The Irish Republic has voted to eliminate the ban on abortion from its constitution.

Abortion will soon be legal there.

This will directly help women in Northern Ireland, because it will be much easier and cheaper to go to the Irish Republic for an abortion than to travel to England as they currently must do. However, they demand legalization of abortion there next.

This change might have larger political effects. A few decades ago, anyone in Northern Ireland had a powerful reason to oppose uniting Northern Ireland with the Irish Republic: the latter's church-backed denial of human rights that related to marriage and sex. This reason no longer exists.

The head of UK prisons says that prison sentences under one year are ineffective at teaching prisoners not to commit minor crimes, and calls for using other punishments instead of prison.

The leaders of South Korea and North Korea held a meeting about how to get the bully to be serious about peace.

Teaching birth control in Uganda has been hit hard by the US abortion gag rule.

China has got accustomed to having one child, and most couples don't want a second child.

This is tremendously good news for the future of China and the world: China with its current population is using its land unsustainably. Maybe with the coming decrease it could put an end to that.

If only we could convince other regions with still-exploding populations, such as India and much of Africa, to have small families, that would put off the consequent disasters.