Global

ANKAWA, Iraq -- When Suhail Louis left the sectarian violence of Baghdad a year ago, he thought he would find comfort in the safety of Northern Iraq. Instead, he's faced with a new discomfort: unemployment.

Today he lives in Ankawa, a predominantly Christian town just outside of Irbil. The town has seen the arrival of more than 5,000 Christian families since the beginning of the war. His new home offers safety, but little more.

Should he learn Kurdish, the local language, to improve his employment prospects here? Or should he study English in case he is able to migrate to North America?

The 43-year-old Arabic-speaking engineer cannot stop reminiscing about his home city -- the hustle and bustle, the culture, his once-good life. Even if the past eight years have been fraught with danger, it was still home.

"Where is better? Here or Baghdad?" Louis asks rhetorically, as he sits at a cafe in the middle of the afternoon, the slow-paced life around him seeming to remind him of his own life on pause. "In Baghdad there was a future. Here, the future is unknown."

LONDON -- A British court has effectively disqualified a couple from becoming foster parents because of their Christian views on premarital and homosexual intercourse.

Owen and Eunice Johns of Derby, England, were told by judges sitting in the High Court in London that gay equality laws must "take precedence" over the rights of Christians to act in line with their faith.

The couple, who have fostered 15 children, had sought a judicial review of a 2009 decision by the Derby City Council to defer their application to be approved as short-term, respite, foster caregivers because of their views on sexual morality.

The judges were asked to consider the abstract question of whether public authorities should consider applicants' views on sexual ethics when deciding to approve them as foster parents.

The judges stated that Christian beliefs on sexual ethics may be "inimical" to children and implicitly upheld a submission by the publicly funded Equality and Human Rights Commission that children risked being "infected" by Christian moral beliefs.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- When 33-year-old Fr. Moses Kago was a teen and considering becoming a priest, he thought that he would have to have surgery to make him a white man.

As he recently recounted that story at his home parish about 60 miles north of Nairobi, he told the congregation members they lived in a different church. He had not seen an African priest; they have seen many.

VATICAN CITY -- With pro-democracy movements moving across North Africa and the Middle East, the situation in Libya worries the Vatican because of the loss of human lives, "the targeting of civilians and of peaceful protesters, and the indiscriminate use of force," a Vatican representative told the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican representative to U.N. agencies in Geneva, told the council Feb. 25 that the Vatican supports all efforts to encourage a dialogue between pro-democracy demonstrators and the government of Col. Moammar Gadhafi.

Since late January, demonstrators across the region have taken to the streets calling for democratic reforms; the protests led to leadership changes in Egypt and Tunisia, but saw a violent crackdown in Libya where some 1,000 people were believed to have been killed, foreign workers were being evacuated and about 100,000 people were said to have fled to Egypt and Tunisia.

WARSAW, Poland -- A commission representing the European Union's Catholic bishops welcomed an EU commitment to support religious freedom worldwide and predicted "concrete measures" will be taken to implement the pledge.

"It isn't up to churches to suggest practical action," said Johanna Touzel, spokeswoman for the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community. "What we're calling for is a clear warning about the consequences of continued persecution.

"The Western world should be offering a framework for respecting fundamental rights, which local communities can implement democratically. Now that revolutionary changes are occurring in the Arab world, the West has a responsibility to set the rules of the game," she said.

Touzel's response followed the release Feb. 21 of a statement by the EU foreign ministers that reaffirmed a "strong commitment" to promote religious freedom and condemn violence against Christians and Muslims.

In a Feb. 24 interview with Catholic News Service, Touzel said the voices of church leaders and Christian politicians helped "change the orientation" of the foreign ministers.