British Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday pledged £5 million (US$7.7 million) to root out the “poison” of militant groups like the Islamic State that target alienated and vulnerable people in British communities.
The funds are to support local initiatives, campaigns and charitable organizations this year in a so-called “national coalition” against radicalization.
“We need to systematically confront and challenge extremism and the ideologies that underpin it, exposing the lies and the destructive consequences it leaves in its wake,” Cameron said.
“We have to stop it at the start — stop this seed of hatred even being planted in people’s minds and cut off the oxygen it needs to grow,” he said.
The pledge came on the eve of the launch of the Conservative government’s counterterrorism strategy, which is also to include a broader crackdown on content online.
The strategy is widely expected to include closer working between Internet companies and police to remove online propaganda, using systems employed against child abuse images.
There is also set to be a clampdown on ideologies infiltrating prisons and universities, and incentives for schools to integrate pupils more effectively.
The new strategy will set out “our new approach to tackle this poison,” Cameron said.
The plan is to target “violent and non-violent” ideologies, support mainstream voices, and address the segregation and feelings of alienation that provide “fertile ground” for radicalization.
The prime minister warned that the scale of the challenge was “immense.”
“At the core is building a national coalition of all those individuals and groups who are united in their determination to defeat extremism and build a more cohesive society,” he said.
“We will do everything we can to support them — through my new community engagement forum and with practical support and funding to tackle these deep-rooted issues,” Cameron said. “The scale of the task is immense and that is why we need everyone to play their part.”
The strategy is also to establish a joint industry and government group to tackle the proliferation of online content that is deemed harmful.
According to research by the Quilliam Foundation, a London-based think tank, the Islamic State produces 38 unique pieces of high-quality propaganda every day — which spread on social networking Web sites and target the militant group’s sympathizers and supporters around the world.
“The past 18 months has seen a big change in the way that extremists use the Internet to target their radical ideology directly at young minds,” the British government said.
Cameron earlier this year vowed to “de-glamorize” Islamic State militants and clamp down on those who espouse similar ideologies.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver