Pope slams Harris and Trump on anti-life stances, urges Catholics to vote for ‘lesser evil’

Pope slams Harris and Trump on anti-life stances, urges Catholics to vote for ‘lesser evil’
Democratic presidential nominee and US Vice President Kamala Harris. (Reuters)
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Updated 13 September 2024
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Pope slams Harris and Trump on anti-life stances, urges Catholics to vote for ‘lesser evil’

Pope slams Harris and Trump on anti-life stances, urges Catholics to vote for ‘lesser evil’

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE: Pope Francis on Friday slammed both US presidential candidates for what he called anti-life policies on abortion and migration, and he advised American Catholics to choose who they think is the “lesser evil” in the upcoming US elections.
“Both are against life, be it the one who kicks out migrants, or be it the one who kills babies,” Francis said.
The Argentine Jesuit was asked to provide counsel to American Catholic voters during an airborne news conference while he flew back to Rome from his four-nation tour through Asia. Francis stressed that he is not an American and would not be voting.
Neither Republican candidate Donald Trump nor the Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris, was mentioned by name.
But Francis nevertheless expressed himself in stark terms when asked to weigh in on their positions on two hot-button issues in the US election — abortion and migration — that are also of major concern to the Catholic Church.
Francis has made the plight of migrants a priority of his pontificate and speaks out emphatically and frequently about it. While strongly upholding church teaching forbidding abortion, Francis has not emphasized church doctrine as much as his predecessors.
Francis said migration is a right described in Scripture and that anyone who does not follow the Biblical call to welcome the stranger is committing a “grave sin.”
He was also blunt in speaking about abortion. “To have an abortion is to kill a human being. You may like the word or not, but it’s killing,” he said. “We have to see this clearly.”
Asked what voters should do at the polls, Francis recalled the civic duty to vote.
“One should vote, and choose the lesser evil,” he said. “Who is the lesser evil, the woman or man? I don’t know.
“Everyone in their conscience should think and do it,” he said.
It’s not the first time Francis has weighed in on a US election. In the run-up to the 2016 election, Francis was asked about Trump’s plan to build a wall at the US-Mexico border. Francis declared then that anyone who builds a wall to keep out migrants “is not Christian.”
In responding Friday, Francis recalled that he celebrated Mass at the US-Mexico border and “there were so many shoes of the migrants who ended up badly there.”
Trump pledges massive deportations, just as he did in his first White House bid, when there was a vast gulf between his ambitions and the legal, financial and political realities of such an undertaking.
The US bishops conference, for its part, has called abortion the “preeminent priority” for American Catholics in its published voter advice. Harris has strongly defended abortion rights and has emphasized support for reinstating a federal right to abortion.
In his comments, the pope added: “On abortion, science says that a month from conception, all the organs of a human being are already there, all of them. Performing an abortion is killing a human being. Whether you like the word or not, this is killing. You can’t say the church is closed because it does not allow abortion. The church does not allow abortion because it’s killing. It is murder.”
However, cells are only beginning the process of developing organs in the earliest weeks of pregnancy. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says that by 13 weeks, all major organs have formed. For example, cardiac tissue starts to form in the first two months — initially a tube that only later evolves into the four chambers that define a heart.
 


Serbia expels Croatian doctor married to Serb over security threat

Serbia expels Croatian doctor married to Serb over security threat
Updated 17 sec ago
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Serbia expels Croatian doctor married to Serb over security threat

Serbia expels Croatian doctor married to Serb over security threat
BELGRADE: Arian Stojanovic Ivkovic, 31, a Croatian doctor who lives in Belgrade with her Serbian husband and a three-year-old daughter, was given one week's notice to leave the country last week and told she was a security threat.
She said a police officer called and said there was a problem with her residence.
"When I went to the police station I was given a piece of paper that said I was an unacceptable threat to the security of Serbia and its citizens. I was given one week to leave," she said.
"How can you pack up a life in a week?"
Stojanovic Ivkovic is one of about 20 Croatian citizens who have been ordered to leave Serbia in the past three months, according to Croatian embassy data. Dozens of others have been refused entry at the border. Relations between Croatia and Serbia, which fought a bitter war in the 1990s, have been strained in recent months after a wave of anti-corruption protests, which Serbian pro-government media have accused Croatia's security service of backing. Stojanovic Ivkovic said the only thing she can think of that may account for her being identified as a security threat after 12 years of living in Serbia was her support for the student-led protests, which included attending several rallies.
"However, we do not know if this is the real reason," she said. "We as a family we do not deserve this."
She has filed a complaint and hopes she will be allowed to stay with her family.
Serbia's Interior Ministry did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
"We are extremely worried that in three days last week we had five cases of expulsion (of Croatian citizens)," Hidajet Biscevic, the Croatian ambassador to Serbia, said.

