Makassar: A suspected suicide bomb attack outside a Catholic church in the Indonesian city of Makassar on March 28 left at least 14 people wounded, police say. Police said an explosion erupted as two attackers tried to enter the church on Palm Sunday, the first day of Easter Week. AContinue Reading
By Anuradha Sharma Siliguri: Finding evidence of systemic abuse, the Netherlands has announced a freeze on international adoptions. Two Indian origin women, Dutch adoptees, speak of searching for their roots, the shabby paperwork, their anger and despair. The news came as a surprise to Jyoti Weststrate even though she hadContinue Reading
Mumbai: Ten bodies were recovered and more than 70 coronavirus patients were moved to safety after a huge fire broke out on March 26 night at a mall in Mumbai that has a hospital. Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray sought “forgiveness” from the families of those who lost lives, addingContinue Reading
By P. A. Chacko Sahibganj: As the palm-fringed ‘God’s own Country,’ Kerala, is swaying with high speed winds unleashed by the electoral tsunami, beggars and crawlers are making a beeline in dramatic fashion. The hopeful, near hopefuls and the desperados are begging kingmaker voters for a pittance of their votes.Continue Reading
TEZPUR: Generations of her ancestors have lived the same life that Arti Munda now lives in a tea estate in Assam — earning meagre wages, denied the legal status of a Scheduled Tribe (ST) despite being a tribal, landless, malnourished, and dying young. She earns ₹167 for an eight-hour workContinue Reading
Pope Francis has condemned the way the Mafia is exploiting the Covid-19 pandemic by taking advantage of those in dire economic circumstances. Marking Italy’s recent national day of remembrance for victims of the Mafia, the pope accused members of organised crime groups of “enriching themselves through corruption,” and he urgedContinue Reading
Yangon: Security forces killed more than 90 people across Myanmar on March 27 in one of the bloodiest days of protests since a military coup, news reports and witnesses said. The lethal crackdown came on Armed Forces Day. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the junta leader, said during a paradeContinue Reading
Wellington: New Zealand’s Catholic Church has formally apologized to the survivors of abuse within the church and said its systems and culture must change. Cardinal John Dew, archbishop of Wellington and Metropolitan of New Zealand, made the apology March 26 at the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care on behalfContinue Reading
By Tejaswi Ravinder Hyderabad: After mass terror attacks in 2009, inter-ethnic marriages in north-western China’s Xinjiang have become very rare. In 2013, when 24-year-old Mawlan, born to Uyghur parents and a musician by profession, secretly married his girlfriend, Ma Jie, a Han, they attracted media’s attention. “I acted first andContinue Reading
Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has flayed a pastoral letter read in some churches of the Quilon diocese against the southern Indian state’s Left Democratic Front government. The sanctity of the pastoral letters will be questioned by devotees, the chief minister said March 26. They (a section of churchContinue Reading
