The Church of England has sold its stake in Soco International, a UK oil company, saying it has failed to address allegations of bribery, corruption and human rights abuses, and that it has also failed to rule out drilling in the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Soco told shareholders that a review by lawyers Clifford Chance had found the bribery allegations (detailed in an Oscar-nominated documentary called “Virunga”) to be “substantially inaccurate” but refused to publish the report. This is only the third time that the CofE has disinvested from a company on ethical grounds, and it only did so after 20 months of active engagement with the company. Other shareholders are calling for the company’s chairman to be replaced.
In Kukawa, northern Nigeria, Boko Haram fighters have shot dead 97 people praying in mosques, and also broke into homes and shot women and children. Boko Haram often attack mosques that they deem too moderate.
In August 2013, dozens of churches in Egypt were torched, and homes, schools, businesses and vehicles were destroyed. In April 2015, an Egyptian court convicted and sentenced 71 people to life in prison for their role in attacking one of those churches.
Iceland has abolished its blasphemy law, which was passed in 1940. The bill to abolish it was raised by a minor party in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris. The country’s churches were split on the issue; most of the (Lutheran) Church of Iceland supported the abolition, but Catholics, Pentecostals and the Church of Iceland’s remote eastern province opposed it.
In Montana, an ex-Mormon man who was excommunicated for polygamy and now lives with two women has applied for a marriage licence to legally enter a polygamous relationship. He said, “It’s about marriage equality; we’re not even asking for acceptance just for tolerance.” His words echo those of some of the Supreme Court justices who opposed gay marriage; in their arguments, they asked what grounds would be cited to reject polygamous marriage, or to refuse to recognise polygamous marriages performed abroad, if same-sex marriage was permitted.
In Oregon, a “Christian bakers and gay cake” legal case has reached the stage of sentencing, and the sentence determined by Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian appears unduly harsh. As in Northern Ireland, the issue was the baker’s refusal to make a cake that promoted gay marriage, though in this case it was a wedding cake for a lesbian couple. The Commissioner rejected the argument that the bakers were acting against the message rather than the couple, and awarded $135,000 in damages for emotional distress to the couple (because one of them “was so depressed she spent the next two days in bed”, and because the bakers posted some court documents on Facebook, which included the plaintiffs’ address – I believe these documents were officially publicly available but can’t confirm that). However, his most controversial act was to ban the bakers from any further quoting of the Bible verse, “We must obey God rather than men”.
In sports news, there have been or will be three international football finals in the past week. Sweden won the men’s under-21 European championship; Chile won the Copa America (Americas championship); and the final of the Women’s World Cup between USA and Japan takes place this evening (England beat Germany in the third place play-off). And in the Pacific Islands under-23 championship, Micronesia have set an unwanted new record; they have played two games so far, against Tonga and Fiji, and have conceded a total of 68 goals.
In technology news, a university in Lima, Peru, a city which is built in the desert, invented a billboard that condenses water out of the air. It uses electricity to run a reverse osmosis system and water purifiers, while the billboard itself serves as the large condensation area needed by such systems. The billboard produces more than 1000 litres of drinkable water per month, and it is available on tap to anyone who wants to collect it.
And finally, an Indonesian teenager, who lost his mother and two brothers in the 2004 tsunami when he was six and was found wandering on the beach in a Cristiano Ronaldo football jersey, has been signed to Sporting Lisbon’s youth academy. After Martunis’ photo appeared in several newspapers, Ronaldo himself flew to meet the boy, and helped finance his education, and the Portuguese Football Association donated money in 2005 to help rebuild his house. Martunis said, “This club makes my dream possible.”
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