Lindsey Graham say women can accomplish anything if they are pro-Life and are like Justice Barrett

Lindsey Graham says women ‘have a place in America’ and ‘can go anywhere’ if they are against abortion

Senator’s comments echo statement he made about young Black people and immigrants in early October

Oliver O'Connell
New York
NOV 2,2020

Lindsey Graham has said young women in America can accomplish anything they want if they are pro-life, embrace religion, and follow a traditional family structure.

The Republican Senator for South Carolina cited Judge Amy Coney Barrett as a role model when speaking at a campaign event in Conway, South Carolina.

“You know what I like about Judge Barrett? She's got everything,” the senator said. “She's not just wicked smart, she's incredibly good. She embraces her faith.

“I want every young woman to know there's a place for you in America if you are pro-life, if you embrace your religion, and you follow traditional family structure. That you can go anywhere, young lady,” he added.

Mr Graham is campaigning in a highly competitive election race against Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison, the first Black chair of the party in the state.

During a debate against Mr Harrison, the senator was furiously criticised for saying that young black people and immigrants can “go anywhere” in South Carolina, adding “you just need to be conservative, not liberal”.

There was similar anger online this weekend, with Twitter users reminding the senator that it was not the 1950s r the nineteenth century.

Others pointed out the hypocrisy of a 65-year-old man, who has never married nor had children, lecturing women about adhering to a “traditional family structure”.

While South Carolina is a Republican stronghold — Senator Graham won in 2014 by 15.6 percentage points — this year’s election has surprised many by how competitive it has become.

Polling has Mr Graham ahead by single digits, though potentially within the margin of error.

Many voters seem spurred on by the senator’s flip over the nomination and confirmation of Judge Barrett to the Supreme Court — he had previously said on the record that new justices should not be appointed in election years.

Donald Trump is all but guaranteed to win the state and its nine electoral college votes.


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Impunity for crimes against journalists prevails, report shows

The U.N. agency, UNESCO, tasked with defending press freedom, reported Tuesday that 87% of inquiries into killings of journalists worldwide since 2006 remain unresolved. Photo by Sylvain Liechti/United Nations

Nov. 2 (UPI) -- A report published on the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists shows such crimes prevail despite a "slight decrease" in 2020.

Over the past 14 years, 1,167 journalists have been killed, and about nine out of 10 cases have gone unpunished, according to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization figures. Those figures do not include journalists who suffer from non-fatal attacks, torture, arbitrary detention, intimidation, harassment and the risks faced by female journalists, including sexual attacks.

In 2020, the percentage of resolved cases worldwide was 13%, a "slight decrease" in the rate of impunity compared with 12% in 2019 and 11% in 2018, the UNESCO Director-General's Report on the Safety of Journalists and the Danger of Impunity said.

Still, impunity prevails with 87 percent of inquiries into 1,167 cases of journalists being killed since 2006 unresolved, according to the report.

"If we do not protect journalists, our ability to remain informed and make evidence-based decisions is severely hampered," U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in a statement. "When journalists cannot do their jobs in safety, we lose an important defense against the pandemic of misinformation and disinformation that has spread online."

In 2018 and 2019, television journalists made up the largest group of journalists killed and most of them were covering local stories as has also been the case in previous years, according to the report.

Among other key findings of the report, in the past decade, a journalist has been killed on average every four days. Last year was the lowest death toll recorded by UNESCO at 57 deaths. In 2019, the highest number of fatal attacks occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean region, representing 40% of total killings worldwide, followed by the Asia and Pacific region with 26% of killings.

Most journalists were killed in countries with no armed conflict, according to the UNESCO data.

"Journalism remains a dangerous profession: the threats faced by journalists are many and wide-ranging," UNESCO said in a brochure for the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists including report highlights. "While casualties related to countries experiencing armed conflict have declined, fatal attacks against journalists covering stories related to corruption, human rights violations, environmental crimes, trafficking, and political wrongdoing have risen in other countries."

First published in 2008, the report, published every two years since then, responds to a call from the 39 Member States in UNESCO's International Program for the Development of Communication.

The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution in 2013 to proclaim Nov. 2 as the "International Day to End Impunity Crimes against Journalists." The resolution urged Member States to implement concrete measures to counter the present culture of impunity. The date was chosen in honor of two French journalists in Mali who were assassinated on Nov. 2, 2013.

"Journalists are essential in preserving the fundamental right to freedom of expression, guaranteed by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,' UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said in a statement. "When journalists are attacked with impunity, there is a breakdown in security and judicial systems for all."

Record number of fires blaze in Brazil's Amazon and Pantanal wetlands in October

Firefighters, troops and volunteers try to put out a forest fire in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil, a border state with Bolivia that covers a large part of the Pantanal but over which the Amazon also extends. File Photo by Rogerio Florentino/EPA-EFE

Nov. 2 (UPI) -- A record number of fires blazed in Brazil's Amazon and Pantanal wetlands in October, new satellite data indicates.

Brazil's National Institute of Space Research reported 17,326 fires in the Amazon in October, which is more than double the 7,855 during the same month in 2019, BBC reported.

Satellite data released Sunday also indicated a record 2,856 fires in the Pantanal wetlands region last month, the highest monthly figure in over 30 years.

Campaigners claim the government hasn't done enough to curb the surge in fires, but the government denies the blame.

The government imposed a 120-day ban on setting fires in July, but the Institute of Space Research data indicate that the measures have not stopped the rise.

President Jair Bolsonaro had no comment on the latest figures, but last year contested the veracity of data from the National Space Research Institute showing increasing deforestation of the Amazon.

The INPE data also showed that 93,485 fires have been recorded in the Amazon this year, which is 25% higher than the same period last year.

Wildfires were already on the rise last year, with the INPE reporting an 82% increase in wildfires from January to August compared to the the same time frame in 2018.

Coast Guard to send its icebreaker to Arctic region


The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star will head for the Arctic Ocean for a winter deployment, instead of its usual mission to Antarctica. Photo courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard

Nov. 2 (UPI) -- The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star will deploy to the Arctic Ocean instead of its usual winter mission to the Antarctic region, the Coast Guard announced.

The 399-foot icebreaker will "help protect the nation's maritime sovereignty and security in the region," a Coast Guard statement last week said.

Additionally, the ship's resupply mission to Antarctica's McMurdo Station, a multi-nation research facility, was cancelled this year due to COVID-19 pandemic safety precautions.

A U.S. Polar-class icebreaker has not been in the Arctic Ocean since 1994, the deactivated heavy icebreaker Polar Sea, which was one of the first two American surface ships to reach the North Pole

The Polar Star, commissioned in 1976, is the U.S. military's only working icebreaker.

A second vessel, the USCGC Healy, suffered a fire in August, forcing the abandonment of an Arctic mission and a return to its homeport in Washington State for a new engine, among other repairs.

The Arctic Ocean area, with newly-found mineral deposits and new navigational routes opened by climate change, has become an area of interest to the seven nations it borders, notably Russia.

The Coast Guard reaffirmed U.S. leadership in the region in 2019, with the release of its Arctic Strategic Outlook, a plan emphasizing partnership and innovation.

"The Arctic is no longer an emerging frontier, but is instead a region of growing national importance," said Vice Adm. Linda Fagan, U.S. Coast Guard Pacific Area commander. "The Coast Guard is committed to protecting U.S. sovereignty and working with our partners to uphold a safe, secure, and rules-based Arctic."

Britain to nationalize its nuclear weapons industry

Britain's nuclear weapons industry will be nationalized, with the company Atomic Weapons Establishment LPC, whose headquarters in Aldermaston, England, is depicted. Photograph courtesy of British Office of Nuclear Regulation

Nov. 2 (UPI) -- Britain announced on Monday that management of its nuclear weapons facilities will return to government control instead of leadership by an industry consortium.

Atomic Weapons Establishment PLC builds nuclear weapons in Britain and has been operated since 2000 by a group of manufacturers led by Lockheed Martin.

The contract was expected to be completed in 2025 but British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told Parliament this week that the AWE will be wholly owned by the Ministry of Defense, beginning in June 2021.

"Following an in-depth review, the MOD concluded that AWE plc will become an arms-length Body, wholly owned by the MOD," Wallace wrote in a Ministry of Defense statement.

"The change in model will remove the current commercial arrangements, enhancing the MOD's agility in the future management of the U.K.'s nuclear deterrent, whilst also delivering on core MOD objectives and value for money to the taxpayer," Wallace wrote.

AWE is based at Aldermaston, England, and develops nuclear warheads for the Royal Navy's submarines.

