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In the News

  • Guardian: UK scientists seek permission to genetically modify human embryos
    September 18th, 2015
    Scientists in Britain have applied for permission to genetically modify human embryos as part of a research project into the earliest stages of human development.
     
    The work marks a controversial first for the UK and comes only months after Chinese researchers became the only team in the world to announce they had altered the DNA of human embryos.
     
    Kathy Niakan, a stem cell scientist at the Francis Crick Institute in London, has asked the government’s fertility regulator for a licence to perform so-called genome editing on human embryos. The research could see the first genetically modified embryos in Britain created within months.
  • Yahoo News: Clerk Kim Davis loses another appeal in gay marriage case
    September 18th, 2015
    Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis lost another legal bid to delay issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, marking the latest in a mounting stack of rejected appeals.
     
    Davis, who returned to work this week after five days in jail for defying a federal court order, had again tried to persuade the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to delay a judge's mandate that she issue marriage licenses to all couples.
     
    Davis, the clerk of rural Rowan County, spurred a fiery debate about religious freedom and the rule of law when she refused to issue licenses after a Supreme Court ruling in June that effectively legalized gay marriage nationwide. 
  • Life News: UN agency promises to boost Nigeria’s currency if it backs abortion, pro-life nation says no
    September 17th, 2015
    A powerful and controversial UN population agency told the Nigerian government to change its position on reproductive health last week after setbacks in advancing abortion and sexual rights for adolescents in Africa.
     
    The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) told Nigeria to take back its reservations on “sexual and reproductive health” and “reproductive rights” in a new UN development agreement. The controversial terms are the cornerstone of the decades-long campaign to create an international right to abortion, and expand sexual rights for minors.
     
    “If Nigeria withdraws her reservation on the two targets, the country will get maximum value for Naira [the Nigerian currency],” the agency’s representative, Ms Ratidzai Ndhlovu, told a gathering of population experts in the Nigerian capital Abuja, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported.
  • BBC: 'Foolish' to bring forward gay marriage now, Archbishop says
    September 17th, 2015
    It would be "foolish" to bring forward a bill for same-sex marriages in church at the moment, the Archbishop of Wales has said.
     
    He spoke after more than half of the Church In Wales' governing body members voted in favour of a law passed for such ceremonies in England and Wales last year.
     
    The secret ballot took place at Lampeter, Ceredigion.
     
    Those who voted in favour fell short of the two-thirds needed for change.
  • Guardian: MI5 interview marks first salvo of campaign to revive snooper's charter
    September 17th, 2015
    The first live radio interview with a head of MI5 – a person whose identity was once so secret they were known only as M – was certainly a broadcasting coup; but it was also the first public drumbeat of a carefully choreographed campaign by the government to revive its snooper’s charter legislation.
     
    It was no accident that Andrew Parker’s warning of the scale of the terror threat and the need for new powers to meet it followed a rather less well-publicised Whitehall meeting on Tuesday after the home secretary, Theresa May, had invited the internet and phone companies in for discussions.
     
    May told them that she was keen to secure their practical support for the investigatory powers bill that is expected to overhaul Britain’s surveillance laws in the wake of Edward Snowden’s disclosures of the security services’ unwarranted bulk collection of personal communication data.
  • Reuters: UK terrorism watchdog criticises government anti-extremism plan
    September 17th, 2015
    Britain's anti-extremism strategy risks increasing the threat of radicalisation in Muslim communities, the country's terrorism law watchdog said on Thursday, warning it could play into the hands of those seeking to recruit extremists.
     
    Prime Minister David Cameron has described the need to stop young Britons being radicalised as the "struggle of our generation" and is planning new laws later this year to counter extremism and the spread of the Islamist ideology of Islamic State militants.
     
    David Anderson, Britain's independent reviewer of anti-terrorism laws, said the plans to clamp down on individuals and organisations accused of extremism could backfire.
  • Care Not Killing: Reflections on Marris Bill vote
    September 17th, 2015
    The Assisted Dying (No 2) Bill of Labour MP Rob Marris was the eleventh attempt in twelve years to legalise assisted suicide through British Parliaments.
     
    But its overwhelming defeat on 11 September 2015, by a margin of 212 votes (330 to 118) should settle this matter for a decade.
     
    It is striking (and indeed fitting) that this happened the very day after World Suicide Prevention Day. The Bill now cannot proceed further. It is dead.
  • Independent: UK terror threat is at the highest level in 30 years and growing, MI5 chief warns
    September 17th, 2015
    The head of MI5 has said the terror threat to the UK is at its highest level in more than three decades and “growing”.
     
    Andrew Parker, director-general of the agency responsible for national security, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that police and intelligence agencies had intervened to foil six terrorist plots in the past year alone.
     
    “That is the highest number I can recall in my 32-year career, certainly the highest number since 9/11,” he said.
     
    “It represents a threat which is continuing to grow, largely because of the situation in Syria and how that affects our security.”
  • Mail: Universities ordered to ban campus hate preachers
    September 17th, 2015
    David Cameron last night demanded universities clamp down on hate preachers on campus to ‘protect impressionable young minds’.
     
    From Monday, colleges will for the first time have a legal duty to put in place specific policies to stop extremists radicalising students. They will also have to tackle gender segregation at events and do more to support students at risk of radicalisation.
  • Telegraph & Argus: Shipley MP discovers fears of prisoner radicalisation is evident at nearly all jails
    September 17th, 2015
    Fear of the radicalisation of prisoners has been discovered among staff at nearly all of Britain's jails, Shipley MP Philip Davies has discovered.
     
    For months he has sought answers from the Government and now it has revealed that staff at 130 out of 136 prisons have registered concerns about prisoner radicalisation.
     
    The Prisoner Officers' Association (POA), which represents staff, has praised Mr Davies for highlighting the issue and said it was "shocked" by the findings.