Friday, 6 September 2013

Not The BBC News: 6 September 2013

Just days after a UK Government commission decided that aborting babies because they were disabled was discriminatory and urged that the practice be banned, the Director of Public Prosecutions has decided not to prosecute two doctors who broke the existing law by aborting babies because they were girls. The DPP said that prosecution was “not in the public interest” and that the General Medical Council could deal with the cases, but the GMC has no criminal powers.

Following the UK Parliament’s vote not to intervene militarily in Syria, Prime Minister David Cameron has accused  opponents of “failing to take a stand against the gassing of children” and said they must “live with the way they have voted”. Meanwhile, the Pope has called for Christians worldwide to a day of prayer and fasting for Syria on Saturday September 7.

Samsung have released for sale their new Galaxy Gear smartwatch. It communicates with a nearby mobile phone, so that owners can look at their wrists instead of having to take their phone out of their pocket; it also tells the time. Perhaps more usefully, the BBC have updated their iPlayer app for Android so that BBC programmes can be downloaded and watched offline later.

Ariel Castro, the man who held three women as sex slaves for a decade in his home in Cleveland, Ohio, has been found dead in his prison cell in an apparent suicide. He had served just four months of his sentence of life plus 1000 years.

For the second time this year, a prominent Muslim sportsman has objected to the sponsor of his team’s shirt for religious reasons. Fawaz Ahmed, a naturalised Australian cricketer, has been given permission by the governing body and the sponsor (a brewery) to wear a shirt without the brewer’s logo.

A lesbian couple claim a Church of England vicar refused to baptise their baby after they both insisted on being registered as the mother. The vicar allegedly said the church baptism register would not allow it, and he suggested one be registered as the mother while the other be put down as the godmother instead. “I'm baptised Church of England” said one woman ,”and my partner is a Catholic. We want him to be brought up the same as we were.”

Andy Murray has continued his post-Wimbledon slump by losing the quarter final of the US Open to Stanislas Wawrinka. Murray completed the match without achieving any break points.

And finally, a stork was briefly arrested in Egypt when its migration tag was mistaken for a spying device. The idea of using animals for spying is not as far-fetched as it sounds; during the Cold War, the CIA launched Operation Acoustic Kitty in which a cat, implanted with listening devices, was released near the Soviet embassy. Unfortunately, the cat was run over by a car after just one day.

No comments:

Post a Comment