Local Church leaders have lambasted a court in Pakistan for passing the death sentence on a Christian man found guilty of ‘blasphemy’ in an incident that prompted one of the worst atrocities against minorities in the country’s history.

Bishop Samson Shukardin of Hyderabad, President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Pakistan, described as “very, very painful” the judgement handed down in the case of Ehsan Shan.

The Sahiwal Anti-Terrorism Court found Mr Ehsan guilty of blasphemy by allegedly sharing content deemed insulting to Islam and Mohammed on social media.

Mr Shan, a man from Sahiwal in his early 20s, was not accused of desecrating the Qur’an but of reposting an image of the damaged sacred text. Reports of the defiled script triggered a day of violence last August against Christians in Jaranwala, Punjab province, where more than 25 churches were torched and more than 80 Christian homes ransacked. Sentenced under numerous articles of the Pakistan Penal Code, Mr Shan was also sentenced to 22 years’ “rigorous imprisonment” and fined 1 million Pakistan Rupees.

A futuristic suicide pod for ‘assisted dying’ has been banned by prosecutors in Switzerland weeks before it was set to be used for the first time.

Developed by Philip Nitschke, one of the founders of Exit International, whose Irish branch is led by Tom Curran, the ‘Sarco’ (short for sarcophagus), is a coffin-shaped machine that releases deadly nitrogen once activated from inside.

But now prosecutors in Switzerland’s Schaffhausen Canton have warned that anyone assisting someone to use the pods could face up to five years behind bars.

Public Prosecutor Peter Sticher warned of ‘serious consequences’ for Nitschke for ‘inducement and aiding and abetting suicide for selfish reasons’.

The ban followed after Nitschke revealed in an online forum on June 10 that Sarco’s deployment in Switzerland was expected ‘in the next few weeks.’

There should be no prayers or religious iconography in city and county council chambers, a Cork councillor has said. Sessions of parliament in Britain, America, Ireland among other countries start with a prayer.

Social Democrat, Pádraig Rice, has spoken of his shock and surprise that council meetings still begin with prayer – with a crucifix hanging from the wall.

He has put down a motion calling for a “clear separation”  of Church and State – urging Irish people to “create a modern, pluralist republic of equals”.

“The people who voted for us come from all faiths and none, so I think it’s deeply inappropriate that we open our meetings with prayer [and] have religious iconography in the chamber – I just don’t see the need for it. I think it should be stopped”.

When asked if he thought that the crucifix should be retained as a piece of historical architecture, Cllr Rice said he thought that prayers and the crucifix are “all tied up together”.

“I think if we’re going to stop the prayer, we should probably remove the iconography as well.

“I think it’s all connected,” he said.

The more than 10,000 abortions recorded last year is a “national scandal”, Independent TD Carol Nolan told the annual Rally for Life in Dublin on Saturday.

She also called for a taskforce to be established to tackle “soaring abortion rates”.

The founder of the Life Institute, Niamh Uí Bhriain, told the rally that those who opposed abortion may have lost the 2018 referendum but their numbers were growing.

“In March the Government was rocked to its core when its bid to remove the word mother from the Constitution received the largest No vote in the history of the State,” Ms Uí Bhriain said.

“A staggering 74 per cent of people ignored the media, ignored the political establishment, ignored the radically out of touch NGO’s [non-governmental organisations], to reject a referendum that we were told was going to pass easily.”

After the march arrived at the Customs House, Grammy award winning singer and songwriter, Kaya Jones, addressed the crowd by speaking of her own experience of abortion regret.

Jones spoke of how she felt pressured by the music industry to undergo abortions and how young women should learn from her “mistakes” and know their value and the value of human life more broadly.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has said he and his wife felt pressure from doctors to have an abortion 32 years ago when health concerns were raised about their unborn child.

The couple proceeded with the pregnancy anyway and had a “precious” daughter named Ellie.

She has dyspraxia, a neurological condition that affects movement and coordination, but is not severely disabled.

He did not say whether they ever went ahead with the test.

“She lives with us at Lambeth. Before she was born, during the pregnancy, there was some concern and a test was offered. But it was made very, very clear to my wife [Caroline] that if the test was taken and proved positive, it would be expected that we asked for a termination. It was not a neutral process.”

He said that doctors told them it was “expensive” to raise a child with a disability.

Archbishop Welby added: “Ellie is exceptionally precious. She is precious because she is wonderful, she’s kind, she is someone who gets cross and is happy and is sad. She is not that severely disabled — she can travel around provided things go right. If trains get cancelled, that’s a bit of an emergency.”

