International Scoop: Our weird world

BY AMYWULFF
Cardinal Staff

As we’re gearing up for finals and the end of this semester, I wanted to write about something interesting, odd and maybe shocking instead of the usual serious news, which seems to always be filled with distrust, hate and power struggles. Instead of reminding you that we’re still in Iraq and planning on sending more troops to Afghanistan, that Iran is still increasing uranium enrichment, and that Chavez is still in power in Venezuela, I have for you a broad array of more random news. It might still be gross, sad and weird, but it’s different. Enjoy.

According to CNN.com, the Australian Senate has refused to pass laws attempting to reduce carbon emissions from industries for the third time. The opposition party leader, Tony Abbott, is on the record “saying the argument for climate change is ‘absolute crap,’” (CNN.com). John Connor, chief executive of the Climate Institute (an independent research group), is quoted saying,

“It’s a sad irony that while the U.S. and China are investing billions in renewable energy and battling over who will lead the clean energy economy, Australian politicians are squabbling in the ‘domestic playground’ of party politics” (CNN.com). A climate change summit will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark this year. In Lima, Peru, an officer was removed from assignment when he stated at a press conference that “a gang murdered dozens of people and sold their fat to foreign cosmetics traders” (Inquirer.net). Officer Felix Murga apparently told people in November that a Peruvian gang or “brotherhood” was accused of killing over 60 people over a span of 30 years. This gang was uncovered in early November, “when police arrested one person in possession of 17 liters of human fat, with an apparent value of $255,000” (Inquirer.net). However, experts doubt there is a large market for the sale of human fat, saying no extractions of this fat have cosmetic value. Fight Club, anyone?

In Munich, Germany, what is thought to be the last big Nazi trial is on hold because the accused, John Demjanjuk, is sick. Demjanjuk is said to have been at Sobibor during 1943 when “tens of thousands of Jews were exterminated” (Reuters.com). After the war, Demjanjuk emigrated to the U.S., where he worked for the auto industry and lived in a suburb outside Cleveland, Ohio. He has appeared to his court hearings in a hospital bed with “eyes closed or staring blankly” (Reuters.com).
Not-so-swift justice.

In Rome, Italy, recently retired Vatican official, Mexican Cardinal Javier Barragan, was quoted telling transsexuals and homosexuals that they “will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven” (Reuters.com). Cardinal Barragan also said that homosexuality was not natural, but due to choices or identity confusion. Aurelio Mancuso, the president of Italy’s gay rights group, Arcigay, said, “Barragans’s remarks were part of the Church’s ‘ridiculous theories about sexuality and the dignity of the person,’” (Reuters). The Church distanced itself from the comments, though Catholic teaching does state that homosexual acts are sinful, while homosexuality is not.