Sex abuse claims rock Dutch Catholic Church

Yahoo – AFP, 15 September 2018

People in Australia, Europe, and North and South America have charged they
were sexually abused by clergymen and lay people

More than half of the Netherlands' senior clerics were involved in covering up sexual assault of children between 1945 and 2010, a press report claimed Saturday, further engulfing the Catholic Church in a global abuse scandal.

Over the course of 65 years, 20 of 39 Dutch cardinals, bishops and their auxiliaries "covered up sexual abuse, allowing the perpetrators to cause many more victims", the daily NRC reported.

"Four abused children and 16 others allowed the transfer of paedophile priests who could have caused new victims in other parishes," the Dutch newspaper added.

Church spokeswoman Daphne van Roosendaal told AFP the church could "confirm a part" of the report.

Other elements were based on anonymous information provided by a victims' assistance unit set up by the church.

"The names of several bishops correspond to those named in a report commissioned by the Church in 2010," the spokeswoman said.

Most of the accused clerics have since died, and the statute of limitations has expired in all cases, she added. Those still alive declined to comment, NRC said.

Meanwhile in France, a priest has been charged with sexually abusing four brothers, now aged from three to 17, his lawyer said Saturday.

The family brought the complaint against the 64-year-old priest, whose parish is in the central Cantal region. All four boys were said to be in the church choir.

The lawyer, Komine Bocoum, did not say when the alleged offences were said to have taken place.

Local bishop Bruno Grua said Saturday the his diocese was "shocked by these unspeakable acts".

They are the latest in a slew of assault allegations against the Catholic Church spanning several continents.

People in Australia, Europe, and North and South America have charged they were sexually abused by clergymen and lay people, in what German Archbishop Georg Gaenswein has called the Church's "own 9/11".

In August, Pope Francis declined to comment on a claim that he ignored sexual abuse allegations against a senior clergyman in the United States.

On Wednesday, the German Catholic Church said it was it was "dismayed and ashamed" by decades of child sex abuse by priests.

Pope Francis meets with leaders from the US church at the Vatican on Thursday

to discuss claims of sexual abuse by clergy (AFP Photo/Handout)

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Germany's Catholic Church 'ashamed' by child sex abuse 

Part of the painting, said to one of the highlights of the Vatican collection

Jesus and Joseph, UK, May 27, 2018 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“… I gave you a channelling years ago when Pope John Paul was alive. John Paul loved Mary, the mother. Had John Paul survived another 10 years, he would have done what the next Pope [The one after the current one, Benedict XVI] will do, and that is to bring women into the Church. This Pope you have now [Benedict XVI] won't be here long.* The next Pope will be the one who has to change the rules, should he survive. If he doesn't, it will be the one after that.

There it a large struggle within the Church, even right now, and great dissention, for it knows that it is not giving what humanity wants. The doctrine is not current to the puzzles of life. The answer will be to create a better balance between the feminine and masculine, and the new Pope, or the one after that, will try to allow women to be in the higher echelon of the Church structure to assist the priests.

It will be suggested to let women participate in services, doing things women did not do before. This graduates them within church law to an equality with priests, but doesn't actually let them become priests just yet. However, don't be surprised if this begins in another way, and instead gives priests the ability to marry. This will bring the feminine into the church in other ways. It will eventually happen and has to happen. If it does not, it will be the end of the Catholic Church, for humanity will not sustain a spiritual belief system that is out of balance with the love of God and also out of balance with intuitive Human awareness. …”

Women should play a greater role in the training of priests to fight the child abuse 'crisis' that has engulfed the #CatholicChurch, Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet has said https://t.co/UmGvrcnIZI #MarcOuellet

— AFP news agency (@AFP) September 16, 2018

Indigenous peoples, key to saving forests, catch a break

Yahoo – AFP, Marlowe HOOD, September 14, 2018

Up to now, native communities in the forests of Latin America, Africa and Asia have
seen their ancestral lands degraded and destroyed -- sometimes with the
blessing of local or national governments (AFP Photo/Apu Gomes)

San Francisco (AFP) - Proven masters at sustainably managing forests that protect against global warming, indigenous peoples got a place at the table, and some cash, at an international climate summit in San Francisco this week.

New "guiding principles" for collaboration endorsed by three dozen mostly tropical provinces and states across nine countries bolster indigenous rights to land, self-governance and finance earmarked for safeguarding forests.

