Tag Archives: Category: Global

C-FAM: A last ditch effort by ambassadors and top UN officials failed last night to reach agreement on policies to end violence against women because powerful western developed countries want to scrap previous agreements that do not recognize abortion as a right.

Forum18: In what may be the first such instance in Kazakhstan, a court has ordered religious literature to be destroyed. A total of 121 books confiscated from a Baptist, Vyacheslav Cherkasov, were ordered destroyed in the northern Akmola Region, according to the verdict seen by Forum 18 News Service. The books comprise Bibles, Children’s Bibles, and other books and leaflets on the Christian faith, mainly in the Kazakh language.

Fox News: The wife of the American pastor imprisoned in Iran for his Christian faith is on her way to Washington, where she will press lawmakers to fight for her husband’s freedom.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: A common theme in criticisms of “unmet need” is the fact that it does not reflect actual demand. Women included in the totals include those who have religious or other objections to contraception.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: Over 20 groups are asking U.S. Secretary of State to end the U.S. obstruction over abortion at the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Here is the letter sent today . . . It is especially shocking that the U.S. called for deleting a reaffirmation that every human being has the “inherent right to life, liberty and security of persons.” This contradicts a foundational principle of citizens and civilizations worldwide. [Piero Tozzi of Alliance Defending Freedom is one of many signers]

Jerusalem Post: Jewish brothers sue creator of posters accusing list of prominent Winnipeg Jews, including mayor, of being “cockroaches.”

One News Now: The Alliance Defending Freedom also spoke at the same U.N. forum, saying the problem with treaty bodies goes beyond resources and money. “The real problem lies in the treaty bodies assuming powers which do not belong to them,” said ADF.

SMH.com.au: Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott are to be placed under renewed pressure to support gay marriage rights with the Greens intent on making the popular reform a key election issue.

Catholic Culture: Patriarch Ibrahim Isaac Sidrak was enthroned as patriarch of the Coptic Catholic Church on March 12 as his predecessor, Cardinal Antonios Naguib, was taking part in the Mass for the election of the Roman Pontiff at St. Peter’s Basilica.

ABC (AP): Polish prosecutors say they will not charge former President Lech Walesa with hate crimes for recent remarks deemed offensive to gays.

LifeSiteNews: The Manitoba NDP government’s proposed anti-bullying law, Bill 18, which would force all schools in the province to accommodate homosexual student clubs, is “unconstitutional,” according to Honourable Vic Toews, Regional Minister for Manitoba and Member of Parliament for Provencher.

LifeSiteNews: One of the highest-ranking police officials in Scotland has warned that if pornography’s effects on the culture are not checked, it will “result in a higher number of victims of serious sexual crime.”

Christian Concern: An amendment that would have made it illegal for abortions to take place outside the NHS in Northern Ireland has been blocked by Sinn Fein, despite being strongly supported by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

Christian Institute: People concerned that the Scottish Government’s plans to redefine marriage do not adequately protect free speech or civil liberties, have seven days left to respond to a consultation on the issue.

Christian Institute: The Government said yesterday it will think about the need to protect public sector chaplains who disagree with its plans to redefine marriage.

AP: An Egyptian Christian who died in prison in Libya after he was detained on suspicion of having proselytized there has been buried in a subdued ceremony in his hometown in southern Egypt.

AP: China pledged Wednesday to allow charities, industry associations and other nonprofit groups to play a greater role in society in an acknowledgement of the growing importance of independent organizations that the authoritarian government traditionally has treated with suspicion.

Charisma News: Alliance Defending Freedom filed a friend-of-the-court brief opposing such use. “A baby is precious, not a precious commodity,” said Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Legal Counsel Daniel Lipsic. “This horrific and inhuman use of a child’s cells and tissues has no place in a civilized society. No one should be allowed to line their wallets with profit gained from creating this kind of black market—one that generates a hideous demand for babies’ bodies for use in unapproved, elective cosmetic procedures.”

AP: Lawmakers supported the bill 77 to 44 in the second of three votes needed for a bill to be approved. The second vote is typically the most crucial one. The third and final vote is likely to be little more than a formality and could be taken as early as next month.

