Two Christian girls, aged 3 and 5 years old, were rescued recently after being held hostage in Yemen for 11 months, according to Compass Direct News .

The girls, Lydia hentschel, 3, and Anna, 5, were rescued through a collaboration of Saudi Arabian and Yemeni security forces in what was described as a “humanitarian gesture” the BBC reported.

They were kidnapped with their parents and two-year-old brother while on a picnic in the northern region of Saada in June last year, according to the BBC.

Also kidnapped were four other Christian foreigners.  Three of the adult hostages, a Korean and two German women, were murdered shortly afterwards, the BBC reported.

The foreigners worked in a hospital near Saada city.  No group has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, and it is not known if they were kidnapped because of their faith, according to CDN.

The parents, Johannes Hentschel,  a mechanical engineer and Arab speaker, and Sabine, a nurse, sold their belongings seven years before and left their home in Lauske, Saxony for Yemen as part of a long-held dream, according to guardian.co.uk.

According to the Guardian, they worked at the Protestant al-Jumhuri state hospital in Yemen, employed by Worldwide Services, a Netherlands Christian charity.

They had planned to return to Germany this year for Anna to start school.

According to CDN, at present it is unknown where the girls’ parents and 2-year-old brother Simon are; as well as the Briton, only known as Anthony.  The Briton works as an engineer.  According to a report by the news magazine Spiegel, the Hentschels’s kidnappers had demanded $2m ransom for their release. The German foreign ministry refused to comment, according to the Guardian.

Yemen is the Arab world’s poorest country and is struggling with a secessionist movement in the south, an on-off revolt in the north, and intensified al-Qaida militancy, according to the Guardian.

Over 200 foreign nationals have been kidnapped in the country in the last 15 years. Most have been released unharmed, the Guardian reported.

Belgium’s recent decision to ban the burka has stirred the interest of some similarly inclined European countries, even as it has wreaked the ire of the human rights group Amnesty international, The Vancouver Sun reported.

On Thursday night Belgium’s parliament voted to prohibit the burka, which covers  a woman’s entire face and body, and leaves just slits for the eyes.  The face veil niqab is also banned.  The measure, which was approved by a 136 to zero votes with two abstentions, is intended to help fight terrorism.

In passing the measure, it was noted that the burka and niqab permit full concealment of one’s identity.  It was also hoped that the ban will help to exercise equal rights for men and women, ABC News reported.

The Vancouver Sun said that some members of Belgium’s parliament noted that the veils are a symbol of the oppression of women in some Islamic societies.  There are half a million Muslims in Belgium, most of who do not wear the burka or the niqab.  OneIndia reported that the ban is expected to affect perhaps 100 women.

It will be imposed primarily in areas intended for public use such as streets, parks, sport arenas and buildings.  Women who do not follow the ban may be charged 22 pounds and be jailed for a week, OneIndia reported.

Belgium is the first country to ban the burka and the niqab.  However this may start a domino effect as France President Nicolas Sarkozy introduced a similar ban to start in September.  Legislation is also being introduced and/or considered to ban the burka in Italy, Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland, according to the Vancouver Sun.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International has expressed displeasure at Belgium’s new legislation saying that it is a discriminatory and dangerous precedent because it obstructs women’s rights to freedom of expression and religion.

Another group, Human Rights Watch expressed doubt that banning the burka and niqab would protect public safety, much less the rights of Muslim women, OneIndia reported.

The law must now be ratified by Belgium’s senate, but it is possible that such may not go through before mid-June, when parliament dissolves for elections.  Meanwhile, some cities are already imposing a ban on the burka through their local councils.  In the capital city Brussels, 29 women were fined for wearing the burka.

The Montana Supreme Court has decided that nothing in the state’s laws would prevent a resident from seeking physician-assisted suicide.

In 2008, a lower court judge ruled that Montana’s constitutional right to privacy law guarantees the right for terminally ill patients to ask their doctors for death drugs.

A “Montana Death with Dignity Act” has been proposed.

Although the Montana Supreme Court declared that there is no such guarantee in the Constitution (case of Baxter v Montana, Dec. 2009); the Court also stated that public debate should continue, and the final move toward physician assisted suicide would be made through the democratic voting process.

Montana would be the third state in the union to legalize physician-assisted suicide, behind Oregon and Washington.

Oregon’s “Death with Dignity Act” was affirmed by voters in 1994, and in 1997 it became legal for doctors to assist terminally ill patients toward death by giving lethal doses of prescription drugs.

Washington legalized essentially the same law in 2008.

Oregon’s original law was fashioned after that of the Netherlands; however, the Netherlands has seen a blurring of the difference between physician-assisted suicide and physician-decided euthanasia.

Here is a brief timeline:

1981: Holland’s Rotterdam Court puts out specific guidelines for legal physician assisted suicide. The patient (1) must be experiencing unbearable pain, and (2) the patient must be conscious and able to give voluntary consent. The “pain” part is universally accepted as meaning physical pain.

1986: It is ruled that “psychic suffering” or “potential disfigurement of personality” could also be a legal reason.

1992: The Dutch Pediatric Association issues formal guidelines for killing severely handicapped newborns. It is decided that doctors would judge if a baby’s “quality of life” was such that the baby should be killed.

1993: The Dutch Justice Ministry proposes extending court-approved euthanasia guidelines to formally include “active medical intervention to cut short life without an express request” from the patient; and that same year affirms euthanasia for psychiatric reasons.

According to Concerned Women for America, a 1996 USA Today poll found that seventy-five percent of Americans felt assisted suicide is acceptable.

However, in a March 2000 Zogby poll,  when posed directly with the question, “If you yourself were terminally ill…” only one-third of over 1,000 people said they would choose euthanasia for themselves.

The most famous recent U.S. case of physician-assisted suicide is the 2005 death of Terri Schiavo in Florida.

Mrs. Schiavo was unable to decide for herself whether she wanted to live or die.Her parents and several physicians maintained she was hearing and responding.

Courts ruled with her husband and other doctors who said she was in a “persistent vegetative state” (PVS).

The debate rages to this day as to whether she was actually in PVS or could have been rehabilitated while in the earlier years of her illness.

Schiavo was not removed from life support; her body was not on life support. She was breathing on her own.

She was only on feeding apparatus. Once that apparatus was removed, it took Schiavo fourteen days of starvation to die.

According to OneNewsNow, Montana’s pro-life organizations are lobbying against a Montana Death with Dignity Act.

The President of the Montana Pro-Life Coalition, Dr. Annie Bukacek, told OneNewsNow that physician-assisted suicide violates Montana homicide laws, violates ethical policies of the Montana Medical Association and the AMA, and also violates the Hippocratic Oath.