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NEW YORK – The Dalai Lama said Sunday that the U.S.-led war in Iraq could perhaps have been avoided through negotiations with Saddam Hussein. Responding to a question about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the exiled leader of Tibetan Buddhists said that Hussein was “not such a foolish person. War with America. He can’t…

(RNS) Moishe Rosen, a controversial Baptist minister, writer and founder of the group Jews for Jesus, died in San Francisco Wednesday (May 19) at the age of 78. He had prostate cancer. Rosen was born in Kansas City, Mo., to a family of Orthodox Jews. At the age of 21, Rosen met his wife Ceil…

(RNS) The National Association of Evangelicals on Thursday (May 20) launched an initiative to reduce abortions by promoting a “Theology of Sex” for churches and pledging to find common ground with opponents on abortion. “There’s a sense that, whatever our laws are, abortion is a problem because of the underlying issues of how we treat…

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Is Pope Benedict XVI legally responsible for the actions of U.S. Catholic bishops who mishandled cases of pedophile priests, allowing them to sexually abuse more children? Some plaintiffs’ lawyers are arguing that victims of clerical sex abuse should be able to sue the Vatican itself for damages, in large part because they…

CHENNAI, India (RNS) For the second time in two days, Pakistani officials have restricted access to a popular Internet site that it deems offensive to the country’s majority Muslim population. The government Thursday (May 20) blocked access to YouTube because of what it considers sacrilegious content on the video-sharing website. The country’s Telecommunications Authority did…

BERLIN (RNS) A Scientologist may offer child care services so long as she does not mix religion with work, a German court ruled Wednesday (May 19). An unnamed 38-year-old Munich woman had been providing day care for five children, earning about 1,600 euros ($1,982) a month, reported the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung. City regulators ruled she…

WASHINGTON (RNS) The U.S. Catholic bishops withdrew from a national civil rights coalition on Wednesday (May 19) after the group advocated on behalf of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. The Washington-based Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights (LCCR) was founded in 1950 by African American and Jewish leaders to press for the passage of…

WHITE PLAINS, New York – A federal judge has refused to dismiss the criminal case against four men who claimed they were entrapped by a federal informant into a plot to bomb synagogues and shoot down military planes. Judge Colleen McMahon said precedents establish that even when the government helps commit a crime, others can…

(RNS) Europe’s burqa debate and a steady stream of media images showing veiled women have led to a widespread impression that all Muslims are obsessed with covering the female body. It might be a surprise, then, that many Muslim Americans are toasting Rima Fakih, who made history on Sunday (May 16) by becoming the first…

(RNS) Evangelicals are calling on the Obama administration to enact long-promised prison reforms, saying the incarcerated deserve protection from violence and rape. In 2003, former president George W. Bush signed the Prison Rape Elimination Act, which aimed to lower the estimated 13 percent of inmates sexually assaulted each year. The bill called for the Department…

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