Ireland Votes Down Abortion Law by Wide Margin

It will be interesting to see some post-referendum analysis as to whether or not there was outside interference in the process. Ireland took great pains to avoid that but I wonder how successful they were. 

Meanwhile, a new abortion law will be written this year which, hopefully, will be a little more sensible than the old. I don't like abortion; I see it often as a slap in the face of God, especially when women use it rather than contraceptives. Nevertheless, the old law was often inhuman in its application and probably deserved to go. Unfortunately, the pendulum will almost certainly swing back too far, and backlash against the Catholic Church may be to blame.

Members of a women's choir 'Voices for Choice' sing after a referndum on abortion, in Dublin, Ireland, 26 May 2018. Ireland has voted overwhelmingly to legalize abortion in a historic referendum on 25 May 2018. EPA-EFE/Aidan Crawley

By Sam Howard 

UPI -- An initiative to repeal Ireland's abortion law was overwhelmingly successful, results released Saturday indicate.

Once votes from all 40 constituencies were counted, the final total indicated 66.4 percent of voters cast ballots to repeal the country's eighth amendment to its constitution in Friday's referendum, Irish broadcaster RTE reported.

The final results confirmed what many suspected the result would be. The Irish Times newspaper predicted 68 percent of voters cast ballots to change the law in an exit poll published earlier.

The country has had one of Europe's most restrictive abortion laws, which is enshrined in its constitution. Under the law, fetuses in early pregnancy are guaranteed citizenship status and women who have an illegal abortion could face up to 14 years in prison.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee has criticized the law.

The referendum could pave the law for legislation to allow for abortions as late as 12 weeks into pregnancy, or later in cases threatening a woman's health or in the event of fatal fetal abnormality.

"Remarkable day," Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar wrote Saturday on Twitter. "A quiet revolution has taken place, a great act of democracy."

Varadkar said he'd like to pass legislation for a new abortion law by the end of the year, according to The Guardian.

India’s Growing Anti-Conversion Laws: Perspectives from an Indian Christian

War on Christianity in India

By Lyndsey Koh

India (MNN) — It has been just over a month since Uttarakhand became the seventh state in India to pass an anti-conversion bill. The growing popularity of anti-conversion laws and charges in India don’t bode well for impoverished communities and religious minorities.

Abhijit Nayak, a ministry partner with Voice of the Martyrs Canada, shares, “This is basically another political and pro-Hindu fundamentalist technique to restrict Christian ministries or churches not to have access to people who would like to change their religion.

“For example, if I am a seeker or if I am seeking to change my religion from Hindu to Christianity and I am a poor person…I don’t want to go to a court of law and file an affidavit to change my religion because I don’t have money or I don’t know the legal processes to go to the magistrate or go to a court of law to change my religion.”

Nayak says sometimes an evangelist or pastor is willing to help those who would like to become Christians with the legal process, “But they are also afraid that they will be targeted once they go to court of law with [the new Christian] and they will be blamed for forcing [them] or luring [them] to become a Christian. So this has a very negative impact on Christian missions and Christian ministries.”

According to Nayak, the difficulty doesn’t lie in Indian Christians sharing their faith with others. Opposition starts to crop up when someone who is not a Christian decides to change their religion to Christianity.

(Photo courtesy of Voice of the Martyrs Canada)

“Let’s say I want to share my faith with my Hindu neighbor next door, it’s not a problem. Sharing is not a problem. But…it comes to my Hindu neighbor when he or she decides to become a Christian, go to a church, and take baptism.”

Because of this, Christian ministries often must have access to a lawyer or have solid legal knowledge to assist new Christians with the affidavit submissions for a formal religion change.

“That becomes very difficult for the Christian ministries because sometimes Christian ministries are not willing to be in the public domain. They don’t want people to identify them being engaged in these kinds of activities. That is number one,” explains Nayak.

