World Media Watch
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Sept. 22 — Despite continued appeals from religious and international organizations, three Christians convicted of leading a deadly attack on Muslims six years ago were executed by firing squad, Associated Press reported.
The men, Fabianus Tibo, 60, Marinus Riwu, 48, and Dominggus da Silva, 42, were taken before the firing squad at 12:15 a.m. local time, said a senior police officer who asked not to be identified because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media.
The case against
the men has heightened tensions in the world’s most populous Muslim nation and
raised questions about the role religion played in punishing those allegedly
behind the violence that swept
According to a
report from AsiaNews, authorities in
The execution had been due to take place in August, but the three were given a reprieve after a plea for clemency from Pope Benedict XVI and demonstrations by thousands of Indonesian Christians.
Cardinal: Open Dialogue Key to World Peace
THE AUSTRALIAN, Sept. 19 — Cardinal George Pell of
In an editorial published in the Australian daily, the cardinal emphasized the Holy Father’s words that “‘a reason that is deaf to the divine and that relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering a dialogue of culture.’ This is particularly true in any dialogue with Islam, especially for our secularized Western societies.”
The cardinal said, “Dialogue among friends does not preclude public questioning and public criticism, which should be constructive, not designed to make a situation worse by threatening peace or inciting hatred. ... These are the fixed points: Western democracies are at war with Islamic terrorists. Security agencies … are working regularly to thwart terrorist attacks. These Islamic terrorists want a clash of civilizations, they want the West to overreact, to make mistakes and so bring this Armageddon closer.”
Alluding to the Pope’s remarks at the
Grisly
Discovery Draws Attention to Abortion in
REUTERS, Sept. 18 — The discovery of the remains of
scores of aborted babies at a private hospital in
An excavation of pits surrounding a hospital in a small town in Pattran in the
Manual laborer Gulzar Singh said, “Inside the well I found bones. Small ones. Little, little ones. There were some baby skulls too.” Singh said he removed the flesh and bones of around 300 aborted babies, however, authorities said it was somewhere between 20 to 100. They assume that all were female, although gender tests results will only be ready next month. The business was allegedly run by an untrained, unqualified retired soldier and his wife.
According to a study published in the British medical journal The Lancet, about 10 million female babies
may have been aborted in
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- October 1-7, 2006