Bankruptcy filing to avert abuse trials
HAGATNA, Guam -- Guam's Catholic Church will file for bankruptcy -- a move that will allow the archdiocese to avoid trial in dozens of lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse by priests and move toward settlements.
Archbishop Michael Byrnes announced Wednesday that mediation efforts that began in September led the church to bankruptcy.
"This path will bring the greatest measure of justice to the greatest number of victims," Byrnes said.
He said the bankruptcy will provide "finality for victim survivors that they've been heard and understood."
Attorney Leander James, who is working with accusers in Guam, said in a statement the move will help resolve current lawsuits from more than 180 claims of abuse through settlements.
"This bankruptcy filing will automatically stop any further action in the lawsuits that have been filed, and it will create a deadline for all Guam clergy abuse victims to file claims," he said.
Guam attorney Anthony Perez, who is also representing victims, says the bankruptcy does not mean the archdiocese will be shuttered.
"Just because the archdiocese is filing for bankruptcy does not mean it will go out of business," Perez said. "In my discussions with attorneys from my team with extensive experience in these types of bankruptcies, this filing will allow the archdiocese to reorganize and still be operational after the claims are paid and the bankruptcy is closed."
Cameroon pupils freed, but not adults
YAOUNDE, Cameroon -- The 79 students kidnapped by gunmen from a school in Cameroon have been released, but two of the three staff members abducted with them are still being held, a church official said Wednesday.
The students, between 11 and 17 years old, were taken to a church near the regional capital, Bamenda, said Fonki Samuel Forba, moderator of the country's Presbyterian Church.
Forba pleaded with the kidnappers to free the remaining captives.
The students were abducted Sunday night in part of Cameroon that is beset by violence and instability by armed separatists who want to create a breakaway state called Ambazonia.
Fighting between the military and separatists in the northwestern and southwestern regions increased after the government clamped down on peaceful demonstrations by English-speaking teachers and lawyers protesting what they said was their marginalization by Cameroon's French-speaking majority.
Hundreds have been killed in the past year and the separatists have vowed to destabilize the regions. They have attacked civilians who oppose their cause, including teachers who were killed for disobeying orders to keep schools closed.
Uganda medics get Ebola vaccinations
KAMPALA, Uganda -- Uganda has started vaccinating health workers against Ebola in a border district near the outbreak in Congo, where the highly infectious viral disease has killed 189 people.
The inoculations, using an experimental vaccine, began Wednesday and are part of a wider Ebola prevention plan in a country that has faced multiple Ebola outbreaks since 2000.
In recent months Ebola cases have been confirmed near the heavily traveled border between Uganda and Congo, where 270 cases have been reported in the country's northeast since August.
The vaccinations are crucial to stemming transmission "in a highly endemic belt for hemorrhagic fevers," said Anthony Mbonye, a professor of health sciences at Uganda's Makerere University.
Twice-weekly market days -- during which some 10,000 Congolese cross into Uganda -- have put Uganda at high risk, according to health officials. They say unofficial border crossings also are a cause for concern.
Pakistan transfers acquitted Christian
ISLAMABAD -- A Christian woman acquitted by Pakistan's Supreme Court eight years after being sentenced to death for blasphemy was flown Wednesday night to a facility in the capital, Islamabad, from an undisclosed location for security reasons, two senior government officials said.
Under tight security, Asia Bibi left a detention facility in Punjab province for the flight to the capital, the officials said. Troops guarded the roads leading to the airport from which she departed, they said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity Wednesday as they were not authorized to speak to media outlets.
Authorities last month said they arrested two prisoners who were accused of conspiring to strangle Bibi and since then additional police and troops have been deployed to the facility in Punjab. Officials said Bibi will be safer at the new facility in Islamabad.
Bibi's transfer comes a week after the high court in a landmark ruling acquitted Bibi and ordered her released, a move that triggered nationwide protests. Bibi's release was put on hold Friday after authorities held talks with radical Islamists who want her publicly hanged.
A Section on 11/08/2018