Not The BBC News: 29 December 2017

The Canadian government has stepped up its discrimination against individuals and organisations who are pro-life or opposed to LGBT rights. The country’s Office of Religious Freedom was shut down in March 2016, since when the government has forced the province of Prince Edward island to start offering abortions by various threats including withholding general health funding; forced public employees to take a pro-LGBT ‘gender equality’ test with unspecified consequences if they fail; donated at least $241 million to support abortion in developing countries, with the government’s development minister describing abortion as “a tool for ending poverty”; created an official Day of Pink, the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, and Pride Month; walked out of a committee meeting of the Status of Women committee because a pro-life woman was nominated as chairperson; attempted to remove the only Criminal Code provision protecting freedom of worship; spent $16 million on an LGBT propaganda campaign; and for good measure failed to mention Jews on the plaque at its recent National Holocaust Memorial, instead promoting opposition to “hate, intolerance and discrimination”. Its latest move is to restrict grants to employers to hire students for summer jobs to only those employers who will sign an attestation that they support abortion and transgenderism.

The European Parliament too has demonstrated its opposition to pro-life principles in a rebuke to Poland for recent pro-life laws. The laws ban abortion in cases where unborn children have severe congenital disabilities; prohibit the over-the-counter sale of the morning-after pill without a prescription; and cut funding for liberal “women’s rights” organizations, giving the money instead to Catholic organizations more in line with Polish traditional and family values. The European Parliament’s response was to initiate the formal process for rebuking a member state found to be in “serious breach” of their obligations under the Treaty of the EU, on the grounds of failing to respect human rights, democratic values, and the independence of the judiciary. This is only the second time this process has ever been initiated; the first was against Hungary earlier this year for its refusal to comply with EU quotas for accepting refugees from the Middle East.

Bermuda has become the first territory in the world to restore the traditional definition of marriage by legislating to ban same-sex weddings only six months after they were introduced. Voters in the British Overseas Territory had rejected same-sex marriage by a landslide in a referendum in 2016; however, earlier this year the island’s Supreme Court disregarded the public vote to rule that same-sex marriage should be legal. The first of these ceremonies took place in June. A subsequent election led to a change of government, and last week the House of Assembly passed a measure restoring the traditional definition of marriage. Domestic partnerships, a form of civil partnership, will now be available to same-sex couples instead of marriage.

In Peru, the government has backed down on attempts to introduce “gender identity” into the school curriculum after 1.5 million people marched to protest against the decision under the banner “Con mis hijos no te metas” – ‘Don’t mess with my kids’. The curriculum was described as defending the equal rights of men and women and also described the importance of defending “reproductive rights” – seen by many as a shorthand for abortion.

In the UK, the number of abortions because the unborn baby has a cleft lip or palate is rising. 38 abortions for this reason were recorded between 2002 and 2012; there were 39 more between 2013 and 2016.

In the USA, two armed attacks against Christians ended rather differently. In one case in Princess Anne, Maryland, a masked man broke into a church Bible study and demanded the group hand over mobile phones and money. The pastor walked up to him and ordered him to “leave in Jesus’ name”. The robber backed off a little but then drew his weapon and touched the pastor’s neck with it, while saying that he didn’t want to do this. “Well, then, don’t do it”, replied the pastor. The man escaped with a few cellphones. In the other case Jared Plesec, a 21 year old Salvation Army worker in Cleveland, Ohio was preaching the gospel to a man (wearing full uniform and holding a Bible) when the man shot him in the head and then went on a carjacking spree before being arrested. Hundreds of people, many young, flocked to offer tributes; one said Jared “would go into any neighbourhood. He wasn't afraid of anything”; another that Jared would have forgiven his killer; and a third saying that in conversations with Jared about being careful on the streets, Jared had replied, 'I'm not afraid. I know where I'm going … to die is gain’.

In Ferndale, Michigan, Satanists along with anti-Christian radicals disrupted a group of Christians singing Christmas carols (with a permit) in front of a nativity display at a city hall in Michigan. One of the most obscene disrupters was a 19-year-old man who has run for a seat on a Board of Education and has worked on the campaign for a democrat politician. Another carried a sign inviting people to shout out worship to Satan and receive a free doughnut in return.