In February, the ministry announced plans to develop new nuclear warheads, and nationalizing the British nuclear weapons industry reflects the government's interest in creating a better alignment between AWE and the ministry's priorities.

The end of the lucrative 25-year contract can be seen as a blow to Lockheed Martin, Serco Group and Jacobs Engineering, all AWE owners. In 2019, AWE paid $105 million to shareholders, despite controversial cost overruns and worker safety violations, and has been the subject of criticism from Britain's National Audit Office.

The Ministry of Defense has also been a target of demands by the government, under Prime Minister Boris Johnson's leadership, to control wasteful spending.

Whale tail sculpture saves Dutch metro train

Issued on: 02/11/2020 - 

The train's front carriage was left hanging above the water, propped up by the sculture called, improbably, "Saved by the Whale's Tail" Robin Utrecht ANP/AFP

Spijkenisse (Netherlands) (AFP)

A Dutch metro train was saved from disaster Monday when it smashed through a safety barrier but was prevented from plummeting into water by a sculpture of a whale tail.

The driver of the train, who was the only person on board, was unharmed in the incident which happened just after midnight at Spijkenisse, near the port city of Rotterdam.

The front carriage was left hanging 10 metres (30 feet) above the water, propped up only by the giant silver-coloured sculpture -- called, improbably, "Saved by the Whale's Tail."

"The metro went off the rails and it landed on a monument called Saved by the Whale's Tail. So that literally happened," Carly Gorter of the Rijnmond regional safety authority told AFP.

"Because of the whale's tail the driver actually was saved, it's incredible."

The driver was later held for questioning, the safety authority said. The cause of the crash was still being investigated.

The sculpture was built around 20 years ago in a park underneath the raised metro, its name a deliberate play on the fact that it is a "tail track" at the end of the line.

It features two large whale tails poking out of the water, one of which saved the train.

A team of experts, including the architect of the sculpture, was now on site to work out how to safely remove the train.

"The problem is it's water around it, so a crane isn't able to get there," said Gorter.

"We have a lot of wind at the moment and that's one of the issues that we're facing, that's a risk and worry."

© 2020 AFP

What a fluke: Dutch whale tail sculpture catches metro train

SPIJKENISSE, Netherlands — This really was a fluke.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The driver of a metro train escaped injury when the front carriage rammed through the end of an elevated section of rails and was caught by a sculpture of a whale's tail near the Dutch port city of Rotterdam.

The train was left perched upon one of two tail fins known as “flukes” several meters (yards) above the ground.

It created such a stir locally that authorities urged sightseers to stay away, adding that coronavirus restrictions were in force.

Even so, some 50 people were at the scene late Monday morning as engineers tried to work out how to stabilize and then remove the train amid strengthening winds.

“A team of experts is investigating how we can make it safe and get it down,” Carly Gorter, a spokeswoman for the local security authority, said in a telephone interview.

“It's tricky,” she added.

The authority said late Monday that a crane would attempt to lift the train off the whale Tuesday morning.

The architect who designed the sculpture, Maarten Struijs, told Dutch broadcaster RTL he was pleased that it likely saved the life of the driver.

“I'm surprised it's so strong,” he said. “If plastic has been standing for 20 years, you don't expect it to hold a metro carriage.”

The company that operates the metro line said the driver was uninjured and there were no passengers on the train when it crashed through stop barriers at the end of the station in the town of Spijkenisse, on the southern edge of Rotterdam, early Monday morning. The station is the final stop on the metro line.

Authorities launched an investigation into how the train could plough through the barrier at the end of the rail tracks. The driver was being interviewed as part of the probe, the Rijnmondveilig security authority said.

The Associated Press

K-pop's social media power spurs Thailand's youth protests

By Patpicha Tanakasempipat

© Reuters/CHALINEE THIRASUPA A woman takes a picture of a billboard whishing happy birthday to a K-pop singer Jimin at the subway in Bangkok

BANGKOK (Reuters) - From raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for Thai protesters to inspiring the youths who join demonstrations through dances and social media, K-pop fans have emerged as a potent political force in Thailand's anti-government movement.

Earlier this year, K-pop fans in the United States surprised many people by using their social media power to raise funds for Black Lives Matter and to sabotage a re-election rally for President Donald Trump.

But in Thailand they have been part of the youth culture for a long time, and their support for the protest movement reflects the frustrations of a generation that is unhappy with the government using the power of the state to stifle dissent.