UK Supreme Court rules that equalities law defines a woman as someone born biologically female

UK Supreme Court rules that equalities law defines a woman as someone born biologically female
Updated 3 min 43 sec ago
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UK Supreme Court rules that equalities law defines a woman as someone born biologically female

UK Supreme Court rules that equalities law defines a woman as someone born biologically female
  • Britain’s highest court scheduled to rule whether a transgender person with a certificate that recognizes them as female can be regarded as a woman under equality laws

LONDON: The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the UK equalities law defines a woman as someone born biologically female.

Justice Patrick Hodge said five judges at the court had ruled unanimously that “the terms ‘woman’ and ‘sex’ in the Equality Act refer to a biological woman.”

The ruling means that a transgender person with a certificate that recognizes them as female should not be considered a woman for equality purposes.

The case stems from a 2018 law passed by the Scottish Parliament stating that there should be a 50 percent female representation on the boards of Scottish public bodies. That law included transgender women in its definition of women.

The women’s rights group successfully challenged that law, arguing that its redefinition of “woman” went beyond parliament’s powers.

Scottish officials then issued guidance stating that the definition of “woman” included a transgender woman with a gender recognition certificate.

FWS sought to overturn that.

“Not tying the definition of sex to its ordinary meaning means that public boards could conceivably comprise of 50 percent men, and 50 percent men with certificates, yet still lawfully meet the targets for female representation,” the group’s director Trina Budge said.

The challenge was rejected by a court in 2022, but the group was granted permission last year to take its case to the Supreme Court.

What are the arguments?

Aidan O’Neill, a lawyer for FWS, told the Supreme Court judges – three men and two women – that under the Equality Act “sex” should refer to biological sex and as understood “in ordinary, everyday language.”

“Our position is your sex, whether you are a man or a woman or a girl or a boy is determined from conception in utero, even before one’s birth, by one’s body,” he said on Tuesday. “It is an expression of one’s bodily reality. It is an immutable biological state.”

The women’s rights group counts among its supporters author J.K. Rowling, who reportedly donated tens of thousands of pounds to back its work. The “Harry Potter” writer has been vocal in arguing that the rights for trans women should not come at the expense of those who are born biologically female.

Opponents, including Amnesty International, said excluding transgender people from sex discrimination protections conflicts with human rights.

Amnesty submitted a brief in court saying it was concerned about the deterioration of the rights for trans people in the UK and abroad.

“A blanket policy of barring trans women from single-sex services is not a proportionate means to achieve a legitimate aim,” the human rights group said.


Bangladesh restores ‘except Israel’ clause in passports after public pressure

Bangladesh restores ‘except Israel’ clause in passports after public pressure
Updated 16 April 2025
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Bangladesh restores ‘except Israel’ clause in passports after public pressure

Bangladesh restores ‘except Israel’ clause in passports after public pressure
  • Bangladesh’s previous government dropped the wording in 2021 without public notice
  • Immigration says it may take several weeks to finalize procedures to print it again

DHAKA: Bangladesh is reinstating the “except Israel” clause in its passports, the Department of Immigration said on Tuesday, after public pressure to reverse its removal by the previous government.

Bangladeshi passports carried the sentence: “This passport is valid for all countries of the world except Israel” until 2021, when authorities rolled out a new travel document, the phrase was removed without any public notice.

While authorities justified it by saying it was meant to “maintain international standard,” many people in the country — which has no diplomatic relations with Israel — questioned the move.

The new interim government, which took charge of Bangladesh in August after the ouster of its long-standing prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, has decided to undo her cabinet’s decision.

