Protect, advance women for a better South Sudan, pope says

Protect, advance women for a better South Sudan, pope says
South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir Mayardit receives Pope Francis, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Church of Scotland Moderator Iain Greenshields at the Presidential Palace in Juba on Feb. 3, 2023. (Reuters)
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Updated 04 February 2023

Protect, advance women for a better South Sudan, pope says

Protect, advance women for a better South Sudan, pope says
  • The rights of girls and women was a recurring theme on the penultimate day of the pope's visit to South Sudan
  • "Please, protect, respect, appreciate and honour every woman, every girl, young woman, mother and grandmother" the pope said

JUBA: Pope Francis joined other Christian leaders and the UN on Saturday in urging the protection and advancement of women in South Sudan, where rape has been a weapon of war, child brides are common and most girls do not reach secondary education.
The rights of girls and women was a recurring theme on the penultimate day of the pope’s visit to South Sudan, an unprecedented joint “pilgrimage of peace” with Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Church of Scotland Moderator Iain Greenshields.
“Please, protect, respect, appreciate and honor every woman, every girl, young woman, mother and grandmother. Otherwise, there will be no future,” the pope said during a meeting of the three leaders with people displaced by conflict.
Later, Welby returned to the theme in his address to about 50,000 people at an ecumenical prayer vigil at a mausoleum to South Sudan’s liberation hero John Garang.
“Young men, you will value and honor women, never raping, never violent, never cruel, never using them as if they were there to satisfy desire,” he said.
“Women of South Sudan, I know that on top of the grief of conflict and the responsibility to provide for your families, many of you live with the trauma of sexual violence and the daily fear of mistreatment in your own homes.”
A United Nations report on South Sudan issued last March condemned widespread sexual violence against women and girls in conflict and said it was “fueled by systemic impunity.”
The report said “widespread rape is being perpetrated by all armed groups across the country, often as part of military tactics for which government and military leaders are responsible.”
South Sudan broke away from Sudan in 2011 but plunged into civil war in 2013 with ethnic groups turning on each other. Despite a 2018 peace deal between the two main antagonists, bouts of inter-ethnic fighting have continued to kill and displace large numbers of civilians.
PROTECT, RESPECT, HONOUR
At the event where the three religious leaders heard accounts from children living in displaced persons camps, the resident UN humanitarian coordinator in South Sudan, Sara Beysolow Nyanti, also raised the issue of pervasive sexual violence against women and girls.
The pope responded by calling on everyone in South Sudan “to ensure that women are protected, respected, valued and honored.”
Francis said that if women are given opportunities “they will have the ability to change the face of South Sudan, to give it a peaceful and cohesive development!“
Sister Orla Treacy, an Irish member of the Loreto Sisters religious order who runs a school in Rumbek, north of the capital, and works to prevent child marriages, said less than 5 percent of girls finish secondary school. About 10 percent of 15-year-old girls and 52 percent of 18-year-old girls in South Sudan are married, she said.
Treacy and a group of students had walked about 200 km (125 miles) from Lakes State to see the pope. She said the governor of that region had recently signed a decree promising to stop child marriages.
South Sudan has the world’s highest maternal mortality rate, according to the World Bank, and poverty and hunger are rife across the country, with two thirds of the population needing humanitarian assistance as a result of conflict as well as three years of catastrophic floods.


Philippine court denies bail request for staunch Duterte critic in drugs case

Philippine court denies bail request for staunch Duterte critic in drugs case
Updated 9 sec ago

Philippine court denies bail request for staunch Duterte critic in drugs case

Philippine court denies bail request for staunch Duterte critic in drugs case
  • Petition was for a drug case that saw Leila de Lima accused of conspiring to commit illegal narcotics trade in a Philippine prison
MANILA: A Philippine court has denied a bail request from Leila de Lima, a former senator and staunch critic of ex-President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs, the defendant’s lawyer said on Wednesday, thereby prolonging her detention.
“Sad to inform you that the court denied Senator Leila’s bail application,” Filibon Tacardon, her legal counsel, told reporters.
The petition was for a drug case that saw de Lima accused of conspiring to commit illegal narcotics trade in a Philippine prison.
De Lima was arrested in 2017, just a few months after she launched a senate investigation into Duterte’s anti-narcotics campaign during which thousands of users and dealers were killed, many by police or in mysterious circumstances. She has been in police detention ever since.
A Philippine court in 2021 dismissed a drug case against de Lima, 63, while another court in May acquitted her from a charge that she received drug money from prison inmates.

Russian drone attack kills two civilians in Ukraine’s Sumy region

Russian drone attack kills two civilians in Ukraine’s Sumy region
Updated 07 June 2023

Russian drone attack kills two civilians in Ukraine’s Sumy region

Russian drone attack kills two civilians in Ukraine’s Sumy region

KYIV: A Russian drone attack killed two civilians and wounded one in the Sumy region of northern Ukraine, Andriy Yermak, the head of the president’s office, said on Wednesday.

Yermak said on the Telegram messaging app that a Iranian-made “Shahed” drone had destroyed a private house and caused a fire. The president’s office said in a statement that Russia shelled the border region in the northeast several times at overnight and on Wednesday morning.


Pope Francis to undergo intestinal surgery and will be hospitalized for several days

Pope Francis to undergo intestinal surgery and will be hospitalized for several days
Updated 20 min 50 sec ago

Pope Francis to undergo intestinal surgery and will be hospitalized for several days

Pope Francis to undergo intestinal surgery and will be hospitalized for several days
  • The Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, said the pontiff underwent "some clinical examinations and returned to the Vatican before noon”
  • Witnesses at the Vatican's Perugino gate said Francis greeted guards as he usually does before returning to his residence

ROME: Pope Francis went to the hospital on Wednesday for surgery on his intestine, two years after he had 33 centimeters of his colon removed because of an inflammation and narrowing of the large intestine.