© Reuters/CHALINEE THIRASUPA 

A woman walks past a billboard promoting a K-pop singer at the subway in Bangkok, Thailand

"K-pop fans would love to just fangirl over our 'oppas' and care about nothing else, but with our country like this, we as citizens have to call for better things," said Suphinchaya, 23, using the term of endearment for male K-pop artists.

Like many Thai protesters she declined to give her full name because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Young, mostly female, and social media-savvy, the profile of K-pop fans matches that of many protesters, said Chayanit Choedthammatorn, a Thai researcher of Korean studies.

"Although they are K-pop fans, they are Thai citizens first," she said.

The greatest spur to action was an Oct. 16 crackdown when police used water cannon to disperse protesters who had defied a ban aimed at ending protests against Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, a former army chief, and to demand curbs on the monarchy's power

.

© Reuters/CHALINEE THIRASUPA 

A woman takes a picture of a billboard whishing happy birthday to a K-pop singer Jimin at the subway in Bangkok

Far from the scene, Areeya started a Twitter poll from her Girls' Generation fanbase account with over 17,500 followers to see if they would help fund the cause.

Results were overwhelmingly positive, she said, as K-pop fans were no stranger to lightning fundraising campaigns - previously using them to buy billboard ads in public spaces to celebrate their beloved artists' birthdays or album releases.

"Many people were angered by the crackdown and police violence against unarmed protesters that day. They turned that anger into donation money," Areeya, 23, told Reuters.

In just nine hours, Thai fans of the girl group, who called themselves SONEs, raised more than 780,000 baht ($25,000), along with other Thai K-pop fandoms that collectively raised more than 4 million baht ($128,000) that week.

Areeya and her team coordinated purchases of protective equipment such as helmets and goggles, organising deliveries to protest sites, and recording everything for transparency.

The largest chunk of the donation went to Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, a non-profit group that provided pro bono legal assistance to more than 90 protesters arrested since mid-October.

Thai fans of K-pop's biggest names such as BTS, Super Junior, EXO, Blackpink and SHINee also mobilised. The artists' labels, SM Entertainment, Big Hit Entertainment, and YG Entertainment, did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

"We're proud to support the cause we believe in, in the name of someone we love," said Jan, 27, who raised more than 700,000 baht ($22,500) with Super Junior's fandom E.L.F. in 22 hours.

Thai Lawyers for Human Rights told Reuters donations soared.

"We suddenly have more than 10 million baht ($321,440) in our bank account," said director Yaowalak Anuphan. "I'm amazed by the K-pop fans."

On social media, K-pop fan accounts that used to focus on news about their favourite artists have turned political - promoting protest-related hashtags and undermining pro-monarchy hashtags with sarcastic messages and K-pop slang.

The presence of K-pop fans is visible at protests, as activists wave LED signs and light sticks, as they would at K-pop concerts, and hold gold-framed pictures of music idols that parody portraits of Thai royals.

The fans' knowledge of South Korea's history and the part pop culture played in recent protests was also a source for inspiration.

Natchapol Chaloeykul, 24, danced at recent protests to the sounds of "Into the New World" by Girls' Generation - the song sung at student rallies that led to the impeachment of former South Korean president Park Geun-hye in 2017.

"K-pop fans read up about South Korea, and when we look back on our country, we wonder why we can't be where they are," said Natchapol.

"Like in the song, we want new things for our country too."

($1 = 31.1100 baht)

(Reporting by Patpicha Tanakasempipat; Editing by Matthew Tostevin & Simon Cameron-Moore)

Poles protest again as abortion ruling expected to take effect

WARSAW (Reuters) - Poles staged further protests in cities across the country on Monday ahead of the expected entry into force of a ruling by the Constitutional Tribunal that bans most abortions and that has prompted nearly two weeks of demonstrations and rallies.

© Reuters/KACPER PEMPEL Protest against Poland's Constitutional Tribunal ruling on abortion, in Warsaw

The Oct. 22 ruling bans terminations due to foetal defects, ending one of the few legal grounds left for abortion in staunchly Catholic Poland and setting the country further apart from Europe's mainstream.

Protesters have flooded into the streets almost every day since the ruling, defying coronavirus restrictions that ban gatherings of more than five people, in an outpouring of anger against the verdict, and more broadly against the nationalist government and its allies in the Roman Catholic Church.

Footage from private broadcaster TVN24 showed protesters blocking traffic in several streets in central Warsaw. Traffic was also blocked in the southern city of Katowice and in Poznan in western Poland.

