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US Anglican head in sexuality row

US Supreme Court blocks execution of child killer

US Anglican head in sexuality row
By Christopher Landau
BBC News

The head of the Anglicans in the United States has accused other churches, including the Church of England, of double standards over sexuality.

The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katherine Jefferts Schori, told the BBC her church is paying the price for its honesty over sexuality.

The threat of schism in the Anglican Communion was prompted by the appointment of a gay bishop.

The US church appointed an openly gay man Gene Robinson as a bishop in 2003.

Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori defended her ministry.

"He is certainly not alone in being a gay bishop, he's certainly not alone in being a gay partnered bishop," she said.

"He is alone in being the only gay partnered bishop who's open about that status."

She said other Anglican churches also have gay bishops in committed partnerships and should be open about it.

"There's certainly a double standard," she told BBC Radio 4's PM programme.

Poor hygiene costs hundreds of thousands of lives–WHO
The Manila Times
Friday, November 23, 2007

SEOUL: A senior UN health official said Thursday that better sanitation and hygiene could save hundreds of thousands of children’s lives a year at a cost equal to what Europe spends annually on ice cream.

Shigeru Omi, World Health Organization director for the Western Pacific, said 1.8 million worldwide die every year from diarrhea diseases mainly attributable to unsafe water supplies, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene.

“The majority of these deaths occur in Asia, with 90 percent of them children under five years of age. In fact, diarrhea is the second leading cause of childhood death in developing countries,” he said.

He was speaking at the launch of the World Toilet Association, a South Korea-based nongovernmental organization aimed at helping the world’s 2.6 billion people who live without toilets.

Two thirds of them live in Asia, with more than half in China and India alone, according to Omi.

Studies have shown that better sanitation can reduce diarrhea deaths by up to 32 percent and hygiene campaigns such as promoting hand-washing can reduce such deaths by up to 45 percent, he said.

“Just imagine the number of children whose lives could be saved through simple low-cost interventions in sanitation and hygiene,” he said.

Many other illnesses are also related to unsafe water and poor sanitation and hygiene, such as intestinal worm infections.

Currently, about 133 million people worldwide suffer high-intensity worm infections, which often lead to cognitive impairment, dysentery or anemia, Omi said.