The Sahel region of Africa where Christians are being targeted by Islamist terror groups has become “the new epicentre of terrorism“, according to the latest Global Terrorism Index.

Release International, which supports persecuted Christians around the world, has identified that Sahel is an emerging hotspot in their recent Persecution Trends report.

Partners of Release have reported that Christians are being executed by armed gangs, who target their villages and stop cars and buses on the road.

A Release International partner whose identity needs to remain hidden, said: “Christians are killed on the spot.

“If you’re kidnapped and you’re a believer, there is no possibility you will survive.

“When the jihadists attack villages, they know where the Christians live and they search them out. They are looking for believers”.

In Burkina Faso, the terror groups destroy shops, schools and official buildings, but the focus of their destruction are often churches.

Chief executive of Release International, Paul Robinson said the conflict in the Sahel is “the forgotten jihad”.

“The religiously motivated violence that has been growing in Nigeria is now being replicated in a much wider region. It is time for the world to sit up and take notice.”

The new no-fault ‘quickie’ divorce law in England and Wales is a “huge mistake” which will lead to an increase in broken families, a pro-marriage group has warned.

Colin Hart, Chairman of Coalition for Marriage (C4M), said: “We are extremely disappointed that the Government has ignored all the data and strong arguments against speeding up the process, under the delusion that no-fault divorce will somehow prevent hurt feelings and bad break ups. They will not.”

The Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020 came into effect on 6 April. Under the new law, couples can divorce in six months without having to give a reason and a spouse cannot contest the decision meaning they can be divorced quickly against their will.

Previously, anyone wanting to divorce their spouse had to prove their marriage had irretrievably broken down through either adultery, unreasonable behaviour, desertion, or separation for two years with their spouse’s consent, or five years without.

Five of those babies that appear to be of late-term gestation are now in the possession of Washington, D.C. Metro Police, which retrieved the remains Friday from members of Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU).

Along with other pro-life groups, PAAU has called on the D.C. Medical Examiner to autopsy the babies’ remains to determine their manner of death in order to assess whether they died after being born, in possible violation of federal laws.

Terrisa Bukovinac, PAAU’s founder, described the processing of opening the box and examining its contents as a tearful, “completely soul-crushing experience.” She said the box was full of small turquoise-colored plastic containers, each with a small, first-trimester fetus in it, 110 in total.

There was also an inner plastic bag with five larger plastic containers. In the largest one, the aborted baby, whom the activists named Christopher X, was “whole” and appeared to be large enough to be born alive, in the women’s view.

“We often carry around a fetal model that is 22 weeks … this baby was huge,” Bukovinac recalled.

Pro-family groups have reacted with dismay to news that an EU report about the gender pay gap is excising the word “man” and “woman” and replacing the word “sex” with “gender”. In addition, the European Parliament will bypass a Plenary debate on the report that deals with an EU directive.

The report responds to a European Commission proposal to tackle the gender pay gap through the implementation of pay transparency measures. Two Committees, the EMPL and FEMM, adopted the report, “Strengthening the application of the principle of equal pay for equal work or work of equal value between men and women”, which amends the Commission’s proposal.

The Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe (FAFCE) say the report is highly problematic in its content and should have been the subject of an open and democratic debate.

“Indeed, it systematically replaces the mention of ‘sex’ with ‘gender’. The mention of ‘women’ or ‘men’ is replaced by ‘workers of different gender’”, according to a press release.

FAFCE’s Vice-President, Angelika Weichsel Mitterrutzner highlighted that, as stated by the Commission, “If the aim of this directive is to fight the gender pay gap between men and women, what kind of protection will these measures implement if no mention is made of women?“.

FAFCE’s President, Vincenzo Bassi, notes that “The text, as modified by the European Parliament, would shift the directive from being a legislative act aimed at protecting women on the basis of the EU law on sex discrimination, to a vague condemnation of pay discriminations for different grounds.

Videos of dead Ukrainian civilians, many apparently executed by Russian troops, are further evidence that “the struggle of Ukraine is a spiritual struggle against evil, against the devil and his servants,” said Ukrainian Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halych.

“A mountain of corpses, rivers of blood, a sea of tears” are the ongoing reality of Ukraine, the archbishop said in his daily video message from Kyiv April 4.

Shevchuk told his people that while it is right to support the military and to keep fighting the Russian invasion, the evil at play can only be vanquished with goodness, holiness and generosity.

“Pride is fought through humility, avarice is healed by sacrifice, laziness is treated by diligence,” the archbishop said.

“If the enemy kills us (and) sows death, let us serve life, honour human life from conception to natural death,” he said.

“We see that today the enemy is robbing Ukrainians, robbing, looting,” the archbishop said. In response, Ukrainians should be “generous and support those who need works of Christian charity.”

