It's been almost a year now since I updated my blog which is pretty bad. However, it has been an eventful year and I've been too busy doing stuff to have time to write about stuff.
In the last year, I've started a new job and moved house so much of my mental energy has been expended doing that. I've also been unsure whether my responsibilities to my new employer would allow me to keep the blog but I've decided, with a few tweaks, I can keep it going as long as I don't stray too far into the realms of Scottish politics.
I've also received encouragement to continue from journalists and authors alike to keep the book blogging going. Apparently it makes me look brainy. Appearances can be deceptive.
Monday, 3 October 2011
READING: Larsson, Millenium trilogy
Stieg LarrsonMillenium Trilogy:
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
The Girl Who Played With Fire
The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest
2005-07
I bought The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo trilogy on DVD in anticipation of the forthcoming Daniel Craig/David Fincher adaptation.
While the new extended editions offer more scope to explore Stieg Larrson's themes than the theatrical releases, much of what I liked about the books is still sadly but necessarily missing.
Larsson's Millennium trilogy was a masterclass in investigative reporting, with lots of trawling through secret documents, peering behind locked doors and firewalls, and exposing hidden injustices.
Unfortunately, this doesn't make for good telly but hidden in Millennium's pages is a wealth of innovative investigative tactics for journalists looking to expand their arsenal. However, some of the tactics employed by journalist Mikael Blomkvist and secretive hacker Lisbeth Salander are questionable.
With Fincher's film approaching at the end of a year that has seen one of the world's biggest newspapers collapse under the weight of hacking allegations and an infamous computer hacker facing untested allegations of sex crime in Sweden, one wonders how a fictional tale about an imprisoned Swedish journalist and a morally ambiguous promiscuous computer hacker will be received.
The moral dilemma that new Fans of the Dragon Tattoo will have to grapple with is whether they believe Salander and Blomkvist's legally questionable means were justified. Most of the trilogy's injustices could not have been exposed without data hacking.One wonders how Murdoch's hacks may have been received if they had turned up something useful that the police missed. Larsson would have known this wasn't beyond the realms of possibility:
"Are policemen more talented than ordinary people?", wonders Blomkvist in The Girl Who Played With Fire. "Sometimes a private investigator is better at working things out than a real detective."
While Larsson knew journalists who "make a living writing drivel", such as his own creation Tony Scala, he knew that there were just as many Blomkvists out there.
The need for Scottish Blomkvists to complement real detectives has rarely been more acute. The most recent statistics available (2008/09) show a massive spike in the number of experienced policemen retiring. It is not inconceivable that some of Scotland's seasoned hacks have a few more investigative tricks up their sleeves than the new batch of detective constables.
The same could be said about the security services. The most interesting thing about Cablegate was not the secret information itself, but that so much of the information had already found its way into the public domain. Most of the diplomatic cables about the Scottish Government could have been drawn straight from The Herald or The Scotsman.
No one has done more to divide opinion on the ignoble pursuit of hacking than Wikileaks/Cablegate founder Julian Assange. The similarities between Salander and Assange are striking. Both have a "selective morality"; both are speculated to have autistic spectrum disorders; both are promiscuous up to - and perhaps beyond depending on who you ask - the point of disrepute; and both view their respective opposite sexes with what could at the very least be described as suspicion.
However, by the end of The Girl Who Kicks The Hornet's Nest, the stains on Salander's character are cleansed with revelations that her perceived immorality was little more than a construct of police chauvinism, a salacious media and ultimately an immoral government fighting to hide its own dirty secrets.
The jury is still out on Assange. Or, more accurately, the jury has yet to be called as he is still fighting extradition to Sweden where he is facing charges of sexual assault. It is unclear how Assange's story will play out. On the face of it his story is a simple "did he or didn't he" intrigue but speculation is rife that Assange was, like Salander, the victim of secretive international anti-espionage tactics. The honey trap is the oldest trick in the book. Perhaps the final word should go to Assange himself:
"I have never said that this is a honey-trap...I have never said that this is not a honey-trap. I'm not accusing anyone until I have proof."