"The partnership between governments and indigenous leaders marks a paradigm shift for tribal and indigenous engagement," Mary Nichols, chair of the California Air Resources Board, said at the Global Climate Action Summit.

Up to now, native communities in the forests of Latin America, Africa and Asia have seen their ancestral lands degraded and destroyed -- sometimes with the blessing of local or national governments -- by extraction industries (oil, gold) and big agriculture (soy, palm oil, cattle).

Even UN-led efforts to involve indigenous peoples in preventing deforestation have unfolded "in a context of rights abuses, displacement and dispossession, threats and harassment over territories, and the repression and assassination of environmental activists by state and private forces," the non-profit Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) reported last year.

At least 207 environmental campaigners, half from indigenous tribes in tropical forests, were murdered in 2017, according to watchdog group Global Witness.

Deforestation -- responsible for about a fifth of greenhouse gas emissions -- intensifies global warming in two ways.

Losing a wooded area the size of Greece each year not only reduces Earth's capacity to absorb carbon dioxide, it releases huge amounts of the planet-warming gas into the atmosphere.

The principles were negotiated within the decade-old Governors' Climate and Forests Task Force, made up of state and provincial leaders from eight tropical countries and the governors of California, Illinois and Catalonia.

Keeping carbon in the trees

"Today we recognize the essential role of local communities and indigenous peoples for the conservation of forest territories and the development of effective climate change strategies," said Jorge Aristoteles Sandoval Diaz, governor of Jalisco, Mexico.

New "guiding principles" for collaboration endorsed by three dozen mostly tropical 

provinces and states across nine countries bolster indigenous rights to land, 

self-governance and finance earmarked for safeguarding forests (AFP Photo/Apu Gomes)

Tribal leaders, who helped forge the new charter, said it would make a difference.

"We live in, depend upon, and manage our forests -- and have done so for centuries," said Francisca Arara, leader of the Arara indigenous people in Acre, Brazil.

"These principals provide us with a stronger platform for negotiating equal ground with governments."

Experts described the charter as "an important step forward," but said more was needed.

"Recognizing the rights is really key to keeping the carbon in the trees and the soil," said Andy White, Coordinator of the Washington-based Rights and Resources Initiative, a research group.

"But the real question is how much money they put behind implementing these commitments."

Tropical forests provide livelihoods and anchor the cultural identities of tens of millions of indigenous people.

Research has shown that stewardship by local communities significantly slows the pace of deforestation.

"Thirty-seven percent of what is needed to stay below two degrees Celsius" -- the cornerstone goal of the 196-nation Paris Agreement -- "can be provided by land," said Andrew Steer, WRI President and CEO of the World Resources Institute in Washington DC.

"But only three percent of the public funding for mitigation goes to land and forest issues. That needs to change."

In a parallel announcement, nine foundations pledged nearly half-a-billion dollars over the next five years to boost indigenous management of carbon-rich forests.

"Solving climate change requires that forests, and land in general, be managed well," Darren Walker, President of the Ford Foundation, told AFP. "Indigenous peoples are the key to unlocking that solution."

Chile passes law allowing teens over 14 to change their legal sex

Yahoo – AFP, 12 September 2018

Deputies from Chile's Broad Front party celebrate passage of the Gender
Identity Law with a giant fake ID card reading "My identity, my right"

Lawmakers in Chile on Wednesday passed legislation allowing people as young as 14 to legally change their name and gender identity.

The Chamber of Deputies passed the Gender Identity Law by a vote of 95-46.

It allows people aged 18 and above to change their name and legal gender, while those aged over 14 can do so with the permission of a parent or legal guardian.

The Senate had passed the bill last month, so Wednesday's vote brought an end to a five-year battle in the deeply conservative South American country.

The hotly debated legislation had come close to passing several times, but the issue came to a head earlier this year in the final months of former president Michelle Bachelet's term.

"We are witnessing a historic event which we celebrate with great emotion and joy," said Alvaro Troncoso, head of the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation (Movilh).

"It will improve the quality of life of thousands of people whose dignity and rights have been denigrated simply by the prejudices that exist against their gender identification."

Activists had argued that not allowing people to register legally under the gender they most strongly identified with was a form of discrimination and had caused a variety of social, psychological and legal problems.

