Vatican: Pope Benedict XVI approved bishop accord with China

NICOLE WINFIELD,
Associated Press•October 3, 2020


Vatican denies Pompeo audience with Pope


ROME (AP) — The Vatican doubled down Saturday on its intent to pursue continued dialogue with China over bishop nominations, defending a deal it did with the Chinese government in 2018 as necessary to the life of the Catholic Church there, over strong U.S. objections.

The Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, gave the Holy See’s most authoritative and comprehensive response to critics of the extended accord during a speech marking the 150th anniversary of the arrival in China of Catholic missionaries from an Italian religious order.

Parolin insisted that popes as far back as Pius XII had tried to reopen a path of dialogue with Beijing after the communists came to power and expelled foreign missionaries. And he confirmed that Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI had approved the draft accord that the Vatican under Pope Francis eventually signed in 2018.

Parolin’s assertion that Benedict had approved the draft is significant and was aimed at silencing some of Francis’ conservative critics, many of whom are nostalgic for Benedict's conservative papacy and have used the China agreement to undermine Francis.

The Vatican is seeking to extend the deal with China, which envisages a process of dialogue in selecting bishops. It signed it in 2018 in hopes it would help unite China’s Catholics, who for seven decades have been split between those belonging to an official, state-sanctioned church and an underground church loyal to Rome.

The question of bishop nominations has long vexed Vatican-China relations, with the Holy See insisting on the pope's divine right to name the successors of the apostles and Beijing considering such nominations foreign infringement on its sovereignty.

The Vatican has defended the 2018 accord against criticism that Francis sold out the underground faithful, saying the deal was necessary to prevent an even worse schism in the Chinese church after China named bishops without the pope's consent.

“Benedict XVI approved the draft agreement on the nomination of bishops in China that only in 2018 it was possible to sign,” Parolin said. He added that the accord only covers the nomination of bishops and does not in any way touch on other aspects of the life of the church in China, much less political issues.

He called it a “point of departure” and said it was worth extending because two years was too short a period of time to evaluate its worth.

“There have been some results, but in order for the dialogue to have more consistent fruits, it’s necessary to continue,” he said. “From the Holy See’s side, there is the will to prolong the accord on an experimental basis, as it has been done, in order to verify its use.”

It was the third time this week that Parolin has had to defend the accord, after a tense visit from U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to the Vatican. During a speech on religious liberty in Rome and in an essay penned before his arrival, Pompeo made clear U.S. objections to the accord and urged the Vatican to join the U.S. in denouncing China’s crackdown on religious and ethnic minorities, Catholics among them.

“This isn’t about the United States versus China. This is about tyranny,” Pompeo told reporters en route home from Croatia on Friday, at the end of a European trip to try to rally European support for the tough U.S. line on Beijing that has accelerated amid the coronavirus pandemic and ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

In his speech Saturday, Parolin used the occasion to acknowledge errors in the “imperialist” way some Catholic missionaries operated in the past and even the Holy See’s own decision to name only non-Chinese bishops at the start, a clear nod to decades of Chinese complaints about foreign interference by the church.

Parolin was speaking at the Milan headquarters of the Pontifical Institute of Foreign Missions, a religious order that first sent Italian missionaries to mainland China in 1870. All foreign missionaries were expelled, and diplomatic relations with the Holy See severed, after Chinese communists came to power in the 1950s

Joyce Echaquan death: Canada PM Trudeau decries 'worst form of racism'

BBC•October 1, 2020

A video of a dying indigenous woman screaming in distress and being insulted by hospital staff shows the "worst form of racism", says Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Three investigations are under way and a nurse has been fired since the video emerged early this week.

The woman, Joyce Echaquan, streamed her treatment on Facebook shortly before her death in Joliette, Quebec.

There has been a growing outcry since the incident.

It is the latest in a series of events that have raised questions about systemic racism faced by indigenous people in Canada.

In 2015 a report found that racism they faced in the healthcare system contributed to their overall poorer health outcomes, compared to non-indigenous Canadians.

On Wednesday, Mr Trudeau said Ms Echaquan's case was "another example of systemic racism".
What happened?

Ms Echaquan, a 37-year-old Atikamekw woman, had gone to the Joliette hospital, about 70km (45 miles) from Montreal, suffering from stomach pains.

The mother of seven filmed herself in her hospital bed screaming and calling for urgent help.

A member of staff can be heard saying to her, in French: "You're stupid as hell." Another says Ms Echaquan had made bad choices in life and asks what her children would think of her behaviour.
  

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Ms Echaquan died soon afterwards. Her relatives told Radio-Canada that she had a history of heart trouble and was worried that she was being given too much morphine.
What has the reaction been?

