Vatican makes attempted ordination of women a grave crime

Revised Catholic rules put female ordination in same category of crime under church law as clerical sex abuse of minors



Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi announces the revised Catholic laws. Photograph: Andrew Medichini/AP
The Vatican today made the "attempted ordination" of women one of the gravest crimes under church law, putting it in the same category as clerical sex abuse of minors, heresy and schism.

The new rules, which have been sent to bishops around the world, apply equally to Catholic women who agree to a ceremony of ordination and to the bishop who conducts it. Both would be excommunicated. Since the Vatican does not accept that women can become priests, it does not recognise the outcome of any such ceremony.

The latest move, which appeared to bar and bolt the door to Catholic women priests, came at a time when the Church of England moved in the opposite direction, to a step closer to the ordination of female bishops.

The Vatican's reclassification of attempted female ordination was part of a revision of a 2001 decree, the main purpose of which was to tighten up the rules on sex abuse by priests in reaction to the scandals that have been sweeping through the church since January. The most important change is to extend the period during which a clergyman can be tried by a church court from 10 to 20 years, dating from the 18th birthday of his victim.

The new rules introduce speedier procedures for dealing with the most urgent and serious cases; allowed for lay people to form part of church tribunals that judge such cases; put abuse of the mentally disabled on a level with that of minors, and introduced a new crime of paedophile pornography.

The pope's spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, stressed that the changes applied solely to canon, or church, law. They had no bearing on whether suspected offenders should be reported to the civil authorities.

He said that issue had already been dealt with earlier this year in instructions making it clear to bishops that they must report cases promptly.

The Vatican was working on further instructions "so that the directives it issues on the subject of sexual abuse of minors, either by the clergy or institutions connected with the church, may be increasingly rigorous, coherent and effective," he said

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Ground Zero diggers uncover hull of 18th century ship

Archaeologists examine timbers found at site of World Trade Centre bombings



The ship found at the World Trade Centre site was probably among debris used in 18th century landfill. Photograph: Mark Lennihan/AP
Workers excavating the World Trade Centre site have unearthed the 10-metre hull of a ship believed to have been buried in the 18th century.

The vessel was probably used along with other debris to fill in land to extend lower Manhattan into the Hudson river, archaeologists have said.

It was hoped the artefact could be retrieved by the end of today, said archaeologist Molly McDonald. A boat specialist was going to the Ground Zero site to examine the find.

McDonald said she wanted to at least salvage some timbers; it was unclear if any large portions could be lifted intact.

"We're mostly clearing it by hand because it's fragile," she said. Construction equipment may be used later in the process.

McDonald and Michael Pappalardo, an archaeologist, were at the site of the 11 September 2001 attacks when the hull was discovered on Tuesday morning.

"We noticed curved timbers that a back hoe brought up," McDonald said. "We quickly found the rib of a vessel and continued to clear it away and expose the hull.

"We're going to send timber samples to a laboratory to do dendrochronology to help us get a sense of when the boat was constructed." Dendrochronology is the science that uses tree rings to determine dates and chronological order.

A 45kg (100lb) anchor was found a few yards from the hull on Wednesday but the experts are not sure if it belongs to the ship. The anchor was about a metre across, McDonald said.

The archaeologists are racing to record and analyse the vessel before exposure to air makes the delicate wood deteriorate.

"I kept thinking of how closely it came to being destroyed," Pappalardo said
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Bank of Korea raises growth forecast to 5.9%

