China is clamping down on abortions which are not “medically necessary” in a bid to tackle its plunging birth rate, authorities have announced.

The National Health Authority has published new guidelines to prevent unwanted pregnancies and “reduce abortions that are not medically necessary”, amid mounting concerns about an untenable ageing population.

New births in China, home to 1.4 billion, are set to fall to record lows this year, dropping below 10 million for the first time. The UN predicts that India will overtake the country as the world’s most populous next year.

It is estimated that 9.5 million abortions took place between 2015 and 2019. Under the now abolished one-child rule, forced abortions were common.

Muslim extremists in eastern Uganda last month cut off the hand of a 42-year-old father who left Islam to become a Christian in June, sources told local media.

Musa John Kasadah of Maumo village, Luuka District was ambushed last week as he tried to flee to safety with his family, who had joined him in putting faith in Christ at an open-air event on June 17, said his wife, Asiya Naigaga. The couple have six children, including two adults.

Kasadah was attacked at about 11:45 a.m. at Nakabondo village, near Bukadde village, while fleeing for safety to Nawaningi village, Iganga District, she said.

After Kasadah and his family had attended church services for three weeks and missed mosque Friday prayers, sources said, their pastor received a message from one of Kasadah’s brothers that read, “It has come to our attention that Musa Kasadah and the family are attending your church. This should stop immediately, otherwise your church is at risk.”

The pastor arranged for the Kasadah family to be move to a safe location, but they were tracked and apprehended by the extremists before they reached there.

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly is to meet doctors from the National Gender Service (NGS) later this month over their concerns about the Health Service Executive’s decision to continue referring children to the Tavistock Clinic in the UK.

Last Thursday, psychiatrists Dr Paul Moran and Dr Ian Schneider, along with endocrinologists Dr Karl Neff and Prof Donal O’Shea, wrote to Mr Donnelly, and said in light of the HSE’s determination to continue sending Irish children to the Tavistock GIDS for gender treatment, “despite the overwhelming evidence that this clinic is unsafe, and the decision of the NHS to close it, we request an urgent meeting with you to further discuss the risk this presents to Irish children”.

Earlier this month, an interim report by Dr Hillary Cass found staff at Tavistock felt “under pressure” to adopt an “unquestioning affirmative approach” to gender that was at odds with standard clinical assessment processes.

Questioning the evidence based around “all aspects of gender care” in Britain, Dr Cass said there were “significant knowledge gaps” around the use of puberty blockers in children and called for more research in the area.

A contentious proposal of mandatory referral—obliging doctors who object to euthanasia to refer to a willing doctor—was rejected last week by the World Medical Association in their International Code of Medical Ethics (ICoME).

There was strong opposition to the move including an open letter organised by the UK’s Anscombe Bioethics Centre which was signed by over 100 doctors and medical ethicists. Currently the WMA’s policies stipulate that “No physician should be forced to participate in euthanasia or assisted suicide, nor should any physician be obliged to make referral decisions to this end.”

A compromise agreement was reached such that patients should be immediately informed if their doctor has a conscientious objection and should be told about their right to consult another qualified physician. It will also provide that patients be given sufficient information to initiate such a consultation, but no mandatory referral.

Supporters of conscientious objection were relieved. “If these proposals had been approved, the impact on the ethical practice of medicine would have been profound,” said Dr Tim Millea, of the Catholic Medical Association. “Physicians would be required to provide or directly refer patients for physician-assisted suicide, abortion, transgender surgery, and other unethical measures.”

The founder of Dublin’s Capuchin Day Centre for the homeless has received plaudits as he retired at 87 years of age. Pope Francis visited the centre when he was here in 2018.

Br Kevin was “going to be well missed,” a volunteer told the Irish Times. “All the homeless people are going to miss him terrible. The staff, we’re all upset over the fact that he has to leave. He’s just a great man. He gave his life to all the homeless people. I’ve seen people come in on their knees in here and Br Kevin helping them all out till they got sorted,” she said. “So we’re all heartbroken.”

As a newly professed brother in Dublin in 1969, he began to notice homeless people. “I saw the people coming to our church. I saw the people walking the streets. I saw the people looking into dustbins and taking food out of the dustbins”. As a follower of St Francis “I decided something should be done for them.” It was the beginnings of the Capuchin Day Centre.

The centre has gone from 50 people when it started to now having 200 people for breakfast, 600/700 for lunch from Monday to Saturday.

It has also seen a sharp increase in demand for food parcels. “Again when we started giving out food parcels we had maybe 100, 200, and now we have maybe 1,000 or maybe more every Wednesday. As well as that we give out baby food, baby nappies on a Monday morning and we can have up to 200 families for those.”

A judge has set a five-day trial for Hong Kong Cardinal, Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, and four other defendants who face charges under China’s stringent national security law.

It will take place Sept. 19-23.

The 90-year-old cardinal was detained May 11 and charged with failing to properly register a fund to offer financial assistance to those involved in anti-government protests in 2019. It was disbanded last year after coming under scrutiny by authorities.

The national security law made participating in or supporting the pro-democracy movement crimes of subversion and collusion with foreign organizations and allowed for those remanded to be extradited to mainland China. Punishment ranges between a minimum of three years and a maximum of life imprisonment.

All five defendants pleaded not guilty. If convicted of the improper registration, each defendant could incur a fine of about $1,300.

A longtime critic of the Chinese government, Zen drew Beijing’s ire for his continued critique of the Vatican’s controversial 2018 deal with China regarding the appointment of bishops.

New research shows that three years after Quebec’s secularism law — commonly known as Bill 21 — was adopted, religious minorities in the province are feeling increasingly alienated and hopeless.

“Religious minority communities are encountering — at levels that are disturbing — a reflection of disdain, hate, mistrust and aggression,” Miriam Taylor, lead researcher and the director of publications and partnerships at the Association for Canadian Studies, told CBC in an interview.

“We even saw threats and physical violence,” Taylor said.

Bill 21, which passed in 2019, bars public school teachers, police officers, judges and government lawyers, among other civil servants in positions of authority, from wearing religious symbols — such as hijabs, crucifixes or turbans — while at work.

The HSE has said it will continue to refer children with gender dysphoria to the Tavistock Clinic in the UK despite it being forced to close next year because of controversial practices such as giving children puberty blockers.

National Clinical Director for Integrated Care within the HSE Dr Siobhán Ni Bhriain said: “The service has not been deemed not safe, because if it was deemed completely unsafe it would have closed immediately, that’s the first thing.

“The second thing is the Tavistock will keep open for another year or so until the regional units are developed in the UK and increased numbers of people with the skills to deliver care to these children.

“So, we will continue to refer while Tavistock is still open, we will monitor extremely closely and we have for quite a number of years been exploring other options.”

Human rights advocates say that Canada’s euthanasia laws lack necessary safeguards, devalue the lives of disabled people and are prompting doctors and health workers to suggest the procedure to those who might not otherwise consider it.

Equally troubling, advocates say, are instances in which people have sought to be killed because they weren’t getting adequate government support to live.

Euthanasia “cannot be a default for Canada’s failure to fulfill its human rights obligations,” said Marie-Claude Landry, the head of its Human Rights Commission.

Landry said she shares the “grave concern” voiced last year by three U.N. human rights experts, who wrote that Canada’s euthanasia law appeared to violate the agency’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They said the law had a “discriminatory impact” on disabled people and was inconsistent with Canada’s obligations to uphold international human rights standards.