Key Quotes - World Issues

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Last update: Wednesday 25th March




A handful of countries are responsible for the weakening of a global anti-corruption treaty, said Christian Aid, Global Witness and Tearfund. China, Russia and Egypt are among the governments who have weakened proposals for a peer review mechanism for the UN Convention against corruption (UNCAC) live up to their commitments. ‘A huge opportunity to turn rhetoric into action has been lost due to the irresponsible behavior of an unlikely coalition of blocking countries.’ said George Boden of Global Witness.
World Issues	Christianity – January 2010



Spain is to ban smoking in all bars and restaurants. Health minister Trinidad Jimenez said today that she hopes to put the bill before parliament in 2010. Ms Jimenez said studies in other countries showed similar laws had no negative effect on the economy or business.
World Issues	The Sentinel – 16th December 2009



As over 9,000 ex-service personnel and civilians marched past the cenotaph on remembrance Sunday, two bishops were questioning the Government’s policy in Afghanistan. Bishop Gledhill said: “We are throwing out soldiers at a nation where the structures are endemically corrupt. We are trying to train up police in a society which is divided and where terrorism reigns. That is a difficult task for our troops and we salute them. “But the point which we consider is this: isn’t it true that in our own society we are chipping away at the values which make our freedom possible? You can’t make a democracy in Afghanistan without shared public values and citizens who are not corrupt and violent. “But in our own country corruption and violence are not entirely absent.”
World Issues	The Church of England Newspaper – 13th November 2009



President Barack Obama gave a delicate but pointed reminder to China about its poor human rights record at the start of his first visit to the country. He nudged its leaders to stop censoring internet access, offering an animated defence of the tool that helped him win the White House and suggesting Beijing need not fear a little criticism. Mr Obama couched his criticisms with words calling for co-operation, heavy with praise and humility.
World Issues	The Sentinel – 17th November 2009



A committee of MPs has urged the Government to remove any mention of Christianity from the constitutions of two of Britain’s over-seas territories. The Foreign Affairs Committee has told the Foreign Office that Christianity should not be singled out above other faiths and that the constitutions in the countries, which are remnants of the British Empire, should include protection for gay rights. However, the Bishop of Winchester, Michael Scott-Joynt, speaking to The Mail on Sunday, has criticised the move as ‘spurious political correctness’. The Foreign Office has asked two territories – the Cayman Islands in the Western Caribbean Sea and St Helena, Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic – to amend their constitutions in order to incorporate the European Convention on Human Rights and United Nations protocols.
World Issues	Salvationist – 31st October 2009



Catholic education administrators in Pakistan’s Punjab province have said that their schools face huge additional security costs as the security situation in the country deteriorates. Under provincial government guidelines in the wake of recent terror attacks, schools must provide eight-feet-high boundary walls, surveillance cameras, metal detectors and scanners, a barbed wire perimeter and at least two armed guards.
World Issues	The Universe – October 8th 2009



The Primate of All Ireland has written to the Irish Government demanding that the country’s overseas development aid budget should not be targeted by further cutbacks. Acknowledging the challenges facing the country’s finances, the cardinal wrote: “We believe that savings made through further cuts to ODA will have a marginal impact on out problems but a devastating effect on the lives of some of world’s poorest people.”
World Issues	The Universe – October 8th 2009



A suggestion by an American comedian that the Vatican should be sold to help the poor has been labelled as “offensive and stupid” by a Nigerian archbishop.
World Issues	The Universe- October 25th 2009



The Indian Government has rejected a call by the prime minister of Albania for the remains of the Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta to be reburied in the Adriatic country. “Mother Teresa was an Indian citizen – she is resting in her own country, her own land,” Vishnu Prakash, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, told a press conference in New Dehli. “The question of her remains being taken back to Albania does not arise at all.” The official was reacting go a call by Albania’s premier, Sali Berisha, for the nun’s body to be repatriated in time for her 100th birthday on August 26 2010.
World Issues	The Universe- October 25th 2009



Success in the struggle against the Taliban cannot be taken for granted, the commander of the international forces in Afghanistan has warned. U.S. General Stanley McChrystal said the situation in the country was “serious”, with increasing violence and a growing insurgency. The U.S. government is currently evaluating Gen McChrystal’s plan to overhaul the international strategy in Afghanistan, including a request for up to 40,000 additional troops.
World Issues	The Sentinel - 2 October 2009



The makeshift homes of more than 100 Afghan children were razed to the ground as calls were made for Britain to take in some youngsters forced from the Jungle immigrant camp in Calais. The shanty village, where some have lived for eight months, was reduced to a dusty wasteland following a swoop by French police yesterday. But refugee groups have condemned the operation in which 600 officers surrounded the site, leading to angry scenes and scuffles.
World Issues	The Sentinel - 23 September 2009



The Catholic Church in Slovenia has accused the Government of provocation after it appointed a self-proclaimed satanist to head the country’s State Office for Religious Affairs. “Our Church has been accused of not knowing how to engage in dialogue with the Government here,” said Barbara Balogh, a spokeswoman for the bishops’ conference in Ljubljana. “But it seems the Government actually has an interest in provoking conflict with us to gain support from anti-clerical voters. We will, of course, give him time to show his character as a minister. But the appointment has come as a big surprise.” The lay Catholic was reacting to the appointment of Ales Gulic – an MP with the co-governing Liberal Democracy party – to a five-year term as director of the office which monitors and supervises Slovenia’s 43 registered churches for the Social-Democrat-led government of Premier Borut Pahor. In a Universe interview, she said the move had shocked local Catholics, who comprise 58 per cent of Slovenia’s population of 1.9 million, according to official data. She added that Gulic has co-founded and publicly identified with the country’s Satan’s Brethren association, and had also been pictured recently wearing a shirt with the slogan “Free Speech – go to Hell!”
World Issues	The Universe - 20 September 2009



The State should set aside places in government for Maori representatives, the Diocese of Auckland said last week at its annual synod, as white majority rule does not always serve the best interests of minorities. “We are not simply all New Zealanders. We are made up of a number of differing peoples,” Bishop John Paterson told the synod meeting at Holy Trinity Cathedral on Sept 3, urging the government to take a provision for Maori representation in a reorganized Auckland regional council.
World Issues	The Church of England - 11 September 2009



An education bill which has been signed into law by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will remove religious education from the nation’s schools, according to Caracas Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino. Government critics called the law’s rapid approval process (it was passed into the National Assembly and passed into law in the same week) unconstitutional and said that the Government did not consider the outside opinions. One clause of the new law, which covers all levels of education and both public and private institutions, requires education to have a “lay character… in all circumstances” and leaves religious education to families.
World Issues	The Universe- August 2009



The President of Croatia has accused the Catholic Church of aiming to “Talibanise” the country, and suggested that if the clergy wanted to rule Croatia, they should stand for election. President Stjepan Mesic of Croatia has assumed an increasingly “anti-Church” stance over recent weeks, although he himself rejects such a description. He has claimed he is not anti-Church, merely opposed to all things that are “not right”, and said it was well-known that in Croatia, church and state are separate.
World Issues	The Universe- August 2009

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