A Polish doctor in Norway who claimed a freedom of conscience exemption from inserting contraceptive/abortifacent IUD devices and was subsequently sacked has won her appeal against her dismissal. Her employer hired her with full knowledge of her objections in 2013, but in 2015 the Norwegian government eliminated conscience protections for family doctors. The original tribunal ruled against her but the appeal court reversed the decision. In a statement, she quoted a famous Polish king who said, “Veni, vidi, Deus vicit”.

In southern Egypt, authorities have allowed 21 churches to restore, expand and rebuild, after a wait of about two decades, and some are attributing this gesture to U.S. Vice President Mike Pence's scheduled visit to the country later this month. However, persecution of Christians by ISIS and associated groups in the country continues; a Coptic priest was killed with a meat cleaver in October, and regular attacks against worshippers have continued literally to this very day, with 9 Christians being killed by a gunman in a church and shop in the Helwan district of Cairo earlier today.

A Canadian missionary has been deported from Kazakhstan for holding baptisms in hot springs near the commercial capital, Almaty. Kazakhstan’s response to militant Islam has been to set up a government ministry to ensure secularity of the state while protecting the interests of Kazakhstan's religions and individual religious freedoms. However, the resulting regulations are stringent, including a ban on ‘missionary activity' without personal registration as a missionary.

In entertainment news, singer Billy Joel, who rarely makes political statements at concerts, chose to wear a yellow Star of David at a concert in Madison Square Garden in protest against the increasing prominence of neo-Nazi groups in the USA. His daughter, who was present, tweeted her pride in her father’s actions.

In technology news, a father from San Francisco has created an app that will freeze your kid’s phones until they answer your texts. Nick Herbert created the app ReplyASAP after getting fed up with his son Ben ignoring his texts. The app takes over the phone's screen and sounds an alarm (overriding any settings to silence), essentially forcing teens to respond to their worrisome parents if they want to regain access to their phone. The app also notifies parents when their adolescent has seen their message. His son is “surprisingly accepting… It gives him the freedom to keep his phone on silent, but with the knowledge that I can get a message to him if necessary.”

And finally, two separate studies found people are more likely to empathise with dogs than humans. In one of the studies, conducted by two Northeastern University lecturers in Boston, 240 participants were given one of four fake newspaper articles. Each article described an attack with a baseball bat and a police officer subsequently finding a victim severely battered and bruised. In four variations of the stories, the victim was either a one-year-old infant, an adult, a puppy, or a six-year-old adult dog. After being asked to describe their emotions, participants expressed more empathy after reading a story about a child, puppy, or dog, but less empathy towards the adult human. Overall, only a human infant was more sympathetic than an adult dog. Similarly, a a medical research charity, conducted an experiment in 2015 where they printed two adverts asking the same question: “Would you give £5 to save Harrison from a slow, painful death?” When the ad showed Harrison pictured as a dog, compared to showing Harrison pictured as a boy, the company received more donations.

Not The BBC News: 16 May 2017

There have been new developments in the legal case against Ashers, the Northern Irish bakery that was convicted under equalities law for refusing to bake a cake saying ‘Support Gay Marriage’. Firstly, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear their appeal; equalities cases do not usually progress further than the Court of Appeal but this case has been considered an exception. Secondly, Ashers have once again refused an order to bake a cake; this time the requested message was “Gay Marriage Rocks”. And thirdly, in a parallel case in the USA, a Christian printer in Kentucky has been found not guilty of discrimination for refusing to print leaflets for a lesbian event because the judge found no evidence that he had discriminated against customers because of their sexual orientation, but rather against the message he was being asked to print.

Russia and China have continued to crack down in Christianity. Russia’s Supreme Court is considering whether to declare the Jehovah’s Witnesses an “extremist” organisation; Jehovah’s Witnesses may be outside the mainstream of Christian belief, but the allegations against them of destroying families, fostering hatred and threatening lives appear to be malicious and false. And Chinese police continue to raid house churches and arrest the members on charges of “worshipping in churches that are not legally registered”; two churches in Shenzhen, Guangdong in the south of China were targeted recently.

There have been several more attempts to restrict Christians’ rights to free speech. Gwinnett College in Georgia banned a Christian preacher because even though he was in a ‘free speech zone’, his presentation of the Gospel amounted to ‘fighting words’ because it had a ‘tendency to incite hostility’. Vimeo, the video sharing website, has banned all videos in which people testify that they believe in healing from homosexuality through prayer, even if it happened to them. A Christian nurse from Dartford in the UK has been sacked for sharing her faith with patients; some patients apparently felt Sarah Kuteh talked too much about religion and prayer, but she has gone to a tribunal to argue that her sacking was disproportionate. And in a  related case, a social worker in Kent who advised a couple against having their baby baptised because it might hinder her chances of being adopted has been criticised by a family judge, who placed the baby in the care of a relative.