Mikael Blomkvist couldn't have put it better himself.
Sunday, 10 October 2010
READING: Ansary, Destiny Disrupted
Tamim AnsaryDestiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes
2009
THE first thing that strikes you about Tamim Ansary’s whistlestop tour through 1400 years of Islamic history is the title. Destiny Disrupted implies an unfulfilled entitlement co-opted by western hegemony, while boldly suggesting that this destiny is back on track and on course to be fulfilled.
As an Afghan-born author living in America, Ansary is well placed to analyse this “destiny” from both an Eastern and Western perspective, but as he outlines the circumstances that made the Islamic world the bastion of culture and knowledge for almost a millennium - and of its decline - he refrains from explicitly predicting how this supremacy could be achieved again.
“Although history is not over, the period since 9/11 has not mulched down enough to enter history yet: it still belongs to the journalists. It is not too soon, however, to reflect on this period as a manifestation of two great out-of-synch narratives intersecting.”
Speculation over the Islamic world’s possible resurgence is clearly, therefore, for other authors, but for Ansary the lessons are in the history.
In the course of 350-odd pages, in his own informal conversational style, he tells how a 6th century Arabian businessman in the middle of a “mid-life crisis” started a religion which, with a small band of followers, converted Mecca, conquered Medina and, through a mixture of theological persuasion and a series of unlikely military victories, spawned an empire that would stretch from the Atlantic coast to the borders of China.
In relating this period Ansary relegates some of the greatest events in Western history – the Crusades, the discovery of America [incidentally a voyage to find trade routes to the east], the Christian reformation and the resultant wars in Europe – to mere footnotes taking part in one small corner of the Eurasian continent while the great Ottoman, Safavid and Moghul Islamic empires held sway over much of the rest.
The closest Ansary comes to articulating the Islamic world’s disrupted “destiny” actually comes from university of Chicago historian Marshall Hodgson:
“In the sixteenth century of our era, a visitor from Mars could well have supposed that the human race was on the verge of becoming Muslim.”
However, Ansary shows how the Islamic world then went into a period of decline, largely through stagnation and mismanagement. Much of its territory fell to empires built on Judeo-Christian foundations, while the rest tried to adapt to the new world order.
However, Ansary’s unspoken implication is that the last 500 years of Judeo-Christian dominance in world history was just an interlude, that normal service will shortly be resumed. According to Ansary’s thesis, backed up by a wealth of undisputed historical facts, this resurgence has already begun and has been gathering pace for the last century.
From this point on Ansary’s simple, straightforward narration really begins to illuminate by boiling down the often impenetrable world of Middle East politics and Islamist aspirations in the last century into a series of simple fundamentals.
He declares the notion of “nation-statism”, the skeleton upon which most of the world’s principals of cooperation (The United Nations) and discord (from Arab nationalism right down to Scottish Nationalist backbiting) hangs, to be a modern-day invention, a phantom almost, and far from an established fact.
“It’s easy to forget that the organisation of the world into countries is less than a century old...Unfortunately, the ideology of ‘nationalism’ and the reality matched up only approximately if at all.”
But what does all this mean for Western hegemony?
Under the principles of “nation-statism” the United States of America, the chief exporter of Western hegemony today, is a unified entity, with a shared economy, military, official language and a constitution based on the principles of “one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”.
However, once the veil of nationalism is stripped away and its status as the established locus of organisation and control is removed, other networks of co-operation become apparent.
Today, “nation-statism” and Islamism are already combining. Countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran are already fully fledged Islamic States, where Sharia law and the law of the land are indistinguishable, but beneath the level of nationalism and statehood there is already a shared Islamic economy, military and common constitution.
Groups like the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which promotes Muslim values within the United Nations on behalf of its 57 member countries with Islamic majorities, and the Organisation of Petrolium Exporting Countries (OPEC), which fixes oil prices on behalf its member countries, most with Islamic majorities, form the basis of a quasi-governmental constitution and shared economy. Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, imports British and American arms by the bucketload, while militant groups like Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, to name but a few, work towards similar ends and form the basis of a unified paramilitary force with international reach. Finally, the insistence that the Quran be read exclusively in Arabic ensures a common language across all Islamic and Islamic-majority states.