AP: German authorities banned three ultraconservative Islamic groups Wednesday, including one whose Internet propaganda videos helped inspire the extremist who killed two American airmen at Frankfurt airport in 2011, the country’s domestic intelligence chief said.

Anugrah Kumar at the Christian Post (3/9): Amid reports that Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani may have been hanged by Iranian authorities for his faith, a U.K.-based rights group said Friday sources inside Iran have confirmed that he is still alive.

AP: The German government wants to allow women to use false names when giving birth in hospitals while still ensuring that children born this way can learn the mother’s name after turning 16.

LifeNews: Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Legal Counsel Daniel Lipsic will be participating in a hearing in Hungarian General Court in a criminal case involving the harvesting of embryonic stem cells and tissue from aborted babies and using them for profit in cosmetic procedures. The pro-life group filed a friend-of-the-court brief opposing such use. “A baby is precious, not a precious commodity,” said Lipsic. “This horrific and inhuman use of a child’s cells and tissues has no place in a civilized society. No one should be allowed to line their wallets with profit gained from creating this kind of black market–one that generates a hideous demand for babies’ bodies for use in unapproved, elective cosmetic procedures.” [more]

LifeSiteNews: Boris Dittrich, the homosexual activist called the “father” of the political movement in favor of Dutch gay “marriage”, has admitted that group marriages of three or more people, is the next, inevitable logical step in the dismantling of the western world’s traditional marriage laws.

Baptist Press: Vietnam’s latest changes in enforcement of its highest law regarding religion clarify the country’s intent to especially control the spread of Christianity, according to an authority on Vietnamese Protestant Christianity, World Watch Monitor has reported.

Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Legal Counsel Daniel Lipsic will be available for media interviews immediately following a hearing in a criminal case involving the harvesting of embryonic stem cells and tissue from aborted babies and using them for profit in cosmetic procedures.

Reuters: Suspected Islamist gunmen on motorbikes stormed a primary school in Nigeria’s main northern city of Kano on Tuesday and opened fire on teachers, wounding four of them, police said.

Washington Post: So where do most of the cardinal electors who choose the pope come from? More than half come from Europe, even though the continent only accounts for 24 percent of the world’s Catholic population, as the following map from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life shows . . .

Turtle Bay and Beyond: Last night, the US and EU called for deleting a reafirmation that every human being has the inherent right to life, liberty and security of persons. This year’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) has become the equivalent of D-Day for abortion hard-liners

Nathan Cherry at Engage Family Minute: The Alliance Defending Freedom records a small victory for free speech in light of this case as it appears at least one statute was struck down in Canada’s Human Rights Code. But it is indeed a small victory as the overall tenor of this case is foreboding at best. The takeaway from this is that events like this are happening right now in America. There is a concerted effort to not just limit free speech and religious freedoms, but to elevate the “rights” of minority groups like homosexuals and transgender people above all others. This is the ultimate end of “anti-bullying” laws that equate changeable aspects of a person, such as sexual orientation, with permanent aspects such as race or nationality.

LifeSiteNews: The Russian Orthodox Church, through its Department for External Church Relations, has issued a statement saying the same-sex “marriage” legislation in France and the UK is a “revolution in the European societies’ understanding of marriage” that will lead to the eventual collapse of those societies.

LifeSiteNews: Raw video footage shows unconscious women in saris being unloaded from a filthy plastic stretcher and lined up like butchers’ carcasses on the ground to recover from surgeries at a “mass sterilization camp” in India.

Independent.ie: GAY or lesbian teachers in fear of losing their job because of their sexuality are to be protected, under proposed new legislation.

Miami Herald: Protesters burned a flag belonging to the Libyan Embassy in Cairo on Monday to protest the death in prison of an Egyptian Christian suspected of proselytizing in Libya.

MyFoxPhoenix.com: Hundreds of Christians clashed with police across Pakistan on Sunday, a day after a Muslim mob burned dozens of homes owned by members of the minority religious group in retaliation for alleged insults against Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

Religion Clause Blog: The new constitutional amendments specifically authorize parliament to decide on recognition of religious communities . . .

William Kilpatric at Catholic World Report: Perhaps the only good thing to come out of Muslim rioting in more than 20 countries last September is that this has been extremely helpful in clarifying what Islam teaches—and what we can expect if its influence expands in the West.

