The Aid Convoy charity, based in London’s East End, has boasted of raising more than £1 million of aid amidst fears that it, and others, is a cover for foreign fighters to enter Syria and for financial support to jihadists.

It is one of four charities being investigated by the Charity Commission, and the police, for terrorist connections. Another is Al Fatiha Global, the charity with which Alan Henning travelled to Syria before being taken hostage and murdered by Isis.

Greenpeace has won two major lobbying campaigns.

o They persuaded LEGO not to renew its contract with Arctic oil driller Shell whereby LEGO toys were given away at Shell petrol stations in more than 30 countries, and LEGO sold toy brick sets in the shape of petrol stations and drilling rigs with Shell logos on.

The tie-up was seen as a way for Shell to whitewash its image, both with parents and children and has been running for 50 years.

 

o The chief scientific adviser to the European Commission, Professor Anne Glover has been dropped after Greenpeace and other groups objected to her support for the growing of GM crops.

According to Glover, who held a position of considerable influence, opposing GM crops was “a form of madness”

The Howard League for Penal Reform has warned that prisons in England and Wales are in crisis after losing 9,830 (41%) of their officers due to cuts in the last four years, coinciding with prison overcrowding and a worrying increase in the number of prisoner suicides.

The figure includes the loss of 1,375 officers (5.7%) when 15 jails were closed. However the Ministry of Justice contests the figures, saying that the actual reduction in officers in the four year period is only 6,480 (27%).

More pensioners are risking their health by drinking too much, usually in their homes.

According to Alcohol Concern a worrying and increasing number regularly exceed the government guidelines of around two pints of beer a day for men and a medium sized glass of wine a day for women, with two or three non-alcohol days a week.

Pensioners commonly “under-report” their alcohol consumption to researchers (lie about it). However some recent surveys have compared claimed consumption levels with study of the number of empty bottles and cans in recycling bins.

A new app that recognises charity logos and makes it easy for donors to donate to their chosen cause without fee has been launched.

SnapDonate works on Android or Apple phones, allowing monies to be downloaded to JustGiving. No advertising is carried yet and charities hope that the device will fill some of the estimated £1.6 billion shortfall in charity giving caused by less cash being carried.

Six one-day courses in charity governance are now offered by the Civil Society, covering the understanding of governance, finance for trustees, board leadership and chairs of committees.

Most are being held in London, with the most popular title, Understanding Governance and aimed at trustees, being also staged in Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh.

civilsociety.co.uk/training

Visitor registration has just opened for the 2015 charities and association event CHASE, being held February 17 and 18 at the Business Design Centre, Islington, London.

A range of free seminars is also offered, covering such subjects as governance, events, membership, technology, finance and fundraising.

conferencehouse.co.uk/chase-2015

The outbreak of ebola in west Africa, which has already killed more than 4,000 men, women and children, is “the most severe acute health emergency in modern times” with new cases of the deadly virus increasing “exponentially” the World Health Organisation has warned. The virus, transmitted in blood and bodily fluids, attacks every organ in the body and death from multiple organ failure usually occurs within eight or nine days from emergence of the symptoms, which include respiratory problems, high temperatures, diarrhoea and vomiting.

Charity Save the Children has launched an ebola crisis appeal, asking for donations of at least £37, which they say can buy an ebola prevention kit that could save children’s lives.

The UK government has introduced medical screening for airline and Eurostar passengers, calls to the NHS non-emergency 111 number will be screened for possible ebola sufferers and 750 British troops have been sent to Sierra Leone.

Campaigners against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) are concerned that female babies are being subjected to this barbaric, dangerous practice, illegal in the UK, before they can speak, so that they cannot tell anyone what has happened to them.

Accordingly staff at two children’s centres in London, who work with pregnant women and new children, are being trained to spot the signs that FGM has been carried out. In its worst form it involves cutting off the clitoris and sewing up the vagina to give the child a guaranteed virginity to men when she is old enough to be forcibly sold into a marriage, sometimes a violent one and sometimes as young as five years old.

Campaigners Plan are running a programme straplined Face up to Violence Against Girls and want to end FGM in a generation. It has been estimated that 140 million girls worldwide have already suffered FGM, with another 3.5 million at risk this year, 65,000 of them in the UK.