Ethical wood label to revive checks after pandemic sparks forest fears
Kuala Lumpur, MalaysiaThomson Reuters Foundation The Forest Stewardship Council, which lends its ethical label to household products worldwide, said on Thursday it would ramp operations back up by September after the coronavirus pandemic sparked deforestation concerns among environmentalists. The FSC – the main global scheme for certifying sustainable wood-based products including toilet roll and books – put […]
Child rape charges refiled against Mexican megachurch leader
Los Angeles, USAP California on Wednesday charged the leader of a Mexican megachurch with child rape and human trafficking, months after a court dismissed the previous allegations because of prosecution errors. Naasón Joaquín García, the self-proclaimed apostle of La Luz del Mundo, was charged with three dozen felony counts. Also charged were Susana Medina Oaxaca […]
Snapshot: Camels in northern Ethiopia…
See TREVOR COLE’s image…
Soundbite – The TCM Update: Australian songwriters win BMI’s ‘Song off the Year’
Hillsong Worship singwriters Reuben Morgan and Ben Fielding won ‘Song of the Year’ for ‘Who You Say I Am’ at the BMI Awards. Listen to this week’s TCM Update…
Afghan women demand right to be named on children’s documents
London, UKThomson Reuters Foundation Afghan women could win the legal right to have their names on their children’s birth certificates and identity cards under a proposal to be presented to parliament, one of the country’s few female lawmakers has said. Naheed Farid, an independent lawmaker who chairs the parliamentary commission on women’s affairs, said she […]
Alabama Southern Baptist pastor resigns after speaking at party for a KKK leader
RNS A Southern Baptist bi-vocational pastor who gave an invocation at a celebration honouring the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, stepped down from his rural Alabama church earlier this week. Will Dismukes, who is also a Republican state representative for the city of Prattville, 22 kilometres north-west of Montgomery, boasted on a […]
Lower-caste Indian villagers given cremation ground after funeral stopped
Lucknow, IndiaThomson Reuters Foundation A low-caste Indian community prevented from holding a funeral by their upper-caste neighbours in a case that triggered widespread outrage have been given their own cremation ground, authorities said on Thursday. About 200 men intervened to stop the cremation last week, removing the body of a woman from a funeral pyre […]
Countering misinformation: In Haiti, community leaders go door to door to bust deadly coronavirus myths
ANASTASIA MOLONEY, of Thomson Reuters Foundation, reports on how community leaders are fighting misinformation about COVID-19 in Haiti’s slums…
Coronavirus risks making labour exploitation the “new normal”, UN warns
London, UKThomson Reuters Foundation Governments must act swiftly to ensure labour exploitation does not become the “new normal” as the coronavirus pandemic fuels abuses in sectors from tourism and agriculture to the sex trade, a United Nations expert warned on Thursday. UN special rapporteur Maria Grazia Giammarinaro said the abuse of vulnerable workers – such […]
Essay: Barack Obama’s address at John Lewis’ funeral
Former US President BARACK OBAMA gave an inspiring tribute to those present at the funeral service for John Lewis at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on Thursday. Here’s a transcript, via AP, of what he said…