Day: October 2, 2023

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Francis has appeared to leave open the possibility of priests blessing same-sex couples, if they are limited, decided on a case-by-case basis and not confused with wedding ceremonies of heterosexuals.

Francis made his opinion known in one answer to five questions from five conservative cardinals from Asia, Europe, Africa, the United States and Latin America.

The cardinals sent the pope a set of formal questions, known as “dubia” (“doubts” in Latin), about issues relating to a global gathering that starts at the Vatican on Wednesday.

One of the questions specifically regarded the practice, which has become relatively common in places like Germany, of priests blessing same sex couples who are in a committed relationship.

The written exchange took place in July and the Vatican published the pope’s responses on Monday after the five cardinals unilaterally disclosed their initiative, saying they were not satisfied with Francis’ answers.

The pope’s nuanced response differed from an explicit ruling against such blessings by the Vatican’s doctrinal office in 2021.

In his seven-point response, Francis said the Church was very clear that the sacrament of matrimony could only be between a man and woman and open to procreation and that the Church should avoid any other ritual or sacramental rite that contradicted this teaching.

Still, he said “pastoral charity should permeate all our decisions and attitudes” adding that “we cannot be judges who only deny, reject and exclude”.

At times, he said, requests for blessings were a means through which people reached out to God to live better lives, even if some acts were “objectively morally unacceptable”.

The Church teaches that same-sex attraction is not sinful but homosexual acts are.

Any eventual blessings, Francis said, should not become the norm or get blanket approval from Church jurisdictions such as dioceses or national bishops conferences.

Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, which promotes Church outreach to LGBT Catholics, said that while the response was not a “full-fledged, ringing endorsement” of such blessings, it was very welcomed.

In a statement DeBernardo said that the pope’s words implied “that the church does indeed recognise that holy love can exist between same-gender couples, and the love of these couples mirrors the love of God”.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi confirmed on Monday that he will stand for a third term in office in an election in December, as opposition parties complained that people trying to register support for other candidates had faced obstacles.

“Just as I responded to the call of the Egyptians before, today I respond to their call again,” Sisi said in a closing speech for a three-day event that promoted policies under his rule at a new capital being built in the desert outside Cairo.

“We are on the cusp of our new republic, which seeks to complete the process of the state’s survival and rebuild it on the foundations of modernity and democracy,” he said.

Sisi, a former army chief who has been president since 2014, had been widely expected to run again and secure a third term after constitutional amendments four years ago that would allow him to stay in office until 2030.

In recent weeks, supporters have mounted a campaign using billboards and public messages urging him to stand in the Dec. 10-12 poll, while Egypt’s fragmented opposition says it has come under pressure.

The campaign of Ahmed al-Tantawi, a former member of parliament and the most prominent potential opponent to Sisi, has complained that citizens have been impeded when they tried to register their support for his candidacy.

Many of those showing up at public notary offices to register their support for him were told the system was not working, or ordered to come back later or register somewhere else, Mohamed Abol Deyar, Tantawi’s campaign manager, told Reuters. Some had faced harassment, attacks or abuse, he said.

The Civil Democratic Movement, which groups together some small opposition parties, also said in a statement on Sunday that there had been multiple violations against citizens trying to nominate candidates to stand against Sisi.

Egypt’s National Election Authority says it is investigating complaints and has called such allegations baseless. Prospective candidates need 25,000 public signatures or the support of 20 members of a heavily pro-Sisi parliament to stand.

Sisi came to power after leading the ousting of democratically elected Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013. He was announced winner of presidential elections in 2014 and 2018 with 97% of the vote.

His rule has been marked by a widespread crackdown on dissent during which activists say tens of thousands have been jailed. The Muslim Brotherhood, historically by far Egypt’s strongest opposition force, has been outlawed, its leaders jailed or in exile.

Sisi and his backers say the measures were needed to stabilise Egypt after the turmoil caused by the country’s 2011 “Arab Spring” popular uprising.

The election comes as Egypt is struggling with an economic crisis that has seen record inflation and a chronic foreign currency shortage.

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Microsoft (MSFT.O) chief executive Satya Nadella dismissed as “bogus” an argument by rival Google that it is easy to change defaults on computers and smartphones, as he testified in a landmark antitrust trial against its parent Alphabet (GOOGL.O).

At the trial – the first major antitrust case brought by the U.S. Department of Justice since 1998 – Nadella said that Microsoft, itself a tech powerhouse, had sought to make its Bing search engine the default on Apple (AAPL.O) smartphones but was rebuffed.

John Schmidtlein, Google’s lead lawyer, pressed Nadella on the occasions when Microsoft did win default status on computers and mobile phones but users bypassed Bing and continued to use Google by a wide margin.

Schmidtlein argued that Microsoft had made a series of strategic errors that led to Bing’s inability to grab a foothold, including a failure to invest in servers or engineers to improve Bing and a failure to see the mobile revolution.

Schmidtlein also said Microsoft’s success in becoming the default – on some Verizon phones in 2008, and BlackBerry and Nokia in 2011 – ended with the same result: users bypassed the default and did the vast majority of their searches on Google.

