VATICAN CITY: The new Pope began Holy Week yesterday with a sermon invoking the folk wisdom of his grandmother, further emphasising a new-look papacy that aims to be closer to the people. Leading his first major service since his election, Pope Francis addressed a vast crowd gathered for Palm Sunday with simple language, urging them to shun corruption and greed and reach out to “the humble, the poor, the forgotten”. Departing from his prepared text and referring to wealth, he said: “You can’t take it with you, my grandmother used to say”. “Let us look around: how many wounds are inflicted upon humanity by evil! Wars, violence, economic conflicts that hit the weakest, greed for money, power, corruption, divisions, crimes against human life and against creation,” he said. Francis has decided to hold Holy Thursday service this week in a juvenile jail on Rome’s outskirts rather than in the Vatican or in a Rome Basilica, where it has been held by all his predecessor in living memory. The Church today, he said, wanted to transmit a message of hope, “especially in the hearts of the simple, the humble, the poor, the forgotten, those who do not matter in the eyes of the world”. Francis confirmed that he will go to Rio de Janeiro at the end of the July to take part in the Church’s World Day of Youth, a gathering of Catholic young people that takes place in a different city every two years.
Few tears shed for Berezovsky
MOSCOW: Russian politicians and commentators yesterday gave largely damning assessments of the life of exiled Russian oligarch and Kremlin critic Boris Berezovsky who died in “unexplained” circumstances, speculating about his state of mind in his last weeks. The 67-year-old was found dead in his mansion near London on Saturday afternoon. Police have since sent hazardous material experts to his home as a precaution, since the tycoon survived one assassination attempt in 1995. Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov told the RIA Novosti news agency that he had “no good words or high praise for Berezovsky.” He said Berezovsky “himself admitted at the end of his life that he had lived for nothing, ending up without family, motherland, money, or friends. And the finale was fully consistent with that.” “Not many people will say anything good about him, so it’s better to stay silent,” former cabinet minister turned opposition protest leader, Boris Nemtsov, wrote on Twitter.
Macedonians vote amid crisis
SKOPJE: Macedonians yesterday cast their ballots in local elections held against a backdrop of ethnic tensions and an ongoing political crisis between the conservative government and opposition socialists. Relations between Macedonians and ethnic Albanians have been strained since the end of a seven-month conflict in 2001 that pitted Macedonia’s armed forces against ethnic Albanian rebels. Polling stations closed after 12 hours of voting and no hitches had been reported, the electoral commission said. The electoral commission said that by 1600 GMT, two hours before polls closed, more than 57 percent — eight percent more than in 2009 — out of 1.7 million eligible voters had cast their ballots for mayors and municipal councillors. Agencies
