AUSTRALIAN  PRAYER  NETWORK  NEWSLETTER – INTERNATIONAL NEWS 14th OCTOBER 2013

THE  OFFICE  OF  THE  AUSTRALIAN  PRAYER  NETWORK  IS  CURRENTLY  CLOSED  FOR  A PERIOD   OF  6  WEEKS  TO  ENABLE  STAFF  TO  UNDERTAKE  STRATEGIC  PRAYER  ASSIGNMENTS  IN  THE  MIDDLE  EAST  AND  TO  TAKE  A  SHORT  BREAK  AT  THE  END  TO  RECOVER  FROM  THE INTENSE  PERIOD  OF  ACTIVITY  AND  PRAYER.   PRE-PREPARED  EDITIONS  OF  INTERNATIONAL  NEWS  WILL CONTINUE  TO  BE  PUBLISHED  DURING  THIS  TIME  BUT  IN  AN  ABRIDGED  FORM.   INTERNATIONAL  NEWS   WILL RESUME  FULL  PUBLICATION  ON  MONDAY  11TH  NOVEMBER.

 

  • POPE TELEPHONES WOMAN WHO REFUSED ABORTION
  • DEATH OF EIGHT YEAR OLD YEMINI BRIDE CAUSES ANGER
     

POPE TELEPHONES WOMAN WHO REFUSED ABORTION

Anna Romano couldn’t believe her ears when she picked up the phone. On the other end of the telephone was Pope Francis himself, who called to offer to baptize her baby after she refused to have an abortion.  “I was just so surprised that he had telephoned me. He said that he had read my letter and he wanted to speak to me personally about it and reassure me that someone was worried about me,” Anna, hailing from Arezzo near Florence.  Feeling humiliated, betrayed, and that she had no one else to turn to, Anna wrote to Pope Francis a few months ago about her crisis situation. She revealed that she was pregnant with the child of an already married man who had demanded she abort.

In her letter, Anna told the Pope that she would not have an abortion and that she had told the married man to “get out of my life.” Anna never dreamed of a reply. Then, when she was on holiday, she received the surprising call. “At the beginning I thought it was a joke, but then he referred to the letter, which only my best friend and my parents knew about,” Anna said.  “We were only on the phone for a few minutes but my heart was filled with joy, as we spoke I was rubbing my tummy at the same time,” she told the Daily Mail. “I would never have imagined that the Pope would pick up a telephone and call me and speak to me as if I was a dear friend.”

Source: Daily Mail

 

DEATH OF EIGHT YEAR OLD YEMINI BRIDE CAUSES ANGER

Yemeni activists have called for action after an eight-year-old child bride died of genital tears and internal bleeding on the first night of her arranged marriage.  The groom was five times her age according to Kuwaiti daily Al Watan.  The death occurred in the tribal area of Hardh in north-western Yemen, which borders Saudi Arabia. Kuwaiti bloggers are now calling for the girl’s family and groom to be punished, Gulf News reports. Blogger Angry Man posted that the groom was “an animal who deserved to be punished severely for his crime”.  Another blogger, Sad, posted that the marriage shouldn’t have occurred, “even if some tribes believe that it is a good custom”. 

Activists hope the case would be used to help put an end to the practice of marrying very young girls. In 2008, a Yemeni eight-year-old bride had her marriage annulled by a court after running away from her husband and filing for divorce. But in 2009, a Yemeni law that set the minimum age of a bride at 17 was repealed as lawmakers deemed it un-Islamic. In 2010, a 12-year-old died three days after her marriage from internal bleeding, and a 13-year-old died during labour. A video released in July by human rights organisation Middle East Research Institute shows an escaped 11-year-old bride-to-be who spoke out after her family was forcing her into an arranged marriage.

Source: Gulf News