Christian Institute: One unnamed local Tory association has seen membership nose-dive from 850 to 550 largely because of gay marriage, the Daily Express reports. It follows news that big money donors have stopped giving to the party because of the Prime Minister’s obsession with the issue.

Fox News: Five Iranian Christian converts who were detained late last year will reportedly begin trial in Iran’s Revolutionary Court this week, according to a human rights group following the case.

NY Post: The charter ‘opposed’ discrimination rooted in gender, race, color, creed, political belief or other grounds, with the ‘other grounds’ expected to include gay rights and equal rights for boys and girls to ascend to the throne.

FT.com: Critics say the amendments contain provisions threatening the independence of the judiciary, and potentially violating freedom of religion and the principle of separation of state and church. They narrowly define heterosexual marriage and “marriage and parent-child relationships” as the basis of the family.

allAfrica.com: The Swaziland Government has banned a prayer meeting due to take place in the kingdom to mark the first anniversary of the formation of a trade union federation.

Eugene Kontorovich at Volokh Conspiracy: I have put up a new working paper on SSRN, entitled Jurisdiction Over Israeli Settlement Activity in the International Criminal Court . . . In the wake of the U.N. General Assembly’s recent recognition of Palestinian statehood, the Palestinian government has made clear its intention to accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC), where it could challenge the legality of Israeli settlements. This Article explores the previously unexamined jurisdictional hurdles for such a case.

Detroit Free Press: Police have arrested about 150 people accused of burning dozens of homes belonging to Christians in eastern Pakistan after a non-Muslim was accused of making offensive comments about Islam’s prophet Muhammad, police said Sunday as Christians rallied against the destruction.

Scholars have filed more than 50 amicus briefs with the Supreme Court urging it to uphold California’s Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). While the media seems intent on ignoring these briefs and hyping the briefs on the other side, the sheer number and quality of the briefs in defense of laws recognizing marriage as the union of a man and a woman is impressive.

The Hill: Secretary of State John Kerry had hoped to offer considerably more aid to Egypt than the $250 million he announced during his trip to Cairo but was blocked by Congress, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) said.

Christian Institute: A primary school teacher faced disciplinary action because she didn’t want to read to her class from a storybook about gay penguins. The teacher, who has not been named, works in a school in a London Borough and her case has been told to a committee of MPs looking the gay marriage Bill.

VOANews.com: Tunisia’s prime minister designate has unveiled a new Islamist-led coalition government following last-minute talks aimed at averting a major political crisis.

Washington Post: Mexico’s Supreme Court has ruled that two anti-gay words commonly used in Mexico are hate speech and not protected as freedom of expression under the country’s constitution, allowing those offended by them to sue for moral damages.

Religion Clause Blog: The report concludes with 30 recommendations, the most controversial of which is: States should repeal any criminal law provisions that penalize apostasy, blasphemy and proselytism as they may prevent persons belonging to religious or belief minorities from fully enjoying their freedom of religion or belief.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life: An analysis of Pew Research Center surveys reveals no signs of a marked resurgence of faith among Catholics in France, Germany, Spain and Italy – the four countries with the largest Catholic populations in Western Europe. Yet the picture facing the church is not entirely bleak. French, Italian and Spanish Catholics have reported low but relatively stable levels of religious commitment in recent years. In Germany, too, the overall trend in religious commitment has been fairly stable over the past decade, despite short-lived shifts in the importance German Catholics place on religion.

Altmedia.net.au: With increasing attention brought to polyamorous relationships by members of of the Liberal Party, a formalised Polyamory Action Lobby (PAL) has been founded to combat the image of poly people as relationship bogeymen.

AP: Government statistics in South Sudan show half the girls there aged 15 to 19 are married, with some brides as young as 12 years old.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: Placing women in combat is touted today by the Obama administration as its primary accomplishment on International Women Day. Inserting women into the most violent situations in the world turns a War on Women into a War With Women. US [Ambassador to the United Nations] . . .  of State Susan Rice released this statement today.

Catholic Culture: The Swiss bishops’ spokesman said that the use of the pill would be allowed only in cases when it would not have an abortifacient effect. The spokesman acknowledged the difficulty of determining whether a rape victim could already had ovulated

C-FAM: As UN delegates in closed rooms debate language regarding access to abortion for women who have been violated, two women at an event blocks away presented a powerful argument for breaking the cycle of violence by rejecting abortion even when the child’s conception is the result of rape.

