Postcards: Belgium shows restored masterpiece but stolen panel rankles
RAF CASERT, of Associated Press, reports on the story of the Ghent Altarpiece – and one of the world’s greatest unsolved art crimes…
Pope on pandemic’s second year: Weariness, economic hardship
Vatican CityAP Celebrating Palm Sunday Mass for a second time in the pandemic without crowds of faithful, Pope Francis said while shock dominated the first year of the COVID-19 health emergency, now people are more weary, with the economic crisis growing heavier. Traditionally, the pope leads a Palm Sunday procession through St Peter’s Square in […]
COVAX expects full vaccine supplies from India’s Serum in May, says UNICEF
New Delhi, IndiaReuters A World Health Organization-backed program to supply coronavirus vaccines to poorer countries expects that the Serum Institute of India will resume full deliveries of the AstraZeneca shot to it in May, UNICEF said on Saturday. “Deliveries of SII/AZ vaccine are expected to begin fully again by May, with catch-up deliveries to reach […]
Troops fire at funeral as Myanmar mourns bloodiest day since coup
Reuters Myanmar security forces opened fire at a funeral on Sunday, witnesses said, as people across the country gathered to mourn 114 people killed the previous day in the worst crackdown on protests since the military coup on 1st February. Mourners fled the shooting at a service for 20-year-old student Thae Maung Maung in Bago […]
Updated: Suicide bomb hits Palm Sunday Mass in Indonesia, 20 wounded
Updated: 8am (AEDT), 29th March, 2021Makassar, IndonesiaAP Two attackers believed to be members of a militant network that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group blew themselves up outside a packed Roman Catholic cathedral during a Palm Sunday Mass on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, wounding at least 20 people, police said. Rev Wilhelmus Tulak, a priest […]
Pedal power: pioneering Indian city ditches cars for clean air
Chennai, IndiaThomson Reuters Foundation Every Saturday, Shankar Yadav dusts off an old bike and pedals to work, reliving his carefree schooldays and hoping fellow Indians will join him in ditching cars to protect the planet. In one of India’s most ambitious such plans, Ranchi city’s ‘har shanviar, no car’ – every Saturday, no car – […]
Historic Mars helicopter test flight set for early April
Los Angeles, USReuters NASA engineers plan to send a miniature helicopter whirring just above the surface of Mars next month in an interplanetary aviation experiment that, if successful, would mark the first powered, controlled flight by an aircraft on another celestial body. The US space agency is comparing the Martian debut of its 1.8-kilogram solar-powered […]
Israelis gather for Passover, celebrating freedom from virus
Jerusalem, IsraelAP A year ago, Giordana Grego’s parents spent Passover at home in Israel, alone but grateful that they had escaped the worst of the pandemic in Italy. This year, the whole family will get together to mark the Jewish feast of liberation and deliverance from the pandemic. Israel has vaccinated over half its population […]
Faith through tragedy: How a church in New York’s virus epicentre is leading congregants out of sorrow
LUIS ANDRES HENAO and JESSIE WARDARSKI, of Associated Press, report on how Queens Catholic Church Our Lady of Sorrows has navigated its way through tragedy during the coronavirus pandemic…