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GENEVA (AP) -- Russia lodged a formal complaint last month with the United Nations over a top U.N. official's condemnations of Donald Trump and some European politicians, an intervention that underscores the unusual links between the Republican presidential nominee and the Kremlin....
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- Hurricane Matthew sideswiped Florida's Atlantic coast Friday, toppling trees onto homes and knocking out power to more than 800,000 people but sparing the most heavily populated stretch of shoreline the catastrophic blow many had feared....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. is accusing Russia of hacking political sites, saying it is trying to interfere with the upcoming presidential election....
The Daughters of St. Anne Ranchi, based in Ranchi, the capital of India’s Jharkhand state, is an indigenous religious congregation founded nearly 120 years ago, in 1897 by Mother Mary Bernadette Prasad Kispotta, a local Chotanagpur tribal woman, together with three of her companions. With the opening of the process of her sainthood in the Archdiocese of Ranchi on Aug. 7 this year, Mother Kispotta became the first tribal woman of India to be declared a “Servant of God” by the Catholic Church. Last week in the first part of an interview with the Superior General of the Daughters of St. Anne, Ranchi, Sr. Linda Mary Vaughn, we came to know how Mother Kispotta, who was a Lutheran, converted to Catholicism. She fought of pressures from her family to get married, saying, if nothing else, she would remain single to serve the Loreto nuns. Inspired by the sacrifice and dedication of the Loreto...
(Vatican Radio) Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos has won the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the 52-year conflict with the Marxist FARC rebels. It was seen as a surprise choice after Colombians narrowly voted in a referendum last week to reject the peace deal signed by Santos and the rebels.The Nobel Committee said Santos had brought one of the longest civil wars in modern history significantly closer to a peaceful solution but there was still a real danger the peace process could come to a halt and that war could flare up again.Santos has promised to revive the peace plan despite the outcome of the referendum and said the Nobel peace prize award was "of invaluable importance" to further the peace process.Colombia’s Catholic Church played a key role as a mediator between the two sides during the long-running peace negotiations and has been at the forefront of trying to promote reconciliation.Ulrike Beck is the Colombia Programme Officer f...
CUAMM, an Italian non-governmental organisation, known as “Doctors with Africa” has expressed anxiety concerning the situation of the Oromia region of Ethiopia in the wake of a deadly stampede that killed about 55 persons.The deaths occurred early this month when Ethiopian Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at a huge crowd attending the Oromo religious annual festival known as Irreecha in the town of Bishoftu, some 40km from the capital Addis Ababa. The massive stampede that resulted saw some people falling into nearby ditches or off a cliff into the nearby lake.The Oromo People celebrate Irreecha to thank God for the blessings and mercies they have received throughout the previous year. As the festival was underway, some sections of the crowd started shouting anti-government slogans and making anti-government gestures that made police nervous. The government of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn has declared a three-days mourning period and is blaming the oppos...
(Vatican Radio) More than one million children in Syria have been signing a petition calling for peace as part of a fresh appeal to political leaders to end the Syrian civil war. At least 2,000 schools from many parts of Syria are taking part in the initiative in which youngsters have been drawing pictures and writing messages for the attention of the United Nations in Geneva and the European Union in Brussels.The Peace for Children scheme, organised with help from the Catholic charity, 'Aid to the Church in Need,' involves children of all ages describing in words and pictures the impact of the five-year conflict for them and their loved ones.The initiative was developed by the charity in response to reports that at least 2.1 million Syrian children are unable to attend school – with many education buildings evacuated or damaged because of the conflict.This week, children of all denominations in the capital, Damascus, as well as in Homs, Yabroud, Marmarita and A...
(Vatican Radio) A gruesome and terrifying cache made up of some 55,000 photographs of victims of torture perpetrated by the Syrian regime exposes the horror that took place between 2011 and 2013 in the prisons of Damascus.Entitled “Codename Caesar: Syrian detainees victims of torture” a selection of those images produced by ‘Caesar’ – a former forensic photographer of the Syrian Military Police, make up an exhibition that has been shown at the United Nations in New York, at the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US Congress, at the Holocaust Museum in Washington and in major European cities.It is currently showing in Rome and Mouaz Moustafa, Executive Director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force who presented the exhibition to the press, told Vatican Radio that work is ongoing – not only to try and identify the victims in the photographs, but also to try and obtain some justice.Listen: Mouaz Moustafa explains that ‘Caesar’ was off...
(Vatican Radio) Georgia’s ambassador to the Holy See says she believes the Pope’s recent visit to her country can help promote better relations with other Christian Churches.Ambassador Tamara Grdzelidze, an Orthodox theologian and former official at the World Council of Churches, told Vatican Radio she was saddened by some of the negative media coverage of the two day papal visit.Pope Francis spent September 30th and October 1st visiting the capital Tbilisi and the nearby ancient city of Mtskheta, where he and Georgia’s Orthodox Patriarch Ilia II prayed together in the 11th century Svetitskhoveli Cathedral.Speaking on her return to Rome with Philippa Hitchen, the ambassador highlighted some of the most positive points of the trip.....Listen: Firstly, Ambassador Grdzelidze mentions the gestures and speeches of the patriarch and the pope in the Patriarchal cathedral which she says “spoke this language of fraternal love” as they described the...
Christian and Muslim activists in Pakistan have welcomed a new law that punishes crimes of honour against women. Thursday, after two years stuck in the National Assembly, the bill was approved. It eliminates the so-called loophole that allowed killers to enjoy impunity due to a legal provision under which a relative of the victim could forgive the perpetrator.“It is good news and a step in right direction,” Sister Genevieve Ram Lal, national director of the Catholic Women Organization, told AsiaNews. The old law “was a license to kill and people were using this excuse to settle personal grudges”,The Anti-Honour Killing Laws (Criminal Amendment Bill) 2015 and the Anti-Rape Laws (Criminal Amendment Bill) 2015 were both passed by joint sitting of both houses of parliament on Thursday. The legislation imposes Imprisonment for life on “honour” killers even if victim’s family forgives them. Now forgiveness will only spare them the death penalty....