“And number two, the Christian ministry may face opposition in the village. If one family is coming to a Christian faith and there are 50 more families,…they may accuse the Christian mission [of] converting and creating disturbances in the community.”

Last year, Compassion International, a very large charity working in India for nearly 50 years, was forced to completely close its operations because their funding was primarily coming from outside the country. CI said 150,000 children will be worse of because they have to withdraw.

A possible contributing factor, Abhijit once told me, is that Compassion was run by non-Indians.

The changing culture in India can paint a grim picture for Christian ministry, but Nayak says it is evident that God is still moving amidst the difficulty.

“I am from Orissa (Odisha), and Orissa state was the first state in India to pass the anti-conversion law in the 1970s. So this has a huge impact but in Orissa, Christianity is growing. So in spite of the anti-conversion bill and political problems, God is at work…mainly through grassroots church planters, evangelists, and frontline Christian workers.”

Your prayers today are helping fuel missions in India through our Christian brothers and sisters there.

“We need a lot of prayers for the strength and for the knowledge and wisdom for the grassroots churches and frontline mission workers who are in the front, preaching, teaching, doing evangelism, and church planting.”

Voice of the Martyrs Canada supports Christian ministry partners like Nayak in India spreading the Good News of Jesus. Click here to learn more about Voice of the Martyrs Canada’s ministry and how you can come alongside them!

Abhijit Nayak is VP of STEP Ministries in Orissa (Odisha) which teaches single women how to sew and run a business. They also are running a school for children who can't afford to attend normal schools. Abhijit and his family are both close friends and neighbours.

British Press NOT to Reveal When Terrorists are Muslims

European human rights chiefs order the British press NOT to reveal when terrorists are Muslims in crackdown on freedom of speech 

By Matt Dathan, Political Correspondent For Mailonline

European human rights chiefs have told the British press it must not report when terrorists are Muslim. 

The recommendations came as part of a list of 23 meddling demands to Theresa May’s government on how to run the media in an alarming  threat to freedom speech. 

The report, drawn up by the Council of Europe's human rights watchdog, blamed the recent increase in hate crimes and racism in the UK on the 'worrying examples of intolerance and hate speech in the newspapers, online and even among politicians', although the research was done before the EU referendum campaign had even begun.

The suggestions sent to Downing Street urging the UK Government to reform criminal law and freedom of the press and in a brutal criticism of the British press, the report recommends ministers 'give more rigorous training' to journalists.

But UK ministers firmly rebutted the remarkable demands, telling the body: 'The Government is committed to a free and open press and does not interfere with what the press does and does not publish, as long as the press abides by the law.'

The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), chaired by Christian Ahlund (file picture) said discussions over immigration had caused increasing 'xenophobia'.

The report, from the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) body, said there had been an increase in hate speech and racist violence in Britain between March 2009 and March 2016.

In an audacious move, the report recommends the British media be barred from reporting the Muslim background of terrorists. 

And it comes after multiple terror atrocities by Muslim extremists across Paris, Brussels, Munich and other German cities over the last year. 

Over the same period, there have been no major terror attacks in Britain. Which couldn't have been said yesterday, the anniversary of the Islamic suicide bomber at the Ariana Grande concert.

The 83-page report states: 'ECRI considers that, in light of the fact that Muslims are increasingly under the spotlight as a result of recent ISIS-related terrorist acts around the world, fuelling prejudice against Muslims shows a reckless disregard, not only for the dignity of the great majority of Muslims in the United Kingdom, but also for their safety.

'In this context, it draws attention to a recent study by Teeside University suggesting that where the media stress the Muslim background of perpetrators of terrorist acts, and devote significant coverage to it, the violent backlash against Muslims is likely to be greater than in cases where the perpetrators' motivation is downplayed or rejected in favour of alternative explanations.'