Where the Russians are “destroying everything,” he said, Ukrainians should try to “build, get to work,” including by starting the spring planting if possible.

“Let us do good, and then evil will be defeated,” he said.

It is perfectly legal for public bodies and businesses to limit services to a single sex, the UK’s equalities watchdog declared Monday in what is seen by some as a boost for women’s rights.

There has long been uncertainty over whether services such as refuges for female rape victims are allowed to exclude trans people who were born as a man.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) in the UK said that service providers wishing to limit services to a single sex are legally able to do so, provided the reasons are justified and proportionate.

The new guidance will have huge ramifications for hospitals, retailers, hospitality and sports clubs which have faced difficult issues in recent years under pressure from the trans lobby.

It makes it clear that it is legal for a gym to limit communal changing rooms to a single sex, as long as a gender neutral changing room is also provided for trans people.

Revised national guidelines for the College of Policing will allow for sacramental access at crime scenes where operationally possible following the conclusion of a working group set up in the aftermath of the murder of MP Sir David Amess.

The murder in October 2021 raised a number of questions concerning the appropriate response to granting access to priests or other ministers of religion to crime scenes in order to administer Last Rites or other sacraments to a crime victim.

The working group has developed new straightforward guidance, which has been published by the College of Policing as part of the Managing Investigations Authorised Professional Practice.

The new section, entitled ‘Requests for third party access to a scene to attend a victim’ can be found at app.college.police.uk

This Authorised Professional Practice update provides advice on balancing medical and investigative priorities and requirements, with empathy for the victim, their family and any religious needs.

The UK government has announced it will ban so-called conversion therapy for gay or bisexual people in England and Wales – but not for people with gender dysphoria who claim a transgender identity.

The move came hours after it had said it would drop plans for the ban entirely.

The announcement on Thursday evening that ministers would explore non-legislative routes to stop the practice was met by a backlash from LGBT groups and MPs.

The Evangelical Alliance reacted with surprise to the developments. They have consistently called on the government to honour its two prior, public commitments on conversion therapy – to end coercive and abusive practices while ensuring people can receive the prayer and spiritual support they choose.

They say no ban should have the effect of stopping churches or Christian ministries from teaching a biblical view of marriage as between a man and a woman, and sexual activity as reserved for that; it should not stop churches from providing pastoral care or prayer support for people who seek it. And it certainly should not stop churches from engaging in the spiritual formation of young people.

Other Church leaders have written to Boris Johnson to express “considerable concern” over the Government’s decision not to abandon its proposed conversion therapy ban.

Pope Francis on Saturday implicitly criticised Russian President Vladimir Putin over his invasion of Ukraine during a speech in the Maltese capital Valletta.

He also confirmed to reporters that he is considering a visit to the capital Kyiv after receiving invitations from both the city’s mayor, and from the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Without explicitly mentioning Putin or the war in Ukraine, the pope touched on “the wind blowing from the east of Europe,” according to the Vatican’s news agency Vatican News.

“The icy winds of war, which bring only death, destruction and hatred in their wake, have swept down powerfully upon the lives of many people and affected us all,” Francis said, adding that “once again, some potentate, sadly caught up in anachronistic claims of nationalist interests, is provoking and fomenting conflicts, whereas ordinary people sense the need to build a future that will either be shared or not be at all.”

The pope had previously called the war in Ukraine a “massacre,” and “unacceptable armed aggression.”

https://www.politico.eu/article/pope-lashes-out-at-potentate-putin-over-anachronistic-claims-on-ukraine/

Gardaí were not willing to accept claims by the HSE that abortion exclusion zones were required to ensure a broad rollout of abortion in GP practices across the country, new documents reveal.

The HSE met with Department of Health and Garda officials in May 2019, during which gardaí said new legislation to establish safe access zones around GP practices and hospitals was not required. Instead, it was decided that local superintendents would be written to “advising them to be aware of services and to meet with providers locally to advise them that they can engage with the superintendent if there are any issues”.

HSE officials had a different “perspective” and argued that “the lack of safe access zone legislation was influencing some GPs’ willingness to sign up to provide the service; that the introduction of safe access zones had the potential to increase GP sign up and potentially increase the number of GPs opting to have their details shared via My Options”.

This was in contrast to the view of gardaí, who “indicated that where there is a breach of the law, they currently have the powers to intervene but this needs to be balanced with allowing freedom of speech and peaceful protest.

“On balance it was felt that the levels of anti-abortion activities were pretty low, that legislation exists to deal with any breaches of the law and that while ToP [termination of pregnancy] could be included into new legislation, it may ‘add fuel to the fire’.”