Tuesday, June 19 in the news.....
- The Vatican has urged nations to pass laws to curb the "modern slavery" of prostitution to protect women from violence and punish clients. "The customers too are people with deeply rooted problems, and in a certain sense are also slaves," it said. American Presidential hopeful Barack Obama noted what the Vatican said, telling supporters "See, even a modern slave can become the leader of this country. The first black president really was Bill Clinton."
- Trained suicide bombers are emerging from tribal areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan to plan attacks on the West, according to a video of a Taliban "graduation ceremony" aired by a US news channel. The footage, taken by a Pakistani journalist and received by ABC news, showed a large group of men, their faces hidden by black scarves, who were members of teams assigned to carry out attacks in the US, Canada, Great Britain and Germany. The failed graduates have the choice of either repeating the course or going on jihadist welfare payments.
- Salman Rushdie has been awarded a knighthood by Britain's Queen Elizabeth on Saturday for services to literature. Eighteen years after the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling on Muslims to kill him, a government minister in Pakistan said yesterday that Rushdie's recent knighthood justified suicide bombing. When asked why, the Pakistani minister said, "Well it's not what you think, it's because he's no Shakespeare".
