Daily Heritage September 14

Quake Edition 150.qxp_Layout 1 9/13/17 9:07 PM Page 3
•The newly rescued Indian priest is on his way to meet Pope Francis
Indian priest freed by militants to meet Pope
AN INDIAN priest who was
freed after being abducted by militants
in Yemen is on his way to
meet Pope Francis in Vatican City.
Father Tom Uzhunnalil was
abducted in March 2016 while he
was working at a home for the elderly.
News of his release on Tuesday
has sparked celebrations in his
village in the southern Indian state
of Kerala.
A number of foreigners have
been kidnapped since the start of
the Yemeni civil war in 2015.
The Oman government helped
secure his release, its official news
agency reported.
The 58-year-old priest was kidnapped
when jihadist militants
raided his charity house in Aden.
The raid also killed 16 people, including
four Catholic nuns, who
were from the Missionaries of
Charity congregation, founded by
Mother Teresa.
Father Tom's release was welcomed
by his family, who had to
suffer through months of unverified
reporting that he had been executed.
Navitha Elizabeth Jose, a
cousin of Father Tom, described
the news as "a flood of joy for all
of us".BBC
DAILY HERITAGE THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2017
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World news in 4 stories
Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi to miss UN General Assembly debate
MYANMAR'S DE facto leader
Aung San Suu Kyi is to miss a key
UN debate next week as criticism
grows of her handling of the
refugee crisis involving the Rohingya
Muslim minority.
Some 370,000 Rohingyas have
fled to Bangladesh since violence
began last month. Whole villages
have burned down.
The government has been accused
by the UN of ethnic cleansing.
Myanmar's military says it is
fighting Rohingya militants
and denies reports
that it is targeting civilians.
The Rohingya, a
mostly Muslim minority
in Buddhist-majority
Rakhine, have long experienced
persecution in
Myanmar, which says
they are illegal immigrants.
They have lived in
Myanmar, also known as
Burma, for generations
•Aung San Suu Kyi addressed the UN General Assembly last year
but are denied citizenship.
The UN Security Council
is due to meet on Wednesday
to discuss the crisis.
The organisation's refugee
agency says not enough aid is
getting through to the Rohingya
who have fled to
Bangladesh.
On visiting a camp, the
UNHCR's George William
Okoth-Obbo said there
needed to be a massive increase
in help. BBC
Hurricane Irma: Quarter of
Florida Keys homes ‘destroyed'
HURRICANE
IRMA evacuees
are returning to
scenes of devastation
in the Florida
Keys with reports
of a quarter of homes destroyed on
the low-lying islands.
The latest images show homes
torn apart after the storm pummelled
the region with winds of up
to 120mph (192km/h).
Search and rescue teams are
moving through the worst affected
areas with emergency supplies of
food and water.
US President Donald Trump
will visit Florida on Thursday to
view the damage caused as Irma
tore through the state.
It will be Mr Trump's third trip
related to hurricanes in two weeks
and he will be joined this week by
his wife Melania, the first lady.
About 90,000 residents returning
to the Florida Keys and Miami
Beach have been warned that most
fuel stations remain closed and mobile
phone signals are patchy.
"Returning residents should consider
that there are limited services.
Most areas are still without power
and water," authorities in Monroe
Country said.
• Some of the trailer property in the Florida Keys were
completely torn apart
Irma is being linked to at least
18 deaths in the US since it struck
as a category four storm on Sunday,
including 12 in Florida.
Nearly 6.9 million homes were
left without power in Florida, Georgia,
North Carolina, South Carolina
and Alabama.
Parts of the Florida Keys, the
low-lying islands which bore the
brunt of Hurricane Irma, have
since reopened.
But entry is being restricted to
residents and business owners as
work continues to clear roads and
check the state of bridges linking
the islands. BBC
• Brexit is "a very sad and tragic moment in our history"
EU: Juncker sees
window of
opportunity for reform
THE "WIND is back in Europe's
sails", European Commission
President
Jean-Claude Juncker has said
in his annual state of the
union address.
He told the European
Parliament there was a "window
of opportunity" to build
a stronger, more united
union - but it "wouldn't stay
open forever".
Mr Juncker said Europe's
economy was "bouncing
back" and the EU had to
move beyond Brexit.
He called for the union to
embrace reforms and forge
new trade deals.
Last year, the EU was
"battered and bruised by a
year that shook our very
foundation", Mr Juncker said
- facing the challenges of
Brexit, the migrant crisis and
the rise of populism.
In his speech of more
than an hour, during which
he switched from English to
French to German, Mr
Juncker said member states
"chose unity" and the union
was "slowly but surely gathering
momentum".
The speech was markedly
different from recent years,
says the BBC Europe correspondent
Damian Grammaticas.
Gone was the sense of
crises besetting the EU - instead
Mr Juncker mentioned
Brexit just once in an address
focused on a post-Brexit vision
for the EU. BBC