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- SHANNON LARSON
London
Thomson Reuters Foundation
Air pollution has long been an environmental and health problem - but now it should now be viewed as a human rights issue as well, according to the UN special rapporteur on human rights and the environment.
Air pollution is leading to seven million
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- LIN TAYLOR
Britain launched a global "period poverty" fund and taskforce on Monday to help all women and girls access sanitary products by 2050 and to tackle the stigma around menstruation.
It is estimated that half of all women and girls in poor countries are forced to
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- A CORRESPONDENT
New Delhi, India
Morning Star News
Cases of hate and violence against Christians in India increased 57 per cent the first two months of this year compared with the same period last year, an advocacy group reported.
The Evangelical Fellowship of India’s Religious Liberty Commission documented 77 incidents
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- INNA LAZAREVA
Yaounde, Democratic Republic of Congo
Thomson Reuters Foundation
Aid workers at the epicentre of the worst Ebola epidemic in the history of the Democratic Republic of Congo say they are facing a spike in attacks and threats, slowing their work and potentially triggering a surge of new cases.
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- PHILIP PULLELLA
Vatican City
Reuters
Saying the "church is not afraid of history", Pope Francis announced on Monday he plans to open fully the Vatican's secret archives on the wartime pontificate of Pope Pius XII, a historic move that Jews have sought for decades.
Many Jews say Pius, who reigned from 1939 to 1958,
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- David Adams
A Holy Communion service was conducted in Farsi for the first time in a Church of England cathedral last weekend.
Wakefield Cathedral in Yorkshire hosted hundreds of Iranians at the service on Saturday which was presided over by Guli Francis-Dehqani, the Bishop of Loughborough.
The bishop was just a teenager
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- NAIMUL KARIM
More than 100 Bangladeshi female workers abused or exploited in Saudi Arabia returned home last week, according to human rights activists, fuelling calls to stop sending Bangladeshi women to the Middle East to work as housemaids.
Bangladeshi non-government organisation BRAC said an increasing number of
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- SONIA ELKS
Women on average have only three-quarters of the legal protections given to men during their working life, ranging from bans on entering some jobs to a lack of equal pay or freedom from sexual harassment, the World Bank said last week.
Researchers examined whether adult
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- ADELLE M BANKS
Washington, DC
RNS
With boy choristers singing their version of Everything Is Awesome , the Washington National Cathedral unveiled the foundation of a Lego replica of the cathedral that will be built as a fundraiser over the next several years.
The “Let There Be Lego!” initiative was inspired by
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- EMILY MCFARLAN MILLER
Chicago, Illinois
RNS
The allegations of “sexually inappropriate words and actions” by Bill Hybels, the founder of Willow Creek Community Church, are credible, according to an independent group of Christian leaders advising the church.
Hybels’ alleged behavior, directed mostly at women connected to the Chicago-area megachurch, took place
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- A CORRESPONDENT
Christians in a town in southern Ethiopia were stunned when local Muslims attacked 10 church buildings on Feb. 9, destroying one and burning the property inside all the structures, according to aid agencies.
Chanting the jihadist slogan, “Allahu akbar [God is greater],” Muslims in Halaba Kulito targeted
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- ROSIE DAWSON
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- ANURADHA NAGARAJ
A memorial dedicated to victims of witch hunts has been unveiled in India's eastern state of Odisha as part of a campaign to stamp out the branding and persecution of women as "witches", which is still widespread among poor and tribal communities.
Commissioned by the
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- LARA SILVA
One of the worst droughts in Pakistan's history has triggered "alarmingly high" levels of malnutrition and disease in the hardest hit areas where people have been forced to drink salty or contaminated water, the Red Cross said on Friday.
Women, especially those pregnant or breastfeeding,
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- A CORRESPONDENT
Cuba’s vote for a new Constitution was characterised by an unusual level of opposition as well as an unprecedented unity among churches.
Nearly 87 per cent of the voters approved a new constitution in a referendum held last Sunday (24th February), while about 15 per cent stayed