In Poznan, the protesters stood in a line blocking tram tracks and a road, chanting "I will protect my sisters when the state does not protect them" and holding banners that read "This is war" and 'Poland is a woman".

In Katowice cars blocked traffic in the city centre, while in the south-western city of Wroclaw protesters marched with banners that read "I think, I feel, I decide".

The government is expected to publish the ruling later on Monday in its official gazette, meaning it has entered into legal force.

The protests are the latest and largest manifestation of a conflict between liberals and religious conservatives that has also centred around LGBT rights. The protests have seen huge mobilisation among younger Poles.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, from the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS), urged the protesters on Monday to take part in talks and not to try and settle differences on the street because of the risks of spreading COVID-19.

(Reporting by Alan Charlish and Anna Koper; Editing by Gareth Jones)

On Día de los Muertos, Mexicans remember the 1,700 doctors, health workers dead from Covid
The Associated Press

MEXICO CITY —The altar shows a diminutive figure of a skeleton in a face mask and medical cap, with a hand on a bedridden patient. At its side is the sort of skull made of sugar common on Day of the Dead altars. And behind is the photo of a white-haired 64-year-old man in glasses smiling at the camera: the late Dr. Jose Luis Linares.

© Provided by NBC News

Linares is one of more than 1,700 Mexican health workers officially known to have died of COVID-19 who are being honored with three days of national mourning on these Days of the Dead.

Linares attended to patients at a private clinic in a poor neighborhood in the southern part of the city, usually charging about 30 pesos (roughly $1.50) a consultation. Because he didn’t work at an official COVID-19 center, his family doesn’t qualify for the assistance the government gives to medical personnel stricken by the disease, his widow said

“I told him, ‘Luis, don’t go to work.’ But he told me, ‘Then who is going to see those poor people,’” said his widow, Dr. María del Rosario Martínez. She said he had taken precautions against the disease because of lungs damaged by an earlier illness.

In addition to the usual marigolds and paper cutouts for Day of the Dead altars, hers this year includes little skeleton figures shown doing consultations or surgeries in honor of colleagues who have died.

It’s echoed in many parts of a country that as of September, according to Amnesty International, had lost more medical professionals to the coronavirus than any other nation.

They include people like nurse Jose Valencia, and Dr. Samuel Silva Montenegro of Mexico City, whose images rest atop altars in the homes of loved ones in Mexico City,

Martínez's altar is in a living room beside a room in their apartment where she and her husband gave consultations. Martínez, who also fell ill but recovered, now sees patients only online or by phone.

Linares died May 25 after being hospitalized at a peak of infections in Mexico City. Martínez lost consciousness at the news, but when she came to, she found her only son and her sister were hugging her. “Don’t touch me, don’t touch me!” she yelled, fearing they too would be infected.

At the peak of her own illness, she trekked from saturated hospital to overflowing clinic, looking for help.

Martínez, 59, said she now feels better, and at peace, though not resigned to the loss of her husband of 36 years, who she first met as a girl selling gum outside a movie theater to help support her eight brothers and sisters.

“I feel strange,” she said. “But I owe it to the patients and they are going to help me get through this.” She said, though, that she expects to work fewer hours.

“I’m afraid because we don’t know how much immunity you’re doing to have, how long it will work,” she said. “The illness is very hard, very cruel. ... All over the world, we are going to have a very sad story to tell.”

Mexico has reported more than 924,000 confirmed coronavirus infections and nearly 140.000 deaths listed as confirmed or probable, though experts say the actual numbers are likely significantly higher.

Still Martinez has found comfort in Mexico’s Day of the Dead practices.

“According to the traditions and beliefs, he is going to come here, accompany us, and he is going to be happy that I am thinking of him in this moment.”

Corpses lie unclaimed on Day of the Dead in violent Mexican state

By Josue Gonzalez, Daina Beth Solomon


VIDEO https://www.reuters.com/video/?videoId=OVD2QR48X&jwsource=em

CHILPANCINGO, Mexico (Reuters) - For Ben Yehuda Martinez, head of forensic services in the violence-torn Mexican state of Guerrero, there is more to celebrating Day of the Dead than arranging a colorful altar with flowers and photos.

It means trying to identify 428 bodies currently unclaimed at the state’s forensic cemetery, most of them victims of crime.