On laptops, most of which use Microsoft operating systems, Bing is the default search engine and has a market share below 20%, Nadella acknowledged.

The government has argued that Google, with some 90% of the search market, illegally paid $10 billion annually to smartphone makers like Apple and wireless carriers like AT&T (T.N) and others to be the default search engine on their devices.

The clout in search makes Google a heavy hitter in the lucrative advertising market, boosting its profits.

“Changing defaults today is easiest on Windows and toughest on mobile,” Nadella said.

“You get up in the morning and you brush your teeth and you search on Google,” he added in a reference to Google’s dominance in search.

Judge Amit Mehta, who will decide the case being tried in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asked Nadella why Apple would switch to Bing given the Microsoft product’s lower quality.

The question suggests Google’s argument – that it is dominant because of its quality and not because of illegal activity – has caught the judge’s interest.

Nadella responded that Microsoft had sought to show that Bing engineers would be able to “bridge the quality gap” with access to the number of queries made on Apple smartphones.

On the next big tech market – artificial intelligence – Nadella testified that tech giants’ efforts to build vast content libraries to train their large language models “reminds me of the early phases of distribution deals.”

“When I am meeting with publishers now, they say Google’s going to write this check and it’s exclusive and you have to match it,” he said.

Nadella became CEO of Microsoft in 2014, long after the tech giant had faced its own federal antitrust lawsuit. That court fight, which began in 1998 and ended in a 2001 settlement, forced Microsoft to end some business practices and opened the door to companies like Google.

Microsoft, which has a market capitalization of about $2.3 trillion, is bigger than Google by that metric, given Alphabet’s market capitalization of about $1.7 trillion.

As Google, which was founded in 1998, became an industry leading search engine, the two became bitter rivals. Both have browsers, search engines, email services and a host of other overlaps. They have recently become rivals in artificial intelligence, with Microsoft investing heavily in OpenAI and Google building the Bard AI chatbot among other investments.

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Iran said Monday it opposes any “geopolitical changes” in the Caucasus, where it has long been angered over Azerbaijan’s desire to set up a transport link along the Armenian-Iranian border.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanani, while voicing support for Azerbaijan’s reclamation of the separatist Nagorno-Karabakh region last month, said Tehran is “against making geopolitical changes in the region and this is our clear position.”  

He was referring to the Zangezur land corridor which would connect mainland Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhchivan and then to Turkey.

Relations between Baku and Tehran have been traditionally sour, as Turkic-speaking Azerbaijan is a close ally of Iran’s historical rival Turkey.

Following a lightning Azerbaijani military offensive which recaptured the separatist Nagorno-Karabakh enclave to the east of Zangezur last month, some experts believe that Azerbaijan’s leader Ilham Aliyev could now seek to launch operations in southern Armenia to create territorial continuity with Nakhchivan.

Armenian separatists, who had controlled Nagorno-Karabakh for three decades, agreed to disarm, dissolve their government and reintegrate with Baku.

Nakhchivan does not share a border with Azerbaijan but has been tied to Baku since the 1920s — and is located between Armenia, Turkey and Iran.

The annexation of this corridor, strategic to Tehran, would cut off Iran’s access to Armenia and consequently to Europe.

Kanani was commenting after the secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, Armen Grigoryan, met Sunday with his Iranian counterpart, Ali Akbar Ahmadian, during a visit to Tehran.

They discussed “the latest developments in the South Caucasus” and “military movements in the region,” Kanani said.

“We have always supported the return of these occupied territories to Azerbaijan,” he said, referring to Nagorno-Karabakh.

The Islamic Republic, bordering Azerbaijan and Armenia, has an Azeri-speaking community of around 10 million people, as well as an Armenian community of just under 100,000 people.

Ties between Azerbaijan and Iran soured in January when a gunman stormed into Baku’s embassy in Tehran.

He killed a diplomat and wounded two embassy security guards.

Tehran fears that its archenemy, Israel, also a major weapons supplier to Azerbaijan, could use Azerbaijani territory for an offensive against Iran. 

As Pakistan conducts a nationwide crackdown to curb smuggling of the dollar and other commodities outside the country, a senior government minister acknowledged security forces are involved in the illegal activity.  

Pakistan’s caretaker government launched a nationwide crackdown last month to curb the illegal flight of the dollar — and unlawful money exchange and transfers — in a bid to strengthen the weak rupee.   

With help from security and law enforcement agencies, authorities are also clamping down on hoarding and smuggling of wheat and sugar abroad and the influx of cheap Iranian petroleum products.

At a news conference highlighting the impact of the crackdown, caretaker Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti admitted security forces are involved in smuggling.   

Responding to VOA, the minister said it was “100 percent right” to say that security officials have a role in the illegal cross-border movement of currency and commodities.  

“Smuggling hasn’t happened on camel backs. It has happened via trucks,” Bugti said. “The chief of Pakistan’s military has told his people clearly … that there won’t just be court martials but those who are involved in such practices will also be sent to jail.”  

The minister, however, said accountability of military personnel is a process not open to public scrutiny. 

