UK orders public sector to tackle modern slavery in supply chains
London, UKThomson Reuters Foundation Government departments and other public bodies in Britain will have to take action to ensure their suppliers do not engage in modern slavery under measures announced on Tuesday. Britain said public-sector organisations with a budget of more than £36 million, including local authorities, would have to file an annual statement outlining […]
US-China tensions take centre stage at UN as Trump accuses Beijing of unleashing “plague”
New York City, US Reuters US President Donald Trump told the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday that China must be held accountable for having “unleashed” COVID-19 on the world, prompting Beijing to accuse him of “lies” and abusing the UN platform to provoke confrontation. China’s President Xi Jinping struck a conciliatory tone in his […]
Climate primer: Why is everyone talking about ‘net zero’?
A UN-backed global campaign to slash climate-changing emissions has added new high-profile members to its ranks, including social media giant Facebook and Ford, the first US car company to join. The “Race to Zero”, launched in June, brings together businesses, cities and other organisations that aim by around mid-century to cut their planet-heating emissions to […]
ICE apprehension on church grounds violated federal policy, say US faith leaders
Updated 24th September, 2020 Baltimore, US RNS Prominent US faith leaders are condemning the apprehension of an undocumented immigrant on church grounds by federal officials, arguing the action violates a government policy that discourages agents from raiding “sensitive locations” such as churches, hospitals and schools. “As a bishop and adjudicatory leader I find this breach […]
World leaders mark UN at 75, challenged by pandemic and US, China tensions
United Nations Reuters World leaders came together, virtually, on Monday to mark the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, as the deadly coronavirus pandemic and tensions between the United States and China challenge the effectiveness and solidarity of the 193 member body. As COVID-19 began to spread around the world earlier this year, forcing millions […]
‘High-Church Pentecostal’ leader J Delano Ellis dies at 75
RNS Bishop J Delano Ellis II, a Black church official who started Pentecostal organisations in the US and emphasised ecumenism, died over the weekend. He was 75 and died after a recent hospitalisation. Bishop J Delano Ellis. PICTURE: Courtesy of Joint College of African-American Pentecostal Bishops “While you share your love, concern and prayers with […]
Arctic sea ice suffers “devastating” loss, shrinks to second lowest on record
Buenos Aires, Argentina/Arctic Ocean Reuters Warming in the Arctic shrank the ice covering the polar ocean this year to its second-lowest extent in four decades, scientists announced Monday, yet another sign of how climate change is rapidly transforming the region. Satellites recorded this year’s sea ice minimum at 3.74 million square kilometres on 15th September, […]
Hurdles to prevention: Coronavirus rumours and regulations mar Burkina Faso’s malaria fight
SAM MEDNICK, writing for Thomson Reuters Foundation, reports from the West African nation of Burkina Faso…
Amy Coney Barrett, controversial Catholic, re-emerges as potential US Supreme Court pick
Washington DC, US RNS Federal appellate Judge Amy Coney Barrett is emerging as a likely nominee to fill the US Supreme Court seat left vacant by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, reawakening a debate over Barrett’s views on law and religion. Barrett, a Catholic who once clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia, was discussed […]
Essay: An American enigma
TIM COSTELLO looks at why US evangelicals are so supportive of Donald Trump – and the role the Persian ruler Cyrus, mentioned in the Bible, plays in that…