ENGLAND – The British headmistress of a school in one of Pakistan’s most remote regions has finally returned to work eight months after an acrimonious dispute with her well-connected predecessor left her in exile in London. Carey Schofield was greeted by crowds of parents and teachers when she finally flew into the former princely state of Chitral last week after a spectacular falling out with Geoffrey Langlands, a celebrated Raj-era army officer who taught a generation of Pakistan’s political leaders. Her return was made possible by the decision of the school’s entire staff to travel more than a thousand miles on a rickety school bus to lobby Langlands to drop his opposition to Schofield, whom he accused of mismanagement and overspending. (theguardian)…[+]

GERMANY – Pegida defector Rene Jahn claims the far-right extremists spread ‘a pack of lies’ about migrants coming into the country to suit their ‘racist’ anti-immigration agenda. Lifting the lid on the secretive extremist group’s inner workings, Jahn accused them of cynically exaggerating the scale of the migrant threat. Revealing he left after the group was ‘hijacked’ by extremists, the defector revealed he is alarmed at the inflammatory rhetoric used by group leaders. In an exclusive interview, he told Daily Mail: ‘The things they say now are a pack of lies. ‘Churches are not being turned into mosques. The Rhineland is not a caliphate. Kindergartens are not banned from serving pork, and there is no Sharia police.’(Daily Mail)…[+]

FINLAND/NORWAY – The extreme right-wing vigilante group Soldiers of Odin have spread across Scandinavia from Finland to Norway, according to reports. The anti-immigrant group was formed last autumn and have been patrolling streets in several Finnish towns ‘to protect the Finns from the threat of asylum seekers’. This week, a group of Soldiers of Odin have been seen on a vigilante walk through the town of Tønsberg in southern Norway. During what is believed to be the first appearance of Soldiers of Odin groups outside of Finland, some 14 ‘soldiers’ walked around the town on Saturday night. However, the group, dressed in black coats wearing the insignia of the Soldiers of Odin met heavy resistance from the local population, who rejected their protection and protested their presence.(Daily Mail)…[+]