Carpenters wow public with medieval techniques at Notre Dame
Paris, FranceAP With precision and boundless energy, a team of carpenters used medieval techniques to raise up – by hand – a three-ton oak truss Saturday in front of Notre Dame Cathedral, a replica of the wooden structures that were consumed in the landmark’s devastating April, 2019, fire that also toppled its spire. The demonstration […]
Surge in forest loss seen if Brazil Indigenous reserves opened to mining
Brasilia, BrazilThomson Reuters Foundation A Brazilian Government proposal to open Indigenous land in Brazil to mining concessions could lead to the loss of forests over an area larger than England, researchers said Friday. Such a loss would reduce by $US5 billion a year the global benefits the forest provides in terms of things such as […]
Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow and family hope ‘Bald Beagle’ will teach kids ‘God and country’ American history
RNS President Donald Trump believes American history is under attack. His lawyer – and his lawyer’s kids – want to do something about it. Enter Bald Beagle. The half American eagle, half beagle cartoon figure is the mascot for a new series of kids’ videos being planned by the American Center for Law and […]
Botswana opts to make land owners of wives with new law
Gaborone, BostwanaThomson Reuters Foundation A wife in Botswana can now own land alongside her husband, President Mokgweetsi Masisi said on Thursday in a boost for women that rights groups called long overdue. Prior to his amendment, the 2015 Land Policy stopped wives from owning land if their husbands already had some. A female member of […]
Black Jesus version of Michelangelo’s ‘Pietà’ divides Catholics on race and politics
Vatican CityRNS An interpretation of Michelangelo’s iconic ‘Pietà’ featuring a Black Jesus has unexpectedly caused a debate about Black Lives Matter, the sanctity of art and the evangelisation of Africa after the Pontifical Academy of Life, an official Vatican thinktank, tweeted out a photo of the reimagined statue on 12th September. The tweet, posted by […]
The Long Read: Battle from below – How South African miners are fighting climate change
KIM HARRISBERG, of Thomson Reuters Foundation, reports on how, in a country which is the world’s seventh largest coal producer, there’s a push among informal miners for cleaner energy…