"The nurse, what she said, is totally unacceptable, it's racist and she was fired," Quebec Premier François Legault told a news conference this week. "We must fight this racism."

Three current investigations have been launched. Two will be conducted by regional health authorities, one looking into Ms Echaquan's case and another into practices at the hospital.

A forensic pathologist responsible for investigating deaths in suspicious circumstances or due to negligence will also look into her death.

Ghislain Picard, Grand Chief of the Assembly of First Nations Quebec and Labrador, said racism was "very often the fruit of government policies which lead to systemic discrimination".

The premier is expected to meet with Chief Picard on Friday.

In a tweet, Perry Bellegarde, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, said the incident showed that discrimination against indigenous people in Canada's healthcare system remained prevalent.

The Atikamekw council of Manawan said the remarks "clearly demonstrate racism against First Nations".

A vigil for Ms Echaquan was held outside the Joliette hospital on Tuesday evening and a protest is planned in Montreal at the weekend.

Online fundraising campaigns have been set up to support her family, with one raising over C$160,000 ($120,000; £91,500).
What's the background?

In recent years Canada has been coming to terms with racial injustice suffered by its indigenous people.

Last year a government inquiry found that Canada was complicit in "race-based genocide" against indigenous women.

The report said indigenous women were 12 times more likely to be killed or to disappear than other women in Canada. The inquiry said the cause was deep-rooted colonialism and state inaction.

Quebec published its own report a year ago, following a public inquiry into the relationship between indigenous people and the provincial government services.

The commissioner found that it was "impossible to deny that members of First Nations and Inuit are victims of systemic discrimination in their relations with the public services that are the subject of this inquiry".

In June this year, video showed an indigenous chief, Allan Adam, being repeatedly punched by police as he was arrested in Alberta, sparking outrage across the country.

Also in June, health authorities in the province of British Columbia launched an investigation amid claims that some hospital staff were betting on the blood alcohol level of indigenous patients.

The politics behind Xi's big green promise for China

AFP•October 2, 2020


The politics behind Xi's big green promise for China
The Chinese leader last month chose the UN as the stage for his country's unexpected pledge to reach peak coal use by 2030 and go carbon neutral three decades later

Xi Jinping's vow to snuff out emissions by 2060 completes a diplomatic pirouette that moves China to the heart of the global green agenda, wrong-foots the US and cuddles up to Europe's climate advocates in one nimble step.

The Chinese leader last month chose the UN as the stage for his country's unexpected pledge to reach peak coal use by 2030 and go carbon neutral three decades later.

The announcement gives China -- the world's biggest polluter and second-largest economy -- an opportunity to show environmental leadership at the same time as the United States retreats from the issue under climate change sceptic Donald Trump.

While light on details, the plan is a game-changer if China is good to Xi's word, and the pledge was welcomed by the European Union, which is already toughening up its own emissions targets.

"It comes at a very good time," says Wendel Trio, of Climate Action Network Europe, with the European Commission launching its own proposal to deepen its emissions cuts to 55 percent by 2030.

China has become a diplomatic pariah after spats with India over borders, the EU over rights abuses, Australia over security and the US over everything from trade and technology to the origins of the coronavirus.

The 2060 pledge reflects China's desire to showcase itself as a "responsible international player" after a storm of negative attention, Trio added.

While many remain unconvinced China can meet its carbon ambitions -- especially as it goes on a coal spending spree at home and sponsors dirty energy projects abroad -- the promise gives China helmsmanship of a big global issue for the first time.

"Xi's pledge plays into his larger agenda of promoting China as a global standard setter," says Maria Repnikova, political scientist at Georgia State University.

China also remains tethered to the Paris climate accords, the deepest effort yet to stop calamitous warming of the Earth, despite Trump pulling the US out of the deal.

"China no longer just follows international rule and norms, it creates them. That's a significant shift, and a big contrast with the isolationist rhetoric of the United States," Repnikova said.


- New green order? -


Xi also has hard domestic calculations at play.

China's 30-year economic surge from developing nation to superpower status has been nourished by coal -- bringing with it some of the world's most polluted skies -- and the country is far from quitting its carbon addiction.

Next year China hosts the delayed UN biodiversity summit and Xi will likely seek positive headlines on his environmental position.

Beijing's five-year economic plan, which also comes into force next year, will be scoured for serious commitments to weaning the country off coal.

Currently, just 15 percent of the country's energy mix is provided by renewables. Beijing's 2060 commitment means that will have to ramp up fast.

But if the global direction of travel is away from coal and towards cheap renewables and green tech, China could put itself at the forefront of a new economic order.

