Kenyan court says police cannot deploy to Haiti mission
Nairobi, Kenya Reuters A Kenyan court on Friday rejected a plan to send police officers to Haiti to lead a UN-approved mission, throwing into doubt the future of an initiative aimed at tackling gang violence in the Caribbean nation. An opposition party in October challenged the government’s decision to send 1,000 officers to address a […]
In the US, the United Methodist Church has lost a quarter of its churches – most in the South
United States RNS Americans looking to understand the ways political polarization has defined US voting patterns need look no further than the divisions in the United Methodist Church. Five years after allowing churches to leave with their properties if they disagreed with the direction the denomination was heading on human sexuality, the results of the […]
Pope says LGBT blessings are for individuals, not approval of unions
Vatican City Reuters Pope Francis on Friday defended a Vatican document on blessings for same-sex couples but said they were not an approval of a lifestyle the church sees as potentially sinful but of individuals seeking to get closer to God. It was the second time in as many weeks that Francis sought to clarify […]
Donald Trump ordered to pay E Jean Carroll $US83.3 million, will appeal verdict
New York, US Reuters Donald Trump was handed a stinging defeat on Friday by a Manhattan jury that ordered him to pay $US83.3 million to the writer E Jean Carroll, who said he destroyed her reputation as a trustworthy journalist by denying he raped her. Jurors needed less than three hours to reach a verdict […]
Ancestral lands: Displaced Ecuador Indigenous group to go home after eight decades
Ecuador’s evicted Indigenous Siekopai community are set to return to their Amazon rainforest home, vowing to keep oil drilling at bay. ANASTASIA MOLONEY, of Thomson Reuters Foundation, reports…
Russia’s Putin says Ukraine shot down plane, deliberately or in error
Moscow, Russia Reuters Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that a Russian military plane that crashed near the border with Ukraine was shot down by Ukrainian air defences, whether on purpose or by mistake. Moscow accuses Kyiv of downing the Ilyushin Il-76 plane in Russia’s Belgorod region on Wednesday and killing 74 people on […]
Brazil Indigenous group’s crisis persists after 308 deaths in 2023, report says
Brasilia, Brazil Reuters The Brazilian Government’s effort to evict illegal gold miners from the Yanomami Indigenous reservation in the northern Amazon has stalled with outsiders increasingly invading the vast territory, Yanomami leaders said on Friday. The Hutukara Yanomami Association released a report on the year since President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva declared a humanitarian […]
Canadian cardinal temporarily steps down after lawsuit alleging abuse
Ottawa, Canada Reuters Cardinal Gerald Lacroix, one of the top Roman Catholic clergymen in Canada, on Friday stepped down temporarily after he was named in a class-action lawsuit against the church that alleged sexual assault. Local media said Lacroix’s name had been added to a list of alleged perpetrators filed in a Quebec court on […]
Key takeaways from the World Court decision in Israeli genocide case
The Hague, The Netherlands Reuters The International Court of Justice ordered Israel on Friday to take action to prevent acts of genocide as it wages war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip but stopped short of calling for an immediate ceasefire. The top United Nations court for handling disputes between states was ruling in […]
World Court says Israel must prevent genocide in Gaza, stops short of ceasefire order
The Hague, The Netherlands/Gaza Reuters The World Court ordered Israel on Friday to prevent acts of genocide against the Palestinians and do more to help civilians, although it stopped short of ordering a ceasefire as requested by the plaintiff South Africa. While the ruling denied Palestinian hopes of a binding order to halt the war […]