Category Archives: Global

Robert Wright at The Atlantic: . . . President Assad hopes to keep Christians in his coalition by harnessing their fear of a radical Islamist takeover. So far they seem to be sticking with him, and word of their allegiance is reaching American Christians. The evangelical press is reporting that Syrian Christians fear Assad’s fall and is quoting them as warning against foreign intervention. Catholic periodicals convey similar concerns . . .

CNN: Activists presented a petition Tuesday to the United Nations Human Rights Council calling on Pakistan to free a Christian mother of five from being put to death on the charge of blasphemy.

Fox News: Under fire from a United Nations Human Rights panel, a top Iranian official claims a Christian pastor insulted Islam but denies he faces execution.

Bloomberg: The Cold War had Americans worried about a “missile gap.” Should the rise of China have us nervous about a neodymium gap?

Catholic Culture: The government of Sudan, an overwhelmingly Muslim nation, has stripped between 500,000 and 700,000 Christians of their citizenship and ordered them to leave for the new nation of South Sudan, according to a report from Ecumenical News International (ENI).

The Tablet: The government has promised to “champion” marriage and families in an effort to reduce social breakdown.

The Tablet: He said: “If the stories in the press about Blair’s thinking are true, I think he should examine his conscience carefully”, Vatican Insider reported.

Engage Family Blog: On the final day of the 2012 Legislative Session, the West Virginia State Legislature approved H.B. 4605 a bill creating a premarital education option to applicants for marriage licenses in the state. The measure is aimed at strengthening the more than 13,000 marriages and reducing the more than 9,000 divorces that take place every year in West Virginia.

Channel 6 News: Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt on Tuesday said the government will introduce draft legislation this week to legalize same-sex marriages later this year, a move which had been expected for years.

Google News (AP): Argentina’s Supreme Court has ruled that any rape victim can get an abortion, setting a historic precedent in a country where abortions are generally illegal.

LifeSiteNews: Legislators in the Australian state of Western Australia are proposing a new law that would permit doctors to sterilize mentally ill minors who “consent” to such surgery, without any agreement from their parents.

Miami Herald: Across Latin America, public acceptance is gradually growing for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, or LGBT, officials. It’s a phenomenon that has accompanied activists’ broader struggle to win rights to marry, adopt children or share financial benefits with same-sex partners, and to transform the way socially conservative nations view and treat gays.

Wanganui Chronicle: The council has a long-standing tradition of saying a Christian prayer after the formal opening of its six-weekly meeting. That tradition was challenged by Councillor Clive Solomon, and the dispute has been dragging on for more than a year.

LifeNews: It was only 19 months ago that Kenya was changed forever by a new constitution allowing for the destruction of unborn life. Many Kenyans, and many Americans, still do not understand what has happened to our country. But pro-life organizations, including Human Life International (HLI) Kenya, are doing our best to educate and empower people to make a difference in the fight for life.

LifeNews: The researchers from Anhui Medical College in China published their results recently in the Bulletin of Clinical Psychopharmacology in an article entitled “The Impact of Prior Abortion on Anxiety and Depression Symptoms during a Subsequent Pregnancy: Data From a Population-Based Cohort Study.”

Pat Buchanan at Townhall: The gravest problem facing the Land of the Rising Sun is that it is dying. The sun that set on the Japanese Empire in 1945 has begun to set on the Japanese nation. A week before the anniversary of 3/11, buried in a story about Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s effort to rally support for a doubling of the 5 percent consumption tax, to preserve Japan’s social security system, was this startling statement: “We’re faced with an aging society and a declining birth rate unprecedented in the history of mankind.”

AP: Israel’s parliamentary speaker called off a legislative delegation’s visit to the U.S. after Washington denied an ultranationalist lawmaker a visa, citing his links to a terror group.

Amnesty International: The British government has proposed changes to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) which would reverse progress towards access to justice for individuals challenging state power across Europe, Amnesty International said today.

LifeNews: Another abortion practitioner has been suspended in the shocking expose’ revealing abortion doctors facilitating illegal sex-selection abortions.

IOL News: Pagan prisoners in Britain are demanding the right to pray naked and wear hooded robes in their cells.

Telegraph: It is better for children to be raised by two parents than one, and better still when those parents are married, the Government will declare today.

Catholic Culture: Suicide bombers attacked a Catholic parish in the central Nigerian city of Jos on March 11, killing at least ten people.

Sydney Morning Herald: The issue has returned to the forefront of the election campaign after Katter’s Australian Party launched a TV commercial questioning whether a vote for Mr Newman is vote for gay marriage.

Catholic Culture: The Scottish National Party (SNP) will lose support for its goal of independence by backing same-sex marriage, the Catholic bishops of Scotland have predicted.

