Office Timetable

Italians seek changes on gay rights, abortion

ITALY entered a moral minefield yesterday, igniting a debate on abortion law as 50,000 protesters marched on Rome to demand gay rights.

Waving rainbow-coloured banners with slogans such as ``Better Gay than Opus Dei'' and ``Homosexuality is not an offence: intolerance is'', the demonstrators called on parliament to pass legislation granting legal recognition to de facto and same-sex couples.

As Italy grapples with a church-versus-state debate over ``family values'', politicians, doctors and the Vatican are pushing for a review of Italy's 1978 abortion laws.

The abortion row blew up yesterday after the weekend death of a six-day-old baby boy who survived an abortion at a Florence hospital.

The baby's mother terminated her 22-week pregnancy based on ultrasound scans that falsely indicated severe birth defects.

The child was born perfectly healthy, but weighed just 500 grams and died of a brain haemorrhage and heart failure after six days in
intensive care.

Italy's Health Minister, Livia Tureo, yesterday defended Italy's abortion law, which grants women abortions on demand up to 90 days of pregnancy, and permits abortions until 24 weeks of pregnancy in cases where the mother's physical or psychological health is at
risk.

The 29-year-old law also requires doctors to do all they can to save the life of a fetus that survives an abortion.

Ms Tureo said MPs could not have predicted in 1978 the technological advances that now save the lives of babies born at 23 weeks (a full-term baby is born between 38 and 40 weeks).

``Neonatal doctors are faced with enormous difficulties, such as how to treat babies who are born prematurely, and where to set the limits for survival,'' Ms Tureo said.

The Corriere della Sera newspaper revealed yesterday that a Milanese hospital had banned abortions beyond 22 weeks -- in breach of the Italian law.

The health director of the Mangiagalli hospital, Basilio Tiso, said he had to balance the rights of women with the concerns of Catholic doctors.

``I had doctors knocking on my door continually, torn between their professional obligation to save the life of a fetus and the terrible knowledge they would be condemning most of them to a life of suffering,'' he said, noting that babies born before 23 weeks of pregnancy suffered grave handicaps.

``As science advances, the regulations have to keep up.''

A Rome hospital yesterday launched an inquiry into the director of its abortion clinic, who had been forcing patients to sign forms authorising doctors to let surviving fetuses die.

The director of the San Camillo hospital's maternity division, Claudio Donadio, denounced his colleague's actions as ``infanticide''.

The Vatican compared the abortion of malformed fetuses toNazi ``race-purification''
policies.

Italy records about 138,123 abortions a year, of which 2449 are classified as late-term abortions performed to safeguard the mother's health. The number of abortions in Italy has dropped 44per cent since 1982, and fell 6per cent from 2004 to 2005.

The political rows over abortion and homosexuality are opening new fracture lines in Italy's fragile centre-left coalition Government.

A proposed law -- bitterly opposed by the Pope -- would grant limited inheritance rights to unmarried couples, as well as ``next of kin'' status if one partner is admitted to hospital.

De facto couples may also apply for property rights and maintenance if they split after three years' cohabitation.

Prime Minister Romano Prodi has agreed to give his MPs -- who range from Communists to Catholics -- a conscience vote on legislation granting rights to de facto couples. Mr Prodi is a devoted Catholic but staunch supporter of de facto rights.

One of Mr Prodi's allies, Justice Minister Clemente Mastella of the Catholic EDEUR party, said he was not sure if he could continue to prop up a government that supported gay rights. The party's support is vital to the Prodi Government, which collapsed briefly last month when it lost a Senate vote to fund its peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan.

The Senate meets on March 27 to vote once more on the Afghanistan mission.

Source: Australian, The, MAR 12, 2007

3 Nurses go to Heaven

Three nurses died and went to Heaven, where they were met at the Pearly Gates by St. Peter.

To the first, he asked, "So, what did you used to do back on Earth? Why do you think you should be allowed to come into Heaven?"

"I was a nurse at an inner city hospital," she replied. "I worked to bring healing and peace to many sufferers, especially poor, helpless children.

"Very noble," said St. Peter. "You may enter."
And in through the Gates she went.

To the next, he asked the same question, "So, what did you used to do?"

"I was a nurse at a missionary hospital in the Amazon basin," she replied. "For many years, I worked with a skeleton crew of doctors and nurses who tried to reach out to as many people across numerous tribes, with a hand of healing and peace, and with the message about God`s love."

"How touching," said St. Peter. "You, too, may enter."
And in she went.

He then came to the last nurse, to whom he asked, "So, what did you used to do back on Earth?"

After some hesitation, she explained, "I was just a nurse at an HMO."

St. Peter pondered this for a moment, and then said, "Ok, you may enter, too."
"Whew!" said the nurse. "For a moment there, I thought you weren`t going to let me in."
"Oh, you can come in," said St. Peter, "but you can only stay for three days."

E.U. Report Faults 16 Nations in Probe Of Secret CIA Flights

PARIS, Feb. 14 -- The European Parliament on Wednesday approved a report admonishing 15 European countries and Turkey for helping the CIA transport terrorism suspects held in secret or for failing to cooperate in the parliament's investigation of the practice.

The legislative body for the European Union's 27 countries said many member states have been "turning a blind eye" to the CIA-operated flights carrying prisoners who were subjected to "incommunicado detention and torture" during interrogations, violating E.U. human rights standards.

"We have opened up a closed door and there is even more behind this," said parliament member Giovanni Claudio Fava, an Italian Socialist who drafted the report. It was approved by a 382 to 256 vote, with 74 abstentions.

The parliament criticized the CIA renditions -- an extralegal tactic by which alleged terrorists have been abducted and interrogated at secret sites overseas -- "as an illegal instrument used by the USA in the fight against terrorism" and condemned the "acceptance and concealing of the practices by the secret services and governmental authorities of certain European countries."

The parliament deleted some of the toughest sections of the report, however, including recommendations for sanctions against some countries for human rights violations. It softened criticisms of some governments, including those of Britain , Germany and Spain, after intense lobbying from those states.

The vote came after a divisive debate among members.

Parliament member Jas Gawronski of Italy criticized the final report as "a blanket condemnation of the secret services" and said it was "predicated on the assumption that there is one chief guilty party and that is the USA."

President Bush acknowledged last September that the CIA used secret prisons to interrogate some terrorism suspects overseas. He did not say where the prisons were located.

A parliamentary committee spent a year investigating the allegations and interviewed more than 200 witnesses, including E.U., NATO and U.S. State Department officials as well as individuals who alleged they had been kidnapped by CIA agents in Europe and held in secret U.S. prisons.

The report criticized the E.U. foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, for "omissions" in his testimony before the parliamentary panel.

The report, which repeated basic findings made in a draft released last year, admonished 11 countries for having a role in CIA flights: Germany, Sweden, Spain, Ireland, Greece, Cyprus, Denmark, Turkey, Macedonia, Bosnia and Romania. The report also cited Britain, Austria, Italy, Poland and Portugal as uncooperative in the probe.

The report said its investigators had received no information to "contradict any of the allegations" that the CIA ran a secret prison in Romania and said the parliament could not "acknowledge or deny" that any of the secret facilities had been set up in Poland. Those two countries have denied hosting CIA prisons.

Separately, the Swiss government on Wednesday authorized a criminal investigation into a February 2003 CIA flight that reportedly carried Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, known as Abu Omar, from Italy, where he was allegedly kidnapped, to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, crossing Swiss airspace. Nasr was then taken to Cairo.

Source: Washington Post, The, Feb 15, 2007