To cobble these links together and call them The United States of Islam would be a gross over-simplification, but it is clear that Islam fosters a common link between these nations that is 1000 years older than the nationalist glue that holds the United States of America together.
However, according to Ansary this reawakening of Islamic identity to re-establish its place in world history isn’t something to be feared. Some may find it unpalatable [and I’m going to nail my colours to the mast and state that I find all theocracies unpalatable whether Muslim, Jewish, Christian or other] but it’s not necessarily dangerous or incompatible with liberty:
“The conflict wracking the modern world is not, I think, best understood as a ‘clash of civilisations’, if that proposition means we’re-different-so-we-must-fight-until-there’s-only-one-of-us. It’s better understood as the friction generated by two mismatched world histories intersecting. Muslims were a crowd of people going somewhere. Europeans and their offshoots were a crowd of people going somewhere. When the two crowds crossed paths much bumping and crashing resulted, and the crashing is still going on...
“Islam is not the opposite of democracy; it’s a whole other framework. Within that framework there can be democracy, there can be tyranny, there can be many states in between.”
READING: Sands, Torture Team
Philippe Sands
Torture Team
2008
FORMER British prime minister Tony Blair was advised that an invasion of Iraq would be illegal just hours before former US president George Bush presented him with his timetable for war.
This was the central claim put forward by leading British QC Philippe Sands when he came to Edinburgh to promote his latest book Torture Team.
Professor Sands pointed to documents uploaded online by The Iraq Inquiry which lay bare the claims he made in his earlier book Lawless World (2005), specifically that attorney general Lord Goldsmith was leaned on by the government to change his views on the legality of a war with Iraq.
He pointed to a memo drawn up by Lord Goldsmith on the eve of Blair’s meeting with Bush on 31 January 2003 – available here – in which Goldsmith categorically stated that UN resolution 1441, which offered Saddam a final chance to disarm his weapons, “does not authorise the use of military force without a further determination by the security council”.
The existence of this memo has been known about for over five years, but Sands was particularly excited by the release of a new annotated version on The Iraq Inquiry website earlier this year which includes new and, Sands argues, damning notes by Tony Blair and his private secretary on foreign affairs Matthew Rycroft.
Prof Sands even suggested that Blair thought Lord Goldsmith was “a tosser” for writing this memo on the eve of such an important meeting.
Sands told the audience at Edinburgh Book Festival: “If you go on The Iraq Inquiry website and have a look at the declassified documents available on the site there’s a memo from attorney general Lord Goldsmith dated 30 January 2003. The memo states:
Sands went on: “Mischievously, and wonderfully, the Chilcot Inquiry didn’t put up the original copy – it put up the annotated Number 10 copy. In the top left hand corner someone has scribbled:
“However, next to that is another note, by Tony Blair’s private secretary on foreign affairs Matthew Rycroft, which reads:
“At the bottom of the memo Goldsmith concludes: ‘I remain of the view that the correct legal interpretation of resolution 1441 is that it does not authorise the use of force without a further determination by the security council.’
“This phrase has been underlined and next to it, scribbled in Tony Blair's handwriting, is written: ‘I just don’t understand this.’
Sands continued: “In other words, Tony Blair is saying ‘I just don’t understand why this tosser is putting out advice saying that the war is illegal’.
“And what happened the next day? Blair’s chief foreign policy advisor [later US Ambassador] David Manning recorded a meeting between Bush and Blair which said that America was preparing for war. The advice is right there at the bottom of Manning’s Memo:
“It was made clear that he was doing this with or without another resolution and Blair told Bush that he was ‘solidly behind him’" Sands continued. "Bush added that it would be good if another resolution could be achieved but only as an insurance policy.”
Sands is much more engaging in person than his writing, which is unfortunately but necessarily dry and methodical. However, his style compliments the sterile language of the memos he describes in which US defence chiefs such as Donald Rumsfeld and William Haynes discuss the degrading and inhumane treatments they were meting out to terror suspects.
