Updated: Over 300 killed in magnitude 7.2 quake in Haiti
Last updated: 8.45am (AEST)Port-au-Prince, HavanaReuters At least 304 people died and hundreds were injured or missing after a major earthquake struck southwestern Haiti on Saturday, authorities said, reducing churches, hotels and homes to rubble in the latest tragedy to hit the impoverished Caribbean nation. The 7.2-magnitude quake, which was followed by a series of aftershocks, struck […]
US Christian school drops ‘Freedom Matters’ event with COVID-denier Greg Locke
RNS A Tennessee Baptist school has canceled a contract to host an anti-masking, anti-critical race theory event featuring controversial pastor Greg Locke. Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, was scheduled to host the final event on the “Freedom Matters” tour, which features Locke, anti-critical race theory activist and hoaxer James Lindsay, conservative radio talk show host Alan […]
California Catholic bishop tells priests to decline vaccine exemption requests
RNS San Diego Roman Catholic Bishop Robert McElroy has sent a letter instructing priests in his diocese that there is no basis in Catholic teaching to offer a religious exemption for COVID-19 vaccinations as more employers and schools enact vaccine mandates. In his 11th August letter, McElroy reiterated the Catholic Church’s support for COVID-19 vaccinations and […]
Fear and hope on Libya’s reopened highway
Sirte, LibyaReuters The green bus rumbling from Benghazi to Tripoli this week was the first to traverse the main highway between Libya’s two biggest cities in years – the delayed result of a peace push that is running into trouble. The coastal highway was reopened last week after months of negotiation as part of a […]
Mexican President asks Indigenous for forgiveness over Spanish conquest
Mexico City, MexicoReuters Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Friday asked the country’s Indigenous Mexica peoples for forgiveness for the abuses inflicted on them during the bloody 1521 Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire. Lopez Obrador spoke in front of a large replica temple built to commemorate 500 years since the fall of the […]
“The Taliban are here!”: Afghan women fear return to “dark days” amid Taliban sweep
ZEINA KARAM and AHMAD SEIR, of Associated Press, report on the situation facing women in Afghanistan as the Taliban advance…
In Uganda, clergy sue government for imposing recurrent lockdown on places of worship
Kampala, Uganda Two groups of religious leaders in Uganda have petitioned the courts of law challenging a government’s decision to impose a recurrent lockdown on places of worship. One group, led by Pastor Peter Wisdom Katumba of Charis Fellowship Limited and Imam Muhammad Bbale of Taqwa Mosque, petitioned the nation’s High Court on 3rd August, […]
Taliban seize more Afghan cities, assault on capital Kabul expected
Kabul, AfghanistanReuters Taliban insurgents have seized Afghanistan’s second- and third-biggest cities, local officials said on Friday, as resistance from government forces crumbled and fears grew that an assault on the capital Kabul could be just days away. A government official confirmed that Kandahar, the economic hub of the south, was under Taliban control as US-led […]