That could encourage action by provincial governments made twitchy by the economic blows of the coronavirus pandemic, says Lina Li, climate and foreign policy specialist at the Berlin-based Adelphi consultancy.


- Strategic win for Beijing -


Taking coal plants offline, meeting stringent emissions targets and pleasing the population by curbing pollution could also deliver a strategic win to the Chinese Communist Party.

The move will allow Beijing to "tighten its controls over the local governments as well as the Chinese society," says Fuzuo Wu, an international relations lecturer at the University of Salford.

But whether China's new climate policy supersedes international angst over human rights issues remains to be seen.

On Wednesday German Chancellor Angela Merkel accused China of "poor and cruel treatment" of its minorities and raised fears over the running crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong.

European leaders are planning to hold a special summit next month to discuss the continent's complicated relations with China.

The climate question could also be suddenly reshaped by the outcome of next month's US election.

China and the US are arm-wrestling for supremacy in trade, tech and defence and experts say the green agenda will become a new battleground -- or a potential point of rapprochement.

Another Trump victory would further America's isolation over the environment. But a win for Joe Biden, champion of a Green New Deal for America, "will change the setting," Trio adds.

burs-apj/gle

Report: Coronavirus has been a gift to dictators

Alexander Nazaryan
National Correspondent,
Yahoo News•October 1, 2020

Freedom House president Michael Abramowitz in 2018. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for Freedom House)

WASHINGTON — The coronavirus pandemic has led to a deterioration of democracy and human rights in 80 countries around the world, including the United States, according to a new report by the human rights organization Freedom House that was released Friday.

Governments in nations where freedoms were weak to begin with have responded “by engaging in abuses of power, silencing their critics, and weakening or shuttering important institutions,” the report concludes. An advance copy of the report, titled “Democracy Under Lockdown: The Impact of COVID-19 on the Global Struggle for Freedom,” was provided to Yahoo News.

“The pandemic has brought a health crisis, an economic crisis — all that has been recognized. But it’s also bringing a human rights and democracy crisis,” said Michael Abramowitz, president of Freedom House, in an interview on “Skullduggery,” a Yahoo News podcast.


Among the 80 countries where Freedom House found democracy and basic liberties imperiled is the U.S., which is cited for police violence and media restrictions. In his “Skullduggery” interview, Abramowitz warned that President Trump’s baseless claims about the integrity of next month’s presidential election further endangers the health of American democracy.


“It was just very extraordinary to us that the president of the United States would seek to sow confusion and raise doubts about the legitimacy of our election as opposed to make sure we have fair balloting,” Abramowitz said. “I can’t remember in my lifetime a U.S. president going out of his way to undermine confidence in the election. This has become kind of a talking point for him; every day he’s doing this. It’s part of a deliberate strategy to undermine confidence in the elections.”

In its report, Freedom House also faults the Trump administration for “creating a fog of misinformation around the pandemic,” in part by promoting potentially dangerous treatments like hydroxychloroquine, stoking conspiracy theories about government scientists, and pressuring some of those same scientists to alter data.

The report also worries that Trump was using the pandemic as “a pretext to set aside due process obligations and intensify its clampdown on asylum seekers and immigration in general.”

Repression has taken on different forms around the world. In the Balkan country of Montenegro, authorities used the fear of viral spread to stop protests organized by members of the Serbian Orthodox Church, which had been feuding with the government over land rights. Turkey, meanwhile, saw an opportunity to blame members of the Islamic nation’s LGBTQ community, which it falsely blamed for spreading the virus.

The inclusion of the United States appears to be another sign of the nation’s faltering and chaotic response, which has resulted in nearly 210,000 Americans dead.

Earlier this year, the State Department released a list of nations where the coronavirus had led to deteriorations in the democratic process and the rule of law. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a foreign policy hawk and close ally of Trump, contrasted “authoritarian regimes,” which he said “are poorly designed to deal with the kind of crisis that this pandemic has engendered,” with democracies, “where scientists and freedom and thought and journalists can all operate freely.”

Documents show large police presence at George Floyd burial

JUAN A. LOZANO,
Associated Press•October 2, 2020


 In this June 9, 2020 file photo, George Floyd's funeral procession arrives at Houston Memorial Gardens cemetery, in Pearland, Texas. During George Floyd's June burial at a cemetery in the Houston suburb of Pearland, authorities deployed hundreds of law enforcement personnel, including six sniper teams and highly trained members of the Border Patrol, due in part to what they described as social media chatter and public anxiety about possible protests and riots, according to documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay File)


HOUSTON (AP) — Authorities deployed hundreds of law enforcement personnel, including six sniper teams and Border Patrol agents, during George Floyd’s June burial in suburban Houston, due in part to online rumors of possible protests and riots, according to documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas.