Thousands of Christians have returned to the Nineveh Plains, years after they were driven from their homeland by militants of the Islamic State (ISIS).

“Words cannot describe what we experienced 10 years ago, ISIS tried to eradicate us, but they failed”, said Nizar Semaan, the Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Adiabene, in Northern Iraq. “The people here are like olive trees. You can cut them, burn them, but after 10 or 20 years they will continue to give fruit. They tried everything, but we remain, and as a Church we do everything to give a sign of hope”, he added, during an online conference organised by the international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).

Though outright violence has receded in Iraq, the Chaldean Archbishop of Erbil, Bashar Warda, who also took part in the conference, said that the current threat of a regional conflict involving Israel, Hamas, Lebanon and perhaps even Iran has Christians on edge, as they are aware that in these situations, they often become outright targets for fundamentalists or collateral targets in the wars of others.

A Bill requiring online providers of pornography to carry out strict age verification to ensure that under-18s cannot access their material will come before the Seanad on Thursday

The Protection of Children (Online Age Verification) Bill 2024 has been introduced by Independent Senator, Ronan Mullen, and co-sponsored by Senators Michael McDowell, Sharon Keogan and Gerard Craughwell, and three Government Senators — Fianna Fáil’s Erin McGreehan, Diarmuid Wilson and Aidan Davitt.

In a statement, Senator Mullen said: “We all know that access to pornography online is a serious problem for our society and especially for young people. It harms them and affects their development on many levels”.

While the media regulator, Coimisiún na Meán, is producing a Code and Rules on this matter, it does not make robust age verification procedures mandatory for online providers of pornography.

“Without separate primary legislation — including criminal sanctions for breaches, the problem will continue to be tackled ineffectively”, he said.

A seriously debilitated woman has been shocked by twice being offered assisted suicide in the course of her medical treatment.

Tracy Polewczuk has spina bifida and has been receiving special treatment for the last two years after she suffered a leg break that never properly healed.

On two separate occasions and without prompting, she says she was informed that she would be eligible for medical assistance in dying (MAID), once by a nurse at the rehabilitation centre at Ste-Anne’s Hospital and another time by a social worker at the Verdun Hospital.

“It feels like we are being pushed towards the MAID program instead of being given the help to live,” Polewczuk said.

Doctor Paul Saba, a family physician, says that it’s seen as a recommendation whenever a doctor makes a suggestion or a health care worker.

In 2022, more than 4,800 Quebecers opted for medical assistance in dying, more than any other province in Canada. Those figures raise serious questions for this patient’s rights advocate.

“My theory is that a lot of those people who have asked and gotten medical help to die, that they might have been in circumstances where they had no other choice.”

A futuristic suicide pod for ‘assisted dying’ may be used for the first time as early as this month, Swiss media reports.

Developed by Philip Nitschke, one of the founders of Exit International, whose Irish branch is led by Tom Curran, the partner of the late ‘right-to-die’ campaigner Marie Fleming, the ‘Sarco’ (short for sarcophagus), is a coffin-shaped machine that releases deadly nitrogen once activated from inside.

Its creator claims a rapid decrease in oxygen level while maintaining a low CO2 level could allow users to die, “a peaceful, even euphoric death”.

Yet, the press section of the company’s website links to a New York Times story that the US state of Alabama used nitrogen gas to execute a man on death row.

Moreover, while State lawyers had previously claimed in court filings that an execution by nitrogen would ensure “unconsciousness in seconds”, the condemned prisoner, Kenneth Smith, 58, “shook and writhed” for at least two minutes before slipping into slower, heavier breathing and eventually dying.

Swiss news outlet NZZ reports that on June 10, Nitschke wrote in an online forum that Sarco’s deployment in Switzerland was expected ‘in the next few weeks.’

Cases of syphilis have increased by almost a third in the first six months of this year when compared to the same period last year, new figures show.

STI cases are rising globally, with Ireland seeing a “significant increase” in the past year when compared with pre-pandemic levels.

According to the most recent figures from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC), up to June 29th, incidence of syphilis is up 31 per cent, from 413 cases in the first six months of 2023, to 544 during the same period this year.

The number of cases of HIV has also increased by 27 per cent, with 548 diagnosed this year so far — an increase on the 431 during that time last year.

Derek Freedman, a consultant in STIs and HIV, said there are a “variety of reasons” why STIs are increasing, including a post-Covid increase in sexual activity, travel, migration, dating apps and the availability of anti-HIV medication called pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP).

“People on PrEP know they are protected from HIV but they forget about the other possible infections,” he added.