Alternative explanations - where have I heard that before? More often than not there is no honest 'alternative explanation', which means the press has to resort to dishonest 'alternative explanations', or just not bother explaining motivation at all. In fact, most media are already too soft on Muslim terrorists and child abusers. When was the last time you saw the Quran quoted as justifying the rape of a child, the beating of a wife, the murder of infidels? You've never seen it in Main Stream Media, ever.

The ECRI regularly assesses incidents of racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and intolerance across the EU's 28 member states.

It bases its analysis on 'a great deal of information gathered from a wide variety of sources'.

ECRI Chair Christian Ahlund, said: 'It is no coincidence that racist violence is on the rise in the UK at the same time as we see worrying examples of intolerance and hate speech in the newspapers, online and even among politicians.'

The report also claimed that June's Brexit vote 'seems to have led to a further rise in 'anti-foreigner' sentiment, making it even more important that the British authorities take the steps outlined in our report as a matter of priority.' 

So, the ECRI wants the British press to pretend that the thousands of little girls being groomed, raped and gang-raped by 99% Muslim men, has nothing to do with Islam. It wants Brits to be nice to child rapists, to those who practice Female Genital Mutilation, to those who sell their young daughters to much older men as brides, to those who run down or blow-up innocent people. Yes, be nice and invite more Muslims to come into Britain to molest our children and kill us. What madness!

Elon Musk's ‘Pravda’ to Rate Credibility of Journalists & Publications

I have been waiting a long time for the brilliant inventor/entrepreneur to do something that might actually benefit society in a way other than involving transportation. He has the ability to put this program together in a way that is more than just theatre or a stage for fools. At least, I hope he has that ability, and I wonder what algorithms will be employed for social and political honesty.  

Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk appears to have declared war on the media, tweeting that he was launching a site that would let the public rate the credibility of journalists, editors and publications - which he will call “Pravda.”

Annoyed by the recent media coverage of him and his companies, Musk fired off a series of tweets on Wednesday, culminating with the proposal for the new site. The public would be able to rate the “core truth of any article” and track the “credibility score over time” for each reporter, editor and publication, he said.

Pravda, the word for “truth” in most Slavic languages, was also the name of the official newspaper of the Russian (later Soviet) Communist Party for much of the 20th century.

In a follow-up tweet, Musk explained the reasoning behind creating such a site. Even if the public doesn’t care, he said, “the journalists, editors & publications will. It is how they define themselves.”

I have to take issue with that statement. In the last couple years it seems most MSM journalists define themselves by their partiality to specific issues. They are governed by their feelings rather than common sense and logic. They constantly take sides on issues with no attempt to see the other side. They fail miserably to tell the honest and whole truth.

To the warnings that bots and trolls could game the system, and that the public doesn’t care about the truth, the Tesla and SpaceX mogul replied, “I have faith in the people.” But not journalists!

He also had a testy exchange with a reporter from the Verge, who accused him of acting like US President Donald Trump.

“Anytime anyone criticizes the media, the media shrieks ‘You’re just like Trump!’” Musk replied. “Why do you think he got elected in the first place? Because no ones believes you any more.”

The tech mogul is hardly the first to propose fact-checking and rating journalists for credibility. A cottage industry of “fact-checkers” has mushroomed following the 2016 US presidential election. Social network giant Facebook recently announced it would rank news sites based on “community trust” and partnered up with a controversial think-tank to “protect elections” from misinformation.

Last year, an attempt by Hillary Clinton supporters to create a fact-checking media platform was met with ridicule. That project, called Verrit, has only consisted of a logo on the homepage since February.

The replies to Musk’s proposals have ranged from calling him a “Typical white rich a**hole” and accusing him of “swerving into Kanye territory” to asking if he’s taking applications and suggestions that he just buy out Twitter or PornHub (“Trust me. Everyone already goes there.”)

In case you haven't noticed, this article was taken from RT. I suspect everyone in Russia goes to PornHub, at least that's what RT would have you believe, but there are many people who actually rise above the lowest levels of man's humanity; you just might have a hard time finding one in post-Communist Russia, at least, according to RT.