Authorities prepared for the possibility of “violent protesting” and vandalism at the Pearland police department and municipal court building, which were near the cemetery, according to the documents first exposed by VICE News.

Floyd’s entombment in a mausoleum took place without any major incidents. Hundreds of mourners, including families with children, peacefully lined the street leading to the cemetery, setting up tents and chairs and waiting for hours in stifling 93-degree heat and humidity on June 9 for the arrival of his casket. The most dangerous thing during the burial ended up being the weather; eight people were hospitalized for heat-related illnesses.

Pearland Police Chief Johnny Spires defended the large law enforcement presence.


“Our job was to do all we could to ensure Mr. Floyd was entombed in peace and his family, the attendees, and our residents were safe. We had a responsibility to protect people and property that day,” Spires said in a letter posted Friday on Facebook.

The ACLU of Texas and a Houston-area activist were critical of how the burial was patrolled, calling it an unjustified and massive militarized police response.

“Just a comprehensive and deeply problematic example of a disproportionate policing response that deployed the potential for the violent use of force to an event where George Floyd’s family and the community were mourning the tragic loss of life at the hands of police officers,” said Shaw Drake, policy counsel of the ACLU of Texas Border Rights Center.

Ashton Woods, the lead organizer with Black Lives Matter Houston, said the police response could have put mourners in danger.

“No one was looking to take away attention from the funeral of George Floyd,” Woods said. “I feel like we never get room and space to breathe and grieve.”

Drake said the public's fear of looting “has been weaponized against brown and Black communities.”

Pearland police said they were aware their response could feed into the public perception of racial stereotypes, and that the agency had their officers wear normal uniforms. Additional personnel would not be visible unless the situation required a response.

Floyd, a Black man who grew up in Houston, died in May after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee to Floyd’s neck, pinning him to the ground.

Before his burial in Pearland, area residents raised concerns with police about possible protests and violence due to posts they had seen on social media, according to a report prepared by the city after the burial.

Spires said his agency was told to expect protests and counter-protests from potentially armed groups.

“We realize that social media is a place of wild and dangerous words, but we cannot assume that’s where they will remain,” Spires said.

Drake said he believes the police response was built in part on vague, unsubstantiated online rumors.

Nearly 500 personnel were assembled to monitor the burial, including 100 National Guard troops and 66 agents from U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Border Patrol Tactical Unit, known as BORTAC, according to a PowerPoint presentation. Multiple agencies also flew drones and surveillance aircraft.

Spires said his police department, with less than 170 officers, did not have the resources to patrol the burial alone so it asked other agencies for help.

Drake said the ACLU was deeply troubled that BORTAC agents were part of the law enforcement response. BORTAC agents have been criticized for how they have detained and arrested protesters in Portland, Oregon.

A representative of Customs and Border Protection in Washington, D.C., declined to comment on the work of BORTAC agents in Pearland.

CBP said its special operations teams are routinely deployed to help law enforcement nationwide.

“It simply wasn’t necessary,” Jason M. Williams, an assistant professor of Justice Studies at Montclair State University in New Jersey, said of the large police presence. “It goes to show the extent to which even after death, Black bodies cannot rest in peace.”

___

Associated Press writer Ben Fox in Washington contributed to this report.

Amnesty: Hundreds detained as Egyptian police quash protests

Associated Press•October 2, 2020

In this Jan. 20, 2020 file photo, Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi arrives at Buckingham Palace for a reception to mark the UK-Africa Investment Summit in London. A global watchdog and human rights lawyers on Friday, Oct. 2, 2020, say that Egyptian authorities have arrested hundreds of people in their effort to clamp down on a spate of small but exceptionally rare protests across the country. (Henry Nicholls/Pool Photo via AP, File )


CAIRO (AP) — Egyptian authorities have arrested hundreds of people in their effort to clamp down on a spate of small but exceptionally rare protests across the country, a global watchdog and human rights lawyers said Friday.

Riot police forcibly dispersed the limited demonstrations over economic grievances that erupted across several impoverished, rural villages over the past few weeks, firing tear gas and birdshot, according to a new report from London-based rights group Amnesty International.

The group said it verified videos showing officers with rifles out in force, in two cases beating unarmed protests with batons and firing birdshot at those running away. Two men were killed in the crackdown, the group said, one hit with birdshot by security forces south of Cairo and another during a police raid in the southern city of Luxor.

Hundreds have landed in jail, according to estimates from multiple lawyers, and remain in custody pending investigations into murky terrorism-related charges, a common tool used by state prosecutors to silence critics and quash dissent. From interviews with eyewitnesses, activists, family members and lawyers, Amnesty said it had confirmed that 496 people remain in detention.


