US ramps up anti-coronavirus measures at border as impact spreads
Shanghai/Beijing. ChinaReuters The United States ramped up its response to the coronavirus epidemic on Friday, declaring a public health emergency and saying it would halt entry to foreign nationals who had been to China within the 14-day incubation period. That measure followed on from an earlier travel advisory that warned Americans not to travel to […]
UK flag lowered in Brussels as Britain cuts loose from EU
LondonReuters The United Kingdom leaves the European Union on Friday with a mixture of joy, anger and indifference, casting off into the unknown in one of the biggest blows yet to Europe’s attempt to forge unity from the ruins of World War II. The EU’s most powerful leaders, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President […]
THE BIG PICTURE: ‘DEAR GOD, PLEASE BRING UNEXPECTED GOOD’
See OUTREACH MEDIA’s January 2020 poster…
US church Willow Creek announces senior pastor candidates, interim pastor out
Chicago, USRNS The search for a new leader at Willow Creek Community Church is back to the drawing board. Elders at the suburban Chicago megachurch announced Thursday that they have released the two finalists they were considering for the role of senior pastor from the search process. The elders also announced that acting senior pastor Steve Gillen […]
In the US, Journalist Gwen Ifill remembered with stamp at her Washington church
Washington DC, USRNS In the historic black church where she worshipped, the late journalist Gwen Ifill was remembered with a new Black Heritage stamp in a ceremony featuring dignitaries of the church, politics and journalism. Speakers at the event Thursday at Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church took turns describing Ifill’s courage in defying expectations and […]
Elderly black women in South Africa win property rights in landmark ruling
Johannesburg, South AfricaThomson Reuters Foundation Facing destitution when her marriage broke down, 72-year-old Agnes Sithole went to court to challenge a sexist law – and won not only a share of her husband’s property but a legal victory that will protect some 400,000 other black South African women. Under South African law, married couples own […]
40 Pakistani Christians freed after almost five years in prison on trial for ‘terrorism’
World Watch Monitor Forty Pakistani Christians, who’ve been on trial for the murder of two men during a violent protest following 2015 Easter suicide attacks on two churches in Youhanabad – a majority-Christian area in Lahore, have been freed by the Lahore Anti-Terrorism Court. Two others, arrested with them, have already died, allegedly due to a lack […]
BOLIVIA: RELIGION PART OF POLITICAL THEATRE AMID CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT BUT NO THEOCRACY IN SIGHT
EDUARDO CAMPOS LIMA reports on the role religion has played in the recent political upheaval in the South American nation…
Explainer: Rapid spread of China coronavirus fuels global alarm
Reuters International alarm over the coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan, China in December is driven by its rapid spread and the fact that infectious disease experts cannot yet know how deadly or contagious it is. Within weeks, the virus has infected nearly 8,000 people in China and, according to latest figures, killed 212. Close to […]
ESSAY: DESPITE DEFEATS, THE ISLAMIC STATE REMAINS UNBROKEN AND DEFIANT AROUND THE WORLD
In an article first published on The Conversation, BRIAN GLYN WILLIAMS, professor of Islamic history at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, looks at where the so-called Islamic State are still operating…