Family of girl, 12, forced to marry abductor condemn Pakistan authorities

Criticism follows release of 29-year-old who kept girl chained in cattle pen, in latest case highlighting abuses of religious minorities

The family of a 12-year-old girl in Pakistan who was chained up in a cattle pen for more than six months, after allegedly being kidnapped and forced to marry her abductor, have attacked the authorities for refusing to act.

The case is among those now being examined by a government inquiry into the forced conversions of religious minority women and girls, after police released the man, saying they believed the girl had married him of her own free will.

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Europe’s oldest person survives Covid and set to celebrate 117th birthday

French nun Sister Andrée tested positive in her retirement home in Toulon but had no symptoms

A French nun who is Europe’s oldest person has recovered from Covid-19 after it swept through a nursing home in the south of France, and will celebrate her 117th birthday this week.

Sister Andrée, born Lucile Randon in 1904, tested positive for the coronavirus last month at the Sainte-Catherine Labouré home near Toulon where 81 of the 88 residents contracted the virus – 10 of whom died.

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Actor’s homophobia made her commercially toxic, tribunal told

Seyi Omooba is suing Leicester theatre and talent agency after being sacked for Facebook post on homosexuality

A sacked actor who would have refused to play the role in which she had been cast as a lesbian because it was against her Christian beliefs made herself “commercially toxic” and her continued employment would have forced the show’s cancellation, a tribunal has heard.

Seyi Omooba was due to play Celie in a production of The Color Purple at the Curve theatre, Leicester, but was removed from the show in March 2019 after the emergence of a Facebook post from 2014 in which she said homosexuality was not “right”.

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‘A door has opened’: Pope Francis appoints first woman to senior synod post

France’s Nathalie Becquart, undersecretary of synod of bishops, is first woman to hold the rank which gives voting rights

Breaking with tradition, Pope Francis has appointed Frenchwoman Nathalie Becquart as an undersecretary of the synod of bishops, the first woman to hold the post and have voting rights.

The 52-year-old is one of the two new undersecretaries named to the synod, the body of bishops that studies major questions of doctrine and where she has been a consultant since 2019.

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MPs urge British Olympians to boycott 2022 Beijing Winter Games

Lib Dem leader Ed Davey and Labour MP Chris Bryant urge officials and athletes to protest against oppression of Uighur communities

Senior political figures have called for British athletes to boycott next year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing in response to widespread human rights abuses in China.

Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, and Labour MP Chris Bryant, a member of the foreign affairs select committee and a former junior foreign minister, said the government and the British Olympic Association should act.

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Destined for an arranged marriage, I chose to follow my heart

As a teenager, true love seemed like an impossible dream, but I was determined to marry for love and not obligation

This year, my husband Richard and I will have been married for 10 years. It may not sound all that long, but it feels quietly significant to me, this decade of us, not least because there was a time that I could not fathom a world in which we could ever be together at all.

I grew up expecting to marry someone my parents chose for me: a suitable young man who would share my Pakistani family background, my cultural heritage and faith. I can’t remember how old I was when I understood this – only that I did, without it needing to be explained. It was what my cousins did and the daughters of our family friends did. It was the way things were.

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Orthodox Church under fire in Romania after baby dies following baptism

Six-week-old suffered cardiac arrest during ceremony, which involves three immersions in holy water

The Orthodox Church in Romania is facing growing pressure to change baptism rituals after a baby died following a ceremony which involves immersing infants three times in holy water.

The six-week-old suffered a cardiac arrest and was rushed to hospital on Monday but he died a few hours later, the autopsy revealing liquid in his lungs. Prosecutors have opened a manslaughter investigation against the priest in the north-eastern city of Suceava.

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Yak politics: Tibetans’ vegetarian dilemma amid China meat boom

While China pushes for more industrialised farms, Buddhist monks urge now-sedentary nomads to embrace vegetarianism

Former free-roaming nomads now mostly resettled in rows of sun-baked block houses in Tibet are facing a struggle for their identity, their spiritual and cultural practices – and even their stomachs.

These yak-tending herders have always eaten meat. In addition to the milk, butter and cheese they derived from yaks, meat was a necessity in their harsh lives.

But a movement spurred by Tibetan Buddhist monks in the region over the past two decades has increasingly urged now sedentary nomads to practise vegetarianism, to pay a “life ransom” for the release of animals destined for the slaughterhouse, and to abandon the slaughter of their own animals because they have settled down.

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‘I document America’s strange beauty’: the photography of My Name Is Earl’s Jason Lee

He played a redemption-seeking redneck on TV, but lately the actor has found solace off-screen, travelling with his camera. He talks about slackers, the Mallrats sequel and breezing into one-horse towns

Jason Lee knew he was in trouble when he stepped on the set. The year was 1992, Sonic Youth were at their peak and he was starring as a doomed skateboarder in their latest video. As a music obsessed, pro skateboarder with acting aspirations, he felt he had a point to prove. To add more pressure, it was for the song 100% – the band’s classic ode to a murdered Black Flag roadie – and the video was being co-directed by one of his skateboarding friends (some guy called Spike Jonze).

“I was really trying my hardest to focus,” says Lee. “I was like pretending to be Robert De Niro on the set, really trying to get into it and make it count and make it real and believable.”