He is the first to admit that he is no journalist, and is more at home wading through papers than navigating emotive prose. However, for Torture Team he had to learn the skills of a journalist as most of the evidence he needed for his exposé of the US government’s sanctioning of torture techniques in the wake of 9/11 was very deliberately not written down.
“I think many of the people I spoke to for the book met with me precisely because I wasn’t a journalist,” said Sands.
However, Sands’ paper chase to discover who-knew-what-and-when, and his pursuit of key witnesses to corroborate his assertions, would make even Woodward and Bernstein proud.
Torture Team
2008
FORMER British prime minister Tony Blair was advised that an invasion of Iraq would be illegal just hours before former US president George Bush presented him with his timetable for war.
This was the central claim put forward by leading British QC Philippe Sands when he came to Edinburgh to promote his latest book Torture Team. Professor Sands pointed to documents uploaded online by The Iraq Inquiry which lay bare the claims he made in his earlier book Lawless World (2005), specifically that attorney general Lord Goldsmith was leaned on by the government to change his views on the legality of a war with Iraq.
He pointed to a memo drawn up by Lord Goldsmith on the eve of Blair’s meeting with Bush on 31 January 2003 – available here – in which Goldsmith categorically stated that UN resolution 1441, which offered Saddam a final chance to disarm his weapons, “does not authorise the use of military force without a further determination by the security council”.
The existence of this memo has been known about for over five years, but Sands was particularly excited by the release of a new annotated version on The Iraq Inquiry website earlier this year which includes new and, Sands argues, damning notes by Tony Blair and his private secretary on foreign affairs Matthew Rycroft.
Prof Sands even suggested that Blair thought Lord Goldsmith was “a tosser” for writing this memo on the eve of such an important meeting.
Sands told the audience at Edinburgh Book Festival: “If you go on The Iraq Inquiry website and have a look at the declassified documents available on the site there’s a memo from attorney general Lord Goldsmith dated 30 January 2003. The memo states:
'In view of your meeting with President Bush on Friday, I thought you might wish to know where I stand on the question of whether a further decision of the Security Council is legally required in order to authorise the use of force against Iraq...
'You should be aware that, notwithstanding the additional arguments put to me since our last discussion, I remain of the view that the correct legal interpretation of resolution 1441 is that it does not authorise the use of military force without a further determination by the security council.'
Sands went on: “Mischievously, and wonderfully, the Chilcot Inquiry didn’t put up the original copy – it put up the annotated Number 10 copy. In the top left hand corner someone has scribbled:
‘Clear advice from attorney on need for another resolution.’
“However, next to that is another note, by Tony Blair’s private secretary on foreign affairs Matthew Rycroft, which reads:
‘[We] specifically said we did not need further advice this week, Matthew.’
“At the bottom of the memo Goldsmith concludes: ‘I remain of the view that the correct legal interpretation of resolution 1441 is that it does not authorise the use of force without a further determination by the security council.’
“This phrase has been underlined and next to it, scribbled in Tony Blair's handwriting, is written: ‘I just don’t understand this.’
Sands continued: “In other words, Tony Blair is saying ‘I just don’t understand why this tosser is putting out advice saying that the war is illegal’.
“And what happened the next day? Blair’s chief foreign policy advisor [later US Ambassador] David Manning recorded a meeting between Bush and Blair which said that America was preparing for war. The advice is right there at the bottom of Manning’s Memo:
‘The start date for the military campaign was now pencilled in for 10 March. This was when the bombing would begin.’
“It was made clear that he was doing this with or without another resolution and Blair told Bush that he was ‘solidly behind him’" Sands continued. "Bush added that it would be good if another resolution could be achieved but only as an insurance policy.”
Sands is much more engaging in person than his writing, which is unfortunately but necessarily dry and methodical. However, his style compliments the sterile language of the memos he describes in which US defence chiefs such as Donald Rumsfeld and William Haynes discuss the degrading and inhumane treatments they were meting out to terror suspects.