In an unusual show of defiance, small groups of Egyptians dared to join street demonstrations on the anniversary of short-lived protests against the authoritarian rule of President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi that flared last year.

“The fact that these protesters took to the streets while knowing the very high risk to their lives and safety they were taking shows how desperate they were to demand their economic and social rights,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty's regional research and advocacy director.

Last September, Egyptians violated a long-standing protest ban to rally in Cairo and several other cities, heeding calls from former military contractor Mohamed Ali, a self-exiled dissident. In a series of widely watched videos, Ali accused el-Sissi’s government of wasting money on lavish projects while ordinary Egyptians struggled under harsh austerity measures. To stamp out the demonstrations, the government arrested thousands and planted security forces at intersections.

This year, the turnout was much smaller, confined to poor neighborhoods in villages rather than major streets in the capital. Still, the government response was swift and decisive.

Khaled Ali, a well-known Egyptian human rights lawyer, told The Associated Press that he documented 800 arrests following protests in the suburb of Giza, the northern city of Alexandria, and towns in southern Egypt, including Luxor and Aswan. He said police used electric shocks when interrogating one of his clients who was picked up in the northeastern city of Suez.

A lawyer at the Egyptian Front for Human Rights, a monitoring group, said he represents 50 defendants across five different provinces caught in the most recent crackdown, but knows of a total of 1,200 people detained last month from records shared among lawyers. He said officers denied 14 of his clients at a prison in Giza adequate food and water, and routinely beat them during interrogations. In 90% of the cases, he said, those arrested had not participated in street protests but were pulled from their homes after rallies died down.

“This is why we call the arrests arbitrary,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. “The authorities are under pressure. They can’t let demonstrations happen without arrests.”

One resident of Aswan confirmed to the AP that his brother, a village leader, disappeared after protests broke out in the city on Sept. 20. Four days later, he resurfaced at the local prosecution office and was ordered detained for 15 days on charges of misusing social media and joining illegal demonstrations . He spoke on condition of anonymity for the same reason.

In 2013, el-Sissi led the military backed ouster of the country’s first democratically elected but divisive Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, amid mass protests against his brief rule. In the years since, the government has ratcheted up its crackdown, targeting not only Islamist political opponents but also secular pro-democracy activists, journalists and online critics.

A government media officer did not respond to requests for comment about the allegations. The Interior Ministry has not publicly acknowledged making arrests in response to demonstrations. But Egypt’s state prosecution office said in a statement earlier this week that it had released 68 children who had been arrested for “participating in the recent riots.”

The lawyer at Egyptian Front for Human Rights said 100 children had been picked up at protests in the southern city of Aswan. While the 68 released were under the age of 14, dozens of teenagers remain detained, he added.

The protests last month were largely ignited by worsening economic conditions, as the government accelerates demolitions of illegal housing units in Egypt's vast informal settlements. One third of the population lived in poverty before the coronavirus pandemic, but life for ordinary Egyptians has gotten far harder in recent months, as the country's tourism-dependent economy grapples with the fallout of virus-induced lockdowns.

State-owned media insists the situation is under control. On Friday, pro-government TV channels broadcast footage of throngs of Egyptians waving flags and raising portraits of el-Sissi in celebration of Armed Forces Day, the holiday to commemorate the 1973 war with Israel.

Pakistani rights worker: Charges against family unfounded

KATHY GANNON,
Associated Press•October 2, 2020




Pakistan Silencing Critics
FILE - In this Oct. 17, 2019, file photo, Professor Mohammad Ismail, father of Pakistani human rights activist Gulalai Ismail, holds a photo of his daughter in Islamabad, Pakistan. Ismail, an elderly human rights worker said Friday, Oct. 2, 2020 that his wife and their daughter, who has already fled to America after being targeted by the country's powerful military for investigations into rights abuses by solders, faces a fresh wave of terrorism related charges. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed, File)
More


ISLAMABAD (AP) — An elderly Pakistani human rights worker said Friday his wife and their daughter — who has already fled to America after being targeted by the country’s powerful military for her investigations into human rights abuses by soldiers — face new terrorism-related charges.

In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, retired university professor Mohammad Ismail said he has a number of court appearances this month after an anti-terrorism court charged him, his wife and daughter with involvement in two suicide attacks, one in 2013 and one in 2015.

“They just want to get our girl with these terrorist financing charges,” said Ismail. “ Because they can't get her they are going after me and my wife, who is a housewife, who has not even had an education but still they ae after her.”

Rights workers in Pakistan like Ismail, and journalists, have increasingly come under attack by Pakistan's government and security establishments, restricting the space for criticism and dissent.

