Wednesday 30 July 2008

Decline of payphones in Italy

Telecom Italia payphone in Vatican State, 2008


In Italy payphones are less and less used by people: in the last 10 years mobile phones have been a huge success.
How many millions of minutes were spent in payphones?
The answer is in the reports of italian authority.
It would be interesting (but they didn't write it) to know how many sms are sent from those payphones.

2005
800 millions of minutes (1)
2006
600 (2)
2007
300 (2)

If you go to worldpayphones you can see photographic pictures of payphones of all the world

1 report 2007 pag.50
2 report 2008 pag.48

Monday 28 July 2008

Controversial survey about muslim students in UK


In UK the "Centre for Social Cohesion" interviewed 632 muslim students and 831 non-muslim students.
Is it fair having 632 muslim people interview and the newspapers writing "Killing for religion is justified, say third of muslim students" ? The same article says "The YouGov poll was conducted for the Right-wing think tank, the Centre for Social Cohesion" but you need to reach the end of the article (how many times do we stop earlier?) to read "YouGov polled 600 Muslim students and 800 non-Muslim students at universities with a high number of Muslims."


You can read the full report:
Islam on campus - a survey of UK students opinion (126 pages, pdf file)
or read an executive summary here (3 pages, pdf file)

A third of muslim students back killings; Abul Taher
Killing for religion is justified, say third of muslim students; Patrick Sawer
Guardian:
Radical Islam gains ground in campuses; Jamie Doward

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FOSIS is the umbrella organization of student groups in colleges and universities throughout the UK and Ireland, representing over 90,000 Muslim students

FOSIS condemns the report:

The Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS) in the UK and Eire today condemned the publication of a report published by the Centre for Social Cohesion entitled "Islam on Campus".

Faisal Hanjra, President for FOSIS, said today, "This is yet another damning attack on the Muslim community by elements within the academic arena whose only purpose seems to be the undermining of sincere efforts by mainstream Muslim organisations to tackle the threat of terror which wider society faces. The report is methodologically weak, it is unrepresentative and above all serves only to undermine the positive work carried out by Islamic Societies across the country. Unfortunately, the views espoused by the CSC in tackling extremism involves the creation of an "Islam" outside the Muslims, which, to begin with is a sure way to failure, and far from empowering the Muslims, perpetuates a patronising tone of "we know better than you do"."

He further added, "FOSIS has been a recognised cog in delivering consistent, mainstream opinions and by maligning it, CSC has shown itself to be an unreliable and marred think tank. Muslim students have had a tough time since the dreadful attacks on 7/7, they have faced numerous challenges with courage and perseverance, it is evident that those challenges have yet to go away and what is equally evident is the resilience of Muslim students to face those challenges. The message though to those who seek to cause this mischief is clear, we will not be deterred, our work will continue and the results of our efforts are clear for all to see.
 
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