Pope Francis recognises second Mother Teresa 'miracle'

Pope Francis has recognised a second miracle attributed to Mother Teresa, clearing the way for the Roman Catholic nun to be made a saint next year.

The miracle involved the healing of a Brazilian man with several brain tumours in 2008, the Vatican said.

Mother Teresa died in 1997 and was beatified – the first step towards sainthood – in 2003.

She won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the poor in the slums of the Indian city of Kolkata (Calcutta).

“The Holy Father has authorised the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to proclaim the decree concerning the miracle attributed to the intercession of blessed Mother Teresa,” the Vatican said on Friday.

She is expected to be canonised in Rome in September.

Sister Christie, a spokesperson for the Missionaries of Charity Mother Teresa founded in 1950, told the BBC that they were delighted by the news.

“Obviously all of us at the Missionaries of Charity are extremely happy. But we do not have any plans to celebrate this announcement as yet,” she said.

‘Saint of the gutter’

Beatification by the Catholic Church requires one miracle, while the process of becoming recognised as a saint requires proof of at least two miracles.

Mother Teresa was beatified in 2003 after Pope John Paul II accepted as authentic a miracle attributed to her.

He judged that the curing of an Indian woman suffering from an abdominal tumour was the result of the supernatural intervention of the late Mother Teresa – a claim challenged by Indian rationalists.

There are few details about the recovery of the Brazilian man, whose life the Vatican says was saved in the second miracle.

His identity has not been disclosed to maintain the discretion needed for the investigation, the Catholic New Agency has said.

It says he was unexpectedly cured from brain tumours in 2008 after his priest prayed for Mother Teresa’s intervention with God.

Born Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Macedonia, in 1910, she dedicated her life to caring for impoverished and sick people in Kolkata.

Known as the “saint of the gutter”, she earned worldwide acclaim for her efforts.

Her critics, however, accused her of peddling a hardline Catholicism, mixing with dictators and accepting funds from them for her charity.

Her supporters justified the funding, saying it did not matter where the money came from as long as it was used to help the poor.

‘JMB man admits’ shooting Italian pastor in Dinajpur

Suspected JMB man, arrested in Dinajpur temple attack case, admitted that he shot Italian pastor and doctor Piero Parolari, detectives claim.

Shariful Islam, 28, confessed his involvement in the gun attack before Dinajpur Chief Judicial Magistrate Court yesterday, Redwanur Rahim, officer-in-charge of Detective Branch of Police, told our Dinajpur correspondent.

Shariful was caught by locals soon after the gun attack on the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (Iskcon) temple in Kaharol’s Bahuchi village of the district on December 10. Two people were injured in the attack.

A few days later, Humayun Kabir, deputy inspector general of police (Rangpur Range, said that they found connection of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) with the killing of Japanese national Kunio Hoshi and five recent attacks in Rangpur and Dinajpur.

Italian pastor Piero Parolari, 57, was attacked by unidentified assailants in Dinajpur on November 18 when he was riding a bicycle towards Dinajpur Medical College Hospital.

Jose Mourinho sacked: Chelsea told him they no longer wanted to be the Nasty Party

The irony underpinning the whole, sorry car crash is that Chelsea told Jose Mourinho, from the moment he returned to them, that they no longer wanted to be the Nasty Party. That he should try to stand for something different, second time around.

He accepted this and it was in part with his own legacy in mind that he told them he wanted no longer to be seen as the bad man, or enemy, of football – albeit with some disquiet in the back of his mind. “I won’t have the same success if I cut out the conflict,” Mourinho said in one of the early conversations with those at the top of Stamford Bridge. They knew that when the pips started to squeak, the so-called Happy One would give way to the Machiavellian One. It would always be one of the “tools in the box,” says one who has seen this unravelling from the inside and points out that nice guys aren’t winners.

No one quite anticipated how relentlessly those implements would be used, though. In one four-week period last spring, Mourinho’s vials of poison were administered to Brendan Rodgers, accused of failing to appreciate his own goalkeeper; Graeme Souness, impugned for his managerial record; Sky Sports, blackballed for providing a critical appraisal; and an unsuspecting Chelsea ballboy, bollocked for throwing a ball to a Manchester City player.