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Remnants of mosque from earliest decades of Islam found in Israel

Archaeologists say foundations excavated in Tiberias are of a mosque built in about AD670

Archaeologists in Israel say they have discovered the remnants of an early mosque believed to date to the earliest decades of Islam during an excavation in the northern city of Tiberias.

The foundations of the mosque, excavated just south of the Sea of Galilee by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, point to its construction roughly a generation after the death of the prophet Muhammad, making it one of the earliest Muslim houses of worship to be studied by archaeologists.

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Jewish leaders use Holocaust Day to decry persecution of Uighurs

UK community speaks out in effort to pressure government to take stronger stance

Leading figures in the UK Jewish community are using Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January to focus on the persecution of Uighur Muslims, saying Jews have the “moral authority and moral duty” to speak out.

Rabbis, community leaders and Holocaust survivors have been at the forefront of efforts to put pressure on the UK government to take a stronger stance over China’s brutal treatment of the Uighurs.

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‘Is it OK to eat during online mass?’: how the faithful handle lockdown

From streamed baptisms to the impossibility of hajj, it’s been a tricky time for religious people to stay observant. But many have some holy hacks

Well before places of worship were closed during the first lockdown, we hectored my father to remain indoors and stay safe. He rebelled. One frigid Sunday last March, through the silence of a sleeping household, he slunk down the hall and to the kitchen, careful not to rouse his house guests.

We don’t know if his plan was dependent on my siblings being hungover but, since this was the case, it worked a charm. A little after 9am, they were stirred from sleep by the tell-tale crunch of gravel as he spun slowly away to his local church. His intention: to defy the orders of his slovenly children and go to mass amid the coughs and handshakes of his fellow parishioners. We had witnessed one of the more unexpected struggles of lockdown life – the strange, rebellious instincts of God-fearing society, and the paradox of coming together in His name at a time when you must remain apart.

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Jesuit order in Spain apologises for decades of sexual abuse by members

Society of Jesus admits 81 children and 21 adults were sexually abused by 96 of its members since 1927

The Jesuit order in Spain has admitted that 81 children and 21 adults have been sexually abused by 96 of its members since 1927, and has apologised for the “painful, shameful and sorrowful” crimes.

In a report released on Thursday, the Society of Jesus, whose members often work as teachers, said most of the abuse had taken place in schools “or was related to schools”.

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Rebels aim to insert genocide amendment in UK-China trade bill

UK court would determine whether China is committing genocide against Uighurs if measure passed

The government is struggling to contain a potential backbench rebellion over its China policy after the Conservative Muslim Forum, the International Bar Association (IBA), and the prime minister’s former envoy on freedom of religious belief backed a move to give the UK courts a say in determining whether countries are committing genocide.

The measure is due in the Commons on Tuesday when the trade bill returns from the Lords where a genocide amendment has been inserted. The amendment has been devised specifically in relation to allegations that China is committing genocide against Uighur people in Xinjiang province, a charge Beijing has repeatedly denied.

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‘Hell to pay’: Church of Satan mourns arson at New York ‘Halloween House’

  • Addams Family-style home in Poughkeepsie burns
  • Member Isis Vermouth promises hex on culprit

Members of the Church of Satan are grieving the destruction of a historic “Halloween House” north of New York City that authorities say was set ablaze by an unidentified arsonist.

Related: Hell freezes over: how the Church of Satan got cool

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Pope’s adviser says Covid has highlighted ‘existential’ climate risk

Focus must be on justice for those fleeing impact of extreme weather events, says new scientific adviser to Vatican

The pope’s newly appointed scientific adviser said the coronavirus pandemic has forced world leaders to face up to the “existential risk” of the climate crisis.

Prof Ottmar Edenhofer said rich countries now had a moral duty to compensate poor countries already suffering the impacts.

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Turkish televangelist sentenced to 1,075 years for sex crimes

Adnan Oktar was detained in 2018 along with more than 200 other suspects in his group

A Turkish court has sentenced a Muslim televangelist who surrounded himself with scantily clad women he called “kittens” to more than 1,000 years in jail for sex crimes.

Adnan Oktar preached creationism and conservative values while women in revealing outfits – many of whom appeared to have had plastic surgery – danced around him to upbeat music in the TV studio.

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Light brigade: the Christmas holdouts keeping their decorations up

English Heritage and Church of England back extending traditional January deadline to brighten gloom of lockdown

In other years, the threat of bad luck if you fail to take your Christmas decorations down by Twelfth Night might have meant something.

In 2021, the idea that things could get any worse seems blackly comic. And so it is that for some people, baubles, lights, and trees are staying in place this year.

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Greek Orthodox church to defy lockdown by opening for Epiphany

Holy synod says services will be held at places of worship on Wednesday despite closure rules in Greece

The Greek Orthodox church has announced it will defy government lockdown orders aimed at curbing the spread of coronavirus and open places of worship to mark Epiphany this Wednesday.

After an emergency session of the holy synod, its governing body, senior clerics said they would press ahead as planned and celebrate the baptism of Christ on 6 January.

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Pope condemns travelling abroad to escape coronavirus lockdowns

Pontiff uses video address to urge public to ‘take care of each other’

Pope Francis has condemned people who had gone abroad on holiday to escape coronavirus lockdowns, saying they needed to show greater awareness of the suffering of others.

Speaking after his weekly noon blessing, Francis said he had read newspaper reports of people catching flights to flee government curbs and seek fun elsewhere.

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