He is the first to admit that he is no journalist, and is more at home wading through papers than navigating emotive prose. However, for Torture Team he had to learn the skills of a journalist as most of the evidence he needed for his exposé of the US government’s sanctioning of torture techniques in the wake of 9/11 was very deliberately not written down.
“I think many of the people I spoke to for the book met with me precisely because I wasn’t a journalist,” said Sands.
However, Sands’ paper chase to discover who-knew-what-and-when, and his pursuit of key witnesses to corroborate his assertions, would make even Woodward and Bernstein proud.
NEWS: Buses To Subsidise Trams For Four Years
MARK McLAUGHLIN and CHRIS MARSHALL
Evening News (Edinburgh)
October 8, 2010, Friday
BUSES will have to subsidise an unfinished tram line for up to four years, tram bosses said today.
Despite fears about the economic viability of the trams project, a new business case has concluded that the incremental delivery of the line, starting with the section from the airport to St Andrew Square, will be profitable from day one.
However, that business case relies on the Capital's bus service shouldering most of the burden for three to four years when present operator Lothian Buses is amalgamated into the new bus and tram operator Transport Edinburgh Limited [TEL]. The bus to trams subsidy is thought to run to many millions of pounds a year.
It was previously reported that a line running only as far as Haymarket would need to be subsidised, but the new business case says a line reaching St Andrew Square would be viable.
The report does not say when TEL expects to complete the whole of line 1A to Ocean Terminal.
The News has seen details of the new report, which will be discussed by councillors next Thursday.
Lothian Buses made an operating profit of £9.29 million last year, after making the first loss in the company's history of £801,000 in 2008.
One source said it was unacceptable to expect Lothian Buses to prop up the ailing tram service.
The source said: "Spending public money on the trams is one thing, but sacrificing an excellent bus service is too far.
"To jeopardise the bus service across the city to build half a tram line defies any measure of common sense."
The report also confirms integrating the buses and trams has already begun, with the head of the tram project being controversially "parachuted" into the top job.
Richard Jeffrey, chief executive of tram firm TIE, has been handed the same designated position at TEL.
Ian Craig, managing director of Lothian Buses, has been given the position of TEL's chief operating officer.
There is anger that the positions have not been advertised and councillors could try to block the appointments.
One source said the appointments brought closer the possibility that tram bosses could use Lothian Buses to finance the beleaguered project.
A spokesman for TIE said: "The appointment of Richard Jeffrey and Ian Craig has been made based on the expertise these individuals will bring."
Evening News (Edinburgh)
October 8, 2010, Friday
BUSES will have to subsidise an unfinished tram line for up to four years, tram bosses said today.
Despite fears about the economic viability of the trams project, a new business case has concluded that the incremental delivery of the line, starting with the section from the airport to St Andrew Square, will be profitable from day one.
However, that business case relies on the Capital's bus service shouldering most of the burden for three to four years when present operator Lothian Buses is amalgamated into the new bus and tram operator Transport Edinburgh Limited [TEL]. The bus to trams subsidy is thought to run to many millions of pounds a year.
It was previously reported that a line running only as far as Haymarket would need to be subsidised, but the new business case says a line reaching St Andrew Square would be viable.
The report does not say when TEL expects to complete the whole of line 1A to Ocean Terminal.
The News has seen details of the new report, which will be discussed by councillors next Thursday.
Lothian Buses made an operating profit of £9.29 million last year, after making the first loss in the company's history of £801,000 in 2008.
One source said it was unacceptable to expect Lothian Buses to prop up the ailing tram service.
The source said: "Spending public money on the trams is one thing, but sacrificing an excellent bus service is too far.
"To jeopardise the bus service across the city to build half a tram line defies any measure of common sense."
The report also confirms integrating the buses and trams has already begun, with the head of the tram project being controversially "parachuted" into the top job.
Richard Jeffrey, chief executive of tram firm TIE, has been handed the same designated position at TEL.
Ian Craig, managing director of Lothian Buses, has been given the position of TEL's chief operating officer.
There is anger that the positions have not been advertised and councillors could try to block the appointments.