“We are deeply concerned at increasing attempts to control the media, suppress independent voices, and curb political dissent, thereby creating an environment of constant fear,” said the highly respected independent human rights commission in Pakistan in a recent statement. “It is the responsibility of the government to provide safety and security to every citizen, irrespective of his or her religious or political beliefs.”

Ismail denies the charges against him and says they are aimed at intimidating his daughter, Gulalai Ismail, who fled to safety in the United States earlier this year.

The charges against the 66-year-old Ismail and his family include an allegation by Pakistan's civilian investigation agencies lodged with an anti-terrorist court in the northwest city of Peshawar. It alleges that a donation to his daughter's children's charity, Aware Girls, was spent on cars that were used as suicide bombs. Aware Girls fights discrimination and abuse of girls and women.

The donation came from a group known as Asia Safe Abortion Partnership, which aims to assist young girls with safe abortions. It has an office in hostile neighbor India, but operates in a number of countries in Asia.

Gulalai Ismail has been a longtime advocate of women's and girls' rights, particularly in Pakistan's conservative northwest regions.

In a tweet this week she assailed the attacks on her parents calling Pakistan's security agencies “shameless," and accusing Pakistan's intelligence of aiding anti-India terrorist groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba. Both are banned organizations whose operations the government and military say they have stopped.

Gulalai Ismail went into hiding and eventually fled the county after Pakistan's powerful intelligence agency, known by its acronym ISI, accused her of sedition because of a report she and other rights workers published into allegations of soldiers sexually harassing women and girls in Pakistan's tribal regions.

The military flatly denied the allegations, but in Pakistan criticism of the military or its intelligence agency can result in threats, intimidation, sedition charges and in some cases being picked up without warning.

Mohammad Ismail said he already faces charges under the country's sweeping cybercrimes law for criticism of the military on social media. “I never used bad language or said anything that was against Pakistan,” he said.

Ismail said authorities are trying to have his bail revoked in the cybercrimes case and have him imprisoned.

Rights workers are not the only ones under attack in Pakistan.

Advocacy groups have also been critical of a heavy-handed approach to journalists who write critically of the military, which is widely considered to be the power behind the country's civilian government.

The Committee to Protect Journalists and the International Federation of Journalists have issued a number of statements in recent weeks. Most recently the federation was critical of sedition charges against journalists Asad Toor, Bilal Farooqi and Absar Alam “for publishing allegedly ‘objectionable’ and ‘derogatory’ material online.”

The journalists federation called on authorities to “reign in the broad powers of this Act to ensure no journalists are charged solely for criticizing government officials and institutions."

_____

Associated Press writer Munir Ahmed contributed to this report.

After Pompeo criticism, Vatican asserts right to go its own way on China

Philip Pullella, Reuters•October 1, 2020



Vatican denies Pompeo audience with Pope


ROME (Reuters) - The Vatican's number two said on Thursday after talks with Mike Pompeo that the two sides' positions on China remained far apart and firmly asserted the Holy See's right to pursue an accord with Beijing denounced by the U.S. Secretary of State.

Pompeo met Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Foreign Minister Archbishop Paul Gallagher on Thursday on a visit to Rome marked by Vatican irritation over Pompeo's public criticism of a Holy See accord with Beijing on the appointment of bishops.

Vatican officials have said they were "surprised" by Pompeo's comments, made last month, and particularly that they were published in a conservative U.S. Catholic publication that has called Pope Francis' pontificate a failure.


Parolin, second only to the pope in the Vatican hierarchy, spoke to reporters on the sidelines of a book launch on Thursday night. He was asked if the positions were still distant.

"Yes, even though the purpose of the meeting was not to bring the positions closer," he said.

In an article and a series of tweets in September Pompeo accused the Vatican of putting its "moral authority" at risk if it renewed an agreement with China over the appointment of bishops. It sparked a minor diplomatic crisis.

Vatican officials suggested Pompeo was trying to drag the Catholic Church into the U.S. presidential election by denouncing its relations with China. Pompeo has denied this.

"He (Pompeo) explained his reasons for making those statements and we explained our reasons why we intend to move ahead on the path we have already chosen," Parolin said.

Parolin said the Vatican "asserts (the right to move forward) with a choice that has been thought through, reflected on, prayed over, a choice the pope has made, therefore the freedom to move forward."

The Vatican's two-year-old accord with Beijing gives the pope final say over the appointment of Chinese bishops. Parolin said the Vatican would renew it when it expires this month.

Vatican officials say the agreement is not perfect but establishes a dialogue with Beijing after decades during which Chinese Catholics faithful to the pope were driven underground.

