt that a lack of understanding of the Bible undermines the ability to fully appreciate the greatest works of art, philosophy, music and literature that our culture has produced. Even Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion asserts, "I am a little taken aback at the biblical ignorance displayed by people educated in more recent decades than I was," and that "an atheistic world-view provides no justification for cutting the Bible, and other sacred books, out of our education."

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The government in the Indian state of Meghalaya has confiscated textbooks showing pictures of Jesus Christ holding a cigarette and a can of beer.

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The school accused of remotely activating computer webcams to spy on students in their homes has denied the charges, although it acknowledged that the functionality was available for the purpose of recovering stolen computers. If the school actually engaged in spying, even with the aim of protecting students, "the administrators themselves became the predators," said tech attorney Ray Van Dyke.

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SAN FRANCISCO — A series of online attacks on Google and dozens of other American corporations have been traced to computers at two educational institutions in China, including one with close ties to the Chinese military, say people involved in the investigation.

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SHILLONG: Pictures of Jesus Christ holding a cigarette in one hand and a beer can in another in a book for primary classes has triggered a row in Meghalaya and the state government is now contemplating legal action against the New Delhi-based publisher.

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A growing number of Japanese children are attending private schools for an Indian-style education emphasizing advanced mental arithmetic, computers and English. What is the attraction of such an education?

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According to the filings in Blake J Robbins v Lower Merion School District (PA) et al, the laptops issued to high-school students in the well-heeled Philly suburb have webcams that can be covertly activated by the schools' administrators, who have used this facility to spy on students and even their families.

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CHILDREN with ADHD who use prescription drugs to manage their condition were 10 times more likely to perform poorly at school than ADHD kids who avoided medication, a new report revealed.

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When Michelle Bisutti, a 41-year-old family practitioner in Columbus, Ohio, finished medical school in 2003, her student-loan debt amounted to roughly $250,000. Since then, it has ballooned to $555,000.

It is the result of her deferring loan payments while she completed her residency, default charges and relentlessly compounding interest rates. Among the charges: a single $53,870 fee for when her loan was turned over to a collection agency.

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Berlin - A sex abuse scandal at Catholic schools in Germany widened on Monday, with a lawyer representing victims saying the number of cases was three times higher than originally believed. More and more former pupils at colleges run by the Jesuit order of priests and other Catholic schools have come forward to complain of abuse, lawyer Ursula Raue told the German Press Agency dpa.

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Goldie Hawn is working with Britain's Conservative Party on plans to build a Buddhist School in the UK.

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HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — On Friday, this city of rocket scientists and brainy inventors was stunned when a neuroscientist with a Harvard Ph.D. was arrested in the shooting deaths of three of her colleagues after she was denied tenure.

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Red tape and onerous council conditions are threatening to derail a multimillion-dollar grand plan to construct Australia's first major Buddhist university campus on a former landfill site at Unanderra.

Wollongong City Council has approved the Nan Tien Temple's masterplan for a tertiary education centre (pictured) that would eventually cater for 3000 students.

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LAST MONTH, A WEEK before the Senate seat of the liberal icon Edward M. Kennedy fell into Republican hands, his legacy suffered another blow that was perhaps just as damaging, if less noticed. It happened during what has become an annual spectacle in the culture wars.

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BROCKTON, Mass. - The family of a Massachusetts boy suspended after school officials accused him of sexually harassing a girl in his first-grade class has settled a lawsuit against the city of Brockton for $180,000.

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HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The professor accused of killing three colleagues during a faculty meeting was a Harvard-educated neurobiologist, inventor and mother whose life had been marred by a violent episode in her distant past.

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HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - A biology professor was charged with murder late Friday in the shooting deaths of three colleagues at the campus.

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It is fair to wonder if she was taking anti-depressants. ABN

With a strongly favorable vote in the House on Wednesday, Oregon is on its way to becoming the 48th state to permit teachers to wear head scarves and other religious dress in school.

The 51-8 vote on House Bill 3686 is the first decision toward repealing Oregon's 87-year-old ban on religious garb. Oregon, Nebraska and Pennsylvania are the only states that prohibit religious clothing.

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The ACLU has filed a lawsuit on behalf of a college student who was arrested by the TSA and detained for five hours over a set of Arabic-language flash cards he was carrying.

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From the article, "...asked by FBI agents whether he was a communist..." What next? ABN