MEXICO CITY (CNS) — Jesus Jimenez took a break from washing windshields to think about how former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has him one step closer to jail. The 45-year-old father of four paints his face and dons a clown suit six days a week before arriving to work at a busy Mexico City intersection. As a squeegee clown, he earns about 100 pesos, or $9, a day — just enough to support his family in a slum on the city’s outskirts. Because of an anti-crime proposal hatched by Giuliani — famous for his zero-tolerance policy credited with slashing New York’s crime rate — and recently drafted into law by the local assembly, Jimenez might have to find a new line of work or go to jail.

"I don’t know what I’ll do. If only this Giuliani guy had stayed home," he said. Thousands of men, women and children who work the streets of this chaotic metropolis are having similar thoughts of late. Police have been rounding up about 340 people daily since the Civic Culture Law took effect in early August, Police Chief Marcelo Ebrard told reporters Aug. 9. The law allows police to arrest those who coerce people into paying for unsolicited services and applies mainly to squeegee men, street performers and "franaleros," who charge drivers to park on public streets.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Vatican condemned the British government’s permission to a group of researchers to clone human embryos for therapeutic aims. Calling the new move "morally unacceptable," the Vatican’s spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, reiterated the Church’s position on artificially creating human embryos. Pope "John Paul II firmly condemns any type of human cloning," he told reporters Aug. 11, the same day British regulators gave a group of scientists permission to clone human embryos to produce stem cells to treat disease.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — For years, historians have pressed the Vatican to open its World War II archives. The Vatican replied that it had already published 11 volumes of documents, which included the most important information from the period. But in 2002, Pope John Paul II gave orders for early release of new archival sections. As a result, historians are about to feast on two remarkable collections of correspondence — one that views the buildup to the war from the halls of power and one that describes the conflict’s devastating consequences on ordinary men and women. In September, the Vatican Secret Archives will make available material on the Holy See’s relations with Germany in 1922-39.

PARIS (CNS) — Bringing Turkey into the European Union would put European culture at risk, said a top Vatican official. "Europe is a cultural and not a geographical continent," said Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. "Turkey always represented another continent throughout history, in permanent contrast with Europe," so to equate the two continents "would be a mistake," he told the magazine of the French newspaper Le Figaro in an interview published Aug. 13.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope John Paul II warned Russian youths not to squander hard-won freedoms by following the false idols of hedonism and drugs. "Do not allow the freedoms your dear nation has won back with the price of great sacrifice and suffering to be squandered away by giving in to false ideals," he said in a written message released Aug. 11 by the Vatican. Many youths in Russia today are "often distracted by the mirages of an easy and comfortable life, by the temptations of drugs and hedonism, often ending up as slaves to violence, meaninglessness and desperation," he said. Young people need now more than ever to see other young people’s "radical loyalty" to Christ and the Gospel, he said.

HONG KONG (CNS) — The Catholic Church in Hong Kong is trying to minimize teacher unemployment due to lower enrollment caused by the declining birth rate. Schools have to cut classes or merge morning and afternoon sessions into one, while some have closed, depriving many teachers of their jobs, reported UCA News, an Asian church news agency based in Thailand. The Catholic Church, the largest private school-sponsoring body in the territory, has more than 80 surplus teachers in its 136 primary schools. Hong Kong has 800 surplus teachers among all the territory’s 785 primary schools.

LOURDES, France (CNS) — Sharing the physical weakness of thousands of his fellow pilgrims at the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes, Pope John Paul II prayed for comfort for those who suffer, for the protection of every human life and for peace in the world. Although he was fine for most of the Aug. 14-15 pilgrimage, his initial visit of the weekend to the Massabielle grotto, where the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to St. Bernadette Soubirous, was emotional and difficult. Pushed in his wheeled throne to the grotto and helped to his knees, the pope was able to stay erect for less than a minute. He began to slump over, and his private secretaries came to his assistance, lifting him back into his chair. Although the person needing assistance was special, the scene was repeated thousands of times over the weekend as teen and young adult volunteers known as "hospitaliers" pushed wheelchairs, lifted the sick with gentle care and used blue "chariots" — similar to rickshaws — to transport those unable to walk up and down the town’s streets.

MANCHESTER, England (CNS) — A British Catholic peace group has launched a new campaign against the "security wall" between Israel and the Palestinian territories. Members of the British section of Pax Christi launched the campaign, "People of the Holy Land Need Bridges, Not Walls," at their annual meeting in London. Pax Christi is encouraging British churches and groups to learn more about the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, using the Israeli "security wall" as a focus. Pat Gaffney, general secretary of Pax Christi, said, "Many people will remember the impact and use of the Berlin Wall in the 20th century and how people managed to bring this wall down. We now have to support international campaigns to bring down the wall in Israel that will deny 210,000 Palestinians, living in the area between the wall and Israel, from access to social services, schools, places of worship and work."