A year after the world was stunned by images of a 17-year-old girl being stoned to death in Iraqi Kurdistan, an international panel will debate the rise of honour killings, violence against women, gender apartheid and political Islam in Kurdistan/Iraq and the Middle East. High-profile speakers will include women’s rights activists, academics and experts from Kurdistan, Iraq, Iran, Sweden, New Zealand and Britain.

Freethinkers in France will remember fondly the Easter weekend of 2008 for many years. On the allegedly Good Friday of 21 March about 50 banquets were organised by Freethinkers. This is a tradition that goes back to a grand anti-religious banquet organised in 1868 in Paris, at the behest of Sainte-Beuve, Ernest Renan, Prince Napoleon and other republicans of the time: it was to break a religious taboo as on this day it was traditionally forbidden to eat ‘flesh meat’.

IHEU-Appignani Center for Bioethics and Bioethics International cordially invite you to a one-day conference concerning New Dilemmas in Medicine: Three Current Controversies in Genetics, Religion, and Big Pharma.

Joris of IHEYO writes: The conference takes place in Washington, DC, USA from Wednesday 4th until Sunday 8th June, alongside the IHEU Congress. Registration for the latter conference is required to take part in ours, as we will be attending some of the IHEU sessions when we're not busy discussing the future of Youth Humanism.

Keith Porteous Wood gave the following address on behalf of IHEU and the National Secular Society to the 'Religion And Politics In The New Europe' forum at the European Parliament in Brussels on Tuesday 27th November, 2007.

Europeans who have no religion are increasing in number but are becoming increasingly disadvantaged in the political process.

The majority of the EU population are either non-religious or do not actively practise any religion and they are being betrayed by increasingly strident religious influence on moral matters in EU institutions.

Turin was the first capital of a unified Italy and has a long history of secularism, so it was an appropriate venue for a gathering of Humanists from the European Humanist Federation (EHF) and the International Humanist and Ethical Union on 16 June 2007.

The 76th annual conference of IHEU's Member Organisation the Rationalist Association of India, and the 1st annual conference of Gujarat-Mumbai Rationalists Association will be held on 24 and 25th Nov. 2007 in Palanpur, Gujarat, with the title "Role of Secularism and Humanism in the Construction of a Just Society".

IHEU-Appignani Center for Bioethics in NYC co-sponsored by The UN Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women (OSAGI) and The Council of Europe invite you to attend the panel: