Sunshine

A diverse cast of cardinals gathering at the Vatican for Pope Francis’ funeral will soon turn to voting for his successor as head of the Catholic Church. Only a few are considered likely candidates for the papacy, or “papabile” in Italian.

Because of Francis’ elevation of prelates from the “peripheries,” many of the electors will have met only this week, while those who work in the Curia, the Vatican’s bureaucracy, know each other and many others besides. The magazine Cardinalis and the website Cardinal Report offer insight into every member of the College of Cardinals and where they stand on certain issues, but being recognizable will be an advantage in this conclave of strangers.

The Indonesian government is setting up a network of up to 80,000 village co-ops to work as “strategic instruments” for reducing rural poverty.

Government figures show that Indonesia has to 24 million economically disadvantaged residents, 3.17 million of whom fall in the extremely poor category, and ministers hope the new Red and White Village Co-operatives will help develop the regions.

The Vietnamese government has intensified its crackdown on dissent to punish people simply for raising concerns or complaints about government policies or local officials, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 26-page report, “‘We’ll All Be Arrested Soon’: Abusive Prosecutions under Vietnam’s ‘Infringing of State Interests’ Law,” documents the Vietnamese government’s increased use of article 331 of the penal code to target those who use social media and other means to publicly raise issues including religious freedom, land rights, rights of Indigenous people, and corruption by the government and the Communist Party of Vietnam. The authorities should immediately end the systemic repression, and release everyone detained or imprisoned for exercising their basic rights.

A handful of wealthy, politically connected Silicon Valley investors are reportedly eyeing Greenland’s icy shores as the site for a techno-utopian “freedom city.”

RNS) — As Christians across the globe prepare to celebrate Easter, many in Nigeria fear they may be unable to observe the sacred day due to escalating attacks from Islamic militants.

“We could not celebrate Palm Sunday due to the security situation in our area,” Mary Yakubu, a resident of Nigeria’s central Plateau state, where nearly 200 Christians were killed on Christmas Eve in 2023, told RNS by phone. “Once again, we will be unable to prepare and celebrate Easter, as most churches here are closed and people fear gathering due to the ongoing attacks on churches and worshippers.”

Bougainville is often touted as the world’s next newest nation, set to supplant South Sudan with that status. Over five years have passed since Bougainvilleans voted resoundingly to secede from Papua New Guinea (PNG), but progress on realizing this has stalled. The path to independence in this autonomous region, a collection of islands and atolls home to 300,000 people, remains strewn with political roadblocks and practical hurdles.

Such attacks have become common in this part of Africa's most populous country, where gunmen — typically herders from Fulani, a Muslim tribe — exploit security lapses to launch deadly raids on farmers in a fight over land resources

Shell has faced mounting legal scrutiny for years, with courts ordering the company to pay plaintiffs billions of dollars in damages. Shell awarded $15 million to plaintiffs for an oil disaster in 2004 in Goi that left families “eating, drinking and breathing the oil.” In the fishing town of Bodo, villagers sued Shell for two massive oil spills that caused the biggest loss of mangrove habitat in the history of oil pollution. In 2014, Shell agreed to a $83 million settlement but the Bodo community alleges that the clean-up has not been effectively carried out.

India is a union of 28 states (provinces). The population in some of these states is bigger than that of the largest European countries. For example, Uttar Pradesh is home to more than 240 million people, almost three times the population of Germany. Although a part of a federal union, every state has a unique history, shaped by its environment and natural resources, princely or British colonial heritage, language and culture. Since the end of British rule in the region in 1947, their economic trajectories have diverged, too.

LIBREVILLE, Gabon (AP) — Voters in the oil-rich Gabon headed to the polls on Saturday in a presidential election that the country’s military rulers hoped would legitimize their grip on power.

It’s the first election since a 2023 military coup ended a political dynasty that lasted over 50 years. Analysts have predicted an overwhelming victory for the interim president who led the coup.

An Australian woman has given birth to a stranger's baby after a fertility doctor accidentally implanted the wrong embryo, the clinic owner said in its apology letter while blaming the mix-up on "human error".