Parolin said Pompeo had expressed "understanding for the way the Holy See approaches these issues."

President Donald Trump has campaigned on his hard line on China ahead of the Nov. 3 election. He is also associated with conservative Protestant and Catholic movements, many of which have been critical of Pope Francis.

In an address to a symposium on Wednesday, Pompeo did not directly address the Vatican agreement with Beijing but described China as the world's worst abuser of religious rights.


(Reporting By Philip Pullella, Editing by William Maclean)

Hundreds of thousands of Americans are about to max out their state unemployment benefits


Kathryn Krawczyk,
The Week•October 1, 2020


It's been nearly nine months since the coronavirus pandemic launched America into its steepest unemployment crisis in recent history. But another emergency could be around the corner if the federal government doesn't act.

Over the past few weeks, Americans who lost their jobs at the beginning of the pandemic have started to hit the maximum number of weeks their states will allow them to receive unemployment benefits. They've since been registering for the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, a federal unemployment program meant to make up for expired state benefits.

New and continuing unemployment claims did fall in the past week, but 183,000 Americans filed for PEUC benefits in the week ending Sept. 12, Labor Department numbers out Thursday revealed. That's a steady jump from weeks before, and economists expect those new registration numbers will only continue to grow.

But the PEUC benefits won't last forever. They provide Americans with up to 13 weeks of benefits, and the program as a whole will expire at the end of 2020. Some states, including New York, have introduced extended benefits programs to cover those still unemployed after PUEC expires, but others, as well as the federal government, have nothing coming up after Dec. 31.

The federal government's other unemployment program, Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, extends 39 weeks of benefits to self-employed people and contractors who aren't eligible for state unemployment benefits. It covers about half of Americans receiving unemployment benefits right now, but it's also set to expire Dec. 31 unless Congress and President Trump agree on another pandemic stimulus package extending it.

 #SUFI #SUFISM

Iran marks National Day of Rumi, greatest mystical poet

By: Zahra Mirzafarjouyan

TEHRAN, Sep. 29 (MNA) – Mehr 8 in the Iranian calendar corresponding with September 29 this year is considered a significant cultural event for Iranians to commemorate the prominent Iranian poet Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi who is known to everyone.

The land of Iran is the cradle of countless famous people and poets; one of the most famous Iranian poets is Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī, who is known as Mawlānā, Mawlawī and more popularly simply as Rumi.

He is widely known by the sobriquet Mawlānā/Molānā in Iran and popularly known as Mevlânâ in Turkey. Mawlānā is a term of Arabic origin, meaning "our master”, is also frequently used for him.

23 meters high statue of Rumi in Buca, İzmir, Turkey

Rumi was born to native Persian-speaking parents on the Eastern shores of the then Persian Empire on September 30, 1207, in the city of Balkh which is now part of Afghanistan and finally settled in the town of Konya, in what is now Turkey.

Rumi's life story is full of intrigue and high drama mixed with intense creative outbursts. Rumi was a charming, wealthy nobleman, a genius theologian, law professor and a brilliant but sober scholar, who in his late thirties met a wandering and holy man by the name of Shams on November 30, 1244 in the streets of Konya.

 Tomb of Shams Tabrizi, Khoy, West Azerbaijan province, Iran

For months the two mystics lived closely together, and Rumi neglected his disciples and family so that his scandalized entourage forced Shams to leave the town in February 1246. Rumi was heartbroken, and his eldest son, Sulṭan Walad, eventually brought Shams back from Syria. The family, however, could not tolerate the close relation of Rumi with Shams, and one night in 1247 Shams disappeared forever. In the 20th century it was established that Shams was indeed murdered, not without the knowledge of Rumi’s sons, who hurriedly buried him close to a well that is still extant in Konya.

After Shams was extinguished, Rumi fell into a deep state of grief and gradually out of that pain outpoured nearly 70,000 verses of poetry almost all in Persian that are collected in two epic books. These thousands of poems, which include about 2,000 in quatrains, are collected in two epic books. The first collection is devoted to his mentor Shams named, Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi. It took him 15 years to complete this collection.

Manuscript of Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi at Mevlana Museum, Konya, Turkey

After the first collection, he devotes the last ten years of his life to creating Masnavi Ma’navi. A work filled with anecdotes, life lessons, moral stories, stories from all three Abrahamic religions, and popular topics of the day.

Rumi and Shams stayed together for a short time, about 2 years in total, but the impact of their meeting left an everlasting impression on Rumi and his work. In Rumi's own words, after meeting Shams he was transformed from a bookish, sober scholar to an impassioned seeker of universal truth and love. Rumi was totally his own man. An utterly brilliant artist and a true genius that after the death of his mentor Shams became unstoppable.