Chilean transgender activist Alessia Injoque applies make-up before an interview with 

AFP at her home -- she says the new law will give her "legal recognition" that she exists

"Right now, for the Chilean state, I do not exist," transgender activist Alessia Injoque told AFP shortly before the law was passed.

"Right now there is someone called Alejandro who is not me."

She said the new law would "grant me legal recognition of my existence: recognizing my identity is recognizing a segment of the population that has been ignored and whose identity has been denied."

A survey conducted by Movilh in August of 326 people who identified as transgender revealed that 76 percent of respondents reported having been discriminated against because of their gender identification, limiting their options to find work.

When the new law comes into effect, single people aged 18 or over will be able to legally change their name and gender by filling out a form at the civil registry office, while married people can do so at a family court.

Young adults aged 14 to 18 will need the consent of at least one parent or guardian to change their gender identity at a family court. If they do not have that, they can ask a judge to intervene.

Attempts to apply the law to those under the age of 14 ran afoul of opposition from conservative lawmakers.

VIDEO: Peru celebrates the return of one of its cultural treasures, an eighth-century gold funerary mask, after a 20-year legal and diplomatic battle with Germany

VIDEO: Peru celebrates the return of one of its cultural treasures, an eighth-century gold funerary mask, after a 20-year legal and diplomatic battle with Germany pic.twitter.com/jzmjyMVNUE

— AFP news agency (@AFP) September 11, 2018

UN rights chief agrees to meet Venezuela foreign minister

France24 – AFP, 10 September 2018 

New UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet warned the cross-border flight of
Venezuelans amid a spiralling economic and political crisis 'is unprecedented
in the recent history of the Americas'  (AFP)

GENEVA (AFP) - New UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet has agreed to meet Venezuela's foreign minister, who is due to address the top UN rights body in Geneva this week, her office said Monday.

"I can confirm that Venezuela requested a meeting and the High Commissioner will be meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs" Jorge Arreaza, UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told AFP in an email.

She did not say when the meeting would take place, but Arreaza is to address the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday.

Bachelet mentioned Venezuela in her first speech as head of the UN rights office on Monday, listing it among a long line of states with human rights situations she was concerned about.

In a written version of the speech, the former Chilean president decried the "serious human rights violations" documented in recent reports on Venezuela.

Thousands of Venezuelans have been fleeing a spiralling economic and political crisis, as the country run by President Nicolas Maduro suffers a fourth year of recession.

According to the UN, some 1.6 million people have fled Venezuela since 2015.

Bachelet pointed out that the exodus was "due largely to lack of food or access to critical medicines and health care, insecurity and political persecution".

"This movement is accelerating," she said, warning that "cross-border movement of this magnitude is unprecedented in the recent history of the Americas."

A report released by the UN rights office in June highlighted alleged extra-judicial killings by security officers during a crackdown on protests.

It suggested that those officers, who had supposedly been tasked with fighting crime, may have been responsible for more than 500 killings between July 2015 and March 2017, largely carried out in poor neighbourhoods.

Bachelet said that since the release of the report, her office had continued to receive "information on violations of social and economic rights, such as cases of deaths related to malnutrition or preventable diseases, as well as violations of civil and political rights."

She lamented that "the government has not shown openness for genuine accountability measures".

SBM Offshore settles with Brazil over corruption claims

DutchNews, September 3, 2018

Photo: SBM Offshore

Oil industry service group SBM Offshore has reached a deal with the Brazilian authorities to pay the equivalent of €41m to oil and gas group Petrobras following a scandal over corrupt deals made in Brazil. 

The agreement, which still has to be approved by a special unit of the Brazilian prosecution department, means SBM Offshore can finally close the door on the affair, which has been rumbling on since 2014 and involved deals made in Angola, Kazakhstan, Iraq and Equatorial Guinea as well as Brazil. 

The deal takes the total amount SBM Offshore has paid to avoid legal action in Brazil to $347m. The company reached earlier out-of-court settlements in the Netherlands (2014, $240m) and the US (2017, $238m). 

‘We are pleased that following the recent agreement with Petrobras and the Brazilian authorities we now also have reached an agreement that removes the uncertainties around the remaining litigation risk over our historical legacy issues in Brazil,’ said compliance officer Erik Lagendijk in a statement.