A poll that Musk posted on Twitter suggests a lot of the users on the platform agree with him. So far, 87 percent of nearly 200,000 voters favor the new project, with only 13 percent choosing “No, media are awesome” as their preferred option.

The 13% were probably all journalists.

Musk’s mounting frustration with the media comes amid recent bad press Tesla’s Model 3 sedan has received over braking problems. Bloomberg reported in April that Tesla was losing $6,500 a minute and it could fail before the end of the year. There has even been a proposal to oust him as chairman of Tesla’s board.

Critics have long accused the South African-born billionaire of scoring generous government subsidies for projects such as electric cars, solar roofs or high-speed mass transit. While Tesla, SolarCity and Hyperloop haven’t quite lived up to hype, Musk’s SpaceX has been very successful at launching payloads into orbit and reusing the launchers.

It appears Musk already incorporated Pravda Corp. in California last October, according to documents dug up by one reporter.

Musk has a history of picking symbolic or funny names for his endeavors. Tesla is named after a Serbian-American inventor of alternate current (AC), while the enterprise drilling tunnels for Hyperloop is called The Boring Company.

Yulia Skripal Speaks to Media - Looking Forward to Going Home to Russia

Yulia Skripal, in first comments to media, shocked by poisoning but grateful to be alive

Guy Faulconbridge · Thomson Reuters

Yulia Skripal, who was poisoned in Salisbury along with her father, Russian spy Sergei Skripal, spoke to Reuters on Wednesday in London about her ordeal. (Dylan Martinez/Reuters)

Yulia Skripal survived an assassination attempt that U.K. authorities blame on Russia. But the daughter of one of Russia's most famous spies says she wants to return to her country "in the longer term," despite being poisoned.

"The fact that a nerve agent was used to do this is shocking," Skripal, 33, told Reuters in an exclusive statement. "My life has been turned upside down."

She was discharged from hospital last month after being found unconscious on a public bench in the southern English city of Salisbury on March 4 along with her father Sergei, a former colonel in Russia's military intelligence who had betrayed dozens of agents to Britain's MI6 foreign spy service.

"I came to the UK on the 3rd of March to visit my father, something I have done regularly in the past. After 20 days in a coma, I woke to the news that we had both been poisoned," Skripal said in her first media appearance since the poisoning. She contacted Reuters through the British police.

Skripal was speaking from a secret location in London as she is under the protection of the British state. She was discharged from Salisbury District Hospital about five weeks after the poisoning and has not been seen by the media until now.

The Russian Embassy fears Yulia and Sergei are being held against their wills. They say analysis of Julia's letter indicates that it was written in English by a native-English speaker. Russians, however, have been paranoid since the Communist Revolution - Communism and paranoia go hand-in-hand. Unfortunately, they have good reason for the paranoia in this case as it almost certainly is a false flag operation.

Sergei Skripal is shown in August 2006 at a military court in Moscow. He was subsequently relocated to Britain four years later as part of a prisoner swap. (Yury Senatorov/EPA-EFE)

"We are so lucky to have both survived this attempted assassination. Our recovery has been slow and extremely painful," she said in her written English statement.

"As I try to come to terms with the devastating changes thrust upon me both physically and emotionally, I take one day at a time and want to help care for my Dad till his full recovery. In the longer term, I hope to return home to my country."

International repercussions

Skripal spoke in Russian and supplied a statement that she said she had written herself in both Russian and English. She signed both documents after making her statement and declined to answer questions after speaking on camera.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said the Skripals were poisoned with Novichok, a deadly group of nerve agents developed by the Soviet military in the 1970s and 1980s. May blames Russia for the poisoning. It was the first known use of a military-grade nerve agent on European soil since the Second World War. Allies in Europe and the United States sided with May's view and ordered the biggest expulsion of Russian diplomats since the height of the Cold War.

