Randgroep
No need to turn on a light when the sun shines brightly.
Australian Catholic abuse victims want apology
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests and brothers in Australia, like Jose Respall who still vividly recalls being fondled at age 11, are calling on Pope Benedict to apologise when he arrives in Sydney on Sunday.
"I was touched in the groin and inside of my thighs," said 45-year-old Respall, recalling how a Marist brother teacher abused him and his classmates in a Sydney school in 1974.
"He was blatantly open, he would tuck your shirt in, in the playground. Everybody knew about what was going on yet nothing was done," Respall told Reuters in an interview on Monday.
Respall said some of his school friends wrote swear words on the inside of their thighs, hoping the brother would be offended and not molest them.
Dalai Lama marks his 73rd birthday
DHARAMSHALA, India (AFP) — Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama marked his 73rd birthday Sunday with a small function, but with the mood dampened by a lack of progress in talks with China.
Officials said the usual cultural performances were not held this year in Dharamshala, a northern Indian hill town and home to the exiled Tibetan government, due to the unrest in Tibet earlier this year.
There was a small temple gathering attended by the prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile Samdhong Rinpoche, while the Dalai Lama held a low-key function for relatives and Tibetan officials at his home, aides said.
Rinpoche said the Tibetan exile community was disappointed by the lack of any progress during talks between the Dalai Lama's envoys and China earlier in the week.
"The seventh round of talks has not produced any tangible results. The Chinese selfish attitude is only adding to the existing doubts about their insincerity for future talks," Rinpoche said.
He also voiced regret that China had repeated allegations that the Dalai Lama incited the riots in Tibet in March in order to sabotage the Beijing Olympics.
RAPPER JAL RECALLS `LOST BOY' PAST AS A SUDANESE CHILD SOLDIER
Sudanese star EMMANUEL JAL has poked fun at modern hip-hop "gangstas" who rap about killing and getting shot - because he insists if they were real killers they wouldn't talk about their street life. The 28 year old grew up as a child soldier in the Sudan People's Liberation Army and insists he'd sicken the toughest rappers if he told them about his violent life. Jal, who is among the performers at Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday concert in London on Friday (27Jun08), says, "I don't take modern hip-hop as real... It's fake, like James Bond. If you really kill, you don't want to talk about it." |
Dutch Islam critic meets foreign minister on charges in Jordan
Amsterdam - Dutch Islam critic Geert Wilders praised Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen for taking Jordan's decision to charge Wilders with incitement against Islam seriously, news reports said Thursday.
'It speaks to his credit although I am not at all comfortable about the situation,' the leader of the Dutch Freedom Party said Thursday, a day after talking with Verhagen.
Wilders had requested the meeting to discuss the consequences of a Jordan public prosecutor's decision to charge him over his 16-minute political film Fitna, released late March.
In the film, Wilders expressed his concern about what he called the Islamization of the Netherlands and the spreading of Muslim fundamentalism in Europe.
The group that pressed charges against Wilders in Jordan calls itself the Messenger of Allah United Us.
Wilders said he and Verhagen discussed whether it was likely that another country that he might visit would extradite him to Jordan.
Theoretically, Jordan could file an extradition application through Interpol to a country that Wilders might visit.
Japan defends 'scientific' whale hunting at IWC
SANTIAGO (AFP) — Japan defended its practice of 'scientific' whale hunting at the annual International Whaling Commission meeting here on Wednesday, insisting it had yielded important scientific results.
Officials from Japan, which is pressing for the ban on commercial whaling to be lifted, said during the third day of the meeting in Santiago that their research has shown that whales are healthy and abundant in the Antarctic.
Researchers at Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research say they have discovered interesting information on the sexual maturation of whale species which they said could not have been obtained in any other way.
They added that since the moratorium on commercial whale-hunting came into force in 1986, many whale species populations have increased.
