Breaking News, Latest Philippines Headlines, World, Entertainment, Politics, Weather & Video News
ORAN, Argentina (AFP) — A retired Argentine bishop seen as close to Catholic Church’s Pope Francis was sentenced on Friday to four and a half years in prison for sexually abusing two seminarians. A court in the northwestern town of Oran, where Gustavo Oscar Zanchetta was bishop from 2013 to 2017, ordered his immediate detention. The 57-year-old Zanchetta, who had traveled from the Vatican for the trial, was convicted of “simple, continued and aggravated […]
BANDUNG, Indonesia (AFP) – An Indonesian court Tuesday sentenced a teacher to life in prison for the rape of 13 students, in a case that has drawn national attention to sexual abuse in the country’s religious boarding schools. Bandung district court in West Java found Herry Wirawan guilty of raping 13 female students, all minors, and impregnating at least eight of them. During the trial, it was revealed he had raped the children — many […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai has denied accusing anyone of sexual assault in her first media comments since publicly alleging that a top Communist Party official forced her to have sex. The quickly-censored claims posted on social media last month by the former Wimbledon and French Open doubles champion sparked international concern, with the United Nations and fellow tennis stars among those voicing fears for her wellbeing. But in comments to […]
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AFP) — New Zealand police shot dead a man who wounded six people in an attack at an Auckland supermarket on Friday as terrified crowds fled for the exits. Police said the attack occurred when the man entered the Countdown supermarket in the city’s New Lynn suburb as people were doing afternoon shopping. Authorities described that attack as “random” and not terror-related. “Police have located the man and he has been shot. […]
NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — A priest and three other men have been charged with the gang rape and murder of a low-caste nine-year-old girl, Indian police said, in a case that sparked days of protests in New Delhi. The girl was allegedly assaulted by the priest, 53, and three workers on August 1 after she had gone to a crematorium to fetch water. The four men, who have been in custody since they […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Insults, beatings, arrests — health workers battling the coronavirus were subjected to more than 400 acts of violence related to Covid-19 worldwide in 2020, according to a report published Tuesday by a health NGO. The Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition unveiled an interactive map that shows 1,172 violent acts and attacks occurred against health workers or facilities last year, “a minimum estimate,” according to the NGO. More than a […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell delivered a scathing rebuke of Donald Trump on Saturday despite voting to acquit the former president on an impeachment charge, saying he was responsible for the January 6 mob assault on the US Capitol. “There’s no question — none — that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,” McConnell said in a speech following the vote that […]
by Holly ROBERTSON Agence France Presse SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Cardinal George Pell was aware of child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in Australia as far back as the 1970s and failed to seek the removal of accused priests, according to findings of a top-level inquiry released Thursday. The Royal Commission report was handed down in 2017 but pages relating to Pell’s conduct were heavily redacted to prevent jurors in his trials on child […]
by Holly ROBERTSON Agence France Presse BRISBANE, Australia (AFP) — Cardinal George Pell was released from prison on Tuesday, hours after Australia’s High Court quashed his conviction for child sex abuse, bringing to an abrupt end the most high-profile paedophilia case faced by the Catholic Church. The 78-year-old left Barwon Prison near Melbourne after the court overturned five counts of sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys in the 1990s. Pell, who had steadfastly maintained his […]
NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — An Indian lawmaker was sentenced to life Friday for raping a teenager whose plight police ignored until she tried to set herself on fire, in a case highlighting the impunity often enjoyed by the powerful. The day after she did so last year her father died in police custody, with the family alleging he was tortured for pursuing the case. Later she was critically injured in a suspicious car […]
NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — Disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein has reached a $25 million settlement with dozens of women who accused him of sexual misconduct, one of the women’s lawyers told AFP on Wednesday. The once-powerful producer of “Pulp Fiction” and “Sin City”, whose case sparked the #MeToo movement against sex crimes, faces a criminal trial next month that could see him jailed for life. The payout from a separate civil case […]
The Vatican Supreme Court has cleared a senior priest accused of making advances towards a German nun during confession, the Vatican said on Friday. The five-member Supreme Court, the Apostolic Signatura, said in a statement that after careful examination the “serious” allegation could not be proved “with the required moral certitude”. Austrian priest Hermann Geissler proclaimed his innocence but resigned in January as one of three top officials at the Congregation for the Doctrine of […]