However, there have been two cases where free speech rights were upheld; in Florida, a student who was suspended for challenging a Muslim lecturer’s claim that Jesus Christ was not crucified has been reinstated; and in the UK an African who was expelled from his social work course at Sheffield University, after being deemed “unfit to practice” because he made a posting criticising homosexuality on his private Facebook page,  has successfully sued the university in the High Court after having his suit rejected in a lower court.

There have also been various legal moves for and against abortion rights. Most notable are the state of Alabama, whose Senate passed a bill that would give unborn babies a right to life if the responsibility for regulating abortions is ever passed to US states; and the election manifesto for the UK Labour party, which promises to legalise abortion in Northern Ireland, the only part of the UK where it is currently against the law.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry wrote a letter to the British government asking them to apologise for their role in the Balfour Declaration which created the state of Israel. The response from the UK Foreign Office was, “The Balfour Declaration is an historic statement for which HMG does not intend to apologise … We are proud of our role in creating the State of Israel.”

Archaeologists in Israel’s Timna Valley, in an area filled with old copper mines, made a discovery that helps validate parts of the Bible – donkey dung. The dung was carbon-dated to the 10^th century BC, around that time when Israel’s wealth was at its height under King Solomon. Seeds and pollen within the dung showed that the animals’ feed was imported from more than 100 miles away, near the Mediterranean coast, implying a strong economy and safe trade routes.

The decline of the Church of England has apparently stopped; the number of people who describe themselves as Anglican have risen slightly from 16.3% in 2009 to 17.1% in 2015. Theology professor Stephen Bullivant said, “When Richard Dawkins’ book ‘The God Delusion’ was published, a lot of people who didn’t really believe in God stopped ticking ‘Anglican’ on the social surveys and started ticking ‘atheist’ instead.” He suggested that numbers have stopped falling because the church is now left with “a groundswell of genuine believers.”

In technology news, a Swedish company has started implanting microchips in all its employees. The implant acts as a key to open locked doors, a code to operate the printers, or even a credit card to buy foods and smoothies from the snack bar.

Also in technology, Microsoft have revealed that they built a prototype watch which calmed a woman’s tremors from Parkinson’s disease. It vibrates in a way designed to disrupt feedback between brain and hand, this reducing tremors in the hands. The wearer of the prototype, a 32 year old graphic designer, says she has regained her ability to write legibly and to draw straight lines.

And finally, a two year old girl from Essex who has Down’s syndrome has been chosen as one of the faces of the latest advertising campaign by the Matalan clothing chain. A spokesman for Matalan said, "It was a joy to work with Lily. She was a wonderful model and we're thrilled to hear that Lily and her parents have enjoyed seeing her photos in our stores."

Not The BBC News: 18 March 2017

1900 people in Vancouver have accepted Christ during an evangelistic crusade at which Billy Graham’s son Franklin Graham was preaching. This was despite Graham receiving a letter beforehand from church leaders claiming to represent over half the Christians in the city, urging organisers to withdraw Graham from the crusade because of his right-wing political views. The organisers responded that Graham was “not coming to incite hatred or violence but simply to preach the Gospel.”

Once again, Muslims from the Middle East have converted to Christianity and reported that they did so because Jesus appeared to them in a dream. Bishop George Saliba in Beirut has baptised at least 100 ex-Muslim Syrian refugees since the start of the Syrian Civil War. Also, two Middle Eastern pastors who were arrested after running an underground church for new believers were maltreated at first but then an official intervened. Eventually the official admitted that he had dreamed of Jesus who said, "My children are being tortured in your jail. I leave them before you. My children are the apple of my eyes." The official became a Christian himself, was baptised, and then released the men.

The US Government has started proceedings to reduce finding for abortion. It has saved $200 million by ceasing funding for abortion as part of foreign aid packages, and it also plans to remove all federal funding from America’s biggest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood has frequently presented itself as a provider of sexual health and women’s health services in general – but when the US Government offered to continue to fund them if they stopped all abortions, Planned Parenthood declined.

