Images of 2013 Easter Celebration Around The World

 

A young boy wears a mask of the devil prior to the burning of a giant 5-meter tall devil-like figure representing Judas in the atrium of the Santa Rosa Xochiac church, in Mexico City, Sunday, March 31, 2013

A giant 5-meter tall figure representing Judas burns in the atrium of the Santa Rosa Xochiac church, in Mexico City, Sunday, March 31, 2013

People walk along the boardwalk early Easter morning, Sunday, March 31, 2013, as they arrive for a sunrise service inside the Music Pier building in Ocean City, N.J.

Iraqi worshipers attend the Easter Sunday service at the Virgin Mary Chaldean Christian church (Church of Our Lady of Sacred Heart) in the Karrada district of central Baghdad on March 31,

A Christian woman holds a candle at the Anointing Stone during the Sunday Easter mass inside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, traditionally believed to be the site of the crucifixion of Christ, in Jerusalem's Old City, Sunday, March 31, 2013.

Indonesian Christians carry a giant Easter egg with messages from people for Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono after an Easter service outside the presidential palace in Jakarta on March 31, 2013

Eggs and bunnies decorate the exterior of Jakarta Cathedral while Christian devotees arrive for an Easter Sunday mass on March 31, 2013. 

Pope Francis kisses a baby after celebrating his first Easter Mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, March 31, 2013

 

 

 

 

The great gift of Easter is hope - Christian hope which makes us have that confidence in God, in his ultimate triumph, and in his goodness and love, which nothing can shake.- Basil C. Hume

US boy survived on sugar after mum died!

A malnourished boy found in an apartment with the body of his mother, who had been dead for days, had resorted to eating from a bag of sugar and weighed only 11 kilograms, police say.

The four-year-old's first request after being examined, police in New Jersey say, was a juice and a grilled cheese sandwich.

His mother, identified on Wednesday as 38-year-old Kiana Workman, was discovered dead on Tuesday on the floor of her bedroom after building maintenance workers reported a foul odour. Because the chain lock was on the boy couldn't get out.

Officer Joseph Sauer said the boy was naked but coherent and not crying when police kicked in the door.

"The only way to describe the little boy was it was like a scene from World War II, from a concentration camp, he was that skinny. I mean, you could see all his bones," Sauer told The Associated Press.

The boy was not strong enough to open the refrigerator and he couldn't tell police how long he had been eating from a bag of sugar.

The boy could not say how long his mother had been dead.

Police said he put lotion on his mother, leaving behind handprints, in an attempt to help her.

Police initially estimated she had been dead for five days before the discovery, but Zieser said on Wednesday it may have been two to three.

Nobody had talked to her for about a week.

Autopsy results were pending but police did not suspect foul play.

Officer Sylvia Dimenna, who travelled in the ambulance with the boy and stayed with him at the hospital, said he was very bright and articulate but tired.

"He said he missed his mommy," she said.

The boy, now in state custody, remained in a hospital where he was being treated for malnourishment and dehydration.

At his age, he should weigh 18 kilograms or more, police said, so it's possible he was improperly cared for before his mother's death.

Police said they were getting calls from around the world from people offering to adopt the child or donate money or toys.

It would be up to the state's child welfare agency to determine where he was placed.

UN gives DR Congo one week to act on rapes

THE United Nations has given Democratic Republic of Congo a final one week deadline to take action against two army battalions accused of carrying out at least 126 rapes.

UN peacekeeping chief Herve Lasous delivered the ultimatum at a meeting with DR Congo Foreign Minister Raymond Tshibanda on Wednesday at the UN headquarters, diplomats say.

 

The meeting was held as the UN security council prepares to vote on Thursday on a resolution setting up an intervention brigade to help the army combat rebel groups in eastern DR Congo.

"The Congo government has been told that the army's actions cannot be accepted and there will be serious repercussions," said one UN diplomat.

UN officials confirmed that Ladsous discussed the rapes with the minister on Wednesday, but gave no details of the ultimatum.

The UN threatened in two letters sent to the government in February to stop working with the army battalions involved unless action was taken over the rapes.

The UN says at least 126 women were raped in the town of Minova around November 20 as the army retreated from an assault by the M23 rebel movement on the regional capital of Goma.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague (C) and Angelina Jolie talk to refugees in Democratic Republic of Congo on March 25, 2013. They were in the country in a bid to encourage world powers to do more to tackle rape and sexual assault in war zones.

The DR Congo army is heavily reliant on UN equipment and military support in its efforts to control the armed groups that hold sway in resource-rich eastern DR Congo.

The notoriously feeble DR Congo army has been much criticised for its brutality against civilians and corruption. UN officials said it "melted away" during the M23 advance last year.

The UN said in December that its investigators had evidence of at least 126 rapes, and that two soldiers had been arrested for rape and seven for looting around Minova.

But rights groups say no officer has been arrested, and none of the charges have been followed up.

Several dead in attack on Kenya casino!

Several people including a policeman were shot dead in gun battles in the early hours Thursday when a gang attacked a Kenyan coastal casino, police said.

"Six of the attackers were shot dead but they also killed one of our police officers," regional police chief Aggrey Adoli told AFP.

Adoli said that a large gang - who he said were members of a coastal separatist group, the Mombasa Republic Council (MRC)- had attacked a casino in Malindi, a popular Indian Ocean tourist resort.

"There was a raid by MRC attackers at Malindi casino earlier this morning at 2.00 am by a gang of about 100," Adoli said, adding that four policemen had been at the casino when the raid took place.