VIDEO: Thousands of Argentine Catholics on Friday renounced their membership in the church to protest its opposition to a bill that would have legalized abortion in Pope Francis's homeland, a group said

VIDEO: Thousands of Argentine Catholics on Friday renounced their membership in the church to protest its opposition to a bill that would have legalized abortion in Pope Francis's homeland, a group said pic.twitter.com/d31cLWrzHt

— AFP news agency (@AFP) August 25, 2018

Defiant Kirchner before judge in sweeping anti-corruption probe

Yahoo – AFP, Nina NEGRON, August 14, 2018

As a senator, Cristina Kirchner enjoys congressional immunity from imprisonment,
though not from prosecution (AFP Photo/EITAN ABRAMOVICH)

Buenos Aires (AFP) - Former Argentine president Cristina Kirchner appeared before a judge leading a major probe into corruption under her government Monday, hitting out at what she described as "judicial persecutions" to rule her out of next year's elections.

More than a dozen elite businessmen and former government officials were arrested after La Nacion newspaper reported on August 1 that millions in bribes were delivered by a ministerial chauffeur to Kirchner's residences, both during her presidency and that of her late husband Nestor.

The driver's meticulous records of the cash deliveries -- allegedly payments from business leaders in exchange for public works contracts -- form the basis of the investigation.

Dressed in a trouser suit and waving to supporters, a defiant Kirchner pushed her way past journalists into Judge Claudio Bonadio's court in Buenos Aires where she denounced the case as an example of the political persecution she has faced under her right-wing successor Mauricio Macri.

"This is a new regional strategy to outlaw leaders, movements and political forces that expanded rights and allowed millions of people out of poverty during the first decade and a half of the 21st Century," Kirchner wrote Monday on Twitter.

As a senator, Kirchner enjoys congressional immunity from imprisonment, though not prosecution. She is facing trial in several other corruption cases and Bonadio has petitioned the Senate to lift her immunity.

He wants to search Kirchner's properties for evidence in the "corruption notebooks" case, so called because the driver, Oscar Centeno, recorded over a decade of cash drops in a set of notebooks.

Kirchner is facing trial in several other corruption cases (AFP Photo/EITAN

ABRAMOVICH)

According to Centeno's bombshell evidence, the Kirchners' residence in Buenos Aires was the venue for the handover of millions of dollars in cash, with others taking place at the Casa Rosada government headquarters and the Olivos official presidential residence.

Prosecutor Carlos Stornelli has said a total of $160 million in bribes was handed over during a 10-year period from 2005-15.

"There is no doubt that the copybooks describe in detail the way in which the Kirchners raised money illegally for seven years without any alarm going off at any oversight agency," said Nicolas Solari of the consultancy Poliarquia.

So far, eight business leaders have confessed and struck plea-bargain deals.

Angelo Calcaterra, a cousin of Macri, acknowledged having ordered the payment of cash requested as a bribe in order to receive government contracts.

Testifying before the judge, he said he thought this was a mandatory election campaign contribution.

'Persecution'

Bonadio suspects the 65-year-old of being the main beneficiary of a system of corruption funded by the public works sector, via the planning ministry.

Refusing to answer questions, the former president instead hit out angrily at what she said was blatant political persecution engineered by Macri.

"From the moment the engineer Mauricio Macri assumed power I have been subjected to multiple judicial persecutions," Kirchner said in a written statement delivered to the court.

The aim, she said, was her "political elimination" ahead of next year's presidential elections. She has long railed against Bonadio as her tormentor-in-chief.

"Since December 15,2015, six criminal cases have been produced against me, all in Comodoro Py (the Federal Court). Of the six, five have been opened, or being investigated by, Bonadio."

Supporters of the former Argentine president wait outside her apartment in Buenos 

Aires (AFP Photo/EITAN ABRAMOVICH)

For all her battles with the judicial system, Kirchner remains one of Argentina's most popular figures, leader of the opposition to Macri's center-right government.

On Sunday, after confirming she would attend Monday's hearing, she called on her supporters not to demonstrate outside the courthouse.

Monday's court appearance was the fourth time Kirchner has appeared before Bonadio, who is investigating the leftist former president in a slew of other corruption cases. They include alleged foreign exchange manipulation and the signing of a memorandum with Iran that Bonadio argues effectively protected from prosecution Iranian suspects in the deadly 1994 bombing of Argentine Jewish centers.