Planned Parenthood has also been under fire for its ‘sex education’ which is funded from the ObamaCare programme. In a recent undercover investigation in Portland, Oregon, a 15 year old girl was advised to watch porn without her parents’ knowledge; to buy items from a sex shop (which is illegal at her age); and to engage in deviant sexual practices – the counsellor summarised their advice by saying, “In Fifty Shades these things were abusive because they were enforced, but if they are consensual then they’re absolutely fine.”

There has also been renewed criticism of one of Britain’s biggest abortion providers. A newspaper investigation into Marie Stopes found that some women were being signed off to have abortions after a brief conversation with a call centre worker – and the officially recorded reason for the abortion may bear no resemblance to what is said on the phone.

Two street preachers from Bristol have been found guilty of a public order offence after preaching from the King James Bible. The prosecutor said, "To say to someone that Jesus is the only God is not a matter of truth. To the extent that they are saying that the only way to God is through Jesus, that cannot be a truth." They were also accused of being homophobic after discussing the Bible’s views on homosexuality with hecklers. The magistrate agreed with the prosecutor and fined both men £300.

In the USA, the marriage registrar who was taken to court for refusing to sign certificates for gay marriages and instructing her staff not to do so has won her final court battle. Kim Davis’ case was settled some time ago; she was not required to sign certificates but was banned from instructing her staff to do the same as her. The final issue was legal costs which often far outweigh any fines issued; in the case the ACLU wanted her to pay their legal fees of $231,000 but the judge refused.

Anna Hayford, the wife of well known preacher Jack Hayford from the 10,000-strong Church On The Way in Los Angeles, has passed away after a battle with cancer. She was 83. Jack and Anna had been married for 62 years; Anna was a licensed preacher herself and they co-pastored for 60 years.

The NHS in the UK has issued new guidance under which doctors and nurses will be encouraged to talk to dying patients about their religious preferences. Malcolm Brown, the Church of England Director of Mission and Public Affairs, said: “People’s views and needs can change radically as the inevitability of death approaches and dying can be eased considerably if careful opportunities to express or discuss these matters are created.”

A former porn star in the USA is now a pastor. Crystal Bassette filmed her first porn film at the age of 21 and appeared in over 100 films over the next 10 years. She married a Pentecostal minister in 2015 and they now co-pastor a church in Fulton, New York state. “I never saw myself going to this extreme,” she said, “but God leads you in these directions. I regret my time in the industry but then I think to myself, ‘if I didn’t do these things, where would I be today?’”

In film news, “The Shack” has been released. Although criticised by some for its varied depictions of God, it has been described as ‘a parable’ and ‘one of the most powerful and best-quality Christian movies for a long time’ by others.

And finally, a 20 year old Norwegian woman has announced on YouTube that she was born the wrong species and that she self-identifies as a cat. ‘Nano’ claims to have realised this at the age of 16; to have a superior sense of smell; to be able to see in the dark; and to hate dogs. She hunts mice at night while wearing cat ears and a tail though she has not yet caught any.

Not The BBC News: 2 March 2017

Compassion International, which links Western sponsors with children who need schooling and associated needs in the developing world, has announced that it is to shut down its operations in India. The Hindu-dominated Indian government passed a law last year that prevented any organisation from receiving foreign funds unless it received permission from the Government, and Christian organisations are finding such permission almost impossible to get. Compassion currently schools and cares for 147,000 children in the country.

A middle-aged couple in Jharkhand state, India were forced to stand for 17 hours up to their necks in freezing water because they would not renounce Christianity and return to their indigenous tribal religion. Ten couples in the village had become Christian but seven reverted under persecution, and there had been increasing persecution of this couple in the last 3 years. The husband died after the experience and the villagers would not even let him be buried on their land.

A 14 year old Christian girl in West Africa who was attacked by Muslim radicals and later died in hospital has been raised from the dead and healed ‘by Jesus’, in her words. ‘Lydia’ is the daughter of an ex-Muslim Christian missionary who boldly proclaimed her faith at school. She was attacked on her way home from school, subjected to female genital mutilation, and left in a coma. After six days two doctors pronounced her dead; but an hour after they did so she threw off the sheet covering and announced that she had met Jesus and he had healed her completely. She said Jesus said to her, “I cannot turn back from the prayers of my children. So I give you your life back … You go, and be my witness." She left hospital without even having a thorough check-up.