We are understanding this Bank of Korea raises growth forecast to 5.9%

Seoul: South Korea's central bank raised its forecast for the country's economic growth this year to 5.9 per cent on solid exports as well as capital and consumer spending amid a stronger global recovery.
The Bank of Korea, which had previously expected an expansion of 5.2 per cent in 2010, made the revision yesterday in a report on the economic outlook for the second half of the year.
"Goods exports and facilities investment are forecast to maintain strong growth owing to stronger recovery of the global economy, favourable IT industry and demand for changes in production facilities," the bank said.
Consumer spending, meanwhile, will get a boost from higher household purchasing power, it added.
The brighter assessment comes after the South Korean government last month raised its forecast to 5.8 per cent from 5 per cent.
More recently, the International Monetary Fund last week said the economy would expand 5.75 per cent this year, compared with its previous forecast of 4.5 per cent.
South Korea's economy, Asia's fourth-largest, has recovered strongly after contracting during the global financial meltdown, boosted by exports, government stimulus and record low interest rates.
It managed growth of just 0.2 per cent last year.
The robust recovery and inflation worries, however, pushed the Bank of Korea to raise its benchmark borrowing cost to 2.25 per cent on Friday from 2 per cent, the record low where it had been since February 2009. The hike came earlier than expected.
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New Photos of Smiling Fidel Castro Posted on Web

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HAVANA (July 11) - New photographs of a smiling, tracksuit-clad Fidel Castro greeting workers at a scientific think tank were posted on the blogs of two Cuban journalists and a media website Saturday, offering a rare glimpse of the reclusive revolutionary leader in a public forum.

Castro, 83, appears slightly stooped but otherwise healthy in the pictures, which were said to have been taken Wednesday during a visit to the National Center for Scientific Investigation in Havana.

One set of four photos appeared on the blogs of two official Cuban journalists and apparently were taken with a worker's mobile phone. The former Cuban leader is seen raising his hand to wave in one picture and seemingly being led away in another.

Alex Castro, Cubadebate / AP
In this image released on Saturday by state media, Cuban leader Fidel Castro, second from left, stands next to unidentified people during a visit to the National Center for Scientific Investigation in Havana. The photo was purportedly taken Wednesday. Castro had not been photographed in public since falling seriously ill in July 2006.

More images from the same event were posted later in the day on Cubadebate, a state-run media website. In those pictures, Fidel is seen laughing and talking with the workers, some of whom line an overhead walkway to wave and clap at him. In one, he leans back casually against a desk, looking animated.

"He is thin but he looks good, and according to our director, he is very good mentally," reads a comment accompanying photos on the blog of Rosa C. Baez, a journalist who works for official Cuban media.

The comments were sent to her along with the photos by an unidentified Cuban worker, who said Castro stopped, said hello and blew kisses to the employees.

"They didn't let us get close to him, but when he left, there were too many people standing around and I was standing just three meters (yards) from him," gushes the worker.

Those photos were also posted on the blog of Norelys Morales, a well-known Cuban television journalist. Morales told The Associated Press she got them in an e-mail sent to various people by the worker. She would not reveal the worker's name.

Repeated calls to the think tank went unanswered Saturday.

Cuban media are strictly controlled by the government, and the fact the photos appeared on blogs of two official journalists and later on Cubadebate was significant. Cubadebate said the revolutionary icon visited the science center to celebrate its 45th anniversary.

Castro had not been photographed in public since falling seriously ill in July 2006. The illness forced him to turn over power - first temporarily, then permanently - to his younger brother Raul, who is 79.

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Shining India' makes its poor pay price of hosting Commonwealth Games

Indian hot games Shining India' makes its poor pay price of hosting Commonwealth Games


A young girl works on a building project in front of the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium in the Indian capital, where the games will be held. Photograph: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images
The government bulldozers came to the school at 11am, after yoga and before English and Hindi lessons. The children and their teachers had three hours to clear the classrooms. By mid-afternoon, the Yamuna Riverbank school was rubble.

"They told us we were a security risk, so we had to go," headteacher Parminder Khaur Somal said. "All my children were crying. I don't know how we can be a threat to anyone."

Somal founded the school five years ago for 180 local slum children living on the banks of the Yamuna river on the outskirts of Delhi. In recent months, she and her pupils have watched a vast new complex of luxury apartments rise 500 metres away: the athletes' village for the forthcoming Commonwealth Games. "We never thought it could be a problem," Somal said.