“We’ve received the government’s directive to reinstate the ‘except Israel’ clause in Bangladeshi passports. We are currently working to implement it,” Brig. Gen. Mohammad Nurus Salam, passports director at the Department of Immigration, told Arab News.

“For many years, our passports carried the ‘except Israel’ clause. But the previous government suddenly removed it. We were used to seeing ‘except Israel’ written in our passports. I don’t know why they took it out. If you talk to people across the country, you’ll see they want that line back in their passports. There was no need to remove it.”

Pressure to reinstate the clause has been mounting since the beginning of Israel’s ongoing deadly onslaught on Gaza which began in October 2023.

Over 51,000 people have been killed, 116,000 wounded, and 2 million others face starvation after Israeli forces destroyed most of the region’s infrastructure and buildings, while blocking humanitarian aid from entering.

A clear ban on travel to Israel in Bangladeshi passports was one of the key demands raised during a series of Gaza solidarity protests, which have been held regularly in Dhaka since last month, after Israeli forces unilaterally broke a ceasefire agreement and resumed bombing hospitals, schools and tents sheltering displaced people.

The biggest such protest took place in Dhaka on Saturday, with about 1 million people taking to the streets to call on the international community to “take effective and collective action to end the genocide,” and especially on Muslim countries to immediately sever all economic, military, and diplomatic relations with Israel and to “impose commercial blockades and sanctions on the Zionist state” and begin active diplomatic efforts to isolate it on the international stage.

“People will definitely welcome this new decision. It reflects the feelings of the people of this country,” Salam said, but he was not able to specify when the new passports will be available.

“There are some technical challenges involved with this change. Currently, we import e-passports from Germany under a government-to-government agreement ... It may take another week to finalize the necessary procedures. In the meantime, we are exploring whether there’s any option to modify the existing stock of printed booklets.”


China ‘not afraid to fight’ trade war with US – foreign ministry

China ‘not afraid to fight’ trade war with US – foreign ministry
Updated 16 April 2025
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China ‘not afraid to fight’ trade war with US – foreign ministry

China ‘not afraid to fight’ trade war with US – foreign ministry
  • Foreign ministry spokesman: US should stop exerting extreme pressure, stop threatening and blackmailing, and talk to China on the basis of equality, respect and mutual benefit

BEIJING: China warned Wednesday it was “not afraid” to fight a trade war with the United States and reiterated calls for dialogue, after US President Donald Trump said it was up to Beijing to come to the negotiating table.
“If the US really wants to resolve the issue through dialogue and negotiation, it should stop exerting extreme pressure, stop threatening and blackmailing, and talk to China on the basis of equality, respect and mutual benefit,” foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said.


Britain’s audit watchdog probes EY over Post Office scandal

Britain’s audit watchdog probes EY over Post Office scandal
Updated 16 April 2025
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Britain’s audit watchdog probes EY over Post Office scandal

Britain’s audit watchdog probes EY over Post Office scandal
  • Hundreds of self-employed workers at the state-owned Post Office were wrongly prosecuted or convicted between 1999 and 2015 for false accounting, theft and fraud, because of glitches in a software

LONDON: Britain’s Financial Reporting Council has opened an investigation into EY over its audit of Post Office Limited, it said on Wednesday, amid the lingering fallout from one of the country’s worst miscarriages of justice.
The FRC said in a statement it will focus on the audit firm’s role in approving the Post Office’s financial statements from 2015 to 2018, particularly the Horizon IT system which was at the heart of the scandal.
“We have been notified of the FRC’s intention to open an investigation into the EY audits of Post Office Limited for the financial years ending March 2015 – March 2018,” a spokesperson for EY said. “We take our public interest responsibilities extremely seriously and will be fully cooperating with the FRC during their investigation,” the spokesperson said.
Hundreds of self-employed workers at the state-owned Post Office were wrongly prosecuted or convicted between 1999 and 2015 for false accounting, theft and fraud, because of glitches in a software system that incorrectly showed money missing from accounts.
Some were jailed, lost their marriages or otherwise saw their lives destroyed while others died before their names could be cleared.
Spurred into action last year by public outcry following a television series that dramatized the scandal, then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak sought to quash the wrongful convictions while a police investigation and public inquiry have also been carried out.