British military personnel work near the bench where Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were found critically ill in Salisbury on March 4. (Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

Russia retaliated by expelling Western diplomats. Moscow has repeatedly denied any involvement and accused the British intelligence agencies of staging the attack to stoke anti-Russian hysteria.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said he thought Yulia Skripal was speaking under duress.

"We have not seen her or heard from her," he said when asked to comment on the story.

'No one speaks for me'

Russia's ambassador in London, Alexander Yakovenko, has repeatedly demanded to see Yulia, who was a Russian citizen when she was poisoned.

"I'm grateful for the offers of assistance from the Russian Embassy. But at the moment I do not wish to avail myself of their services," said Skripal, who wore a light blue summer dress and bore a scar on her neck. "Also, I want to reiterate what I said in my earlier statement, that no one speaks for me or for my father, but ourselves."

Mystery surrounds the attack. The motive is unclear, as is the logic of using such an exotic nerve agent which has overt links to Russia's Soviet past. Russian officials question why Russia would want to attack an aging turncoat who was pardoned and swapped in a Kremlin-approved 2010 spy swap.

A handwritten statement released by poisoning victim Yulia Skripal on Wednesday.

(Dylan Martinez/Reuters)

President Vladimir Putin, himself a former KGB spy, said earlier this month that Sergei Skripal would have been dead if he was attacked with a weapons grade agent.

"I don't want to describe the details but the clinical treatment was invasive, painful and depressing," Yulia said in Russian.

Security arrangements hush-hush

Yulia's father was discharged from hospital on May 18. At one point doctors feared both patients could have suffered brain damage. He is no longer in a critical condition, Salisbury hospital said.

Yulia grew up as the Soviet Union crumbled and then in the chaos that followed its 1991 collapse.

Her Facebook page says she started studying at Moscow's School No. 63 in 1991 before gaining admission to Moscow State Humanities University in 2001, a year after Putin was first elected as Russian president.

In December 2004, her father was arrested by federal security service agents on suspicion of treason: passing secrets to Britain's MI6 intelligence agency.

Skripal, recruited by British spies while in Spain, ended up in Britain after a Cold War-style spy swap that brought 10 Russian spies captured in the United States back to Moscow in exchange for those accused by Moscow of spying for the West.

Yulia arrived in Britain from Russia at London's Heathrow Airport on March 3 on one of her regular visits to her father. The pair were found unconscious a day later.

Yulia Skripal is shown at an undisclosed location in London. She said she is grateful to the staff at Salisbury's hospital. (Dylan Martinez/Reuters)

"I am grateful to all of the wonderful, kind staff at Salisbury hospital, a place I have become all too familiar with. I also think fondly of those who helped us on the street on the day of the attack."

Police have said they would not discuss the security arrangements in place for the Skripals.

Nick Bailey, a British police officer who responded to the incident, was also hospitalized and subsequently released weeks before the Skripals.

Amnesty International: Rohingya Militants Massacred Hindus in Myanmar

The other side of the story, for a change

By Daniel Uria  |  (UPI)

Rohingya Muslim militants massacred 99 Hindu citizens in Myanmar, including 45 whose bodies were found in a mass grave near Yebawkya village, according to an Amnesty International report. Photo by Nyein Chan Naning/EPA

A group of Rohingya Muslim militants killed nearly 100 Hindu civilians in a series of attacks in Myanmar, according to an Amnesty International report.

The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army killed 99 Hindu people in one, or possibly two massacres, in August 2017, Amnesty International concluded after reviewing dozens of interviews and photographic evidence.

"Our latest investigation on the ground sheds much-needed light on the largely under-reported human rights abuses by ARSA during northern Rakhine State's unspeakably dark recent history," Amnesty International Crisis Response Director Tirana Hassan said.

Under-reported is right. MSM only reports one side of a dispute anymore. They pick one side and vilify the other. 