One source said the appointments brought closer the possibility that tram bosses could use Lothian Buses to finance the beleaguered project.
A spokesman for TIE said: "The appointment of Richard Jeffrey and Ian Craig has been made based on the expertise these individuals will bring."
NEWS: Salt 'n' Snow
MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
October 5, 2010, Tuesday
THOUSANDS of tonnes of salt are being stockpiled in the Capital in preparation for another "whiteout" winter.
Road chiefs have also snapped up an extra five gritters and eight mini-tractors in an effort to keep the city moving in the face of predicted severe weather.
Forecasters who predicted last year's big freeze are warning the country is facing another "bitterly cold winter", with temperatures likely to plunge well below zero. Widespread fog is expected in December and heavy snow in January.
The city council has stockpiled 5200 tonnes of salt, with another 2000 tonnes on order, and cleared a storage "dome" at its Bankhead depot to provide space for a salt reserve 40 per cent bigger than last year.
A council spokesman said: "We have been stockpiling salt since August and are expecting more deliveries in the coming weeks so we're ahead of the game."
The council has also bought another five gritters to add to the 26 it used last winter and an extra eight mini-tractors to supplement its gritting fleet of 18.
The city spent almost its whole £1.4 million winter maintenance budget in the first week of January as it was forced to buy in more salt from the Highlands and hire private salting firms to shore up its own stretched service.
"It's worth noting that we never actually ran out of salt this year, unlike some other local authorities," the council spokesman added. "So we intend to follow a similar programme to last year, improved by the increased storage and stockpiling."
It is unclear yet how much this year's operation is likely to cost.
Forecasters Positive Weather Solutions said Scotland was in the unusual position of facing a second extremely severe winter in a row. Senior forecaster Jonathan Powell said: "Scotland has another bitterly cold winter in store. Temperatures will rival those seen last year, with snowfall a close match."
The firm, which uses long-term weather patterns, said a white Christmas is a distinct possibility. Last winter was the coldest recorded in Scotland for 31 years.
Evening News (Edinburgh)
October 5, 2010, Tuesday
THOUSANDS of tonnes of salt are being stockpiled in the Capital in preparation for another "whiteout" winter.
Road chiefs have also snapped up an extra five gritters and eight mini-tractors in an effort to keep the city moving in the face of predicted severe weather.
Forecasters who predicted last year's big freeze are warning the country is facing another "bitterly cold winter", with temperatures likely to plunge well below zero. Widespread fog is expected in December and heavy snow in January.
The city council has stockpiled 5200 tonnes of salt, with another 2000 tonnes on order, and cleared a storage "dome" at its Bankhead depot to provide space for a salt reserve 40 per cent bigger than last year.
A council spokesman said: "We have been stockpiling salt since August and are expecting more deliveries in the coming weeks so we're ahead of the game."
The council has also bought another five gritters to add to the 26 it used last winter and an extra eight mini-tractors to supplement its gritting fleet of 18.
The city spent almost its whole £1.4 million winter maintenance budget in the first week of January as it was forced to buy in more salt from the Highlands and hire private salting firms to shore up its own stretched service.
"It's worth noting that we never actually ran out of salt this year, unlike some other local authorities," the council spokesman added. "So we intend to follow a similar programme to last year, improved by the increased storage and stockpiling."
It is unclear yet how much this year's operation is likely to cost.
Forecasters Positive Weather Solutions said Scotland was in the unusual position of facing a second extremely severe winter in a row. Senior forecaster Jonathan Powell said: "Scotland has another bitterly cold winter in store. Temperatures will rival those seen last year, with snowfall a close match."
The firm, which uses long-term weather patterns, said a white Christmas is a distinct possibility. Last winter was the coldest recorded in Scotland for 31 years.
NEWS: Mosque Back On Track After Parking U-Turn
MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
October 4, 2010, Monday
THE expansion of an Islamic teaching centre in Polwarth is back on track following a U-turn by the council's transport department.
The Idara Centre on Temple Park Crescent - commonly known as the Polwarth Mosque - has been given the go-ahead to change the former Al-Hilal grocers at the junction of Yeaman Place into an extension of the existing centre following a traffic survey that found it would not cause parking problems.