Well, unfortunately for Mourinho, the club were determined to move on, even if he wasn’t. They meant it when they said they actively wanted to represent something positive, as Arsenal and the Manchester clubs do, and you certainly give thanks for that. There’s a contradiction at the heart of Stamford Bridge, you see. When you meet the front-desk staff, become acquainted with the communications staff, encounter the stewards, you discover a club which stands for modernity, dignity, hospitality. And then the manager pops up behind the press conference table and hauls us all the way back to the bad old Chelsea.

The modernity runs all the way through to the way the club conducts its contractual business, actually. Marina Granovskaia, the long-time head of Abramovich’s family office, does its negotiating and, the agents will tell you, has formidable powers in that field and a fierce grasp of financial detail. No more of those Wild West days, with the club being taken to the cleaners. As the Eva Carneiro saga deepened last autumn, with Mourinho incapable of contrition, you wondered how on earth Granovskaia felt about the unreconstructed image of Chelsea it was creating.

The search for something better is bigger than Mourinho. That much was clear when, having told Petr Cech that he would be allowed to leave for the club of his choice if he gave them one more year’s service, Roman Abramovich sanctioned it being Arsenal – even though Mourinho hated that. And when, as Manchester City’s opaque accountancy work left them in default of Uefa’s financial fair play regime, Chelsea accepted its spirit – even though it meant selling André Schürrle to buy Juan Cuadrado, catastrophic though that calculation proved to be.

Amid the broader picture of where Chelsea have been trying to head, with painstaking public consultation over plans to expand their stadium, Mourinho’s attempts to adhere to the new code seemed pitifully meagre. It was noted within the four walls of the club that the manager’s relationship with Michael Emenalo, the club’s technical director, was substantially better than the one the Portuguese shared with Frank Arnesen during his first spell at the club. The two were said to be in and out of each other’s offices. Small beer. Just like the regret Mourinho privately expressed in retrospect after describing Arsène Wenger as a “specialist in failure”.

What we now know is that he was like a kid on his best behaviour, as incapable as any of us of materially changing his philosophy and personality when he is into his sixth decade. Chelsea could accept that for as long as he was annihilating the opposition in a desperately poor Premier League last season. But the trouble with the ways of Mourinho are that when the winning stops and the pretty lines – “little horses need milk” and all that – cease, there is nothing underpinning the structure except the spite and bile he perpetrates. “His method generates media conflict almost permanently and it is also a potential source of conflict within the club,” the Manchester City CEO, Ferran Soriano, has written of Mourinho. So wise.

It was the inner desire for modernity which informed some of the Chelsea chat-room conversations, after news of Mourinho’s sacking broke. Just when a wave of sentiment for him surfaced, the response went along the lines of: “Will you stop? It’s not about him.” The dignified and comparatively expansive 150-word Chelsea statement announcing the departure – listing Mourinho’s achievements, heralding him as the club’s best, thanking him for what he has brought – seemed to be cut from the same sentiment about doing things the right way. Not every club would have issued that.

So the Chelsea train rolls on. The stadium redevelopment will soon start. The accounts reveal financial self-sufficiency. The club clearly wants to represent and stand for something more than unadulterated wealth, in the way that the other English giants do. For this reason, Pep Guardiola will seem more attractive than ever. The plan beyond this season should certainly not include asking another inherently unpleasant individual to take them over the threshold of a new promised land.

David Cameron accused of 'governing from the gloom' over bid to scrap Freedom of Information Act

David Cameron has been urged to scrap his review of the Freedom of Information Act and instead strengthen the legislation to give voters a greater insight into the Government’s work.

Accusing the Prime Minister of wanting to “govern from the gloom,” deputy Labour leader Tom Watson has described the review of the transparency legislation out of touch with the public’s desire for more openness, a “waste of taxpayers’ money” and “predestined” to recommend raising barriers to obtaining information.

He claimed Mr Cameron was trying to “reverse the transparency Labour introduced” and seeking to “turn off the lights, systematically making it harder for people to engage with policy making, retreating into a darker and more secretive place”.

