Visiting Pope Benedict XVI yesterday urged Catholics to courageously defend the traditional family. The Pontiff, who celebrated an open-air Mass before hundreds of thousands of peopele on the second day of his visit to Croatia, warned couples cohabiting outside wedlock that living together was no substitute for marriage. “Dear families be […]
The key voices of intolerance are neither marginal nor can they be dismissed as old-style far-right activists. They are today often heads of government, important ministers or powerful politicians. Their words express an emerging refrain of official xenophobia. Successive recent salvos by the French president and German chancellor on the failure […]
The Holy Prophet Muhammad, peace be on him, was Rahmatullil Almeen – mercy for all the worlds, his entire life is manifestation of great love and mercy towards all mankind as well as animals. Few examples of his mercy towards animals are presented below. He used to relate the story of a woman who found a […]
BANGKOK: Thailand on Saturday confirmed it would release a group of almost a hundred Pakistani refugees and asylum seekers that activists said includes several dozen children and a baby born in detention. In total 96 people, most of whom were arrested in December, will be released from a Bangkok detention centre […]
Last weekend’s upset divorce referendum result should spur both ruling politicians and the Church to seriously start reordering their priorities. Both have just been given a serious drubbing at the polls. The Church is in shock, the ruling Nationalist Party punch drunk, its size 10 pride shrunk to pinhead size. […]
The sound of muffled whimpering yesterday led animal welfare officers to a plank of wood under which they found a dog that had been buried alive but had managed to poke his nose out through the soil and was still breathing. The dog, a young female, had a gunshot wound […]
United Nations Human Rights Council, 16th session, Geneva – 28 February 25 March 2011: Agenda Item 8: General Debate on Follow-up and implementation of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action Oral Statement by Sultan Shahin, Editor, New Age Islam On behalf of International Club for Peace Research Madame President, […]
Singapore more often makes the headlines for its economic performance than for its model of multiculturalism. Nevertheless, Singapore was a true example of a cosmopolitan city before many other regions started to experience diversity. Can the lessons learned in this part of the world be of use to Europe today? […]
Brazil is seen as a country of diverse and profound faith. But though religion is an important reference point in the lives of the population, the extent of religious diversity in this sprawling country is not nearly so pervasive as belief itself. Though globally, the image of Brazil is connected to […]
Since the dramatic killing of Osama bin Laden, Pakistan is increasingly in the news. According to the bulletins, it is the land which may yet fall into the hands of absolutists, terrorist fundamentalists. I understand what the reporters mean, of course. However, I also smile at the irony. My visit […]
Until now, and with few exceptions, the West has nurtured two distinct communities of foreign-policy specialists: the development community and the democratic community. More often than not, they have had little or no connection with one another: development specialists dealt comfortably with dictatorships and democracies alike, believing that prosperity can […]
The birth of a democracy is beautiful, but it isn’t always pretty. Muammar Gaddafi starved Benghazi of money, so it was a drab city even before the current uprising. Now the clutter of revolution makes it look even more dishevelled. But just as the drabness fed defiance, so the clutter […]
South African President Jacob Zuma meeting with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on Monday. Man at centre is an unidentified official. Photo: AFP/South African Government /Ntswe Mokoena Muammar Gaddafi will not leave Libya despite growing international pressure and intensified strikes on his regime, the South African presidency said yesterday after mediation […]
The Church has to carry out a soul-searching exercise to understand why people voted for divorce, the Church’s Pro-Vicar Mgr Anton Gouder, has told The Times. He also insisted that the statement issued by the bishops on Saturday was a call for unity to work in favour of the family. Mgr […]
Editorial: The outcome of Saturday’s referendum, when the majority of voters supported the formal introduction of divorce, and what the bishops had to say in their note issued just as voting stopped show that the Church in Malta is faced with a number of significant and urgent challenges that cannot […]
A day of ghastly sight of gristly, gruesome bloodshed of Ahmadis in Lahore Pakistan A year after the terrifying horrendous massacre of 86 Ahmadis of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Lahore, Pakistan the world remains deeply in shock, appalled by that act of religious terrorism, cold bloodedly covered up by […]
Malta has voted “Yes” in a non-binding referendum on legalising divorce, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi has conceded, local media report. Almost three-quarters of the electorate voted on Saturday on whether divorce should be introduced in Malta. A majority Catholic country, Malta is the only EU country not to allow divorce. Figures […]
A girls’ secondary school has championed the diversity cause by appointing a veil-wearing Muslim girl to head her form. Fourteen-year-old Sara Ezabe is proof of what Blata l-Bajda’s St Ignatius College Girls’ Junior Lyceum headmaster Victor Agius insists is important for the school – diversity and tolerance. After two years […]
The Bishops of Malta and Gozo yesterday expressed their sorrow to those who during the run up to the referendum may have felt wronged by the words or actions of members of the clergy, and similarly professed unconditional forgiveness to all those the Church feels may have insulted it. “We […]
The decision brought Malta in line with judgments delivered by the European Court of Human Rights, which on more than one occasion decreed that denying an arrested person the right to see his lawyer was in breach of the fundamental right to a fair trial. But the government’s reluctance over […]