Poor health forced Pope John Paul II to sit out more Holy Week ceremonies and he watched Holy Thursday services on television, but the pontiff sent a message to reassure the faithful that he was “spiritually present.” The pontiff also was expected to make his presence felt at a Good Friday procession only through a video to participants at the Colosseum, failing to appear in person for the first time in his 26 year papacy.
Kenya: Report documents abuses
Ethiopian troops have committed widespread killings, rapes and torture of the tribal Anuak population in the southwestern corner of the country since late 2003, a Human Rights Watch investigator said Thursday. Numerous attacks by soldiers and civilians from other ethnic groups have killed more than 500 people and driven several thousand Anuaks from their homes, said Chris Albin-Lackey, who wrote a report on the abuses for the New York-based group. Ethiopian raids “amount to all-out attacks on Anuak villages,” he said.
Mexico: Drug-slaying suspects held
Police arrested four alleged drug gang gunmen suspected in more than a dozen deaths and of using acid to dissolve the bodies of some victims, officials said Thursday. The Baja California Attorney General’s Office said the men were arrested this week in Tijuana. The office said the suspects admitted belonging to the Arellano Felix cartel and working as enforcers. In a search of the men’s safehouse investigators found drums filled with acid believed to have been used to decompose the bodies of their victims.
From Herald news services
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