‘No joke’: Ottawa to give Ukraine $4 million to fund gender-inclusive demining

The phrase ‘gender-transformative mine action’ proved the biggest stumbling block online, with some on X wondering if landmines themselves had a gender

A relatively minor item in an announcement from the Prime Minister’s Office regarding funding for “gender-transformative mine action” in the war in Ukraine has raised eyebrows on social media.

One of these, listed as “Gender-inclusive demining for sustainable futures in Ukraine,” has a funding budget of $4 million

“This project from the HALO Trust aims to safeguard the lives and livelihoods of Ukrainians, including women and internally displaced persons, by addressing the threat of explosive ordnance present across vast areas of the country,” the item reads. “Project activities include conducting non-technical surveys and subsequent manual clearance in targeted communities; providing capacity building to key national stakeholders; and establishing a gender and diversity working group to promote gender-transformative mine action in Ukraine.”

As the website of The HALO Trust explains, “Clearing landmines inspires confidence by making land safe. It is also empowering for men and women alike. With training and a living wage, they can take control of their destiny.” The HALO Trust is a U.K.-based non-governmental organization dedicated to clearing landmines in conflict zones around the world.

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Lawmakers Face Government Shutdown Deadline This Week

(Worthy News) – Lawmakers in Washington, D.C., face a partial government shutdown deadline this week and another separate shutdown early next week, setting up a chaotic Congress and frantic dealmaking, or lack thereof, before Friday.

After the meetings at the White House, Johnson told reporters that the conversations were “frank and honest.”

“When I showed up today, my purpose was to express what I believe is the obvious truth, which is that we must take care of America’s needs first,” he said. “When you talk about America’s needs, you have to talk first about our open border.

“I brought that issue up repeatedly today in that room and again, one-on-one with the president,” he added.

More than 10 million illegal immigrants have entered the U.S. since Biden took office, and recent high-profile murders allegedly committed by migrants have thrust the issue again into the forefront.

While Biden has called for legislation to be passed to address the issue, Republicans argue Biden is deflecting responsibility and has the money and manpower, just not the political will, to fix the border.

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Church Attacks In US Escalating, Report Warns

WASHINGTON/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Attacks against American churches have skyrocketed over the last decade due to growing anti-Christian sentiments in the United States, says a leading research and advocacy group in a new report.

The Washington D.C.-based Family Research Council (FRC) explained that attacks against churches increased 800 percent in less than six years — and more than doubled in 2023.

“These findings suggest that hostility against U.S. churches is not only on the rise but also accelerating,” FRC added about the report obtained by Worthy News on Monday.

TRANSGENDER VIOLENCE

The assault is but one example of 2023’s transgender-related anti-church violence, investigators said. “Last January 3, a man named Cameron Storer, who identifies as female, set fire to Portland Korean Church, a historic, 117-year-old vacant building. Storer claimed that voices in his head threatened to “mutilate” him unless he set the church ablaze.”

Tony Perkins, FRC’s president, said the “Biden administration’s whole-of-government opposition to Biblical morality is ‘fomenting this environment of hostility toward churches.’”

The report revealed that violence against churches “continued to explode” in 2023. During the first 11 months of last year, the FRC researchers verified “at least 436 acts of hostility against U.S. churches — more than double the number of attacks in all of 2022.”

The attacks included “315 acts of vandalism, 75 completed or attempted arsons, 20 bomb threats, 10 gun-related incidents, 12 instances of satanic graffiti [and] 59 churches faced repeated acts of hostility,” the FRC said.

These statistics likely understate the extent of the problem, as “[m]any acts of hostility against churches are likely not reported to authorities and/or are not featured in the news or other online sources from which we collected data,” said the report. “[T]he number of acts of hostility is undoubtedly much higher.”

President Biden has denied wrongdoing and told a National Prayer Breakfast audience in 2022, mainly comprising of members of the U.S. Congress, that his Christian faith reminded him of the importance of service. “In a moment of a great division, our democracy is at grave risk. I pray that we follow what Jesus taught us: to serve rather than be served,” he stressed.

Many church assaults also stemmed from the “Christian church’s 2,000-year-old teaching that life begins at fertilization/conception,” the FRC said, which described abortion as “murder.”

Church assaults peaked in June, the first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the Roe v. Wade ruling that had legalized abortion nationwide.

An arsonist set the Incarnation Roman Catholic Church in Orlando ablaze on the pro-life ruling’s first anniversary, although investigators could not determine if the date figured into the blaze, the FRC noted.

But “pro-abortion attacks on Christian churches” continued unabated all year long. On January 18, just before the [anti-abortion] March for Life, “someone vandalized the monument to the unborn at St. Rosalia Roman Catholic Church in Pittsburgh,” the FRC explained.

Eight days later, an attacker “desecrated a pro-life banner” inside a Florida Catholic parish with the phrase “Women’s body, women’s choice,” the report recalled.

Months later, on September 9, someone splattered red paint on an anti-abortion “pro-life sign” at the Second Baptist Church in Palermo, Maine, leaving behind two messages: “Abortion is our human right” and “Queer love 4 Eva”, according to investigators.

Vandals reportedly also destroyed “a pro-life display of 1,000 wooden crosses” that organizers said were “representing unborn lives snuffed out by abortion” at a display in Mary Queen of Heaven Catholic Church in Elmhurst, Illinois.

With church attacks rising, the FRC suggested in its report that President Biden should do more to defend Christian values.
“Joe Biden’s ‘indifference abroad to the fundamental freedom of religion is rivaled only by the increasing antagonism toward the moral absolutes taught by Bible-believing churches here in the U.S,’” the report complained.

Biden has, however, countered that he is a person of faith. Speaking at the National
Prayer Breakfast in 2022, he told the audience, mainly comprising members of Congress, that his Christian faith reminded him of the importance of service. “In a moment of a great division, our democracy is at grave risk. I pray that we follow what Jesus taught us: to serve rather than be served,” he said.