Religion Clause Blog: A Turkish military court last week handed down an important decision on the rights of conscientious objectors.

BosNewsLife: Suspected Hindu militants broke up a Christian prayer meeting and forced two women leading the gathering to stop evangelizing in India’s southwestern state of Karnataka, as part of several attacks against devoted believers across the country, Christians told BosNewsLife Monday, March 12.

Washington Post: A majority of Americans — 55 percent — believe that most Afghans are opposed to what the United States is trying to accomplish in that country, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

AP: A leading official in the Russian Orthodox Church has urged federal lawmakers to adopt a bill outlawing what he called the promotion of homosexuality among minors.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: It was of course never to be expected that the European Commission, as a reply to critical questions from the European Parliament with regard to the generous funding it is handing out to ILGA-Europe (a homosexual lobby group with links to pedohile networks), would openly acknowledge to have committed a misuse of budgetary funds. But if replies to parliamentary questions are evasive and not to the point, this can be viewed as a clear indication that the Commission finds it very difficult to explain to the public what it is doing.

Christian Institute: The Government would be “playing with fire” if it goes ahead with its contentious plans to redefine marriage, the Bishop of Oxford has warned. Rt Revd John Pritchard said: “It is not up to society or the Government to define marriage at will.”

Christian Institute: The money, which was rejected by mum Lisa Mackin, was offered by the child’s father when he discovered that the child could have the condition.

Christian Institute: Openly gay popstar Will Young believes vicars who describe gay marriage as ‘abhorrent’ should be prosecuted for hate crimes.

Christian Newswire: Human Life International President Father Shenan J. Boquet today defended Pope Benedict XVI, whose statement in defense of chastity and traditional marriage has started an uproar in the media. The Holy Father was speaking to several U.S. Bishops who were in Rome for an ad limina visit.

Washington Post: More importantly, the new research suggests that China’s censors are dynamic, often deleting messages as they appear in real time. And most of what they’re censoring is deleted by hand.

LifeSiteNews: The homosexual rights community is getting behind the book for its positive portray of the dozens of alternative methods that can be used to create a new human life (about 30 according to the author).

AP: Every Friday, bearded men in shin-length robes demonstrate in Tunisia’s capital against perceived insults to Islam in a country once known for its aggressive secularism.

AP: China’s government vowed Friday that it will not deviate from its socialist path, defending anew its authoritarian system and saying Western capitalist political systems are not suitable for China.

AP: A plan by Fiji’s military rulers to institute a new constitution is raising hopes among those eager to see democracy restored to the Pacific island nation.

Michael Oren at WSJ: Just as Jews were once expelled from Arab lands, Christians are now being forced from countries they have long inhabited.

B92.net: French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said there are too many foreigners in France and the system for integrating them is working “increasingly badly”.

Telegraph: Britain’s next judge on the European Court of Human Rights will be chosen from a three-strong shortlist of candidates, including a prominent human rights lawyer and a veteran of the Strasbourg court, it has emerged.

Christian Institute: Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali also affirmed the Church’s right to defend marriage, warning that the issue is a matter of significance. “The Church is not in this to protect its own interest, it is in this discussion for the sake of wider society in this country generally,” he said.

UK Human Rights Blog: This is the second in a series of posts analysing the UK’s draft “Brighton Declaration” on European Court of Human Rights reform

Wendy Wright at C-FAM Friday Fax: The United Nations top agencies are actively promoting two root causes of Asia’s massive gender imbalance, charged an expert on population policies this week during a UN women’s conference.

Telegraph: Spain’s new conservative government has announced plans to tighten the country’s abortion laws provoking a storm among women’s groups.

Susan Yoshihara at Human Events: A new government report from Tokyo says the country will lose a million people a year for the next several decades — plummeting from 127 million to 86 million — witnessing a 30 percent collapse in population by 2060.

LifeSiteNews: Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his federal government can no longer refuse to re-open the abortion debate in the face of a “perfect storm” of events in the past six months, says Jim Hughes, president of Campaign Life Coalition.

The Atlantic: A new U.S. initiative to improve the sub-Saharan’s notoriously poor LGBT rights could already be inspiring a backlash.

Wall Street Journal: Iran has dramatically increased executions over the past decade and abused the rights of students, women, journalists and religious minorities, according to a new United Nations report that spotlights Tehran’s crackdown on domestic dissent as the country faces an international clampdown over its nuclear ambitions.

Christian Concern: A new poll has found that 70 per cent of the public oppose the Government’s plan to redefine marriage to include same-sex couples, agreeing that marriage should remain a “life-long exclusive commitment between a man and a woman”.

