World

Australia's High Court dealt a heavy blow to the government on Wednesday by blocking its plans to send asylum-seekers to Malaysia, ruling they could not go to a nation lacking legal safeguards.

Australia had hoped to send up to 800 asylum-seekers to the Asian nation in exchange for resettling 4,000 of its refugees, and the decision leaves hundreds of boat people in legal limbo. Read more »

The federal Supreme Court of India, in a historic ruling, has upheld compensation for a pregnant woman who gave birth to a stillborn child following an accident.

The top Indian court upheld the claim that the unborn child is a person and therefore, the parents are entitled to compensation for the injury to the baby. Read more »

Associated Press (AP) reports that undercover New York Police Department officers were sent into minority neighborhoods to monitor bookstores, bars, cafes and nightclubs. AP also reports that the police used informants to monitor sermons.

The report claims that the CIA was helping New York City police gather intelligence from mosques and minority neighborhoods. Read more »

The Hudson New York reports that there are more Islamic mosques being built in France than Roman Catholic churches.

It reports that there are more than 2,000 mosques in France in just the past ten years. By contrast, the Roman Catholic Church in France has built only 20 new churches during the past decade, and has formally closed more than 60 churches. Read more »

Pope Benedict presided over the World Youth Day closing Mass in Madrid’s Cuatro Vientos military airport Sunday morning, inviting the young people to be “the apostles of the twenty-first century” and to join him again for the next World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2013.

“You are now about to go back home. Your friends will want to know how you have changed after being in this lovely city with the Pope and with hundreds of thousands of other young people from around the world. What are you going to tell them? Read more »

The Pope gave an important speech to young professors from Spanish universities, all of whom were under the age of forty.

The Pope said “Being here with you, reminds me of my first steps as a professor at the University of Bonn. When the wounds of the war were still raw and there was still a great deal of material deprivation; all this was overcome through the enthusiasm inspired by a fascinating activity, through contact with colleagues from different disciplines and through the desire to find an answer to the new and fundamental concerns expressed by students. Read more »

The website of the World Youth Day was attacked. Protests were planned against Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Madrid Aug. 18-21.

A group of protesters broke into a run when police descended on a square near the historic Puerta del Sol (Gate of the Sun) plaza. Group of protesters were seen with anti-papal signs. Some pilgrims were harassed with chants of obscenities, while others were subjected to verbal confrontation.

Then there is the ultra secularist Spanish prime minister, José Luis Zapatero. Read more »

Another church has been attacked in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk. The bombing comes less than two weeks after a catholic and an evangelical church were targeted.

This latest attack on St Ephrem’s Syrian Orthodox church happened on 15 August while security staff spotted a vehicle carrying suspicious devices.

The parish priest escaped without injury. Read more »

This commentary by Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith appeared in the Catholic Herald UK. Fr. Alexander Lucie-Smith is a Catholic priest and a doctor of moral theology. He is the author of several books.

Commentary on the recent criminal disturbances on our streets is now pretty much wall to wall on all media outlets, so I apologise for returning to the subject.

Watching the news last night, I was much struck by the sight of a mother and son leaving court in Manchester. Read more »

Pope Benedict is calling on young people in Madrid to become missionaries for the faith and one group of young people has already begun taking up the challenge as they make their way to World Youth Day celebrations in Spain.

Some 100 young men and women from the Manhattan, New York parish of St. Colomba are in London for a couple of days before heading on to France and then Spain, bringing the Good News to a country rattled by some of the most violent rioting and wanton violence in its recent history. Read more »