New figures on the abortion rate in the USA reveal a drop in the percentage of pregnancies that are terminated in 2013, the latest year for which data are available. The figures which cover 47 US states (three including the most populous, California, cannot or will not provide data) suggest that the US sees approximately one abortion for every five live births. That compares favourably with the 1980s when the rate was higher than 1:3.
The civil war in South Sudan has escalated since July and both sides are accused of serious human rights abuses by Human Rights Watch. Many of the abuses have taken place in the south-western city of Yei. HRW has called for the UN to ban arms sales to the country and set up a war crimes commission.
In Rwanda, the Catholic Church has issued an apology for its role in the 1994 genocide. Although the Church itself played no direct role, the communique said: "Even though the church sent no body to do harm, we, the Catholic clerics in particular, apologise, again, for some of the church members, clerics, people who dedicated themselves to serve God and Christians in general who played a role in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi."
In England, large numbers of gypsies are turning to Christianity. Although traditionally Catholic, a Gypsy-led Pentecostal movement called ‘Light and Life’ claims that 40% of the gypsies in England now belong to it. One member of the group said, "I see a great shift among Gypsies today. We've gone from being professional liars - and I was one of them. Now, we don't want to live that life no more, because the Holy Spirit's inside us. We want to go 100% legal. That's what happens when you're born again." He and many others have also become teetotal, in response to alcoholism being a major problem amongst gypsies.
Following a drought in Israel, numerous forest fires have broken out across the country. Several are believed to have been started simultaneously by organised arsonists. Parts of Haifa, the country’s third-largest city just north of Mount Carmel, have been evacuated.
There have been several political moves for and against LGBT rights this week. In the United Nations, 54 African nations challenged the legality of the new UN bureaucrat with a responsibility to enforce LGBT rights, but the challenge was defeated in an amendment proposed largely by Latin American and Caribbean nations. In the USA, the website of #AnywherebutTARGET, which urges shoppers to avoid shopping at Target in protest at its transgender-friendly bathroom policy, has been shut down by its web service provider because of the provider’s commitment to inclusiveness and diversity. In Texas, the Attorney General has upheld his previous advice to schools to ignore federal rules on accommodating transgender pupils as unenforceable.
In Canada, a judge in Ontario refused a parent’s request to be notified in advance when homosexuality and abortion were to be taught in his child’s school so that he could withdraw his child from those lessons; the judge decided that selective withdrawal of children from such classes “was antithetical to the legislative mandate […] favouring inclusivity, equality and multiculturalism.” Canada is also considering a Bill to make it a hate crime to refuse to use gender-neutral pronouns to transgender people; and after judges in Alberta decided that a year old boy should not be permitted to go in public dressed as a girl (which his father object to but his mother wanted), a local psychology professor called for the judges to be ‘re-educated’. Also in Toronto, there have been protests against police setting up a sting operation in a public park that resulted in 71 charges of indecent exposure and engaging sexual activity, including catching a registered sex offender breaching the requirement that he stay away from children while wearing only a T-shirt and masturbating. A politician from the New Democratic Party called for all 89 charges to be dropped immediately “before more lives are ruined”.
Back in the USA, several dress designers have refused to design clothes for the incoming First Lady, Melania Trump. However, there have been questions raised whether it is legal for them to refuse, given that Christian wedding cake makers have been successfully prosecuted for refusing to provide cakes for gay weddings.
The Polish Catholic Church has declared Jesus Christ to be the king if Poland. Christ has actually been given the honour twice before, at ceremonies in 1997 and 2000. But both were much smaller affairs, and did not have the official endorsement of the president. The decision also marks a change of heart by Poland's church hierarchy, who in 2008 said that naming Christ as Poland's king was 'inappropriate and unnecessary' (and repeated this statement in 2012). In January this year, however, they decided that 'recognition by the native community of the rule of Jesus Christ is theologically acceptable'.
Kim Clement, a prominent Christian ‘prophet’ from South Africa, has died of pneumonia at the age of 60. Clement’s ministry has been somewhat different to some other prophetic’ people; the focus of the outreach that he ran, initially in Detroit and now throughout the USA, is to “uplift wounded people”; and his meetings generally include a great deal of music from Kim himself as well as spoken words. One of Clement’s more notable prophecies, given in April 2008 in the last year of George Bush’s presidency, was that God would sway a political primary election in favour of Barack Obama because “there is an element of righteousness inside him to reach out to Jesus.”
Tullian Tchividjian, Billy Graham’s grandson who lost his wife and his church leadership position after confessing to an affair, has remarried and was recently invited to preach at a non-denominational church in California. Tchividjian preached that “God loves train wrecks and broken people because train wrecks and broken people are all that there are,…Until we see how bad we are we will never see how good God is. Grace will become nothing more than white noise to us unless we recognize just how desperately we need it."
In technology news, Black Friday discounts have spread even to the criminal marketplace of the dark web. Discounts available included 20% off knuckle-dusters; 15% off tasers; 12.5% off marijuana plants; and discounts on bundles of financial data.
And finally, an Iragi teenager has taken it on himself to recreate historic Assyrian artifacts destroyed by Islamic State over the past two years, especially from the city of Nimrud. He has recreated at least 18 Assyrian sculptures and one mural over the last year. "They waged a war on art and culture," 17 year old Nenous Thabit told CNN. "So, I decided to fight them with art." He added, “In Iraq, there are people who are killed because they are sculptors; ISIS view them as apostate," he added. "So, continuing to sculpt is a message that we will not be intimidated by those devils."
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