Ahmadinejad Xmas speech has C4 under fire

Channel 4 has defended its invitation to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to deliver its alternative Christmas message.

In his speech, Mr Ahmadinejad claimed society faced a range of moral, political and security crises.

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Bereaved families urge peace at conference

A group of Israelis and Palestinians brought their joint call for peace to the Limmud conference.

Ayelet and Zvika Shahak’s daughter Bat-Chen was killed on her 15th birthday on Purim by a suicide bomber in Tel Aviv in 1994.

Ali Abu Awwad (also pictured above) and his brother, Khaled, from Beit Ommer in the West Bank, lost their other brother, Yousef, who was shot in the head by an Israeli soldier after an argument broke out at a checkpoint four years ago, leaving two young children.

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Teaching aide loses appeal

A former teaching assistant from Salford, convicted of laundering money her husband made from a brothels, has failed in her appeal against conviction. Michelle Barnett of Broughton Park, had insisted she did not know the source of the cash.

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Stevens’ shoes in Shoah show

Strictly Come Dancing’s Rachel Stevens has donated a pair of shoes to an exhibition marking Holocaust Memorial Day on January 25.

They will help form a sculpture, reflecting the thousands of shoes abandoned at concentration camps.

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PCC rejects complaint

The Press Complaints Commission has rejected a complaint that its code of practice was breached by the JC when reporting the conviction of a racist and antisemitic emailer. Maher Khammash targeted the former Chelsea manager Avram Grant, Foreign Secretary David Miliband and the JC.

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Orthodox college goes bust

The country’s only training college for teachers wanting to work at strictly Orthodox day schools has been forced to close.

Donors were not able to secure enough funds to maintain MST College, which opened in Hendon, North London in 1979.

Michael Cohen, its principal, said: “We got no government or local authority funding. We survived with an income from our students which was about a third of the costs, while the rest came from supporters.

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