Labour would strengthen and extend the FOI Act, he said, which was brought in by Tony Blair but who later admitted the legislation was his biggest regret.

Mr Cameron was criticised for appointing a commission full of opponents of the Act to look into reforming the legislation, including former Home Secretary Jack Straw, a vocal critic of the law despite playing a role in introducing it.

Mr Watson’s attack on the Government’s review comes after the former head of the civil service Lord Kerslake dismissed claims that the FOI Act had a “chilling effect” on civil servants.

In a speech in central London, Mr Watson will accuse Mr Cameron of contradicting his pledge as opposition leader when he said “sunlight is the best disinfectant” and promised the Tories would “bring the operation of Government out into the open”.

“As Prime Minister he is methodically closing all the doors and the shutters, drawing the blinds and the curtains, retreating to the shadows at the back of the national farmhouse,” Mr Watson said.

“He wants to govern from the gloom in the old fashioned way, without the inconvenience of scrutiny, abandoning any hope of decency or trust.”

Mr Watson cited NHS England’s announcement that weekly bulletins on the health service’s performance over the winter will no longer include figures on four-hour waits in A&E departments, the number of ambulances queuing outside hospitals or operations cancelled at the last minute.

“His response to the crisis in our health service has been to introduce an NHS news blackout,” Mr Watson said.

“He thinks we won’t like what they’re doing, so they’re going to stop telling us about it.”

Isis: Former German militant claims group is planning co-ordinated terror attacks in Europe

A German jihadist who fled Isis after witnessing beheadings and executions in Syria has claimed the group is trying to plan a Europe-wide terror attack.

The 27-year-old former militant, named as Harry S, said he and other foreign fighters had been asked if they would “bring jihad to their homeland”.

“They want something that happens everywhere at the same time,” he said.

Harry S was speaking to Der Spiegel from prison, where he is still being questioned by police and the intelligence services after being arrested at Bremen airport on his return in July.

He claimed he fled Isis because he could not stand its brutality after three months with the group in Syria and is now telling German authorities all he knows.

The former extremist appeared in a propaganda video filmed shortly after Isis seized the city of Palmyra in May.

Wearing camouflage, he carried the flag of the so-called Islamic State across the screen before German-speaking militants called on supporters across the world to kill “infidels” before shooting two prisoners dead.

“All you need is to take a big knife, and go down to the streets and slaughter every infidel you encounter,” they urged.

The video, entitled “The lions of the Caliphate: A message signed in blood to Angela Merkel” featured notorious Austrian Islamist Mohamed Mahmoud, who founded a banned Salafist group called Millatu Ibrahim.

Since travelling to join Isis in Syria, Harry S said he had been leading mass executions and holding weekly ideological training sessions in Raqqa.

Reports that Mahmoud and former Berlin rapper Denis Cuspert (aka Deso Dogg), who went under the name Abu Talha al-Almani, have been killed in air strikes have not been confirmed by the German government.

Harry S said he met both men for the first time in Syria, having apparently been radicalised after meeting German Islamist René Marc Sepac in prison as he served a two-year sentence for robbery.

After attempting to join Isis in 2014, when he was arrested and returned to Bremen by Turkish authorities, he had his passport confiscated and was ordered to check in at a police station twice a week, Der Spiegel reported.

But in the spring of his year he managed to travel under someone else’s passport to Syria, where he says he was trained to become part of a special unit intended to carry out urban combat missions before detonating suicide bombs. But he fled before being sent into battle.

Harry S stands accused of membership of a terror group and faces a lengthy prison sentence if convicted.

His lawyer, Udo Würtz, said his client did not directly take part in any atrocities, calling him a “lackey who allowed himself to be misled by the propaganda of Isis and who misled himself”.

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency believes more than 700 Germans have joined Isis in Iraq and Syria.

Nepal passes bill on quake rebuilding

Nepal’s parliament yesterday passed a long-delayed law to pave the way for rebuilding after April’s massive earthquake, ending months of bickering that paralysed reconstruction despite donor pledges of billions in aid.

“I announce that the bill related to reconstruction of earthquake-affected infrastructure… has been passed unanimously,” Speaker Onsari Gharti Magar said in parliament.

