Lambert case ignites euthanasia debate in France

FRANCE: Vincent Lambert, the quadriplegic at the center of a euthanasia battle, has died. The case highlights the complexities in French law on difficult end-of-life cases, and was used to press for legalizing euthanasia.

IRAN: A British warship confronted three Iranian boats that tried to block a British tanker entering the Strait of Hormuz. In Brussels, the United States threatened further sanctions over what it calls “nuclear extortion” in Iran’s latest enrichment gambit, and on The World and Everything In It I explain what’s behind that.

BRITAIN: Ambassador Kim Darroch resigned his post to the United States after a British tabloid on Sunday reported on leaked cables in which the diplomat disparaged President Donald Trump. Trump, no surprise, fired back.

QATAR: There’s reason to oppose arms sales and an expanded economic partnership with Qatar, despite the White House rolling out the red carpet this week.

Top religious freedom advocates have signed a letter challenging D.C. law firm Squire Patton Boggs over its representing “the world’s most aggressive persecutors of people of faith,” including Qatar.

MAURITANIA: A fledgling church of mostly Muslim converts (Mauritania is 99.75 percent Muslim, according to Operation World) is using SD and SIM cards to translate Scripture and provide it clandestinely, one pastor recently explained to me. Yet the church faces frequent threats under a tightened apostasy law.

BURKINA FASO: Watching here a rapidly escalating humanitarian crisis, with 170,000 people displaced, largely stemming from jihadist violence targeting Christians.

CANADA: Heads of state are polishing their bona fides ahead of next week’s Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom in Washington, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau giving a speech on his record of protecting the persecuted, even though he closed the government’s Office of Religious Freedom and eliminated the budget to support related projects abroad.

UNITED STATES: The State Department’s second annual ministerial appears set to draw more than 1,000 officials, religious leaders, and advocates from around the world next Tuesday through Thursday in Washington. I’ll be on hand and speaking Wednesday on “the role of the journalist in highlighting abuses.”

RUSSIA: Since most of us haven’t read the Mueller report, never-to-miss author Mark Bowden and comic illustrator Chad Hurd were commissioned to give it some POW!

I’M READING Liberty in the Things of God by Robert Louis Wilken and can’t recommend it highly enough.

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