The Pakistani military is the country’s most powerful institution. Despite a civilian caretaker government running the country until general elections are held next year, the head of the army, Gen. Asim Munir, is playing a prominent role in state affairs, much like his predecessors. 

Receiving a briefing with top provincial government officials recently, the army chief pledged that a crackdown on smuggling and other illegal activities would continue “to rid Pakistan from the substantial losses it continues to suffer due to pilferage,” according to a statement issued by the military’s media wing.

Rupee’s rise  

Since the crackdown began a month ago, the beleaguered rupee has seen its fortunes turn around, emerging as the best performing currency globally in September.  

According to data analyzed by Pakistani brokerage and research firm Arif Habib Ltd., the rupee gained more than 6 percent against the dollar last month. The currency rose to 287 to a dollar from a record low of 308 in September. 

Bugti told the media that nearly $2.3 million has been recovered and 168 police reports have been lodged since the crackdown commenced four weeks ago.  

In a recent report, the country’s finance ministry also said the crackdown was paying dividends.  

“The government’s stern administrative action against the unlawful foreign exchange dealers and hoarders in commodity markets is stabilizing the exchange rate,” the report said.  

As Pakistanis, however, face crippling inflation with prices of essential items up nearly 31 percent from a year ago, experts say a crackdown on illegal activities alone will not strengthen the rupee or the economy. 

“Even with the crackdown in place, the fundamental dearth of exports, [large] scale of imports, and debt repayment needs will inexorably weaken the PKR (Pakistani rupee) until the country’s leadership finds the resolve to undertake structural reforms,” said Ali Hasanain, associate professor at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) in written comments to VOA.  

In July, Pakistan escaped default when it secured a $3 billion, nine-month deal with the International Monetary Fund. Among many conditions, the fund demanded the country allow the free market to determine the exchange rate.  

The crackdown on dollar smuggling and unlawful transfers of funds came as part of Pakistan’s efforts to quell speculation about the value of the rupee against the dollar. 

Analysts predict the rupee could further strengthen but that the economy will not be out of the danger zone any time soon as Pakistan must pay nearly $90 billion in external debt repayments over the next three years.

The foreign exchange reserves of the country’s central bank, according to its most recent figures, stand at just above $7.6 billion.

In a pirated version of “The Morning Show” Russian translators made the attackers of Mariupol the Azov Brigade – the same brigade that was actually defending the city.

The most modern generation of NASAMS has a completely updated command post and launch containers adapted to use short-range AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles and AMRAAM-ER missiles.

Slovakia’s leftist election winner Robert Fico got a two-week window to negotiate a coalition government on Monday, after steering his party to an election victory over the weekend with promises to stop military aid to Ukraine.

Fico campaigned on rhetoric that would shift Slovakia, a European Union and NATO member state, closer to Hungary in challenging the bloc’s consensual support of Ukraine against Russia.

But Fico, a three-time prime minister, will need other parties to form a coalition, which might prevent any sharp policy turn and means clinching a government is not yet guaranteed.

Fico met President Zuzana Caputova briefly on Monday to get the go-ahead to have a first try at forming a government.

“We agreed on a two-week deadline which I will have at my disposal to form a government,” Fico told reporters after the meeting.

“It will not be an easy process but we will do all we can.”

Caputova, a liberal who has a tense relationship with Fico, said she would also speak to other party leaders, suggesting she may try to take a role in the process.

The pro-Russian Fico and his SMER-SSD party won nearly 23% of the vote, ahead of liberal challenger Progresivne Slovensko (Progressive Slovakia, PS) with 18%.

Fico is expected to turn to HLAS (Voice), a more pro-European party which split off from SMER in 2020, and most likely the pro-Russian Slovak National Party (SNS), which won 5.6% of the vote.

But some analysts say SNS may have trouble keeping its lawmakers united, destabilising any coalition.

HLAS, led by Fico’s former colleague and prime minister Peter Pellegrini, would exert a moderating influence in a SMER-led government and holds a kingmaker position after winning the third most seats in parliament.

It could try to force SMER to negotiate a coalition with the Christian Democrats instead of the nationalists, or even swing its support to a potential PS-led coalition if negotiations with SMER fail.

Pellegrini said on Sunday that with HLAS in a ruling coalition, voters did not need to worry about a significant change in Slovakia’s foreign policy.

Though he turned increasingly anti-Western in opposition, analysts say Fico can be pragmatic, as shown when as premier he led Slovakia into the euro zone and avoided major political clashes.

A large policy U-turn or a collapse of support for Ukraine in central Europe is unlikely, analysts say.

Fico has said he would stop military supplies to Ukraine, which has a small border with Slovakia to the west, and that sending more weapons prolonged the war touched off by Russia’s February 2022 invasion.

He backed humanitarian and reconstruction aid for Ukraine, and wants peace talks – a line similar to that of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban but rejected by Ukraine and its Western allies, who say this would only encourage Russia.

In his campaign, Fico also called for tougher action against illegal migration and reining in a surge in living costs. He said on Sunday Slovaks had bigger problems than Ukraine.

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