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.
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