From Rome and the World
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Extracts - R.T.S. (Courtesy of the Catholic Times)
ABUJA: A mob has killed eight people by burning down the house of a Muslim man who intervened in the attempted lynching of a Christian student accused of blasphemy in the city of Zamfara, in northern Nigeria. The student, a Muslim who converted to Christianity, is accused of insulting the Islamic religion, and was severely beaten by some of his classmates, who believed him dead. A passerby stepped in and drove the victim to hospital. When his attackers found out that he had been taken to hospital they tried to attack him again. Another person, however, had brought the student to a safe place. The mob then turned on the Muslim passerby, setting fire to his house which had eight people in it at the time. According to police, the man who rescued the student and his wife were not among the dead.
STOCKHOLM: Allowing people to drink unsafe water or have no access to dependable, clean sources of water is shameful, Cardinal Peter Turkson told religious leaders. “It is a continuing shame, too, that people’s needs are secondary to industries which take too much and that pollute what remains”, said the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. It’s also a shame “that governments pursue other priorities and ignore their parched cries”, he said in the keynote address to an interfaith meeting in Stockholm, Sweden. The meeting on how faith-based organisations could contribute to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals dealing with water was part of Stockholm’s annual World Water Week gathering, which seeks to find concrete solutions to global water issues. About 660 million people are without adequate drinking water, and every year millions, mostly children, die from diseases linked to poor water supply and sanitation, according to the UN.
VATICAN CITY: Continuing his dialogue with leaders in the world of social media and technology, Pope Francis met with Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, met Pope Francis in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where the pontiff lives.
“It is an honour to be with you today,” Zuckerberg told Francis, adding that he hoped to help spread the Pope’s “message of mercy and tenderness”. He also presented Pope Francis with a model replica of Aquila, a solar-powered aircraft that will beam internet connectivity to areas with limited or no connection. Greg Burke, Vatican spokesman, said the Pope and Zuckerberg spoke about “how communications technology can be used to alleviate poverty, encourage a culture of encounter and help deliver a message of hope, especially to the most disadvantaged people”.
RTS
Published Tue 4th Oct 2016 15:09:20
Last Modified on Tue 4th Oct 2016 15:12:28