Tag Archives: Category: Global

Alex Aldridge at Guardian.co.uk: According to recent research by the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender legal group Interlaw, 70% of LGBT lawyers believe there is prejudice within the selection process for judicial office. The judicial appointments committee (JAC) – the body founded in 2006 to enhance judicial accountability – is keen to remedy this . . .

Findlaw: The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that France did not violate financier George Soros’ rights when convicting him of insider trading.

AFP: Hundreds of Christian Copts protested outside the state television building on Tuesday after a church was burned in the southern Aswan district and demanded that the governor be sacked, the channel reported.

AINA.org: On Monday, October 3, Muslims surrounded St. Mary’s Church in the Upper Egyptian village of Elmadmar, Tema district, Sohag province, in an effort to demolish it.

Telegraph: Mr Cameron said: “We’re consulting on legalising gay marriage. To anyone who has reservations, I say: Yes, it’s about equality, but it’s also about something else: commitment. Conservatives believe in the ties that bind us; that society is stronger when we make vows to each other and support each other. “So I don’t support gay marriage despite being a Conservative. I support gay marriage because I’m a Conservative.”

Wesley J. Smith at Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog: Penn bioethicist Art Caplan and I have had some vocal disagreements over the years, but we tend to think very similarly about organ transplant issues. Now Art and four other bioethicists have an opinion column in The Lancet calling for a boycott of Chinese scientists over its barbaric human organ market. From “Time For a Boycott of Chinese Science and Medicine Pertaining to Organ Transplantation” . . .

Sonia Arrison at The Volokh Conspiracy: Could class conflict or even warfare break out over life-extension technologies? It is true that technology is rarely adopted by everyone at the same time, and when life-extending science hits the market, it will almost certainly be used by the wealthy first. In the early stages of the technology’s rollout, disparities in life expectancy between people within developed countries will surely grow, as will the difference in life expectancy between developed and developing countries.

Religious Clause Blog: Catholic Register reported that on Monday Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, with 100 religious leaders present, opened formal consultations on creation by Canada of an Office of Religious Freedom.

Baptist Press: Iran has an obligation under its international commitments to free a pastor facing execution and to drop all charges against him, Southern Baptist ethicist Richard Land says in a letter written to Iran’s United Nations ambassador.

Guardian.co.uk: The global trend suggests a gradual shift towards the decriminalisation of assisted suicide

Video here.

National Review Online: A new study in the British medical journal The Lancet has revealed that a common contraceptive doubles the risk of HIV infection — at least based on evidence from where it is most popularly recommended and used, in eastern and southern Africa (the world’s most AIDS-infected areas). The New York Times reports . . .

Fox News: Imprisoned Iranian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, originally sentenced to death for apostasy and refusing to renounce Christianity, is now in even greater danger of being put to death in light of reports in state-run media of other charges, including being a Zionist and a threat to national security.

Catholic Culture: The Archdiocese of Puebla and Roca Fuerte, a Protestant organization, have agreed that Catholics and Protestants in the village of San Rafael Tlanalapan will respect one another’s religious liberty.

News from The Associated Press: House Speaker John Boehner on Tuesday dismissed a Senate bill that could punish China for undervaluing its currency, saying it was “pretty dangerous” for Congress to tell another country how to run its monetary policy.

Catholic Culture: The Catholic Church will cease witnessing legal marriages if the government insists on equal treatment for same-sex couples, an Australian archbishop has warned.

Christian Concern: The Work and Pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, has urged the Prime Minister today to recognise marriage in the tax system in an effort to encourage ‘couple formation’ and stable families.

Christian Concern: The Identity and Passport Service (IPS) has announced that it will make changes to its passport application form in response to pressure from homosexual activists.

The Christian Institute: British courts are wrongfully penalising Christians through an “incorrect interpretation” of human rights laws, a Roman Catholic Archbishop has warned.

XINHUANET.com: The head of the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC), Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, refuted the existence of any extreme Islamists inside the NTC, saying Islamic sharia will be the main source of legislation in the new Libya.

Raymond Ibrahim at the Middle East Forum: Finding and connecting similar patterns of behavior throughout Islamic history is one of the most objective ways of determining whether something is or is not part of Muslim civilization.

Jerusalem Post: The textbook, which warns students of democratic countries’ attempts to Westernize Muslim countries by advancing the United Nations’ human rights agenda, has received little attention in the media, where restrictive laws passed in response to the Arab Spring. The Saudi government can levy fines and jail sentences for criticizing government institutions.

LifeSiteNews.com: Religious leaders in the Indian state of Kerala are fighting a bill proposed by the government that would crack down on families with more than two offspring, as well as ban religious leaders from encouraging families to have more children.