The ethnic cleansing committed by Myanmar's military was inhumane and unforgivable, but perhaps can be understood a little better in the context of Islamic invasion. This is how Buddhist Myanmar has always seen the Rohingyas, whether Muslim or Hindu, they threatened the Buddhist way of life. Islam is a threat to existing social constructs everywhere they land. Europeans are only just beginning to see this. Burmese have seen it for decades.

On Aug. 26, ARSA members attacked the Hindu village of Ah Nauk Kha Maung Seik, rounding up 53 people before they robbed, bound, and blindfolded them and took them to the outskirts of the village where they were executed.

Twenty men, 10 women, and 23 children, including 14 under the age of eight were killed.

The same day, all 46 of the Hindu men, women, and children in the neighboring village of Ye Bauk Kyar disappeared, according to the report.

The bodies of 45 people from Ah Nauk Kha Maung Seik were found in mass graves in September, while the 46 bodies of those from Ye Bauk Kyar haven't been found.

Amnesty International's report also highlighted "an unlawful and grossly disproportionate campaign of violence by Myanmar's security forces" in response to attacks by ARSA fighters on about 30 Myanmar security posts on Aug. 25.

I hate that word, 'disproportionate'! They use it against Israel all the time as though Israel should tolerate Palestinian terrorism and respond by slapping their wrists. 

Militant Islam is a cancer! If you have a cancer would tell your doctor that you don't feel too bad so just perform 'proportionate' surgery? 'No need to be 'disproportionate' and remove the whole cancer, just enough to get by for a few more months!' 

This is the situation Myanmar faced and responded to so violently. It is also the situation Europe will find itself in within a few generations, if not sooner.

"ARSA's appalling attacks were followed by the Myanmar military's ethnic cleansing campaign against the Rohingya population as a whole. Both must be condemned - human rights violations or abuses by one side never justify abuses or violations by the other," Hassan said.

Love, Marriage & Divorce in 15 Minutes in the Gulf States

Groom divorces bride 15 minutes into marriage

Gulf News
Bassam Za'za', Legal and Court Correspondent

Dubai: The marriage between a couple lasted less than 15 minutes following a misunderstanding between the groom and his father-in-law, who was in a rush to collect his daughter’s bride price.

The newly-married man divorced his wife within 15 minutes after signing the marriage contract after he felt demeaned by his father-in-law who did not want to wait for him to bring part of the agreed-upon money from his parked car.

The man was believed to have an agreement with the bride’s father to pay Dh100,000 (about $27,000 USD) for the marriage and mention the amount in the contract, an Arabic news report said on Tuesday.

According to the father-husband agreement, the man was supposed to pay Dh50,000 at the time of signing the contract inside the Sharia judge’s office and the remaining amount upon leaving the court building.

Family members and friends accompanied the bride and the groom to the Sharia judge’s office to witness the signing of the marriage contract.

The groom paid the bride’s father Dh50,000 in the judge’s office at the time of signing, according to the news report, and as the bride, groom and attendees walked out, the bride’s father asked his son-in-law to pay the rest.

The groom asked his father-in-law to wait for a few minutes and assured him that the other Dh50,000 was in his car.

The woman’s father insisted the groom pay up immediately, even though the groom told him that he would get the money within five minutes after leaving the court building.

The father-in-law then told the man to send a relative or friend to get the money, a lawyer who is handling the case confirmed to Gulf News on Tuesday.

The lawyer, who wished not to be named, added, “The groom felt insulted and demeaned by his father-in-law. He told the bride’s father that he did not want his daughter as his wife and divorced her in less than 15 minutes from signing the marriage contract.”

I wonder if that was the real story? I wonder if the bride's father suspected that the groom would run off with the bride without paying the remaining Dh50,000? In fact, I would bet money that such was the case which just goes to show you what kind of man the father was selling his daughter to. I presume the father kept the first Dh50,000.