"There was a fierce shoot-out outside the casino, because they wanted to try to get in but they were repulsed," Adoli said. Officers had arrested four people, he added.

"We have a contingent of police officers looking for the attackers, we suspect they are hiding in forests around Malindi."

Malindi, some 95 kilometres north of Kenya's main port city of Mombasa, is home to several top end international tourist resorts.

 

Tourism is a key part of Kenya's economy, and the coastal region is expected to be especially busy over the upcoming Easter weekend

Madiba readmitted!

FORMER South African president Nelson Mandela has been readmitted to hospital with a recurrent lung infection, according to an official statement from the president's office. It urges people to pray for the anti-apartheid hero.

The 94-year-old was hospitalised "due to the recurrence of his lung infection" just before midnight on Wednesday, President Jacob Zuma's office said in a statement.

It is the second time this month that the Nobel peace laureate has spent the night in hospital and follows a nearly three-week stay in December for the lung infection and for surgery to extract gallstones.

Earlier this month, he spent a night in hospital for a "scheduled medical checkup".

"Doctors are attending to him, ensuring that he has the best possible expert medical treatment and comfort," said the presidency.

Zuma wished "Madiba", as South Africa's first black president is fondly known at home, a quick recovery.

"We appeal to the people of South Africa and the world to pray for our beloved Madiba and his family and to keep them in their thoughts," he said.

"We have full confidence in the medical team and know that they will do everything possible to ensure recovery."

NeN Revered at home and abroad, Mandela has grown increasingly frail away from the public eye with several recent health scares.

His December admission was the Nobel Peace Prize winner's longest hospital stay since he walked free from 27 years of apartheid jail in 1990.

In early 2012, he was admitted for a minor exploratory procedure to investigate persistent abdominal pain.

His lungs have also been a longstanding source of health problems.

In 2011, he was hospitalised for two nights for an unnamed acute respiratory infection.

Mandela was diagnosed with early stage tuberculosis in 1988 while imprisoned during apartheid.

In February, Zuma said he had found Mandela "comfortable and relaxed" and watching television after paying him a visit at his Johannesburg home.

"He had the brightest smile," said Zuma.

Earlier this month, friend and renowned human rights lawyer George Bizos, who defended Mandela during his 1960s treason trial, said Mandela was aware of currents political events but had memory lapses.

"Unfortunately he sometimes forgets that one or two of them had passed on and has a blank face when you tell him that Walter Sisulu and some others are no longer with us," Bizos told radio's Eyewitness News.

Sisulu, the former leader of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) who was Mandela's political mentor, died nearly a decade ago.

At the beginning of last month, two of his granddaughters released a picture of a smiling Mandela sitting with his youngest great-grandson in an armchair.

It was taken to show his recovery after his December hospitalisation, they said while promoting their new reality show, Being Mandela.

Mandela stepped down after one term as president after taking power after 1994 polls that dealt the final death blow to decades of white minority rule.

He is adored in South Africa where he is seen as the symbol of the divided country's peaceful shift into democracy.

He has not appeared in public since South Africa's Football World Cup final in 2010, six years after retiring.

Rumours of his failing health or even death flare up periodically, forcing the government to issue assurances that all is well
.

• 
  

Judge in Sarkozy probe sent bullet in mail

THE judge who charged former president Nicolas Sarkozy with taking financial advantage of France's richest woman has received a bullet and a death threat in the post, say lawyers.

Jean-Michel Gentil, the most prominent of three judges investigating the case, received the threatening letter together with blank cartridges on Wednesday, the magistrate's union SM said in a statement.

One of Gentil's colleagues said the letter, which arrived at the judge's Bordeaux offices, contained threats against other magistrates. Police had been called.

The SM denounced what it called "insulting statements" made by some of Sarkozy's political allies, which it said were designed to undermine the judiciary.

It noted too that Sarkozy's own lawyer, Thierry Herzog, had questioned Gentil's impartiality.

The SM said a number of its members were targeted in the letter.

Sarkozy's lawyers are attempting to overturn last week's decision by three magistrates to charge him in a case that threatens to destroy his hopes of a political comeback.

He has repeatedly denied claims he accepted cash-stuffed envelopes from the world's richest woman Liliane Bettencourt to fund his successful 2007 campaign.

Medical experts say the mental faculties of the L'Oreal heiress began to deteriorate in 2006.

Sarkozy's lawyer questioned Gentil's impartiality in an interview with newspaper Journal du Dimanche.

Gentil last June put his name to a column signed by dozens of legal professionals in the leading newspaper Le Monde, accusing Sarkozy and his predecessor Jacques Chirac of "wishing to protect the corrupt", he pointed out.

Herzog said that five days after the column, Gentil ordered police to search Sarkozy's home, office and his secretary's house.

A number of Sarkozy's political supporters have denounced the judge.

On Monday, Sarkozy used his Facebook page to insist he had not taken advantage of Bettencourt.

Sarkozy had, in recent weeks, hinted that he was considering a return to the frontline of French politics.

Last week's decision by the judges to put him under formal investigation dealt a blow to those hopes.

Sarkozy could face up to three years in jail, a fine of 375,000 euros ($A462,221.13), and a five-year ban from public office if convicted.

Obama shows off some serious skill!

He can run the most powerful nation in the free world and bounce a soccer ball off his head. U.S.




 President Barack Obama showed off some serious skills when he hosted a ceremony honoring players and coaches from Stanley Cup winners, the L.A. Kings, and Major League Soccer champs, the Los Angeles Galaxy.