Catholic News Agency: “We are not saying that all children should be taught the Catholic religion but rather that all children should be allowed to receive religious education, or to opt out of it, according to the decision of their parents,” the bishops said on March 5.

AP: Two Catholics have been convicted of spreading anti-government propaganda and sentenced to prison in Vietnam, where local church officials and the ruling Communist Party have had an uneasy relationship for years.

AP: The decision to lift the travel ban and effectively let the American defendants avoid trial triggered a political storm within Egypt, with the ruling generals accused of succumbing to U.S. pressure and interfering in the work of the judiciary.

Al Arabaya News: African and Arab states walked out in protest Wednesday during a U.N. Human Rights Council debate on gay rights, saying that they could not legitimize homosexuality.

Catholic Culture: Vietnamese authorities have again seized land from a Redemptorist community near Hanoi.

LifeSiteNews: While President Barack Obama and Kathleen Sebelius claim contraceptives can lower health care costs, influential environmentalist activists say birth control may save the world from the scourge of global warming. At a think tank conference last week, activists promoted Agenda 21 and United Nations climate change meetings, claiming that promotion of lower fertility rates “trumps almost anything else” and that the average 14-year-old girl “needs to know how to have” sex “for her pleasure.”

LifeSiteNews: Hackers claiming ties to the high profile group Anonymous are taking credit after the Vatican website went down Wednesday, claiming they are going after the “corrupt” Catholic Church over the clergy sex abuse scandal as well as its stances against abortion and contraception.

Religion Clause Blog: Christian Today reports that the Evangelical Alliance protested another passage in the Commission’s report: “The Commission believes that an employer may legitimately refuse to accommodate an individual’s religious beliefs where such accommodation would involve discrimination on the basis of other protected characteristics.”

Robert C. Koons at Public Discourse: It would be wrong for the United States to engage at this time in an attack on Iran or to participate substantially in an Israeli action.

BBC: Muslim and Jewish groups have reacted with dismay after French PM Francois Fillon suggested the religious slaughter of animals was out of date.

Christian Institute: The Welsh Government is being urged to restore prayers to council meetings following a similar move in England.

Christian Institute: Archbishop Vincent Nichols – the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales – has written a letter to be read out in 2,500 churches this weekend.

USA Today reports: Marriage for Enrique Iglesias, Anna Kournikova?

Washington Post: Afghanistan’s president on Tuesday endorsed a “code of conduct” issued by an influential council of clerics that activists say represents a giant step backward for women’s rights in the country.

LifeSiteNews: Jill Recknell is mourning the loss of her grandson, despite the fact that he is alive and well. It’s just that, according to five-year-old Zach Avery and his parents, he’s not her grandson anymore. He’s her granddaughter

Vatican Radio: The Holy See Delegation has addressed the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on the subject of religious freedom. Archbishop Silvano M.Tomasi said in many countries “the gap is growing between widely accepted stated principles, and their daily application on the ground.” He pointed out “rising restrictions on religion affect more than 2.2 billion people.

LifeSiteNews: As delegates meet this week at China’s National People’s Congress to consider the succession of leadership in the country, Chinese economists themselves are warning delegates that economic chaos due to demographic change will result if the one-child policy is not reversed.

Boston Globe (AP): Egyptian security officials say militants have again blown up a gas pipeline in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula that transports fuel to neighboring Israel.

One News Now: “You’ve got 60 divorces for every 100 marriages,” explains Griffith. “That’s more than half of married couples.”

LifeSiteNews: A leader in the Swedish homeschooling movement has fled the country, saying, “the safety of my family could no longer be guaranteed.”

LifeSiteNews: Jenny Liu of the Epoch Times interviewed three Chinese couples who were forced to flee to the United States to save their babies. For all three of the couples, the babies they wanted to save were second children and deemed “illegal” and “out-of-plan” by China.

Telegraph: Britain’s most senior Catholic, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, has condemned gay marriage as an “aberration”, likening it to slavery and abortion.

HispanicBusiness.com: European Union leaders on Friday threatened those responsible for a bloody crackdown in Syria with their day in court, as British Prime Minister David Cameron spoke of “medieval barbarity” unfolding in the Middle Eastern country.

Christian Science Monitor: With elections now over for Egypt’s parliament, lawmakers are are deciding who gets to write the country’s new constitution. There is much at stake including the role of Islam in the state and the power of the military. Yet for such an important document, the timeline is rushed: The constitution is expected to be put to a referendum before presidential elections, scheduled to begin May 23. Here’s what key stakeholders want Egypt’s new constitution to look like.

Religion Clause Blog: On Thursday, by a vote of 417-1, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H. Res. 556 condemning Iran’s persecution of religious minorities and calling for the release of Youcef Nadarkhani as well as all others held or charged on account of their religion.