The games, to be held in October, have sparked a wave of demolition across the Indian capital. The competition is the biggest such international sporting event held in India for decades and is seen as an opportunity for the nation to show off its new economic might.

Sheila Dikshit, the chief minister of Delhi, has repeatedly said she wants to the city to be "world class". There is even talk of trying to host the Olympics in the future. A particular target of the authorities is anything that could tarnish the "shining India" image.

Organisers of the games are acutely aware that the din and filth of the Indian capital could shock visitors. So, along with the construction of new sporting facilities, roads, flyovers, metro lines and an airport, dozens of long-standing slum communities built on public land, vacant lots, by railways or along rubbish-strewn stream beds have been destroyed; hoardings conceal others.

The children at Somal's school came from a community of workers on nearby vegetable farms. The nearest alternative was three miles away, across busy dual carriageways.

As the bulldozers destroyed the school, police also moved through the workers' shacks, scattering possessions and breaking down walls and ordering inhabitants to leave.

"The police just started beating me." Said Dharam Pal, a shopkeeper. "They dragged me 50 metres on the ground and then told me: "If you don't leave here on your own, we'll throw out."

Pal, 40, said the community was established 15 years ago and that he had "nowhere else to go".

Others complained of being assaulted. "Not only did they break the school, but they beat us too," said Harpyari Devi, 24, a mother of three children at the school. Senior policemen at the scene refused to comment. Officials from the Delhi municipal authorities were unavailable this weekend.
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

Srebrenica buries hundreds of massacre victims on 15th anniversary of killings

Watches this Srebrenica buries hundreds of massacre victims on 15th anniversary of killings

Weeping among endless rows of coffins, tens of thousands of people gathered today in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica to bury hundreds of massacre victims on the 15th anniversary of the greatest crime in Europe since the Nazi era.

A whole hillside was dug out with graves waiting for 775 coffins to be laid to rest at the biggest Srebrenica funeral so far. Still, that was less than a 10th of the total number of Muslim men and boys murdered after Serb forces overran the UN-protected town on 11 July, 1995, during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

Some 30,000 Bosnian Muslims had flocked to the UN military base in the town's suburb of Potocari for refuge, when Serb forces came and the outnumbered Dutch troops opened the gates. The Serbs separated out men and boys, putting them on trucks and carting them away, the vast majority never to be seen again.

The Srebrenica memorial centre stands across the road from that former UN base. The bodies being buried were previously excavated from mass graves and identified through DNA tests.

An estimated 60,000 people were at the memorial today . Relatives of the victims mingled among the pits on one side and rows of green coffins on the other, looking for the names of loved ones. Muslim prayers and weeping mixed with the speeches condemning the crimes and calling for the perpetrators to be punished.

Fifteen years later, no one represented the UN at the ceremony. Serbia's president, Boris Tadic, was the first dignitary to arrive, saying he was coming in an "act of reconciliation". "[I want to] build bridges of trust and understanding among the nations in the region," he said earlier in Belgrade.

In Srebrenica, some in the crowd yelled: "Bravo, Boris!" Others asked "Where is Mladic?" – a reference to former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic, who led the Serb troops into Srebrenica.

"I wish to welcome you, we are receiving you in peace," said Kada Hotic, a representative of the Srebrenica widows, while Tadic held both of her hands.

Mladic and former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic were indicted with genocide by the UN war crimes tribunal in 1995. Karadzic is on trial in The Hague, while Mladic remains at large, presumably hiding in Serbia. Tadic said in a statement that he "will do everything" to apprehend all war crimes suspects in Serbia.

The US ambassador to Bosnia, Charles English, read a message from Barack Obama that urged "governments to redouble their efforts" and arrest those responsible for the war crimes at Srebrenica. The US president called the genocide a "stain on our collective consciousness" that occurred even after decades of pledges of "never again" after Nazi atrocities during the second world war.

