The canonisation of Mother Teresa of Calcutta on Sunday will be the culmination of a process – sometimes called “the saint-making machine” – that is long, complex, expensive, opaque and often contentious. The Catholic Church posthumously confers sainthood on people considered so holy during their lives that they are now believed to be with God […]
Continue ReadingA 49-year-old Oklahoma woman has been charged with first-degree murder on suspicion of killing her daughter whom she thought was possessed by the devil by jamming a crucifix down her throat and beating her, court records released on Tuesday showed. Juanita Gomez was booked last week in the death of Geneva Gomez, whose body was […]
Continue ReadingThe Islamic State group announced on Tuesday that one of its longest-serving and most prominent leaders, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, was killed in Syria, depriving the organization of the man in charge of directing attacks overseas. A U.S. defence official told Reuters the United States carried out an air strike in the Syrian town of al-Bab […]
Continue ReadingAustralia on Tuesday released what the government says is the world’s first ever how-to-guide for combating radical Islamist propaganda in Southeast Asia, which it hopes will help disrupt local recruitment efforts by groups such as Islamic State. Australia, a staunch U.S. ally, has been on heightened alert for attacks by home-grown Islamist radicals since 2014 […]
Continue ReadingMother Teresa of Calcutta, a nun who dedicated her life to helping the poor, will be made a saint of the Roman Catholic Church at a Vatican ceremony on September 4th. Pope Francis cleared the way for sainthood for her last December. Teresa’s compassion reached out to slum-dwellers, famine sufferers and AIDS victims, and won […]
Continue ReadingChancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday urged people of Turkish origin living in Germany to take part in German society and not to bring conflicts taking place back in Turkey to Germany. “It is first and foremost about not bringing the conflicts that exist now in Turkey over to Germany,” she said in an interview with […]
Continue ReadingA relative of one of the militants who attacked French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris in January 2015 has been put under formal investigation for Islamist ties and remanded in custody, a judicial source said on Saturday. The source said Mourad Hamyd was suspected of trying to travel to Syria to join Islamic State. […]
Continue ReadingThe Director of Faith Matters, Fiyaz Mughal, writes about the intimidation and inflammatory nature of the actions of Anjem Choudhary and his young coterie of followers, in targeting elected councillors. Anjem Choudhary has finally been brought to justice. One of the most infamous Islamist faces on TV screens across the globe, this Pied Piper of […]
Continue ReadingRepublican presidential nominee Donald Trump met with minority Republicans in New York on Thursday (August 25), a day after calling his rival Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton as a “bigot”. Trump says his campaign is connecting with African Americans and Hispanics, although few in New York City’s Harlem community suggested the feeling was mutual. “Since he […]
Continue ReadingFrench Prime Minister Manuel Valls defended a ban on burkinis in more than a dozen coastal towns on Thursday, saying France was locked in a “battle of cultures” and that the full-body swimsuit symbolised the enslavement of women. Photographs of armed police ordering a Muslim woman on a beach in the Mediterranean city of Nice […]
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