C-FAM: The meeting has barely begun and UN member states are already deadlocked in negotiations at the Commission on the Status of Women this week at UN headquarters. The new line of attack appears to be a push to establish abortion for cases of rape as a right of reparation under humanitarian law.

Mary Langlois at LifeSiteNews: Although the lofty treaties, speeches and other goings-on at the United Nations often seem irrelevant to parents with busy lives, it is increasingly important that we pay attention to some troubling developments that could gravely effect the lives of all U.S. citizens.

Wesley J. Smith at LifeNews: Latest example, Belgium is getting set to legalize euthanasia for children–since it is being done anyway despite the “guidelines.” From the AFP story . . .

CNA: Medical experts before the United Nations argued that abortion is not medically necessary to promote women’s health and can actually harm women instead. “Real medical care decreases maternal mortality; abortion does not decrease maternal mortality,” Dr. Donna J. Harrison told CNA on March 6.

Coptic Solidarity: Secretary Kerry met with Egyptian President Morsi last week, announcing that the US will give Egypt $250 million in aid. While applauding continuing economic support to the suffering people of Egypt, Coptic Solidarity expressed deep concern that US foreign assistance be used to bolster a Muslim Brotherhood-led government, which has actively undermined the civil rights of millions of its citizens.

Piero Tozzi at Turtle Bay and Beyond: As reported in last week’s Friday Fax, Alliance Defending Freedom took the floor recently at a General Assembly forum on how to reform United Nations Treaty Bodies, calling on the Treaty Bodies not to usurp functions that do not rightfully belong to them.

Christian Institute: Former Government Minister Ann Widdecombe is urging David Cameron to listen to his own party on the issue of same-sex marriage if he wants to stay in his position beyond the next election.

Washington Post: A lesbian whose adoption request was recently denied by Puerto Rico’s Supreme Court is appealing the ruling.

London Evening Standard: The Liberal Democrat leader and Deputy Prime Minister has also described himself as not an “active believer” in God, although he has said he is committed to bringing up his children in the Catholic faith. His wife is a Catholic.

Phayul.com: Around 200 Tibetans from all over Switzerland took part in a special solidarity prayer vigil in front of the United Nations office in Geneva yesterday.

Religion Clause Blog: Last year the Czech Republic passed a law on return of church property confiscated during the country’s Communist regime. Under the law, the government will return land worth 75 billion crowns and will pay additional compensation of 59 billion crowns over the next 30 years.

Religion Clause Blog: A New York Jewish Week article today speculates that dramatic changes in the relationship of religion and government could be in the offing in Israel as Benjamin Netanyahu moves to form a coalition government that may exclude the haredi (strictly Orthodox) Shas and United Torah Judaism parties

AP: Germany’s foreign minister says Berlin will fight a European Union proposal to introduce mandatory quotas for the number of women on the boards of private companies.

AP: The court says in its Wednesday ruling that the law organizing the elections must be reviewed by the Supreme Constitutional Court to determine its conformity to the constitution.

Doug Cook at MercatorNet: Australian activists for same-sex marriage have always insisted, that it will not lead to polygamy or polyamory. Never, ever, ever. Gay marriage is just like traditional marriage, except for the sex of the spouse. Activist Rodney Croome wrote last year that “studies show most LGBTI people want to be part of a two-person marriage, while partners in polyamorist relationships (most of which begin as heterosexual unions) say they don’t want their relationships recognised as marriages.” Former Greens leader Bob Brown described a push for polyamory as “nonsense”. | Hat tip: Ruth Institute

enowned medical experts and researchers will discuss groundbreaking findings on the most important factors in saving the lives of mothers in childbirth at a policy briefing and press conference Wednesday

Morning Star News: Suspected Islamic extremists in Somalia shot a Christian to death this month on the outskirts of the coastal city of Kismayo, sources said. (2/28)

LifeSiteNews: A motion asking the Parliament of Canada to condemn the practice of sex-selective abortions is scheduled to be debated in the House of Commons on March 28, 2013.

Fox News: Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro says President Hugo Chavez has died.