The Vatican said Francis, 86, would be put under general anesthesia and would be hospitalized for several days.

Pope Francis briefly went to Rome’s main hospital on Tuesday for tests and returned to the Vatican, two months after he was hospitalized with an acute case of bronchitis.

The Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, said the pontiff underwent “some clinical examinations and returned to the Vatican before noon” from the Gemelli hospital.

Witnesses at the Vatican’s Perugino gate, one of the main entrances to the city state, told The Associated Press that Francis greeted guards as he usually does before returning to his residence.

Francis spent three days at the Gemelli hospital in late March. Initially, the Vatican said he had gone in for scheduled tests, but the pontiff later revealed he had felt pain in his chest and was rushed to the hospital where bronchitis was diagnosed. He was put on intravenous antibiotics and was released April 1, quipping that he was “still alive.”

The Argentine pope had part of one lung removed when he was a young man. He also suffers from sciatica nerve pain and has been using a wheelchair and walker for more than a year because of strained ligaments in his knee.

Francis has had a packed schedule of late, with multiple audiences each day. The Vatican has recently confirmed a travel-filled August, when the Holy See and Italy are usually on vacation, with a four-day visit to Portugal the first week of August and a similarly long trip to Mongolia starting Aug. 31.

In a sign that the trips were very much on, the Vatican on Tuesday released the planned itinerary for Francis’ visit to Portugal for World Youth Day events from Aug. 2-6. The itinerary confirms a typically busy schedule that includes all the protocol meetings of an official state visit plus multiple events with young people and a day trip to the Marian shrine at Fatima.

Francis’ next public appointment, if confirmed, would be his weekly general audience on Wednesday in St. Peter’s Square.


UN court finds Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga unfit for trial

UN court finds Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga unfit for trial
Updated 07 June 2023

UN court finds Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga unfit for trial

UN court finds Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga unfit for trial
  • ‘The trial chamber finds Mr. Kabuga is no longer capable of meaningful participation in his trial’

THE HAGUE: Judges at a UN war crimes court in The Hague have ruled that geriatric Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga is unfit to stand trial but in a decision published Wednesday also said that slimmed down legal proceedings in his case can continue.
“The trial chamber finds Mr. Kabuga is no longer capable of meaningful participation in his trial,” a decision published on the court’s website said.
However, instead of halting the trial the judges said they would set up an “alternative finding procedure that resembles a trial as closely as possible, but without the possibility of a conviction.”


Dozens of wildfires in Canada remain out of control as Quebec orders more evacuations

Dozens of wildfires in Canada remain out of control as Quebec orders more evacuations
Updated 07 June 2023

Dozens of wildfires in Canada remain out of control as Quebec orders more evacuations

Dozens of wildfires in Canada remain out of control as Quebec orders more evacuations
  • More than 150 forest fires burning in the province on Tuesday, including more than 110 deemed out of control

MONTREAL: Northern Quebec’s largest town was being evacuated on Tuesday as firefighters worked to beat back threats from out-of-control blazes in remote communities in the northern and northwestern parts of the province.
According to the province’s forest fire prevention agency, more than 150 forest fires were burning in the province on Tuesday, including more than 110 deemed out of control. The intense Canadian wildfires are blanketing the northeastern US and parts of Eastern Canada in a haze, turning the air acrid, the sky yellowish gray and prompting warnings for vulnerable populations to stay inside.
The effects of hundreds of wildfires burning in Quebec could be felt as far away as New York City and New England, blotting out skylines and irritating throats.
Late Tuesday, authorities issued an evacuation order for Chibougamau, Quebec, a town of about 7,500 in the remote region of the province. Authorities said the evacuation was underway and promised more details Wednesday.
“We’re following all of this from hour to hour, obviously,” Premier François Legault told reporters in Sept-Îles, Quebec. “If we look at the situation in Quebec as a whole, there are several places where it is still worrying.”
Legault said the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region in northwestern Quebec is an area of particular concern, with the communities of Normétal and Lebel-sur-Quévillon under threat.
The mayor of Lebel-sur-Quévillon, where about 2,100 people were forced from their homes on the weekend, said the fire is about 10 kilometers outside of town, but its advance has been slower than expected.
“The fire started in an area where there were no trees, which slowed it down considerably,” Mayor Guy Lafrenière said.
Other northern communities at risk include Chibougamau the Cree village of Chisasibi on the eastern shore of James Bay. Firefighting resources have also been dispatched to Hydro-Québec’s Micoua substation near Baie-Comeau, Legault said.
On Monday, Legault said authorities had no choice but to leave the hamlet of Clova to burn, drawing the ire of local residents. Legault said Tuesday that he had simply repeated what fire prevention officials told him: the fire around the tiny community about 325 kilometers northwest of Montreal was too intense to send water bombers. That remained true Tuesday, he said, but he noted that no homes had burned.
Dominic Vincent, the owner of the Auberge Restaurant Clova, said that by Monday afternoon, the situation in the area had already improved, aided by cooler temperatures and a change in wind direction. While smoke remained visible, it was far less intense, he said.
Quebec Natural Resources Minister Maïté Blanchette Vézina told reporters in Quebec City that evacuees across the province number just over 8,300, down from 10,000 to start the week, but the Abitibi region remains a concern.
“We are not expecting rain in the short term, which is what makes it more difficult to fight fires,” Blanchette Vézina said.