Asia Bibi, the Pakistani woman on death row for an alleged offence of blasphemy, has had her sentence suspended by Pakistan’s Supreme Court. Her full appeal will now go to court. Her lawyer described the case against her as “below the standard of evidence required to prove this offence”; it turns out that the heart of the case, Bibi’s question to her Muslim fellow villagers, saying “My Christ died for me, what did Mohammed do for you?” is not even a verified fact, but was merely reported to a local cleric by the Muslim women.
Meanwhile, in the UK, the schools inspectorate Ofsted have been accused of ignoring anti-Christian bullying. A Christian group has written to Education Secretary Nicky Morgan, pointing out that when the “Trojan Horse” schools scandal in Birmingham was investigated, the official reports contained several examples of anti-Christian bullying by Muslims against Christians in those schools, but the Ofsted reports on the same school contained no such reports. The letter also complained about the recent behaviour of Ofsted inspectors investigating the teaching of gay marriage and gay rights in Christian primary schools.
The argument over Planned Parenthood apparently selling body parts from aborted babies is escalating. The pro-life group has now released four videos which appear to show senior Planned Parenthood staff going beyond their organisation’s official policy (of seeking payment to cover their costs) and trying to make a profit. Meanwhile, the California company that purchased many of these body parts, Stem Express, went to court to prevent the release of further videos that implicated them, on the grounds that the videos were recorded illegally. However, the pro-life group confidently denied this, and the judge only granted a limited injunction that temporarily prevents release of further videos showing Stem Express staff covering the case, but does not prevent release of other videos, not enables Stem Express to withdraw relevant documents from any future legal case.
A British man is to serve a 12 year prison sentence after he became a Christian and decided to confess to a shooting 10 years ago. Merice Brown was involved in an altercation with a man he did not know in London, and after a shouting match, he shot the other man in the face four times. The other man survived but Brown was never caught. But having become a Christian, Brown handed himself in to the police in March.
There are continuing concerns for Iranian-American pastor Saeed Abedini who has been held in jail in Iran since 2012. Despite President Obama recently meeting Abedini’s wife, there are no signs that the recent softening of relations between America and Iran will include Abedini’s release.
Recent advances in technology have enabled archaeologists to read an ancient scroll that was completely burned. The parchment scroll was inside the Holy Ark at the synagogue in Ein Gedi, Israel, a settlement that was burned during the Byzantine period. It was scanned using a micro-CT scanner; new digital imaging software was then used to virtually “unroll” the scroll. It proved to contain the first 8 verses of the book of Leviticus, and is therefore the oldest Torah scroll ever found apart from the Dead Sea scrolls.
A former communications director of the Church of God, who was based at the denomination’s headquarters in Tennessee, appeared in court charged with embezzling $100,000 from the church … and admitted to stealing nearly $1 million. Troy Scot Carter stole most of the money by presenting the church with false invoices for services that were never performed, by companies he owned. Church officials have been cleared of any knowledge of the crimes, and say that they expect to recover most of the money as they had an insurance policy against fraud.
In technology news, two computer hackers have demonstrated how they were able to take control of most of the driving systems of a Jeep Cherokee via the car’s wireless entertainment system. They forced the car to blast cold air, play music, wipe the windows, and slow down, and later disabled the brake so it drove into a ditch. The same hackers showed off similar hacks two years ago by wiring a computer into the onboard diagnostic system of two cars, but wireless access is new. The car company has issued a recall for Jeeps to upgrade them to safer software, and a Bill to require computer security in automobiles is likely to be introduced into the US Senate.
And finally, a 94 year old woman from Tennessee decided that she had done everything she needed to do in life except one thing. Shirley Batchelder bought five seconds of TV commercial time so that she could broadcast a 3-word message. The commercial showed her saying it twice, once with film of her face, and once displaying the words themselves. The words were, “Love one another”.
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