- Details
- IAN RANSOM
Melbourne, Australia
Reuters
The trial of Israel Folau is threatening to drive a wedge through the Australia rugby squad in a World Cup year, with prop Taniela Tupou saying all Pacific Islanders "might as well" be sacked for their Christian beliefs.
Folau, a Fundamentalist Christian, faces a code
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- TRACY SIMMONS
A new state law makes it easier for college students to take time off for religious holidays.
Governor Jay Inslee signed Senate Bill 5166 into law on Monday, making Washington the first state requiring that institutions of higher education provide academic accommodations to students who need them
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- SONIA ELKS
London
Thomson Reuters Foundation
Everest climbers could face a starkly different landscape stripped of the dramatic Khumbu Icefall within decades as global warming melts icy landmarks, scientists said on Tuesday.
Glaciers are set to vanish from almost half of UN-designated World Heritage sites in less than a century
- Details
- SONIA ELKS
London
Thomson Reuters Foundation
Japan's emperor this week passes the Chrysanthemum Throne to his son Crown Prince Naruhito after his abdication on Tuesday.
The monarch's decision to stand down has sparked discussion over whether the country's male-only succession rules should be changed to allow women to inherit the
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- YONAT SHIMRON
Violent attacks against US Jews doubled in 2018, according to the Anti-Defamation League’s yearly audit of anti-Semitic incidents.
Yet the report, published days after a synagogue shooting in Poway, California, that killed one woman and injured three other people, shows that despite the grim spike
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- ROLI SRIVASTAVA
Mumbai, India
Thomson Reuters Foundation
An Indian woman who spent three years working 16 hour days cleaning toilets without pay has won the country's highest possible compensation under a scheme introduced in 2016 to help modern slavery victims rebuild their lives.
Rehana Begum had spent two years battling
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- TONNY ONYULO
Kampala, Uganda
RNS
Pentecostal pastor Amos Mugabi used fighting words recently when talking to hundreds of congregants about a proposed government policy he believes is threatening thousands of churches’ existence.
“Satan is fighting the church,” prayed Mugabi. “The government wants to stop the church from spreading the good
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- KIYOSHI TAKENAKA
Tokyo
Reuters
Emperor Akihito's abdication on Tuesday, one of several ceremonies marking the transition to his heir Crown Prince Naruhito, will be a brief, relatively simple and rare event.
The last abdication by a Japanese monarch was in 1817.
Naruhito will become emperor on Wednesday, but his formal
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- NELLIE PEYTON
Dakar, Senegal
Thomson Reuters Foundation
Palm oil plantations in Liberia are billed as bringing jobs and development but actually leave locals poorer, said a Liberian lawyer who won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize on Monday.
The US-based Goldman Environmental Foundation gives the prize - often known
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- NITA BHALLA
Nairobi, Kenya
Thomson Reuters Foundation
Rescuers in northern Mozambique struggled on Monday to reach people stranded by flooding after a second cyclone in just over a month pounded the impoverished southern African nation, leaving a trail of death and destruction in its wake.
It is the first time
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- ADELLE M BANKS
Washington, DC
RNS
With its particular focus on China’s oppression of religious and human rights, an independent watchdog group has decried in its annual report the state of religious freedom across the globe.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom, a bipartisan organisation created 20 years ago, concludes
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- NAIMUL KARIM
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Thomson Reuters Foundation
Bangladesh has launched an online job portal to help reduce high fees incurred by thousands of workers seeking employment abroad and curb exploitative tactics used by unscrupulous brokers.
The government-run website was established by the United Nations International Organization for Migration
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- David Adams
At least six people have been killed in an attack on a church in northern Burkina Faso, close to the country's border with Mali.
Gunmen, who arrived on motorbikes, opened fire as people were leaving the Protestant church following the end of the Sunday service in the village of Silgadji,
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- SHRI NAVARATNAM and RANGA SIRILAL
Updated 10:15pm
Colombo, Sri Lanka
Reuters
Sri Lankan security officials have warned that Islamist militants behind Easter Sunday's suicide bombings are planning attacks and could be dressed in uniform, as the Archbishop of Colombo complained about insufficient security around churches.
The militants were targeting five locations for attacks
- Details
- ELLEN WULFHORST
New York City
Thomson Reuters Foundation
Attempts to end violence against women and girls in the European Union are being stymied by a mix of right-wing politics and social media that inflames sexism and stereotypes, a top women's rights official said last week.
Scant progress has been made