In Rasht, Iran, three Christian converts found drinking wine at a Communion service were charged with ‘acting against national security’ and ‘consumption of alcohol’ and sentenced to 80 lashes each. Consumption of alcohol is legally forbidden to Muslims but permitted to other religious groups. An appeal is pending shortly. Two other Christians who have been held and interrogated for weeks without charge have gone on hunger strike to obtain medical attention but so far it has been refused.

Sudan has ordered the demolition of at least 25 church buildings of various denominations in north Khartoum state. The authorities say the churches are built on land zoned for other purposes; church leaders say it is part of a wider crackdown on Christianity.

Two Christian street preachers have been arrested in Bristol for quoting the words from the King James Bible that say that Jesus is the only God, and the only way to God is through Jesus. The prosecutor argued that “just because the words preached appear in a 1611 version of the Bible, this does not mean they are incapable of amounting to a public order offence in 2016.” He did not comment on the fact that the same claim is made in almost the same words in modern Bibles.

A Christian florist in Washington state, USA has lost an appeal to the state’s Supreme Court against a fine for refusing to provide flowers to a gay wedding. The fine is $1,001 but she may be bankrupted because she has been ordered to pay the gay couple’s legal fees as well. She had previously been offered the opportunity to pay a token fine, but she refused, saying that it was not the money that she objected to but the principle. Her lawyer said, "This case is about crushing dissent. In a free America, people with differing beliefs must have room to coexist … Freedom of speech and religion aren't subject to the whim of a majority; they are constitutional guarantees."

Also in the USA, Donald Trump has rescinded Barack Obama’s executive order that required schools and public buildings either to provide toilets for transgender individuals or to allow them to use the bathroom of their choice. States, however, will still be entitled to create such requirements in their own laws. Obama’s order proved highly controversial, not least because of cases of violation of privacy by men in women’s bathrooms – one man was caught mounting a camera, another taking photos of a woman who was changing her clothes. The media in the US and elsewhere appears as divided on the issue as ever, with some reporting that Trump removed federal ‘protection for transgender people’ while others phrased it as removing ‘guidance on transgender bathrooms’ or ‘enforcement of transgender rights’. However, the American College of Pediatrics has stated that transgenderism in children amounts to child abuse: in a statement they said “Facts – not ideology – determine reality.”

The USA has seen a record number of arrests for sex trafficking this year – over 1500 in the first two months, compared with 400 in the entire year 2014. 178 arrests were made at the Superbowl, and in California 474 arrests were made on a single day and 28 sexually exploited children were rescued.

Donald Trump’s Presidency continues to be stranger than most, and now a group of witches have announced that they will hold a mass occult ritual designed to oust Trump from the White House. Anyone who wishes to participate, once a month on a Friday at midnight, is instructed to use various images and items and to invoke certain demons.

Norma McCorvey, better known by the pseudonym ‘Jane Roe’ in the infamous Roe v Wade legal case that first permitted abortion in the USA, has died at the age of 69. She never did have an abortion and became ardently pro-life in her later years, seeking to reverse the effects of the legal decision that bore her name.

France has passed a law that makes it a criminal offence to “spread misleading information” about abortion, with a maximum penalty of two years in jail and a fine. The law specifically targets “electronic” and “online” means of spreading information with the intention of dissuading women from ending their pregnancy. The upper house of the French Parliament repeatedly tried to make the wording of the law less severely restrictive but was eventually overruled. The law is the latest in a series of increasingly harsh laws against pro-lifers; under a previous law, an elderly man was fined heavily for having given knitted baby boots to a woman he spoke to in the public stairway of the building where Planned Parenthood has its Paris offices.

A senator in Mexico who claims to be Catholic has introduced a bill that is intended to force Christian doctors to refer women for abortions and Christian doctors to perform them. Doctors can currently claim religious exemptions but the bill would remove these. The senator justified his Bill by saying that the Bible doesn’t say that abortion is wrong.

A similar Bill in Queensland, Australia was withdrawn because it faced certain defeat in the state’s Parliament. It proposed to decriminalise abortion; prohibit peaceful assembly within 50 metres of abortion clinics; and force doctors and nurses to perform ‘emergency abortions’. 83 per cent of public submissions opposed the Bill.

