A 24-year-old Belgian woman has been told she qualifies for euthanasia because she suffers from ‘suicidal thoughts’. The anonymous woman says that she has wanted to die since her childhood and spoke about her decision in an interview with a Belgian newspaper. She has been a patient in a psychiatric institution since she was 21 but feels that the treatment did not help, saying, ‘Death does not feel to me as a choice. If I had a choice, I would choose a bearable life, but I have done everything and that did not work.’ Last year, a Dutch academic who supported legalising euthanasia in the Netherlands, warned of rising numbers of patients with psychiatric illnesses or dementia being euthanised. He said, ‘Cases have been reported in which a large part of the suffering of those given euthanasia were aged, lonely or bereaved. These patients could have lived for years or decades’. At Westminster, Labour MP Rob Marris is set to introduce an assisted suicide bill in the coming weeks (see article 2 in British Isles section).
Prime Minister David Cameron is in uncharted territory as he lays out UK demands. The United Kingdom is staging a plebiscite on whether to stay in. If you do not give me what I need, Cameron implicitly states, then the EU’s third biggest country may quit. Many in the EU elite are bemused that the question of Europe played no role at all in the UK general election campaign, but became the number one issue on 8 May. Leaders and officials said repeatedly, with some relief, that once Cameron had won his second term they would learn the details of Britain’s aims and hopes. In vain. Cameron is being advised to remain vague’ The months ahead will be dominated by ‘technical’ and legal discussions between the lawyers, eurocrats and Downing Street aides. Senior sources in Brussels reported, ‘during the recent round of bilaterals, Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, told an EU colleague that the City question was the most important in the negotiations. He demanded a British veto over Eurozone and European Central Bank decisions and regulations that affect the City’.
Ukraine: Franklin Graham preaching in Ukraine
01 Jul 2015
Ukraine has been in the spotlight for political tension and unrest, but 1,200 churches from six regions came together to share hope with their country on the 20th and 21st June in a football stadium in the city of Lviv. ‘We have a lot of prayer going on in that city,’ said Russian-born Viktor Hamm, vice president of Crusades for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA). Hamm has visited Ukraine several times in past months to prepare for the ‘Festival of Hope with Franklin Graham’. For months now, people across Ukraine have been praying for this Festival every day at 10 p.m. Prayer time ramped up the weekend before the event with churches praying around the clock for the whole week prior to the Festival. And with 1,200 churches involved, that's a lot of people. This isn't just a one-time deal that happens before people start packing up and going about business as usual. Locals, along with teams from Samaritan's Purse, have worked hard for months to serve the community.
Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has taken a swipe at Switzerland for providing only limited information about wealthy tax evaders from cash-strapped Greece who are believed to have stashed billions of euros in Swiss banks. ‘Sometimes we know that someone has taken money away from Greece,’ he said ‘But we do not know in what city or which bank it is located in Switzerland.’ The finance minister, a key player in the Greek government as it struggles to reach an agreement with the European Union to finance its debt, said it was impossible to obtain such information from Swiss authorities. ‘We know too little to be able to locate the black money.’ But Varoufakis said the Greek government is working on a plan to allow tax evaders to voluntarily disclose their situation and invest their assets in Greece while paying a penalty of around 22 percent.
Princess Madeleine of Sweden has given birth to a baby boy just two days after the wedding of her brother Prince Carl Philip and Sofia Hellqvist. The Swedish Royal Court announced the birth in a press release, saying that the new prince was born at Stockholm’s Danderyd Hospital at 13:45 on Monday 15 June 2015. Spokesperson Svante Lindqvist added that both the princess and her son were doing well. Head midwife Anna Stahl said later that the delivery was without complications but, although it was a normal birth, it felt special. The baby boy is now sixth in line to the Scandinavian country’s throne and Madeleine and US financier husband Chris O’Neill’s second child after the birth of Princess Leonore in New York last year. It was a busy few days for the Swedish royals, with Prince Carl Philip and Sofia Hellqvist tying the knot in a plush ceremony on Saturday.
‘We’re really happy,’ said Alejandro Romero, one of the 100 Spanish thalidomide victims who travelled to the Vatican to meet the pope. ‘He promised he would try to help. He’s the most important diplomat in the world, so maybe he can ring people that won’t speak to us on the phone.’ An estimated 3,000 Spaniards are believed to have suffered severe birth defects after their mothers took thalidomide, prescribed by Spanish doctors five decades ago to combat morning sickness during pregnancy. Unlike victims in many other countries in Europe, only two dozen victims in Spain have ever received any kind of compensation. Many of them were unable to meet the stringent criteria set out by the drug’s manufacturer, asking for the bottle of medication taken by their mother decades ago and, at times, the doctor’s prescription, in order to offer compensation. And unlike other governments in Europe, successive Spanish governments have refused to create a fund for victims.
Slovenia: Unconditional help to refugees
01 Jul 2015
Ljubljana, 20 June - Although people are shocked by the photos of dead refugees at sea, they quickly forget about the pictures when they need to show some genuine solidarity, Delo says in Saturday's commentary Figures and Life Stories. What makes someone risk their life by crossing the Mediterranean in an overcrowded boat, the paper wonders while pointing out that while hearing about refugee counts and death tolls, one often tends to forget that each of them has a story to tell. Second thoughts about taking in refugees seem legitimate. So do concerns about security. And the fact that some actually are not fleeing from war but from poor economy and are thus not eligible for a status of a refugee, Delo points out. But maybe extreme poverty should also be included in the Geneva convention, the daily says, adding that a humane perspective on the matter surely recognises a deadly journey overseas in pursuit of a better life is reason enough to take someone in as a refugee.
Known by some as a wrongfully imprisoned child soldier and by others as a terrorist and murderer, Omar Khadr is free after nearly 13 years in prison. The 28-year-old, accused of war crimes and imprisoned since he was 15, was released on bail on 7 May. A group of Christian educators are applauding the decision, and continuing their quest to help Khadr upgrade his schooling. Arlette Zinck, a professor at The King’s University in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada first heard Khadr’s story from his lawyer in 2008. He spoke of a profoundly wounded teen with a fist-sized bullet hole in his chest, who was nicknamed ‘buckshot’ by guards because of the many shrapnel wounds in his body, and made to carry heavy pails of water until his wounds wept. He experienced sleep deprivation and cruelties of cold temperatures. Despite all this he had never spoken an ill word about anyone. To read the full story of a Canadian child taken to Afghanistan click the ‘More’ button.