Due to the fact that Rumi recited poetry for about 25 years and 70,000 verses, he has covered every morsel of emotion, thought, idea and topic. Therefore, he can't be pinned in one statement. His work has an all-embracing universality. A call from an independent soul yearning for true freedom from dogma and hypocrisy.

Manuscript of Masnavi Ma’navi at Mevlana Museum, Konya, Turkey

Rumi also had three prose works. The prose works are divided into The Discourses, The Letters, and the Seven Sermons.

Fihi Ma Fihi provides a record of seventy-one talks and lectures given by Rumi on various occasions to his disciples. It was compiled from the notes of his various disciples, so Rumi did not author the work directly.

Majāles-e Sab'a contains seven Persian sermons (as the name implies) or lectures given in seven different assemblies. The sermons themselves give a commentary on the deeper meaning of Qur'an and Hadith. The sermons also include quotations from poems of Sana'i, 'Attar, and other poets, including Rumi himself.

Makatib is the collection of letters written in Persian by Rumi to his disciples, family members, and men of state and of influence. The letters testify that Rumi kept very busy helping family members and administering a community of disciples that had grown up around them.

Tomb of Rumi, Konya, Turkey

Rumi believed passionately in the use of music, poetry and dance as a path for reaching God. For Rumi, music helped devotees to focus their whole being on the divine and to do this so intensely that the soul was both destroyed and resurrected. Rumi encouraged Sama, listening to music and turning or doing the sacred dance. In the Mevlevi tradition, sama represents a mystical journey of spiritual ascent through mind and love to the Perfect One. In this journey, the seeker symbolically turns towards the truth, grows through love, abandons the ego, finds the truth and arrives at the Perfect. The seeker then returns from this spiritual journey, with greater maturity, to love and to be of service to the whole of creation without discrimination with regard to beliefs, races, classes and nations.

He died on 17 December 1273 in Konya. His death was mourned by the diverse community of Konya. Rumi's body was interred beside that of his father, and a splendid shrine, the Green Tomb was erected over his place of burial. Upon his death, his followers and his son Sultan Walad founded the Mevlevi Order, also known as the Order of the Whirling Dervishes, famous for the Sufi dance known as the Sama ceremony. 

Shrine of Rumi, Konya, Turkey

Georgian Queen Gürcü Hatun was a close friend of Rumi. She was the one who sponsored the construction of his tomb in Konya. The 13th century Mevlâna Mausoleum, with its mosque, schools and living quarters for dervishes, remains a destination of pilgrimage to this day.

Rumi is also timeless and placeless. The world has embraced Rumi not because of where he was born or where he grew up or what religion he belonged to but because of what he represents.

By the end of the 20th century, his popularity had become a global phenomenon, with his poetry achieving a wide circulation in Western Europe and the United States.

Sama ceremony in Konya, Turkey

December 17 is the day of Rumi's death. In Konya, a special commemoration ceremony for Rumi is held every year from December 7th to 17th.

In a ceremony known as Sama, dancers wear long white robes with full skirts. On the dancers’ heads sit tall conical felt hats. The dancers, who fast for many hours before the ceremony, start to turn in rhythmic patterns, using the left foot to propel their bodies around the right foot with their eyes open, but unfocused. This is sought through abandoning one's nafs, ego or personal desires, by listening to the music, focusing on God, and spinning one's body in repetitive circles, which has been seen as a symbolic imitation of planets in the Solar System orbiting the sun.

In Iran, the 7th day of Mehr and the 8th day of Mehr – the eights month on the Iranian calendar, which fell on September 28 and 29 this year – have been designated as the National Day of Shams Tabrizi and National Day of Rumi respectively to commemorate these two great poets and figures of Iran and the world.

Here are some lines from his poem 'Listen to the reed', translated by Reynold A. Nicholson, 1926:

"Listen to the reed how it tells a tale,
complaining of separations.
Saying, "Ever since I was parted from the reed-bed, 
my lament hath caused man and woman to moan.
I want a bosom torn by severance, 
that I may unfold (to such a one) the pain of love-desire.
Every one who is left far from his source 
wishes back the time when he was united with it.
In every company I uttered my wailful notes, 
I consorted with the unhappy and with them that rejoice.
Every one became my friend from his own opinion; 
none sought out my secrets from within me.
My secret is not far from my plaint, 
but ear and eye lack the light (whereby it should be apprehended).
Body is not veiled from soul, nor soul from body, 
yet none is permitted to see the soul.
This noise of the reed is fire, it is not wind: 
whoso hath not this fire, may he be naught!
'Tis the fire of Love that is in the reed, 
'tis the fervour of Love that is in the wine."

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