“Trying to find out their identities ... that’s the greatest recognition we can get on the Day of the Dead,” Martinez said at one of Mexico’s newest facilities for unidentified bodies.

The latest official count of people listed as disappeared reached 73,000 this year. Most are believed to be victims of drug cartel turf wars, casting a shadow over the typically festive Nov. 1-2 Day of the Dead holiday.

For families who spend months or years searching for vanished relatives, the possibility of death is often hard to accept, said Arturo Gerardo Cervantes, a forensic adviser for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

“They never lose hope of finding their loved ones alive,” he said.

Still, once there is proof, it can bring closure.

For one family looking for a missing young woman, that proof came from her feet. Relatives fondly recalled how she would put up her feet on the coffee table while watching television.

About 60%-70% of the dead examined by Guerrero’s forensic team are shooting victims. Others died in incidents ranging from natural disasters to car crashes. Workers are at pains to treat them with dignity.

On Friday, a priest led a ceremony to commemorate their lives alongside a wreath of golden marigolds, the traditional Day of the Dead flower, before sprinkling holy water upon numbered compartments stacked four rows high.

The scene was a contrast to those playing out at ordinary cemeteries around Mexico, where families pay tribute to deceased relatives with festive picnics and elaborate decorations.

The cemetery opened in 2017 to relieve overcrowding at forensic facilities caused by record levels of violence.

With ICRC assistance, officials designed the site to accommodate bodies individually, rather than putting several into one grave. The facility holds up to 1,120 in individual tombs.

Each has a plaque with a person’s case number, so families can easily retrieve bodies once they are identified.

That requires specialists in matching distinguishing features such as teeth, fingerprints, birthmarks and DNA. Such people are in short supply.

“Here the violence truly, like everywhere else, hasn’t slowed down ... bodies arrive every day,” Martinez said. “This is a never-ending story.”

Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon in Mexico City and Josue Gonzalez in Chilpancingo; Editing by Lisa Shumaker

In Frida Kahlo's old home, Day of the Dead 'offering' honors artists felled by pandemics

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A traditional Day of the Dead “offering” in Frida Kahlo’s iconic home in Mexico City has taken on a wider artistic homage, with an exhibition helped by French designer Jean Paul Gaultier also remembering artists who have died in past pandemics.

Mexico’s Day of the Dead festival blends Catholic rituals with the pre-Hispanic belief that the dead return once a year from the underworld, and seeks to celebrate the continuity of life.

Traditionally, Mexicans build Day of the Dead altars in their homes and outside, where they place pictures of the dead and items they enjoyed in life.



In Kahlo’s “Blue House,” which is now a museum, organizers put together an offering titled “The Restored Table: Memory and Reencounter,” in collaboration with Gaultier, who was a huge fan of the iconic Mexican artist. The offering included pictures of famed artists who died in previous pandemics, including Italian painter Tiziano, who passed away in 1576 when the plague ravaged Venice, and Austria’s Gustav Klimt, who died from the Spanish flu in 1918.

“It’s an interesting experience,” said Mariyah Efimova, a Russian tourist in the Mexican capital.

The offering included an homage to Mexican artist Manuel Felguérez, who died from COVID-19, and marigolds, known in Mexico as “the flower of the dead” for a scent believed to be strong and sweet enough to attract souls and draw them back.

Edna Romero, a mask-wearing visitor, said it was important for her family to learn about Kahlo and Mexican traditions such as Day of the Dead despite the tough times during the coronavirus pandemic.

“It’s very interesting and very cool,” said Romero. “I hope it will be a respite.”

Spanish families mark Day of the Dead separately amid COVID-19 fears

By Guillermo Martinez

MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish families who normally honour their dead relatives by visiting cemeteries on the Day of the Dead are spacing out their visits this year as a second wave of coronavirus sweeps the country.

Authorities have advised families to spend only 30 minutes at graveyards and not to go in large groups to mark the event, which is linked to the Catholic holidays of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day at the start of November.

“Our family is coming separately, two or three days apart. We are the last to visit,” said Francisco Gonzalez, 81, who visited the Almudena cemetery in Madrid with his wife.

Flower sellers said many people are staying away, meaning fewer sales of bouquets to place at graves.

Yolanda Gomez, a florist who has her stall at the entrance to Almudena, said sales of flowers had fallen by 50% this year.

Spain imposed a six-month state of emergency last week enabling it to impose measures aimed at trying to reduce the soaring rate of coronavirus infections, including night curfews.

