A court in the USA has awarded a judgment of $330 million for wrongful death – against the government of North Korea. The payment is for a South Korean (but American resident) missionary who was kidnapped from China in 2000 and tortured to death in a prison camp. Defence lawyers had argued that it could not be proven that the government of North Korea was responsible for his death, but in a landmark judgement, the court decided that it was the government who had the burden of proving that he had not been murdered. The judgement includes $15 million for each of two surviving relatives and $300 million in punitive damages.
There has been no news yet on the verdict on the Northern Irish bakers who refused to bake a cake supporting gay marriage. In the USA, however, the legal decision making in similar cases has reached new heights of hypocrisy. A pastor in Arizona contacted a lesbian baker and requested a cake printed with a message opposing gay marriage. She refused – he recorded the conversation and posted it on YouiTube. She demanded he remove the video (which he did), but she then contacted the FBI to demand that the pastor be charged with a hate crime for recording the telephone call – and she herself re-posted the pastor’s video on YouTube as evidence.
There has been continuing persecution of Christians by Muslims in various parts of the world. 29 Syrian Christians, including at least 10 children were killed by a rocket attack in Aleppo on the Syrian church’s Good Friday; the daughter of a Ugandan pastor who ignored Muslim threats to stop worship services has been gang-raped and now needs hospital treatment; a 15 year old boy in Lahore, Pakistan was approached by two men who asked his religion, and when he said ‘Christian’, they chased him, doused him in kerosene, and set him on fire; ISIS has captured hundreds of Assyrian Christians and is demanding six-figure sums to ransom each of them; and Italian police have arrested 15 Muslims on a migrant ship from Libya, because of reports that they threw 12 Nigerian and Ghanaian Christians overboard to their deaths during the trip. The BBC produced a documentary about Christianity in the Middle East today, which was broadcast over Easter, and is simply called, “Kill The Christians.”
There are reports that a skin disease known as “Rose of Jericho” because of the red sores it produces is spreading quickly amongst ISIS fighters. The disease is spread by sandflies and encouraged by pollution and poor hygiene, and apparently some jihadi fighters have refused treatment which makes it spread even faster. If left untreated, the disease causes permanent scars, and eventually attacks the liver and spleen, causing death in most cases within 2 years.
Dutch Catholics are preparing for a mass closure of Catholic churches in the country; about 1000 or the country’s 1500 Catholic churches are expected to close. The perceived causes are that, in the famously liberal Netherlands, the Dutch Catholic church has also become liberal; and a strong trend towards individualism in the national psyche has led to the vast majority of Catholics not attending Mass, with only 5% of all Dutch Catholics (1.2% of the whole population) attending Mass regularly. A recent Papal visit was cancelled for fear of hardly anyone turning up.
In legal news, a man in New York has been granted permission to serve divorce papers to his wife via Facebook, on the grounds that is the only way he has of contacting her.
In sports news, Jordan Spieth, the 21 year old winner of the US Masters golf with the joint lowest score ever recorded, has revealed that he has a sister with special needs, who keeps his feet firmly on the ground. “I really love it when she’s able to be out there,” he said. “It’s humbling to see her and her friends and the struggles that they go through every day that we take for granted.”
In technology news, IBM’s Watson supercomputer has been programmed to create new food recipes. It examines existing recipes to see which tastes go well together, then generates brand new ones. Among the offerings in its cookbook are an apple and pork kebab cooked with mushrooms, strawberries and curry powder; plum pancetta cider; and a dessert made from buttermilk, porcini mushrooms, bacon, raisins, honey, dried figs and walnuts.
And finally, a restaurant in Oklahoma is being praised because it put a notice in its window saying, “To the person going through our trash for their next meal: You’re a human being and worth more than a meal from a dumpster. Please come in during operating hours for sandwich, veggies and water; no questions asked.” The offer has yet to be claimed.
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