Global Quickies: Religion of Rebates, Condoms for Inmates, and Pregnancy Alert
EUROPEAN UNION
Poland and Hungary block EU proposal on property regimes of married and registered couples (including same-sex couples), arguing that this proposal infringe their sovereignty and interfere with the national identity, traditions and values related to family and society.
MALAWI
In Malawi, where same-sex sexual activity is illegal, government policy does not allow condoms to be distributed in prison, so inmates are being put at greater risk of HIV.
ICELAND
“Icelanders are flocking to a recently founded religion which is promising them a rebate on their religious taxes.”
UK
“A British mother says her daughter committed suicide after suffering an “allergy” to Wi-Fi.”
IRAN
“The Tehran Symphony Orchestra cancelled a performance that had been planned for the closing ceremony of an international wrestling event on November 29, 2015, after the authorities objected to the presence of women musicians among the orchestra members.”
HUNGARY
Hungarian skeptics are asking us to support this petition on how homeopathy is pseudoscience.
CANADA
“Online discussions of aboriginal issues in Canada can become so vitriolic that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) decided earlier this week to temporarily close comments on stories about indigenous people.”
BRAZIL
“Brazil warns women not to get pregnant as zika virus is linked to rare birth defect.”
MEXICO
Coca Cola had to apologize for a commercial showing light-skinned white people driving into the remote hills of Oaxaca to hand out Coke to indigenous Mixe people. The campaign pretended to combat prejudices, but it was (understandably) found offensive.
SWEDEN
As part of campaign that hopes to ‘open up conversation about gender’ every 16-year-old in Sweden is being given a copy of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s We Should All Be Feminists.
Featured image: Mark Blinch/Reuters