The New American: A member of Britain’s Parliament has declared that Christian churches that do not perform homosexual “marriage” ceremonies should be denied the right for their pastors to contract a legally-binding marriage on behalf of the government.

LifeSiteNews.com: “It’s not only [about] changing the definition of marriage, its [about] changing the definition of what parenting is,” Tasmanian State Director Mark Brown told 6PR’s Howard Sattler. “It’s [about] saying gender doesn’t matter in the life of a child and how it is raised.” “This has implications for the whole of society.”

Compass Direct: Throng of 3,000, including Salafists, burn Christian-owned houses, businesses.

Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News: Sapir Prize winner Yoram Kaniuk sets legal precedent implying that all Israelis can self-determine their own religious identity.

The Church Report: A survey of more than 400,000 people by the Office for National Statistics found the proportion who said they were not religious rose from 20.5% in 2010 to 23.2% this year.

News from The Associated Press: Arsonists torched a mosque in an Arab village in northern Israel Monday, setting off protests by residents who clashed with police.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide: Eleven Iranian Christians who fled Iran in the wake of a government campaign against evangelical Christianity have received threats via email from ‘the unknown soldiers of the Hidden Imam’ calling on them to either repent or face extra-judicial execution. The ‘unknown soldiers’ are alleged to have links with Iranian security services.

LifeSiteNews.com: A Conservative MP says Planned Parenthood in Bangladesh, which will be now be funded by the Canadian government, commits first-trimester abortions. As a result, he says, the government’s recent $6 million grant to the International Planned Parenthood Federation violates their pledge to not fund abortion abroad.

Telegraph: Two local councils have been ordered to stop members praying before each meeting in case it offends non-believers or other religious groups.

Catholic Culture: Over 50 Christian churches have been shut down or demolished in Indonesia since January 2010 . . .

Asia News: A petition of the Global Council of Indian Christians in the National Commission for Human Rights draws up a long list of crimes, injustices and complicity of local and state authorities to the detriment of the victims of anti-Christian pogroms of 2008. The Hindu radicals continue to persecute Catholics and Pentecostals, aided by the police.

Mexico City lawmakers are proposing legislation that would allow newlyweds to apply for temporary marriage licenses, instead of making the plunge into wedded life a lifetime commitment.

EuropeNews.DK via Google Translate: Representatives of the churches in Indonesia have called on the government of their country to take action against the repression of Christians. The growing influence of radical Islamic forces from the Middle East had already led to numerous churches were closed, members of the Indonesian Council of Churches declared on Wednesday during a visit to Berlin.

Community Press – Ontario, CA: Hastings County is poised to remove the Lord’s Prayer from it’s monthly agenda.

Eugene Volokh reports at The Volokh Conspiracy.

International Business Times: here were rumors on Wednesday night that Nadarkhani’s execution sentence was to be waived after the final trial, but contradicting reports indicate that the news was incorrect.

News from The Associated Press: The lawyer of an Iranian pastor sentenced to death for apostasy said Thursday he is hopeful an appeals court will acquit his client.

News from The Associated Press: Kazakhstan’s upper house of parliament approved a bill Thursday that backers say will help combat religious extremism, but that critics call a blow to freedom of belief in the ex-Soviet nation.

News from The Associated Press: Serbia’s police chief warned Thursday violence by extremists is likely during this weekend’s gay pride march, and urged the organizers to cancel it.

NYTimes.com: But a recent published account of a party at Mr. Berlusconi’s home where one female guest performed a striptease dressed as a nun, apparently was more than the Church could stand.

News from The Associated Press: Saudi King Abdullah has overturned a court ruling sentencing a Saudi woman to be lashed 10 times for defying the kingdom’s ban on female drivers, a government official said Wednesday.

The Irish Times: Ali Selim said yesterday that the centre had received “a great number of complaints” from Muslim parents in south Co Dublin “regarding a limited number of schools that will only accept Catholic children”. They are considering asking Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin to intervene, he said.

FCO.gov.uk: Foreign Secretary William Hague has spoken following reports that Iranian Church Leader Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani faces a death sentence after refusing an order to recant his faith.

The Christian Institute: A High Court judge has today ruled in favour of a “minimally conscious” woman whose family wanted to end her life.

A Nova Scotia man was convicted of sexual assault Wednesday after he poked holes in his girlfriend’s condoms to try and save their rocky relationship with a pregnancy.

SMH.com.au: More than 100 protesters are targeting a Melbourne function attended by Prime Minister Julia Gillard, condemning the government’s stance on same-sex marriage and asylum seekers.

Nigerian Observer Online Edition: A piece of legislature that forbids same sex marriage in Nigeria passed its Second Reading yesterday in the Senate. Titled a “Bill for an Act to Prohibit Marriage of Persons of Same Sex, Solemnisation of Same and for Other Related Matters” . . .

