Victims and villains: anti-trafficking movement urged to tackle racial bias
Mexico City, MexicoThomson Reuters Foundation Global protests about racism and police brutality should act as a wake-up call to the anti-human trafficking movement over the approach of law enforcement, treatment of Black victims and a lack of racial diversity, academics and activists said. The legacy of ‘white slave traffic’ – a century-old Western narrative portraying […]
The TCM Update – Rebecca St James re-emerges with new music
Rebecca St James. Listen to this week’s TCM Update…
California city bans predictive policing in US first
New York City, USThomson Reuters Foundation As officials mull steps to tackle police brutality and racism, California’s Santa Cruz has become the first US city to ban predictive policing, which digital rights experts said could spark similar moves across the country. “Understanding how predictive policing and facial recognition can be disportionately biased against people of […]
Lobbying grows against Mississippi’s rebel-themed flag
Jackson, Mississippi, USAP University coaches and Christian ministers filled the Mississippi Capitol on Thursday, urging legislators to seize the moment and remove the Confederate battle emblem from the state flag while Americans are reckoning with difficult discussions about race and history. “It doesn’t take courage. It takes conscience,” said Rev Reginald M Buckley, senior pastor […]
US Catholic bishops: clergy sex abuse claims tripled in 2019
New York City, USAP US Roman Catholic bishops said Thursday that the church tallied 4,434 sex abuse allegations against clergy in the 2018-19 audit year, triple the number seen the previous year, with much of the increase stemming from a wave of lawsuits and claims by survivors of decades-old molestation. In the latest annual report […]
Depicting Christ: How Jesus became white – and why there are calls to ‘cancel’ that
EMILY MCFARLAN MILLER, of Religion News Service, looks at the history of depicting Jesus as a white man – including Warner E Sallman’s famous image ‘Head of Christ’ – and reports on calls to move away from such images…
“Alarming” rise in child marriage expected in Syria thanks to coronavirus pandemic, predicts World Vision report
The coronavirus pandemic is expected to result in a significant rise in child marriage in Syria, compounding a problem already at “alarming” levels thanks to the nation’s ongoing conflict along with displacement, poverty and social and cultural pressures, according to World Vision Australia. A survey conducting with some 626 adolescent girls and boys, families, caregivers […]
Essay: Days with both extreme heat and extreme air pollution are becoming more common – which can’t be a good thing for global health
In an article first published on The Conversation, YANGYANG XU and XIAOHUI XU, of Texas A&M University, say the frequency of days of extreme heat and pollution – and the number of people affected by them – could “massively increase” in the next 30 years…
Postcards: In Brazil, descendants of slaves count their dead
FABIO TEIXEIRA, of Thomson Reuters Foundation, reports on the plight of the 16 million people who live in Brazil’s quilombolas…
Canada confronts racism in police in wake of Indigenous deaths
Toronto, CanadaThomson Reuters Foundation As Americans protest the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other black people at the hands of police, Canadians are facing a reckoning of their own. Since April, six Indigenous people have been fatally shot by police, including a woman killed during a “wellness check,” and a video went viral […]