The government vowed in June to set up a National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) to oversee rebuilding and ensure that all aid went to victims, as part of its bid to attract funding from sceptical foreign donors.

But political wrangling between the ruling CPN-UML party and the opposition Nepali Congress over the leadership of the new body prevented the bill conferring legal status on the NRA from being passed.

The final vote paving the way for the NRA, which will process all aid funds, followed weeks of closed-door negotiations.

A spokesman for the ruling party told AFP the government would work fast to set up the new state body to avoid further delays in rebuilding.

The 7.8-magnitude quake killed almost 8,900 people and destroyed more than half a million homes. Thousands of victims still live in tents eight months later due to the government’s failure to spend a $4.1 billion reconstruction fund.

Quake victims have so far received just $150 in compensation per household, while the government has promised an additional $2,000 once the NRA is set up and able to disburse funds.

Germany ready to help 'natural ally' Britain

Germany signalled its readiness yesterday to be “extremely helpful” to Prime Minister David Cameron in his quest to renegotiate Britain’s membership of the European Union.

Speaking before EU leaders debate Cameron’s EU reform demands today, Chancellor Angela Merkel called Britain a “natural ally” and described the benefits British membership brings to the bloc’s 28 members.

Cameron has promised to renegotiate Britain’s EU ties ahead of a membership referendum by the end of 2017. While he favours staying in a reformed EU, he has said he rules out nothing if he does not get the changes he wants.

She stressed Britain’s contribution to strengthening Europe’s internal market and promoting economic growth.

“As a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, Great Britain contributes significantly to the European Union’s importance in the world,” she said.

Reaching a deal on the British question would be “very challenging”, Merkel added. But she said the EU had in the past addressed other countries’ issues in the bloc “and I am therefore confident we can do it this time”.

She said the core EU principles of free movement of people and non-discrimination between citizens could not be questioned.

“These principles are not up for negotiation,” Merkel declared to loud applause in the Bundestag, stressing that the details of the talks would be critical.

Limiting benefits available to EU migrants to Britain is the most contentious of Cameron’s demands.

A senior German official told a pre-summit briefing Berlin was ready to be “extremely helpful” to Cameron, but it was up to him to present his case.

Pressed on the benefits issue, the official said: “We have clear political guidance. We want Britain to stay in the EU. We can’t accept everything but we will do what we can to accommodate Mr. Cameron.”

A poll yesterday showed that British support for remaining in the EU would fall significantly if Cameron was unable to achieve safeguards for non-euro zone countries and curbs to welfare payments for migrants.

Some German government officials have stressed they cannot convince other European states, mainly eastern, to drop their opposition to Britain’s push for a four-year curb on welfare payments for EU migrants.

But they said they wanted Britain to play an active role in the EU.

“The UK must sit in the driver’s seat, and not next to it,” said another German official.

Google CEO Pichai touts India as key testing ground for new products

New Google leader Sundar Pichai pledged on Wednesday to use India as a testing ground for its products as the US tech giant targets hundreds of millions of consumers in the developing world set to move online in the next few years.

“We think that what we build in India will apply to many global places,” Indian-born Pichai, appointed chief executive officer in August, told reporters at an event in New Delhi.

With internet penetration already topping more than 90 percent in many developed markets, Google is increasingly betting on large developing countries like India as a future source of growth. The company does not disclose how much it has invested in India.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai gestures as he addresses a news conference in New Delhi, India yesterday. Photo: Reuters

Google expects more than 500 million Indians to be online by 2018, up from around 300 million today. But Pichai said that with most new users accessing the internet via cheap smartphones instead of desktops, poor mobile connectivity is forcing the company to adapt how it structures and sells its software.

Google’s CEO said the company would train two million Indian developers for its Android operating system by 2019, promote internet use among rural women in thousands of villages, and expand its campus in Hyderabad to get more people online.

“It’s about making sure that as the next one billion come online, they have access,” he said during a visit to the Indian capital, where he is also scheduled to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi. There are likely to be more users of Google’s Android software in India than in the United States next year, Google said in a statement.

Pichai cited user-generated maps, as well as a version of YouTube that allows consumers with limited internet access to store videos offline, as two recent examples of products developed in India that have since been rolled out to other countries.

