Biden joins Pope, Grand Imam in calling for “human fraternity”
Rome, ItalyAP US President Joe Biden joined Pope Francis and a leading Sunni imam on Friday in calling for greater global cooperation to fight the coronavirus pandemic, climate change and other world crises on the second anniversary of a landmark Christian-Muslim peace initiative. The Vatican released a statement from Biden marking the International Day of […]
Beijing Winter Olympics opening ceremony ends with Uyghur skier lighting cauldron
Beijing, ChinaReuters The Beijing Winter Games opened on Friday night in a snow-and-ice themed ceremony at the Bird’s Nest stadium that concluded with the cauldron lit by two young Chinese Olympians, one of them a member of China’s Uyghur minority. During a performance that went longer than scheduled on a frigid night in the Chinese […]
UN has millions in Afghanistan bank, but cannot use it
United NationsReuters The United Nations has about $US135 million in the bank in Afghanistan but is unable to use it because the Taliban-run central bank cannot convert it to the afghani currency, a senior UN official said on Thursday. Abdallah al Dardari, head of the UN Development Programme in Afghanistan, said the United Nations had […]
Snapshot: Singapore at night
See MIKE ENERIO’s image…
EU lawmakers urge scrutiny of Egypt’s human rights record
Cairo, EgyptAP European parliamentarians urged their governments and the United Nations on Thursday to bring Egypt’s “devastating” human rights situation under more global scrutiny. The lawmakers issued a statement calling on the UN Human Rights Council to establish a monitoring and reporting mechanism on Egypt at its upcoming first and highest-level meeting of 2022, set […]
Former US NIH director Francis Collins on COVID-19 politics: “The culture war is literally killing people”
RNS Former National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins said he is “heartbroken” that more of his fellow white evangelicals have not received the COVID-19 vaccines. “I am just basically heartbroken in a circumstance where, as an answer to prayer, vaccines have been developed that turned out to be much better than we dared to […]
Italy court definitively annuls warrant for Vatican suspect
Rome, ItalyAP An Italian appeals court has definitively annulled the pre-trial arrest warrant for the prime suspect in the Vatican’s big fraud and embezzlement trial, signaling an end to extradition procedures in Britain for now, his legal team said Wednesday. The decision by Rome’s Tribunal of Review is a blow to Italian prosecutors but also […]
Nicaragua’s congress bans four universities and six aid groups
Managua, NicaraguaAP Nicaragua’s National Assembly, controlled by President Daniel Ortega, outlawed four private universities Wednesday, some linked to the Roman Catholic Church. The best known of the schools whose legal standing was canceled by the assembly is Polytechnical University of Nicaragua, which was a hotbed of antigovernment protests in 2018. Protesters yell from behind the […]
The Interview: Lisa Sharon Harper and her new book ‘Fortune’
KATHRYN POST, of Religion News Service, speaks with Lisa Sharon Harper about her new book, ‘Fortune’…
Luxembourg cardinal calls for revised Catholic teaching on gays; German archbishop backs loosening of celibacy rules
Vatican CityReuters A prominent liberal cardinal who leads a body representing European bishops has called for “fundamental revision” in Catholic teaching on homosexuality, and said it is wrong to fire Church workers for being gay. The remarks by Luxembourg Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich to the German Catholic news agency KNA were among the most direct calls […]