The General Pharmaceutical Council in the UK is currently asking for comments on a proposed change to its own wording ion religious exemptions which could lead to Christian doctors being forced to perform abortions in this country. Currently, doctors are required to “Tell relevant health professionals, employers or others if their own values or beliefs prevent them from providing care, and refer people to other providers”; the new wording would require them to “Take responsibility for ensuring that person-centred care is not compromised because of personal values and beliefs”. If you wish to comment in this submission, go to https://www.pharmacyregulation.org/…/gphc-consults-religion…

Another consultation that is open at the moment concerns new prenatal genetic tests for Downs Syndrome in foetuses. Given that many such foetuses are aborted despite the high quality of life that people with Downs syndrome can expect with modern medical care, pro-life groups are opposing the introduction of such tests. To sign the petition, go to http://stopdiscriminatingdown.com/sign-the-petition/

The world’s largest chain of Christian bookstores has announced that it is going into liquidation and closing all its shops. Family Christian has 240 shops in 36 US states. It blames competition from online bookstores.

Bethel church in Redding, California, a current centre of charismatic revival, has offered to pay $500,000 to help maintain the city’s police department over the next two years. Councils all over California are suffering under new rules on benefits and increased pension payments due to a lowering of the expected value of current pension savings. The city’s fire department is also at risk of being eliminated.

In sports news, Ireland rugby international Andrew Trimble, part of the team that beat the All Blacks last year, has given interviews about his Christian faith and his work to help refugees. "Pope Francis says they're all created in the image of God,” he said. “They're just like you and me, they're no less special. It's a real shame that they're forgotten about because they're considered less important."

And finally, a workmen’s café in Bourges, central France was suddenly overwhelmed with customers a couple of weeks ago, after it was accidentally awarded a Michelin star. Le Bouche à Oreille, which serves homemade lasagne and beef bourguignon for 10 euros, shares its name with a more upmarket café near Paris. The mistake was corrected on Michelin’s website after a couple of days. The café’s owner said, “My son phoned from Paris; he was laughing his head off.”

Not The BBC News: 8 Feb 2017

A long-running US House of Representatives investigation into alleged selling of baby body parts by abortion provider Planned Parenthood has finished and delivered its report. The report concludes that some branches of Planned Parenthood did indeed sell foetal tissue to universities and other research groups. Other apparent violations of the law include breaches of privacy law (passing ion persona information with tissue); failing to keep proper records; failing to monitor compliance with laws; destroying documents; and in one clinic, killing infants born alive when partially outside the birth canal. These allegations were first made by an undercover pro-life researcher, David Daleiden, who was the subject of a lawsuit from Planned Parenthood about unfair information gathering practices; this lawsuit has now been dropped.

Meanwhile, the United Methodist church in the USA which has supported abortion since it was legalised has now officially reversed its position. It has also severed its connection with the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, an interfaith organisation which it co-founded that supports abortion with no restrictions at all.

A controversial element of ‘Obamacare’ which was due to take effect on January 1st has been blocked nationwide by the attorney general of Texas. The law required taxpayers to fund transgender reassignment surgeries and abortions; its rationale for the former was that sex was just a “state of mind”.

President Obama made another controversial decision on his last day in office; he released $227 million in ‘foreign affairs funding’, of which $1.25 million went to the United Nations; $4 million to climate change programmes; and $221 million to the Palestinian Authority. Congress blocked the Palestinian release but the President is allowed to override such a decision; however, with the change of government, the State Department decided to freeze the transfer until the appointment of a new Secretary of State to replace the departing John Kerry.

In the UK, the Government’s “integration tsar”, Dame Louise Casey, has claimed that opposing same-sex marriage is ‘un-British and homophobic.’ She accused opponents of same-sex marriage of using religious conservatism as a cover to hide their ‘anti-equality’ views and compared the support of Roman Catholic schools for traditional marriage to the extremism exposed in 2015 at Muslim schools in Birmingham.

Also in the UK, an investigation by the Care Quality Commission has found that one abortion clinic, BPAS Merseyside, has had 16 serious health incidents in the past 3 years. The investigation revealed numerous health and safety breaches and staff who were unaware of procedures or responsibilities.

A 26 year old Polish Catholic missionary has been stabbed to death in Bolivia. Helena Kmiec was working at a shelter for children which was robbed, and she died from a knife wound inflicted by the robbers.