Google is also working with Indian Railways to bring wireless internet service to 100 train stations, with Mumbai Central the first to go online in January. It’s also working on increasing the number of local languages available on its virtual keyboard to target non-English speakers.

Switzerland gets first Bangladeshi lawmaker

Iftikhar Ahmed, a former ILO official, has become the first ever Bangladeshi to become a Swiss lawmaker as he took oath of office in the

Iftikhar Ahmed

Parliament (Conseil Communale) of the prosperous,

picturesque French-speaking Commune of Founex (Canton of Vaud) on the outskirts of Geneva on Tuesday.

Ahmed is a development economist having worked at the International Labour Office (ILO) in Geneva for three decades (1974-2004) in the employment sector, says a press release.

He is the author of “Voices of the Working Children and Their Parents: Will Anyone Listen?” (London, Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd, 2015), and of “Technological Change and Agrarian Structure: A Study of Bangladesh” (Geneva, ILO, 1981), and co-authored many other publications.

Iftikhar Ahmed is the son of late Dr Momtazuddin Ahmed who was a vice-chancellor of Rajshahi University.

Shibir flexes its muscles in Chittagong of Bangladesh

Activists of Islami Chhatra Shibir chased away Bangladesh Chhatra League men who were placing wreaths at the Shaheed Minar of Chittagong College on the Victory Day yesterday.

Later, the two groups fought pitched battles near the college main gate, prompting police to fire shots in the air to disperse them.

The BCL men then returned to the campus and besieged the principal to her office for nearly half an hour, alleging that she was patronising Shibir.

The incidents left at least three youths — two BCL and a Shibir man — injured. Over 60 Shibir activists were detained by the law enforcers.

Later, the college authorities asked the students to vacate their dormitories.

Shibir is the pro-Jamaat-e-Islami student body. Jamaat opposed the birth of Bangladesh during the 1971 Liberation War. BCL is the pro-Awami League student body.

Chittagong City BCL General Secretary Nurul Azim Rony said yesterday’s clash ensued around 11:00am after Shibir men hurled brick chunks at some 30 to 40 BCL activists at the Shaheed Minar on the campus.

Organising Secretary Hasmot Ali Rasel of the BCL unit, who was present at the scene, alleged that the Shibir men locked the college main gate after driving them out of campus.

“The Shibir activists had also fired shots at us,” he said, adding that more brick chunks were thrown at them when they took position in front of the gate.

Witnesses said more activists joined the Chhatra League group there and they retaliated with brick chunks.

On information, members of nearby Chawkbazar Police Station stepped in and fired shots in the air to disperse both the groups, said Aziz Uddin, officer-in-charge of the police station.

Around 1:00pm, witnesses said, the BCL men went inside the campus through another gate and vandalised windows of some college buildings. There, they caught and beat up a Shibir activist.

However, police rescued him and took him into their custody.

The pro-ruling party activists then confined Principal Prof Jesmin Akther to her office for nearly half and hour, saying she was patronising Shibir — an allegation rejected by the teacher.

After being driven out of campus, the BCL men also blocked the nearby college road from around four hours, demanding that the college be freed from Shibir.

According to BCL leader Nurul Azim Rony, Chhatra League resumed politics in Chittagong College forming a convening committee in 2009 and by a full committee in 2012.

Kawsar Uddin, vice-president of Chittagong College BCL, said they went to the Shaheed Minar for the first time in three decades to place wreaths under the banner of their organisation.

Sources said Chittagong College and Mohsin College are known to be Shibir strongholds.

Shahadat Hossain, president of Chittagong College Shibir, could not be reached despite repeated attempts.

Additional law enforcers were deployed on campus.

DORMS CLOSED

In the evening, the authorities of Chittagong College closed the four dorms until further notice.

Principal Jesmin Akther said male students were asked to vacate their halls within 8:00pm yesterday and female students by 10:00am today.

She also said they decided to form a five-member committee to investigate yesterday’s incident.

Chhatra League men of the college attacked Mohsin College with brick chunks yesterday evening and damaged several windows of the buildings. This forced the Mohsin College authorities to close two of its dorms where around 170 students stayed.