Big Business

Centeno, who has been questioned by Bonadio and authenticated the notebooks given to La Nacion, worked as a chauffeur for the former deputy planning minister Roberto Barrata, who is also under arrest.

The case involves some of Argentina's biggest business leaders, among them Calcaterra, former directors of the Italo-Argentine company Techint and construction industry leaders.

The notebooks, said Leandro Despouy, a former government auditor general, "implicate a large number of businessmen, not just government officials."

He said the case could end up being as big in Argentina as the ground-shaking "Car Wash" corruption investigation in neighboring Brazil, which has ensnared and sullied many prominent members of the Brazilian political and business elite.

New UN rights chief Bachelet will face world of hate: Guterres

Yahoo – AFP, Carole LANDRY, August 10, 2018

Two-time former Chilean prime minister Michelet Bachelet, who was tortured by
the Pinochet regime, will face a world of rising hate as she assume the post of
UN human rights chief, the United Nations secretary-general has warned

United Nations (United States) (AFP) - Chile's former president Michelle Bachelet will face a world of rising hate and inequality as the newly-appointed UN human rights chief, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday.

The General Assembly approved the appointment of Bachelet to be the next UN high commissioner for human rights, replacing Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, a sharp critic of US President Donald Trump's policies.

Bachelet, 66, served twice as president, championing socialist policies in her country. During the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in the 1970s, she was detained for several weeks and tortured.

Speaking to reporters, Guterres praised Bachelet as "perfectly suited" for the job but warned she takes office "at a time of grave consequence for human rights" in the world.

"Hatred and inequality are on the rise," he said.

Respect for human rights law is on the decline, civil society is being squeezed out and press freedom is under pressure, Guterres added.

In a video posted on Twitter, Bachelet said in Spanish that she was "deeply humbled and honored" by the appointment and pledged to bring "all of my energy and convictions" to the job.

Bachelet steps into a position that has drawn much controversy under Zeid, who decided not to seek a second term after losing support from the United States, Russia and China.

Strong advocate

Zeid criticized Trump for his policies on refugees, his attacks on the media and more recently for his decision, which was later reversed, to separate migrant children from their parents at the US-Mexico border.

Guterres made clear he believed Bachelet could resist pressure to refrain from speaking out on human rights.

"To navigate these currents, we need a strong advocate for all human rights," said Guterres. "We need a person who can ensure the integrity of the indispensable human rights mechanisms of the United Nations."

Zeid said in a statement he was delighted with the appointment of Bachelet. "She has all the attributes – courage, perseverance, passion, and a deep commitment to human rights – to make her a successful high commissioner," he said.

Bachelet will take up her new position on September 1. She will be the seventh high commissioner for human rights since the office was created in 1993.

Chile's first woman to hold the presidency, she served in that office from 2006 to 2010, and again from 2014 to March of this year.

A trained pediatrician, Bachelet was appointed in 2010 as the first director of UN Women, the UN agency promoting gender equality worldwide.

Born in Santiago, Bachelet is the daughter of a general who opposed Pinochet's overthrow of Salvador Allende.

Afer her release from detention, she went into exile in Australia and East Germany where she continued her studies in medicine.

Bachelet returned to Chile in 1979, but was prevented from working as a doctor for political reasons. She continued studying, specializing in pediatrics and public health.

After democracy was restored in 1990, she worked for the health ministry and in 2000 was appointed health minister, followed by defense minister four years later.

As president, Bachelet offered a dramatic break from Chile's highly conservative political class. She reformed the pension system and improved health and social services, focusing on Chile's working poor.

VIDEO: Chilean bishops hold extraordinary assembly in Valparaiso to discuss the sexual abuse scandal that has hit the institution, prompting the resignation of at least five bishops

VIDEO: Chilean bishops hold extraordinary assembly in Valparaiso to discuss the sexual abuse scandal that has hit the institution, prompting the resignation of at least five bishops pic.twitter.com/G5YP5QCVh1

— AFP news agency (@AFP) July 31, 2018

Related Article: 

Pope accepts resignation of archbishop convicted of abuse cover-up

Last month Pope Francis accepted the resignation of five Chilean bishops amid

accusations of abuse and related cover-ups