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In the News

  • Premier: Christian Kentucky clerk Kim Davis files appeal to let her block same-sex marriage licenses
    September 12th, 2015
    A Christian Kentucky county clerk who was recently jailed for denying same-sex couples marriage licenses has filed an appeal that would allow her to continue blocking the licenses being issued.
     
    49-year-old Kim Davis says she objects to gay marriage on religious grounds and she filed the motion with the Sixth Circuit US Court of Appeals.
     
    She was jailed earlier in September for refusing to carry out her duties.
     
    Davis now argues that all the same-sex couples who sued her for a license received one from her deputies while she was in jail, so she says her office should not be required to issue them to any more couples once she returns to work.
  • Times (£): Cabinet ministers’ email hacked by Islamic State spies
    September 12th, 2015
    Jihadist spies in Syria have hacked in to ministerial email accounts in a high-tech espionage operation uncovered by GCHQ, reports claim.
     
    An investigation by the intelligence agency has discovered that extremists linked to the Islamic State terror group have been targeting information held by some of David Cameron’s most senior ministers, including Theresa May, the home secretary.
  • Times (£): Clinics target IVF mothers
    September 12th, 2015
    Women who freeze their eggs in the hope of having children are being exploited by clinics which fail to disclose that the chances of pregnancy are “scarily” small, a leading fertility expert warned yesterday.
     
    As a growing number of women seek to improve their chances of giving birth later in life, government figures reveal that less than 2 per cent of procedures involving frozen eggs result in a successful birth.
     
    The IVF pioneer Lord Winston said that much of the burgeoning industry’s appeal was based on scare stories about a crisis of infertility and added that some of his patients had been charged unacceptable sums of more than £10,000 for each cycle.
  • BBC: 'IS making and using chemical weapons in Iraq and Syria', says US official
    September 11th, 2015
    There is a growing belief within the US government that the Islamic State militant group is making and using crude chemical weapons in Iraq and Syria, a US official has told the BBC.
     
    The US has identified at least four occasions on both sides of the Iraq-Syria border where IS has used mustard agents, the official said.
     
    The official said the chemical was being used in powder form.
     
    A BBC team on the Turkey-Syria border has seen evidence backing these claims.
  • BBC: MPs reject 'right to die' law
    September 11th, 2015
    MPs have rejected plans for a right to die in England and Wales in their first vote on the issue in almost 20 years.
     
    In a free vote in the Commons, 118 MPs were in favour and 330 against plans to allow some terminally ill adults to end their lives with medical supervision.
     
    In a passionate debate, some argued the plans allowed a "dignified and peaceful death" while others said they were "totally unacceptable".
  • Telegraph: Forcing a woman to have an abortion at eight months: Welcome to 21st century China
    September 11th, 2015
    This week, a series of panicked text messages was published by an online newspaper.
     
    They were sent by an eight months pregnant woman in southwest China and spoke of her being pressured into an illegal late-term abortion so that her husband would not lose his job.
     
    The woman in question, known only by her surname Chen, already has an 11-year-old daughter. Under China's current version of the one child policy, she and her husband do not meet the criteria to have a second baby (both parents have to be only children themselves).
  • Sky: Record number of terror suspects arrested
    September 11th, 2015
    A record 299 terrorism suspects were arrested in the UK in the year to March - an increase of 31% compared to the year before, figures show.
     
    It is the highest number since officials began collecting data in September 2001.
     
    Previously, the record for the number of arrests in a 12-month period was 284 - and this happened in 2005, the year of the 7/7 bombings.
  • Independent: Teachers at Islamic school jailed for 12 months for beating 10-year-old pupil
    September 10th, 2015
    Two teachers at an Islamic school in Birmingham have been jailed for 12 months for "brutally" beating a young boy with a stick.
     
    The 10-year-old victim was repeatedly beaten for offences such as "talking in class" or "failing to read the Koran accurately" at Sparkbrook Islamic Centre in Anderton Road, Birmingham.
     
    Teachers Mohammed Siddique, 60, and his son Mohammed Waqar, 24, admitted wilful cruelty to the boy and were sentenced on Thursday afternoon.
  • Guardian: Scott Morrison says Christians will be focus of Australia's refugee intake
    September 10th, 2015

    A second senior government minister has reiterated that Christians will be the focus of the government’s 12,000 humanitarian intake from Syria, as the prime minister, Tony Abbott moves to reassure the community that all persecuted minorities will be considered for resettlement.

    On Wednesday, Abbott announced that Australia would resettle 12,000 refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria and Iraq, on top of the existing 13,750 humanitarian intake.

     
    The social services minister, Scott Morrison, said Christian Syrians would make up the bulk of the intake.

    “Middle Eastern Christians have been run out of town in the Middle East now for many years and that is why our government right from the outset has had a much higher priority focus on those persecuted minorities in the Middle East which are predominately Christian and that is where our focus will be,” Morrison told reporters.

     

  • GM embryos 'essential', says report
    September 10th, 2015
    It is "essential" that the genetic modification of human embryos is allowed, says a group of scientists, ethicists and policy experts.
     
    A Hinxton Group report says editing the genetic code of early stage embryos is of "tremendous value" to research.

    It adds although GM babies should not be allowed to be born at the moment, it may be "morally acceptable" under some circumstances in the future.
     
    The US refuses to fund research involving the gene editing of embryos.