COVID-19 controls turn Asia into global surveillance hotspot, analysts say
Kuala Lumpur, MalaysiaThomson Reuters Foundation Asia has become the world’s surveillance hotspot and is at risk of serious privacy breaches as measures rolled out to contain the spread of COVID-19 become permanent in many countries, researchers warned on Thursday. The Right to Privacy Index published by British-based risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft, rated 198 countries for […]
Pompeo, Vatican talk China after tensions spill out publicly
Rome, ItalyAP The US and the Vatican butted heads over China on Thursday as the Holy See chafed at US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s public call to take a harsher stance against Chinese restrictions on religious freedom. The State Department sought to play down the differences, but tensions were palpable during Pompeo’s two-day visit […]
In COVID-19 trimmed Meskel festival, Ethiopian Orthodox Church Patriarch urges peace
In Meskel celebrations held under World Health Organization COVID-19 safety protocols, Abune Mathias, Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, called for dialogue, peace and reconciliation in the country, where ethnic tensions recently flared up. At the Meskel Square – a ground in the capital, Addis Ababa named after the festival and where the celebrations are traditionally […]
Origins: Why do brides wear white?
MARLISE SCHOENY, assistant curator for the Ohio State Historic Costume & Textiles Collection, looks – in an artcile first published on The Conversation – at the origins of the white wedding gown…
CeCe Winans “absolutely not” paid for COVID-19 PSA requested by Trump administration
RNS Gospel singing star CeCe Winans said the planned public service announcement in which she discussed the coronavirus pandemic with the US surgeon general was “not political” and did not mention President Donald Trump. The singer, who co-pastors a Nashville, Tennessee, church with her husband, told Rev AR Bernard in an Instagram Live interview on […]
Congo ‘jobs-for-sex’ expose prompts calls for greater scrutiny of aid workers
Dakar, SenegalThomson Reuters Foundation Vetting aid workers more closely and giving women more power is critical to tackle sex abuse in humanitarian crises as exposed in a joint investigation by the Thomson Reuters Foundation and The New Humanitarian, aid experts said on Wednesday. In the expose, 51 women recounted multiple incidents of abuse by mainly […]
Britons would pay more tax for a fairer society as COVID-19 exposes inequality
London, UKThomson Reuters Foundation Britons would be happy to pay higher taxes for a fairer, more caring and gender-equal society as the coronavirus pandemic transforms people’s views about the world they want to live in, economists said on Wednesday. In a major report to be presented to parliamentarians, regional governments and business leaders, they laid […]
UN chief: time for national plans to help fund global COVID-19 vaccine effort
New York, US/Geneva, SwitzerlandReuters UN chief Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday it is time for countries to start using money from their national COVID-19 response to help fund a global vaccine plan as the World Bank warned that “broad, rapid and affordable access” to those doses will be at the core of a resilient global […]
The Interview: UK Christian apologist Amy Orr-Ewing on suffering
Best-selling UK-based Christian author, speaker and lecturer Dr Amy Orr-Ewing speaks with DAVID ADAMS about her new book, ‘Where is God in all the Suffering?’…
Complaints on Trump’s debate performance highlight generational divide among white evangelicals
RNS Kyle Meyaard-Schaap didn’t even make it to the climate change section of the first presidential debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. Despite running Young Evangelicals for Climate Action, an environmental advocacy group, Meyaard-Schaap only managed to watch about 30 minutes before he picked up his remote and turned off […]