Brash and violent: al-Qaida's new mouthpieces
Hanif Qadir, a former extremist who now runs the Active Change Foundation, a de-radicalization project in London which works with young people at risk of embracing terrorism and people convicted of terrorists offenses, stands at the foundation's youth centre, in east London, Monday, May 23, 2011. In Britain, a controversial government project involving police and educators has identified 1,000 people, most aged under 25 but some as young as 7-years-old, as vulnerable to the appeal of extremism many of whom reguarly browse jihadist videos or websites. Youngsters swap imported extremists DVDs and clips of beheadings stored on their cellphones, and use SMS messages or Twitter to trade addresses for jihdaist websites, Qadir said. AP
Harry Potter star casts spell over young people for Cultural Olympiad
Young people from Waltham Forest had a magical time with Harry Potter star Jessica Cave today when the actress made a surprise visit at a Cultural Olympiad filmmaking workshop in Waltham Forest.
Jessica was on hand to help a group of 14-19 year olds from the borough to make a film in a day that could be shown at London 2012 venues during next summer’s Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Jessica, who plays Ron Weasley’s love interest Lavender Brown in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and is set to star in the final film of the blockbuster series which opens this week, attended the workshop at the Active Change Foundation in Leyton.
The workshop, where the young people also got the chance to learn how to shoot their film using 3D cameras from Panasonic, is the first in a series of workshops that are taking place in the Host Boroughs from 6th – 10th July 2011 as part of the Cultural Olympiad short film competition ‘Film Nation:Shorts’.