Lion Hudson, a major Christian publisher of books such as “The Heavenly Man”, “the Lion Handbook to the Bible” and “the Vicar of Baghdad” has filed for administration. Two-thirds of its 53 staff have been made bankrupt. An expert in Christian publishing said that if Lion Hudson went bankrupt, it would be a major blow for the whole Christian community; but the company had struggled with debts for several years and so was unlikely to attract a buy-out.

The election of Donald Trump has dominated newspaper headlines. The fact that there were some Christian prophecies pointing towards his Presidency has also inspired further ‘prophecies’ regarding what will happen next. At least some of these ‘prophecies’ are somewhat wacky; one of the strangest asserts that Donald Trump is the “last trump” referred to in the book of Revelation. A Biblical expert pointed out that the New Testament was written in Greek and that particular play on words does not exist in that language.

A doctor in the Netherlands, where euthanasia is legal, has been investigated after asking a grandmother’s family to hold her down while he administered the injection. He was cleared of wrongdoing by the panel who concluded that he had ‘acted in good faith’.

A pastor in Florida who recently authored a book on godly manhood was forced to flee naked from a parishioner’s house after he was discovered in bed with the parishioner’s wife. The man threatened to kill Jermaine Simmons and went to another room to find his gun, but decided against shooting him because his 6 year old son had arrived at the house with him. Simmons has recently announced that he won’t resign because God has already forgiven him.

A Christian former barrister has admitted administering violent beatings to boys in the 1970s and 80s, some of whom he met through the highly-regarded summer camps run by the Iwerne Trust. John Smyth told the boys that it wasn’t enough to repent of their sins; they had to be purged by beatings, some of which were repeated many times over. The beatings came to light when one of the boys later attempted suicide. Smyth said in his defence that he was addicted to sleeping pills at the time.

An Irish psalter dated to around 800 AD, discovered in a bog at Faddon More, has been revealed to have papyrus inside its leather cover that probably came from Egypt. Some scholars believe this shows evidence of links between Irish Christianity and the Middle Eastern Coptic church.

In technology news, a hacking group affiliated to Anonymous recently managed to hack into a server of the ‘dark Web’ that hosted child pornography websites. The “.onion” server was disabled, taking around 10,000 websites offline; email addresses of more than 380,000 users were obtained; and around 74Gb of files were copied.

And finally, an elderly man from Saskatoon, Canada, built a machine using sewer tubing that could knit a tube of wool at over 90 stitches per second after a dare from a friend. When Bob Rutherford’s wife died, he took to knitting every week (some wool was donated, his son fundraises for the rest); then he and three retired friends cut the tubes into short lengths and stitch one end to make socks. Bob is now 88 and the team have made 10,000 socks which they send to shelters across Canada.

Not The BBC News: 6 Jan 2017

One of Barack Obama’s final acts as president of the USA has been to depart from a tradition of pro-Israel foreign policy that he has followed for the past eight years. A motion was put to the United Nations Security Council to call for Israel to immediately halt settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem (which the resolution refers to as ‘occupied Palestinian territory’); the US representative failed to veto it as has been the practice in the past, abstaining instead. In response, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised the diplomatic stakes considerably by alleging that the Obama administration not only failed to veto the resolution but actually had a major role in drafting it; Netanyahu says he has concrete evidence of this but will wait until the new administration takes charge before presenting it. It has been suggested that the change of policy lies with US Secretary of State John Kerry who wants Israel and the Palestinians to adopt his proposed two-state solution; UK Prime Minister Theresa May has rebuked Kerry for calling the current Israeli government the “most Right-Wing in history”, calling his remarks “inappropriate”.

Meanwhile UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural agency, has adopted a resolution criticising Israel for attempting to restrict Muslim access to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The resolution referred to the Mount by its Muslim names of Al-Aqsa Mosque and Al-Haram Al-Sharif and defined it as a Muslim holy site of worship; it made no mention of its importance to other religions. Netanyahu has described the resolution as a “theatre of the absurd.”

A US Senate Judiciary Committee that was set up to investigate allegations that abortion provider Planned Parenthood sold body parts from foetuses has concluded its investigation and published its report.  It has referred the Planned Parenthood Federation and several associate companies to the Justice Department for possible criminal charges, because its investigation found that foetal body parts were being sold to associate companies who then re-sold them at a higher price; that Planned Parenthood had a policy to make sure such sales/transfers complied with the law, but when they discovered breaches of the policy in 2011 they cancelled the policy rather than trying to amend the breaches; and that the cost analyses for the various transactions were under-documented, too broad and too vague, and in many cases only produced long after the events when requested by the committee.

