The report was presented in Geneva by the World Organisation Against Torture. There were 2,739 deaths in prison in 2024, an increase on the previous year. New Delhi has never ratified the UN Convention against these horrific practices. Emblematic of impunity is the story of two Christian traders from Tamil Nadu who died in prison in 2020 after being arrested for violating the lockdown during Covid: their family has still not obtained justice.
In his latest reflection in his “war diary”, Archbishop Mathieu turns to the ceasefire in force since yesterday between Israel and Iran, after the US intervention. The '12-day war' has changed “the perception of the world”. He is grateful for the sense of “the closeness” expressed “in many ways”. Yet, “We are still at the right of self-defence,” he writes. And “if we think that caring for our flowers and plants is all about weeding, we risk making the soil sterile.” Transmitting “love and not hate” is a challenge.
The HALO Trust has completed demining in a large area of Sri Lanka’s Northern Province, which was fought over by Sri Lanka’s army and the Tamil Tigers for years. The local population was fundamental in removing the mines. Now locals will be able to get back the lands that had been taken from them during the long civil war.
Son of anthropologist Mahmood Mamdani and filmmaker Mira Nair, the 33-year-old democratic socialist won the Big Apple’s Democratic mayoral primary. A critic of Indian Prime Minister Modi and close to the Palestinian cause, if elected, he would become New York’s first Shia Muslim mayor. His political education was strongly influenced by his Indian parents.
“May the wounds caused by the bloody actions” in “Iran, Israel and Palestine” be healed, said Leo XIV this morning from St Peter's, calling on the world to choose “the path of dialogue, diplomacy and peace”. In his Jubilee catechesis, the pontiff stressed that when “we perform an act of faith addressed to Jesus,” we come closer to “his grace”. The pope also wished young people to use summer as “an opportunity for useful social and religious experiences”.
The ‘new generation’ prime minister of the city-state chose the People's Republic of China for his first trip outside Southeast Asia. In his meeting with Xi Jinping, he praised ‘multilateralism and the rules-based global order’. The ambitions of the former marginal colony that has become a major financial hub between East and West. On Taiwan, support for the ‘one China’ policy.