The expansion was initially refused in May amid concerns the proposals would "attract further patrons to the existing centre putting an additional burden on street parking".
The centre re-submitted the application with only minimal alterations and gave an assurance that the plans were intended to create a more comfortable environment for existing users, not attract more people, convincing the department to lift its objection.
However, the centre's owner, The Idara Taleem-Ul Qur'an Trust, now faces another obstacle in realising its ambitions - the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Pakistan.
Most of the centre's users and staff are of Pakistani descent, and many have seen family displaced by the floods.
Idara chairman Amjed Hussain said: "Now that we've secured planning permission we will have to raise money to fund the expansion.
"Unfortunately, this will prove difficult with the ongoing situation in Pakistan. Many people are sending all the money they can back home which doesn't leave much for us, but this is understandable.
"Family, of course, comes first and we have been doing everything we can to raise funds for the appeal."
The Idara Centre has already hosted several fundraisers, most recently a dinner at Ingliston on Saturday.
Mr Hussain confirmed that the ultimate aim for the expanded unit remains the creation of an Islamic exhibition centre to engage with the non-Muslim local community.
The centre has been steadily expanding since its foundation at 8 Temple Park Crescent in 1986, when it catered for around 20 students. Within ten years its roll had expanded to around 200 students and the trust purchased two neighbouring units to accommodate its growing numbers.
However, Mr Hussain said the possibility of attracting more people was unlikely due to the small Islamic minority in the area.
Andrew McBride, development control manager at transport planning, said: "I now have no objection to this application. A survey has been undertaken monitoring the movements of patrons attending the existing facilities.
"The majority of attendees were pedestrians. Vehicle movements dropping off patrons were minimal.
"In light of this transport planning are satisfied that the change of use will not exacerbate parking levels."
Evening News (Edinburgh)
October 4, 2010, Monday
THE expansion of an Islamic teaching centre in Polwarth is back on track following a U-turn by the council's transport department.
The Idara Centre on Temple Park Crescent - commonly known as the Polwarth Mosque - has been given the go-ahead to change the former Al-Hilal grocers at the junction of Yeaman Place into an extension of the existing centre following a traffic survey that found it would not cause parking problems.
The expansion was initially refused in May amid concerns the proposals would "attract further patrons to the existing centre putting an additional burden on street parking".
The centre re-submitted the application with only minimal alterations and gave an assurance that the plans were intended to create a more comfortable environment for existing users, not attract more people, convincing the department to lift its objection.
However, the centre's owner, The Idara Taleem-Ul Qur'an Trust, now faces another obstacle in realising its ambitions - the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Pakistan.
Most of the centre's users and staff are of Pakistani descent, and many have seen family displaced by the floods.
Idara chairman Amjed Hussain said: "Now that we've secured planning permission we will have to raise money to fund the expansion.
"Unfortunately, this will prove difficult with the ongoing situation in Pakistan. Many people are sending all the money they can back home which doesn't leave much for us, but this is understandable.
"Family, of course, comes first and we have been doing everything we can to raise funds for the appeal."
The Idara Centre has already hosted several fundraisers, most recently a dinner at Ingliston on Saturday.
Mr Hussain confirmed that the ultimate aim for the expanded unit remains the creation of an Islamic exhibition centre to engage with the non-Muslim local community.
The centre has been steadily expanding since its foundation at 8 Temple Park Crescent in 1986, when it catered for around 20 students. Within ten years its roll had expanded to around 200 students and the trust purchased two neighbouring units to accommodate its growing numbers.
However, Mr Hussain said the possibility of attracting more people was unlikely due to the small Islamic minority in the area.
Andrew McBride, development control manager at transport planning, said: "I now have no objection to this application. A survey has been undertaken monitoring the movements of patrons attending the existing facilities.
"The majority of attendees were pedestrians. Vehicle movements dropping off patrons were minimal.
"In light of this transport planning are satisfied that the change of use will not exacerbate parking levels."
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