In the UK, abortion provider Marie Stopes has been condemned for numerous failings after inspections by watchdogs. Allegations include a risk of infection from terminated foetuses left in open bins; doctors signing abortion consent forms in bulk rather than investigating each patient’s circumstances; and one case where a woman with learning difficulties was being pressured into having an abortion to such an extent that inspectors intervened. There are also allegations of poor risk management and limited clinical oversight.

Meanwhile, the law that was passed by politicians in Ohio to prevent abortions once the baby’s heartbeat can be detected has been vetoed by Republican governor and failed presidential candidate John Kasich. Kasich argued that the law would only be vetoed by federal authorities anyway and it wasn’t worth wasting the State’s money on the legal process.

Back in the USA, President Obama has signed a law that extends protection against religious persecution to atheists. Despite this, a Christian watchdog that publishes an annual list of nations where Christians suffer the worst persecution has added the USA to the top 12 for the first time. The list categorises countries as the “worst of the worst” (North Korea, Nigeria, Iraq and Syria); “core countries of persecution” (India, China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt); and “new and noteworthy” nations – the USA, Mexico and Russia. On the inclusion of the USA, the group said, "Christians in the U.S. are facing constant attacks in the media, where they are portrayed as bigoted, racist, sexist, and close- minded," and "In essence, the courts are deciding that you only have full religious freedom and expression in the church and your home. In the public domain, your religious views and thoughts must be restrained and controlled."

A thousand year old Bible has been discovered in Turkey after smugglers tried to sell it to undercover police. The Bible has many pages missing but retains several religious motifs formed from gold leaf.

Helen Roseveare, who spent a large part of her life as a missionary in the Congo, has died at the age of 91. She established a 100-bed hospital in 1955 which was the only medical facility for 150 miles; was arrested by rebels, beaten and abused during the civil war of 1964; and returned to establish a larger hospital in 1966. She wrote several books, the most famous of which was “Give Me this Mountain,” and also spoke regularly on why God allows suffering and on the privilege of sharing in some of God’s sufferings.

The Catholic church in the USA is to hold a major summit on missionary strategy in July this year in response to the Pope’s exhortation for the faithful to share their faith in today’s world.  Six years in the planning, the gathering of 3-4000 invited attendees will be the first national gathering of Catholic leaders for 100 years.

A 17 year old boy from Fort Worth, Texas who had a heart attack during gym class a couple of weeks ago was legally dead for 20 minutes before paramedics detected a pulse. He woke up three days later with few apparent ill effects and said he met a man who he recognised as Jesus. He says that Jesus put his hand on his shoulder and told him everything would be alright and not to worry; he also said he heard angels singing in the background.

A mega-church in Georgia has been evicted from its premises by a Christian credit union over an unpaid debt of $22 million. The church which once boasted 10,000 members started to decline in membership a few years ago when its pastor divorced his wife while she was battling cancer then swiftly remarried and asked the church to accept his new wife as the ‘first lady’ of the church. The pastors’ first wife said she was ‘truly saddened and very heartbroken’ at the news of the foreclosure.

In science and technology news, an Irish surgeon has discovered a new organ in the human body. The mesentery, which connects the intestine to the abdomen, was depicted as a single organ in the days of Leonardo da Vinci but was classified as a disjointed group of separate parts in 1885. Calvin Coffey, a professor at the University of Limerick, has just proved that it is in fact a contiguous organ. "Whether the mesentery should be viewed as part of the intestinal, vascular, endocrine, cardiovascular or immunological systems is so far unclear," he said, "as it has important roles in all of them."

Also in technology news, a new kitchen gadget has been unveiled; a wifi-synced waste bin that scans products as they are discarded and adds them to your online grocery list. The Genican currently sells for about $125.

And finally, a Scottish man who borrowed a friend’s BMW to drive to a Stone Roses concert in Manchester in June 2016 parked the car in a multi-storey car park and forgot which one. He spent five days trying to find the car before giving up. Police responded to a report of an abandoned car last week and contacted the owner to say they had found it, six months later. “We can’t imagine what the ticket machine is going to say when they finally put the ticket in”, Manchester police tweeted.