Bosnian Serbs sent no representatives. In a deliberate snub, Karadzic's Serb Democratic party honoured him yesterday at a ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the party's founding.
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

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Rotten' Jabulani: A load of hot air?

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Small business baulks at burden of pregnancy discrimination

Now we are know this Small business baulks at burden of pregnancy discrimination


ELEANOR HALL: In what seems to be an extraordinary move, small business owners say they should be exempted from laws that prohibit discrimination against pregnant women.

The business owners are responding to the Fair Work Ombudsman's move to pursue pregnancy discrimination claims on behalf of women. It has just lodged its first pregnancy discrimination case in the Federal Court.

And while it has been illegal for a quarter of a century to discriminate against pregnant workers, the ombudsman is tipping that there'll be a surge in claims now that women don't have to take the cases on their own.

But small business owners say this sort of regime imposes an impossible burden them, as Ashley Hall reports.

ASHLEY HALL: The issue of workplace discrimination can take a terrible toll.

This woman asked to be known only as Jane, and for her voice to de disguised before she would talk about her experience.

Jane was working in a male-dominated sector of the media industry when she became pregnant.

She had no problems throughout the pregnancy herself, but then she approached her workplace about returning after 11 months of maternity leave.

JANE: The moment I started emailing people about organising coming back to work, I did not get any response from anybody at work except for HR.

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Locking horns over the running of the bulls

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CCNN) -- A 400-year-old tradition is facing some new challenges this year at this week's annual running of the bulls in Spain.
Celebrations for the festival in San Fermin are already underway, but the first running of the bulls will be held Wednesday in the northern town of Pamplona.
The city is once-again handing out 100,000 leaflets to local and foreign festival-goers explaining how to minimize the risk of accidents during the spectacle.
It's a warning and a reminder of the dangers and even death that can occur when hundreds of runners sprint alongside the half ton bulls and steers. Last year saw the first fatal goring in more a decade.
For the sixth year now, Pamplona has sprayed the entire 825 meter route with a special anti-slipping chemical to help avoid injury to the bulls and the red-and-white clad runners.
The run in Pamplona started 400 years ago and became popular worldwide after author Ernest Hemingway wrote about it in the 1920s in his book "The Sun Also Rises," also published under the title "Fiesta."
The event is held July 7-14. Six bulls and a pack of tame steers run from the corrals, through Pamplona's old town, to the bullring -- where the bulls will die later in the day in a bullfight.
Including the recent death, 14 people have been killed in the runs since 1924, when record-keeping began.
But while the narrow cobblestone streets of Pamplona are expected to be as packed as ever, the tradition of bullfights, or "corridas" is under pressure elsewhere.
The economic downturn is certainly taking its toll. With nearly one in five Spaniards out of a job there are fewer spectators in packing the rings.
And struggling towns are looking for ways to slash spending.
Some local governments are cutting the expensive spectacles to save money for basic services like schools and police salaries.
But there is also pressure brewing to change cultural attitudes about the tradition of bullfighting as well.
Just as most years, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and other animal rights groups organized a rally Sunday featuring semi-nude protesters covered in red paint in Pamplona, but also have staged protests outside Spanish embassies around the world.
The tactics may be gaining some traction. A 2006 Gallup poll showed more than 70 percent of those surveyed said they have "no interest" in bullfighting, while 82 percent of those aged 15 to 24 held that same view.
And now the tradition has begun facing legal and political challenges.
The government in the northeastern Spanish region of Catalonia with its capital Barcelona is plans to put a ban on the practice to a vote, potentially making it the second region in Spain to outlaw bullfighting after the Canary Islands in the Atlantic did so in 1991.
While Pamplona embraces tradition, one thing you won't be seeing -- or hearing -- this year... the incessant buzz of the "vuvuzela!"
The government there has banned the sale of the plastic horns along the bull-run route, saying they would be dangerous and distracting to the animals.

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