Vatican breaks silence, explains pope's civil union comments

ROME — The Vatican says Pope Francis’ comments on gay civil unions were taken out of context in a documentary that spliced together parts of an old interview, but still confirmed Francis’ belief that gay couples should enjoy legal protections.

© Provided by NBC News

The Vatican secretariat of state issued guidance to ambassadors to explain the uproar that Francis’ comments created following the Oct. 21 premiere of the film “Francesco,” at the Rome Film Festival. The Vatican nuncio to Mexico, Archbishop Franco Coppola, posted the unsigned guidance on his Facebook page Sunday.

In it, the Vatican confirmed that Francis was referring to his position in 2010 when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires and strongly opposed moves to allow same-sex marriage. Instead, he favored extending legal protections to gay couples under what is understood in Argentina as a civil union law.

While Francis was known to have taken that position privately, he had never articulated his support while as pope. As a result, the comments made headlines, primarily because the Vatican’s doctrine office in 2003 issued a document prohibiting such endorsement. The document, signed by Francis’ predecessor as pope, says the church’s support for gay people “cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behavior or to legal recognition of homosexual unions.”

The recent uproar gained even more attention because it turned out director Evgeny Afineevsky misled journalists by claiming Francis had made the comments to him in a new interview. A week before the premiere, when he was asked about the civil union comments, Afineevsky told The Associated Press that he had two on-camera interviews with the pope. In comments to journalists after the premiere, he claimed that the civil union footage came from an interview with the pope with a translator present.

It turned out, Francis’ comments were apparently taken from a May 2019 interview with Mexican broadcaster Televisa that were never broadcast. The Vatican hasn’t confirmed or denied reports by sources in Mexico that the Vatican cut the quote from the footage it provided to Televisa after the interview, which was filmed with Vatican cameras.

Afineevsky apparently was given access to the original, uncut footage in the Vatican archives.

The guidance issued by the secretariat of state doesn’t address the issue of the cut quote or that it came from the Televisa interview. It says only that it was from a 2019 interview and that the comments used in the documentary spliced together parts of two different responses in a way that removed crucial context.

“More than a year ago, during an interview, Pope Francis answered two different questions at two different times that, in the aforementioned documentary, were edited and published as a single answer without proper contextualization, which has led to confusion,” said the guidance posted by Coppola.

In the film, Afineevsky recounts the story of Andrea Rubera, a married gay Catholic who wrote Francis asking for his advice about bringing into the church his three young children with his husband.

It was an anguished question, given that the Catholic Church teaches that gay people must be treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.” The church also holds that marriage is an indissoluble union between man and woman, and as a result, gay marriage is unacceptable.

In the end, Rubera recounts how Francis urged him to approach his parish transparently and bring the children up in the faith, which he did. After the anecdote ends, the film cuts to Francis’ comments from the Televisa interview.

“Homosexual people have the right to be in a family. They are children of God,” Francis said. “You can’t kick someone out of a family, nor make their life miserable for this. What we have to have is a civil union law; that way they are legally covered.”

Francis’ comments about gays having the right to be in a family referred to parents with gay children, and the need for them to not kick their children out or discriminate against them, the Vatican guidance said.

Francis was not endorsing the right of gay couples to adopt children, even though the placement of the quote right after Rubera told his story made it seem that Francis was.

The pope’s comments about gay civil unions came from a different part of the Televisa interview and included several caveats that were not included in the film.

In the Televisa interview, Francis made clear he was explaining his position about the unique case in Buenos Aires 10 years ago, as opposed to Rubera’s situation or gay marriage as a whole.

In the Televisa interview, Francis also insisted that he always maintained Catholic doctrine and said there was an “incongruity” for the Catholic Church as far as “homosexual marriage” is concerned.

The documentary eliminated that context.

The Televisa footage is available online, and includes an awkward cut right after Francis spoke about the “incongruity” of homosexual marriage. Presumably, that is where he segued into his position as archbishop in favoring extending legal protections to gay couples.

Neither the Vatican nor Afineevsky have responded to repeated questions about the cut quote or its origin.

The Vatican guidance insists that Francis wasn’t contradicting church doctrine. But it doesn’t explain how his support for extending Argentine legal protections to gay couples in 2010 could be squared with the 2003 document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which says “the principles of respect and non-discrimination cannot be invoked to support legal recognition of homosexual unions.”