Archive for month: October, 2014

A recent report has found “systemic failures” in the Church of England’s handling of sexual abuse complaints.

According to the report published on Wednesday, shortcomings during the tenure of the former Archbishop of York, Lord Hope of Thornes, helped former dean of Manchester Robert Waddington escape prosecution for sexual abuse during his lifetime.

The report, compiled by Judge Sally Cahill QC, stated, “Our conclusion, having heard his [Lord Hope’s] evidence, is that his concern for the welfare of Robert Waddington seems to have been paramount in his response to these allegations.”

Following the publication of the report, the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, issued an apology to the victims, saying he thought the abuse complaints had been dealt with in a suitable manner. 

“As I have said to them, I am deeply ashamed that the church was not vigilant enough to ensure that these things did not happen, failing both to watch and to act, where children were at serious risk,” he said.

Sentamu went on to say that he accepted the report’s conclusion that “irrespective of policies in force, there was a systemic failure.”

Complaints were made against Waddington between 1999 and 2004 in connection to incidents that happened in Australia in the 1960s and when he was the dean of Manchester in the 1980s. Waddington died in 2007.

The UK has witnessed a surge in child molestation and sexual abuse cases, some of which go back to the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The best known case is that of disgraced TV presenter Jimmy Savile.

Savile died in October 2001. A year after his death, hundreds of allegations of sexual abuse and rape of minors became public, leading the police to believe that Savile was one of Britain’s most predatory sex offenders. Several high-profile figures have been arrested in connection with the multiple investigations into the abuse scandal surrounding Savile.

In August, a report by Professor Alexis Jay revealed that at least 1,400 children had been sexually exploited between 1997 and 2013 in Rotherham.

In some cases, children as young as 11 were “raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten and intimidated,” the report added.

SRK/AS/MHB

Kurdish fighters defending the Syrian city of Kobani against the ISIL say the Takfiri militants have used chemical weapons.

Kurdish officials and doctors said on Wednesday that the terrorists released a sort of toxic gas in the eastern side of the Kurdish city late on Tuesday.

Aysa Abdullah, a senior Kurdish official based in Kobani, said the victims had symptoms that included dizziness and watery eyes and that there was no equipment to precisely determine what kinds of chemicals had been used.

Other reports said the victims were transferred to a hospital in neighboring Turkey.

Many have joined the ISIL from Iraq’s former Ba’athist regime, highly skilled at using chemical weapons.

The Ba’athists are led by Izzat Ibrahim, the henchman of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

The ISIL terrorists have been committing heinous crimes in the captured areas, including mass executions and beheading of people.

The ISIL militants received training to use light and heavy weapons with the help of the US government at a secret base in Jordan in 2012, informed Jordanian officials say.

NT/AS/MHB

US Secretary of State John Kerry says the White House does not need congressional approval to suspend sanctions against Iran.

The Obama administration is reportedly planning to suspend sanctions against the Islamic Republic without an immediate vote in Congress, but it says lawmakers will have the final word on whether to permanently terminate the sanctions.

“On sanctions, what we’ve merely said to people is that — and we’ve said this in public testimony as well as in private conversations — that in the first instance, we would look to suspend sanctions, which the president can do, simply because that’s the necessary way to proceed with respect to the negotiations themselves,” Kerry said Wednesday at a press conference in Berlin.

The plan, first revealed by The New York Times on Sunday, does not suggest that the US Congress will be sidestepped on any nuclear deal with Iran, Kerry said.

“I have too much respect for the process of the Congress, the rights of the Congress, and the importance of the relationship between the Executive and the Congress, the Legislative Branch, to ever suggest that there would be any credibility to this notion there’s some thought of going around it,” he stated.

The top US diplomat said that administration officials were engaged in “a regular series of briefings” with lawmakers on the issue, emphasizing that “Congress has an extremely important role to play in this.”

Iran and the P5+1 group– Russia, China, France, Britain, the US and Germany – are negotiating to narrow their differences over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear energy program ahead of a November 24 deadline.

Sources close to the Iranian negotiating team say the main stumbling block to resolving Western disputes over Iran’s nuclear issue is the removal of sanctions, not the number of centrifuges or the level of uranium enrichment.

In July, the US representative in nuclear talks, Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, testified that the White House would consult with Congress but did not need its approval to suspend sanctions against Iran.

HRJ/HRJ

 

A medical team of 83 doctors and nurses have left Cuba for Guinea and Liberia to help the ongoing battle against the Ebola Virus in West African countries.

The 35 doctors and 48 nurses leaving for West Africa bring the total number of medical workers fighting the spread of Ebola from Cuba to 248.

The health workers were sent to Guinea and Liberia in an arrangement reached with the World Health Organization (WHO).

Epidemiologists, intensive care doctors and nurses, general practitioners, surgeons, pediatricians, and anesthetist are among the team of medical workers.

Havana has already sent 165 medical professionals to Sierra Leone.

On October 21, two people were killed in Sierra Leone in a riot triggered by health workers attempting to take a blood sample from an elderly woman suspected of being infected by the virus. About 10 others were also wounded.

In Sierra Leone alone, the epidemic has claimed about 1,200 lives.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf recently called on the international community to commit to the fight against the virus, warning that an entire generation of Africans was at risk of “being lost to an economic catastrophe” triggered by the epidemic.

Ebola is a hemorrhagic fever. Its symptoms include diarrhea, vomiting and bleeding and they typically start between two days and three weeks after contracting the virus.

It spreads through direct contact with infected blood, feces or sweat. It can also be spread through sexual contact or the unprotected handling of contaminated corpses.

WHO says the death toll for Ebola is nearing 4,900 people, with a total of around 10,000 cases being reported.

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British Prime Minister David Cameron has been hit by a fresh setback in his bid to curb EU migration, after incoming European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said rules on freedom of movement cannot be changed.

Juncker said Wednesday that he is not willing to compromise on rules allowing EU nationals to live in any of the bloc’s 28 nations.

Freedom of movement has been “a basic principle of the European Union since the very beginning and I’m not prepared to change this,” said Juncker.

Juncker has also reportedly told Marianne Thyssen, his new commissioner for employment, social affairs, skills and labor mobility that the rules for migration should be slackened.

In a letter sent last month, Juncker told the elected commissioner that she should be “improving the conditions for geographic and professional mobility across Europe.”

Cameron has presented plans to cap EU migration by limiting national insurance numbers available to workers, a move which Brussels has called “illegal” under EU laws. 

Juncker also called for flexibility from Britain regarding the issue and its discussions with Brussels over UK’s membership terms.

“I do want flexibility from Britain and then flexibility can be the answer from the European Union not only as far as this problem is concerned but all the problems,” said Juncker.

The remarks came on the same day as the European Parliament approved the new European Commission headed by Juncker. The commission is set to take office on November 1.

Cameron had voiced opposition to Juncker’s candidacy for the post, saying the former prime minister of Luxembourg is too much in favor of closer political union.

CAH/HMV/SS