One of China’s highest-ranking Buddhist monks quit as the head of the country’s Buddhist association on Wednesday after facing a government investigation over accusations of sexual misconduct. The abbot of Longquan Temple on the outskirts of Beijing, who is also a member of the Communist Party’s top political advisory body, has denied accusations of harassing […]
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A 29-year-old man detained over a suspected terrorist attack outside parliament has been further arrested for attempted murder, police said on Wednesday. He had initially been arrested on suspicion of terrorism offences after he appeared deliberately to drive his car at cyclists and pedestrians before ramming it into barriers outside the parliament building on Tuesday […]
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Roman Catholic priests in Pennsylvania sexually abused thousands of children over a 70-year period and silenced victims through “the weaponization of faith” and a systematic cover-up campaign by their bishops, the state attorney general said on Tuesday. An 884-page report made public by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro after a two-year investigation contained graphic examples […]
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In April, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told U.S. senators that the social media site was hiring dozens more Burmese speakers to review hate speech posted in Myanmar. The situation was dire. Some 700,000 members of the Rohingya community had recently fled the country amid a military crackdown and ethnic violence. In March, a United Nations […]
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A New Mexico judge received death threats and Islamophobic abuse on Tuesday a day after she granted bail to five Muslims charged with child abuse and accused of training children at their compound to carry out attacks, court officials said. Police raided the compound in Taos County on Aug. 3 following a tip-off that children […]
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Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and all major political parties on Wednesday condemned a speech by a minor senator who used the term “final solution” in calling for a revival of a “White Australia” restrictive immigration policy. In one of the most divisive speeches seen in parliament since 1996 when far-right politician Pauline Hanson declared […]
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South Korea marked its first “memorial day” on Tuesday for girls and women forced to work in Japan’s wartime brothels, with both of the U.S. allies expressing concern that the emotionally charged issue could undermine their relations. Under a 2015 deal, Japan apologised to the “comfort women”, its euphemism for women – many of them […]
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The European Commission on Tuesday stepped up its latest legal case against Poland, where the ruling nationalists stand accused of bulldozing the independence of courts and judges, thereby undercutting democracy. Governed by the Law and Justice (PiS) party, the EU’s largest ex-communist state has most recently enacted laws forcing into early retirement many Supreme Court […]
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Militants behind an attack on Jordanian police supported Islamic State and investigations had revealed plans for more attacks on security and civilian targets, Jordan’s interior minister said on Monday. Jordanian police said on Saturday a homemade explosive device planted near a police van killed a policeman and injured six others the day before. The police […]
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Ethiopia has released thousands of prisoners as a new prime minister reverses decades of security abuses. No-one knows how many were tortured. But some of those torture victims are now talking openly – to the media, to their relatives and to their friends – about what happened to them after they were jailed, in many […]
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