A recent atrocity by Boko Haram in Chibok in northern Nigeria has attracted worldwide condemnation. The terrorist group kidnapped over 200 girls from a school on 15 April; their ultra-Islamist views do not believe that girls should be educated, and the region is largely Christian. The children’s parents went after them and located their camp, but without weapons or support from the Nigerian army, who were acting cautiously following a recent ambush on an army patrol, they had to turn back to save their own lives. There are reports that the girls are being sold into forced marriages. Western organisations including Special Forces are said to be offering help.
The former Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican communion, has announced that he is to divorce his husband. Robinson, who is now retired, divorced his wife in 1986 and entered a civil partnership with his long-time partner Mark six years ago, which was converted to a marriage under an opt-out-or-automatic New Hampshire law. Robinson, who once preached an Easter sermon that “Jesus broke free from his prison on Easter Sunday and we can break free from our prisons too,” said that “It is at least a small comfort to me to know that gay and lesbian couples are subject to the same complications and hardships that afflict marriages between heterosexual couples.”
One of the three women who was kidnapped by Ariel Castro in Cleveland, Ohio, has said publicly that she forgives her captor. Michelle Knight has held for nearly 11 years, repeatedly raped and beaten, and lost 5 babies to induced miscarriages. Knight said, “He was a human being, and every human being needs to be loved, even though they did something wrong.” Castro hanged himself last year, four months into a whole-life jail sentence.
An apparent breach of UK abortion law which was not pursued by police or prosecutors has been raised again after eleven MPs wrote to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police calling for an inquiry. The issue was that 67 doctors were found in 2012 to have pre-signed blank forms permitting abortions (two doctors must decide an abortion is necessary and sign before the abortion can go ahead). The issue is similar to the recent case of doctors who were found to be permitting sex-selective abortions, where the Director of Public Prosecutions and the General Medical Council both claimed that disciplinary action was the other’s responsibility. In this case, the General Medical Council has insisted that doctors stop the practice, but has taken no disciplinary action against them.
Authorities in China who completely demolished a mega-church in Sanjiang claim the building was much larger than permits allowed, but have made no comment on their apparent breach of a compromise agreement reached with the church. Two further churches were demolished elsewhere in the country in the following week.
In sport, Britain’s former number one women’s tennis player, Elena Baltacha, has died of liver cancer at the age of 30. Baltacha had had a serious liver condition since the age of 19 but played through it. She retired from tennis in November; married in December; was diagnosed in January; and made the diagnosis public in March. An invitation tennis event in June, which was set up to raise money for cancer research and to encourage her, will now be held in her memory instead.
And finally, a 16 year old girl in Florida is about to graduate from high school and earn a college degree in the same week. The local university offers a program where school students can get degree credits for their school courses; Grace Bush (no relation to George or Jeb) started the program at the age of 13, and worked so hard that she completed a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. Bush, who learned to read at the age of 2 and was homeschooled for a while, now wants to obtain a master’s degree and would eventually like to become chief justice of the USA. She also plays flute in two orchestras.
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