The Hilton hotel chain has decided to remove all pornography channels from its televisions in all countries. Such channels are usually pay-per-view and can make big profits for hotels, but a recent email campaign saw Hilton executives getting up to 1000 emails per week calling for the removal of these channels; also some conferences and conventions chose not to use Hilton because of the availability of these channels. A spokesman for the campaign said, "They realized it didn't make sense to be against the use of their hotels for sexual exploitation while promoting pornography, which is so closely connected to it.” Hilton did announce the new policy to guests alongside another announcement that made it clear that unfiltered material was still available through the hotel wi-fi.
Following the arrest of a street preacher in Manchester, the Christian Institute asked a city councillor to clarify whether street preachers would be arrested in future, and if so on what legal basis. The councillor replied, in the Manchester Evening News that “They’re perfectly entitled to talk about Jesus and the word of God, but not to make anyone feel insecure or threatened … I do not think it right if they are talking about morality, and talking about sexual orientation is not proper at all.” He did not provide a legal basis for his comments, except to comment that street preachers were also sometimes “noisy”.
A UK judge has described attempts by Muslim parents in Tower Hamlets to indoctrinate their child to believe that Islamic State is a wonderful organisation to have caused psychological and emotional harm “as bad as in child abuse cases.” Their 16 year old daughter attempted to travel to Syria last December, after which she was made a ward of court and her parents appeared to cooperate with social workers. But a recent search of the family home uncovered a mass of pro-Islamic State propaganda on electronic devices. She will now be removed from the parental home.
Australia is debating whether to make gay marriage legal, but the pro gay marriage cause has been attacked for an unusual reason – that it is illiberal. Gay marriage is usually seen as a liberal cause, but a magazine editor being introduced on the ABC network’s Q&A programme said, “Anyone who opposes gay marriage is demonised, harassed. We’ve seen people thrown out of their jobs because they criticise gay marriage.” The comments follow the refusal of Australia’s Foxtel network to broadcast a ‘moderate’ advert opposing same sex marriage, which tried to make the point that same sex marriage was “the tip of an iceberg”.
A gay Anglican lay preacher, who preaches in six churches around Howden, East Yorkshire, has been told by the Archbishop of York that he will lose his preaching licence if he marries his gay partner. He has decided to go ahead with the wedding, and also says he no longer feels he has a place in the Church of England.
Slovakia has announced that it will accept refugees fleeing from Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, but it will not accept Muslims. “We have no mosques in Slovakia,” said a spokesman, “so how are Muslims going to be integrated if they do not like it here?”
Wadi al Nasera in Syria literally translates as “Valley of the Christians”, and lies between the city of Homs and the border with Lebanon. It consists of about 40 villages, most of which are Christian, but a few of which house Alawite Muslims – who are considered even more heretical than Christians by radical orthodox Muslims. Although the village suffered shelling, sniper attacks and night raids from the Syrian rebels, its population is about the same as it was before the recent conflict; around 25% of the people have left but their places have been taken by refugees from Homs and elsewhere, of all faiths. Also, a group of nuns who were captured and then released in a recent prisoner exchange have established a temporary orphanage at a monastery in the valley until they are able to return to their home convent. The valley is currently relatively peaceful and aims to establish a Christian population that works together with Muslims.
A statue has been erected in the Chinese city of Tianjin to commemorate Olympic athlete and Christian missionary Eric Liddell, for his dedication to the Chinese people. Liddell, who died in a prisoner of war camp in China in 1945 of a brain tumour, is also to be commemorated in a new film – “The Last Race”, starring Joseph Fiennes – which will focus on the second half of his life, as a missionary. Liddell’s daughter Patricia said, “I find it extraordinary that a statue has been raised – it’s not something the Chinese normally do.”
In sports news, plaudits are being offered to Doncaster Rovers manager Paul Dickov for his sportsmanship. Close to the end of a recent match against Bury FC, a Doncaster player was injured. Bury sportingly kicked the ball out of play to allow the medics time to treat the injured player, and Doncaster player Harry Forrester then passed the ball back to the Bury goalkeeper after the restart – but he hit it too firmly and it sailed over the keeper’s head and into the net. Dickov tried to persuade officials that the throw-in should be re-taken, and when that failed, told his players to allow Bury to walk the ball into their goal unopposed for an equaliser. Forrester said afterwards, “Totally accidental. I haven’t got that placement from 40 yards, I assure you.”
In technology news, mathematician Kurt Gödel famously published a mathematical proof for the existence of God, commonly known as the “ontological proof”. Two German computer scientists have now verified Gödel’s theorem as mathematically correct using higher modal logic, processed by a computer, to represent and reason about Gödel’s statements of modal logic. Their published paper is called, "Formalization, Mechanization and Automation of Gödel's Proof of God's Existence."
And finally, a group of architects have launched a crowdfunding campaign to help them build a replica of the city of Minas Tirith from the Lord of the Rings books. However, not only has their campaign raised only 3% of the required funding, but they now face a challenge from another crowdfunding campaign to raise an Orc army to destroy Minas Tirith. One bit of good news is that, despite donors being told that “your gold will buy many pointy and shiny things that we can stick humans with”, the total raised by the latter campaign has yet to reach single figures.
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