LifeNews.com: Now, Congressman Chris Smith, the pro-life New Jersey Republican who headed the hearing, has introduced the China Democracy Promotion Act of 2011. The legislation gives the president of the United States the right to deny entry into the U.S. any people who have been directly involved in the population control program —

An Iranian pastor who has refused to renounce his Christian faith faces execution as early as Wednesday after his sentence was upheld by an Iranian court.

Asia News: The rape of Christian women in Punjab has become a “common practice” an “outrageous” phenomenon compounded by the fact that “the police protect the guilty” and not the victims.

Asia News: The Chinese Financial Index fell by 24%, more than that of European and American bank stocks. Chinese banks are plagued by insolvent debts due to loans to local governments and the stagnant property market. The country’s growth, currently estimated at 9.5%, is at risk

Catholic Culture: Iraq’s ambassador to the Vatican argues that Christians in the Middle East have good reason to be skeptical about the “Arab Spring” rebellions.

News from The Associated Press: Federal Court Justice Mordy Bromberg ruled that fair-skinned Aborigines were likely to have been “offended, insulted, humiliated or intimidated by the imputations” included in columnist Andrew Bolt’s two articles published by the Herald Sun newspaper in Melbourne in 2009.

News from The Associated Press: Switzerland’s lower house of parliament voted 101-77 Wednesday to outlaw veils like the burqa worn by some Muslim women when using public transportation or dealing with authorities.

Matstunehag.com: Second@s Plus, a lobby group in Switzerland consisting of mostly Muslim immigrants, demand that Switzerland removes the cross from the nation’s flag.

LifeSiteNews.com: “Family Planning Official dragged my wife into a dark room and beat her brutally. She gripped their legs and knelt down to beg, ‘I know I’m wrong. Please forgive me. Please forgive me…”

Christian Today: A day after a suicide bomb attack wounded 28 at a church in Indonesia, affiliated with Pastor Rick Warren’s Saddleback megachurch, explosives were found in front of another church in a different district Monday, exposing the magnitude of the threat to minority Christians.

The Christian Institute: Primary schools in England are being penalised for resisting pressure to teach sex education to young children, a new report warns.

NYTimes.com: — Abu Elias sat beneath the towering stairs leading from the Convent of Our Lady of Saydnaya, a church high up in the mountains outside Damascus, where Christians have worshiped for 1,400 years. “We are all scared of what will come next,” he said turning to a man seated beside him, Robert, an Iraqi refugee who escaped the sectarian strife in his homeland.

BBC: She highlighted that 80 countries still criminalised gay relationships, including seven countries that apply the death penalty.

AFP: A Pakistani school expelled a 13-year-old Christian girl for alleged blasphemy and her mother was transferred from her job as a nurse near the town where Osama bin Laden was killed, officials said Monday.

The Washington Post: Just days after Iran released two Americans accused of spying, an Iranian court has upheld the apostasy conviction and execution sentence of Christian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani.

Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Lawyers for an elderly man who has been ordered to stand trial for raping his then-wife almost 50 years ago have argued in the High Court that he cannot be tried for something that was not illegal then.

The Christian Institute: Most people in Britain oppose same-sex marriage, a new Government report has revealed.

Keith Cassidy at University Faculty for Life: Now two new cases, one from British Columbia and another from Quebec, are working their way through the court system and are expected to reach the Supreme Court next year. In each case a person with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has requested the right to an assisted death.

The Australian (carrying a story from The Times) today reports that Britain is experiencing an unexpected rise in polygamy among young Muslims. Even though polygamy is illegal in Britain, it is permitted under Shariah law and accepted in many Muslim communities.

BBC : A court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced a woman to 10 lashes for breaking the country’s ban on female drivers.

Police in Lancashire have told the owner of a Christian café to stop displaying Bible texts on a video screen, because it breaches public order laws.

Telegraph: Education bodies in parts of the country are using the Healthy Schools initiative introduced by Tony Blair’s government to impose “liberal and permissive” teaching on pupils, campaigners warn.

OneNewsNow.com: The Economic Policy Institute has recently discovered that the trade deficit with China has cost America 2.8 million jobs, most of which were in the manufacturing sector. Scott Paul is executive director for the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), which commissioned the study.

Pope Benedict addresses the German parliament

The Globe and Mail: In a three-hour discussion – the only such interview he has ever given – Judge Binnie provided penetrating glimpses into an institution known for its secretive nature, at a time when the bench is entering an unsettling period of transition with five judges slated to be replaced by 2015. Widely seen as a towering intellect who is arguably the country’s premier judge, he spoke with the easy candour of a man who has spent his career as a renowned advocate.