Pope Francis met at hospital with Vatican No. 2, took major governing decisions

A person places a drawing of Pope Francis at the base of the statue of late Pope John Paul II outside Gemelli Hospital, where Pope Francis continues his treatment, in Rome, Italy, February 25, 2025. (Reuters)
A person places a drawing of Pope Francis at the base of the statue of late Pope John Paul II outside Gemelli Hospital, where Pope Francis continues his treatment, in Rome, Italy, February 25, 2025. (Reuters)
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Updated 25 February 2025
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Pope Francis met at hospital with Vatican No. 2, took major governing decisions

A person places a drawing of Pope Francis at the base of the statue of late Pope John Paul II outside Gemelli Hospital.
  • The audience signaled that the machinery of the Vatican is still grinding on even though doctors have warned that the prognosis for the 88-year-old Francis is guarded

ROME: Pope Francis was well enough to meet with the Vatican secretary of state to approve new decrees for possible saints, the Vatican said Tuesday, in announcing some major governing decisions that suggest he is getting essential work done and looking ahead despite being hospitalized in critical condition with double pneumonia.

The audience, which occurred Monday, signaled that the machinery of the Vatican is still grinding on even though doctors have warned that the prognosis for the 88-year-old Francis is guarded.

Decisions on saints and a formal meeting of cardinals

The Vatican’s Tuesday noon bulletin contained a series of significant decisions, most importantly that Francis had met with Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, the Vatican “substitute” or chief of staff. It was the first known time the pope had met with Parolin, who is essentially the Vatican prime minister, since his Feb. 14 hospitalization.

During the audience, Francis approved decrees for two new saints and five people for beatification — the first step toward possible sainthood. Francis also decided to “convene a consistory about the future canonizations.”

Francis regularly approves decrees from the Vatican’s saint-making office when he is at the Vatican, albeit during audiences with the head of the office, not Parolin. A consistory, which is a formal meeting of cardinals, to set the dates for the canonizations is a necessary ceremonial step in that saint-making process, but the announcement of it was also forward-looking, given his illness.

No date was set for the meeting. But it was also at a banal consistory to set dates for canonizations on Feb. 11, 2013, that Pope Benedict XVI announced, in Latin, that he would resign because he couldn’t keep up with the rigors of the papacy. Francis has said he, too, would consider resigning after Benedict “opened the door” and became the first pope in 600 years to retire.

Giovanna Chirri, the reporter for the Italian news agency ANSA who was covering the consistory that day and broke the story because she understood Latin, said that she didn’t think Francis would follow in Benedict’s footsteps, “even if some would want it.”

“I could be wrong, but I hope not,” she told The Associated Press. “As long as he’s alive, the world and the church need him.”

Francis’ English biographer, Austen Ivereigh, said that it was possible, and that all that matters is that Francis be “wholly free to make the right decision.”

“The pope has always said that the papacy is for life, and he has shown that there is no problem with a frail and elderly pope,” Ivereigh said. “But he has also said that should he ever have a long-term degenerative or debilitating condition which prevents him from fully carrying out the exercise of the papal ministry, he would consider resigning. And so would any pope.”

Francis’ ideas about resignation

Francis has said that if he were to resign, he would live in Rome, outside the Vatican, and be called “emeritus bishop of Rome” rather than emeritus pope given the problems that occurred with Benedict’s experiment as a retired pope. Despite his best efforts, Benedict remained a point of reference for conservatives before he died in 2022, and his home inside the Vatican gardens something of a pilgrimage destination for the right.

Francis has also written a letter of resignation, to be invoked if he became medically incapacitated.

Speculation about a possible resignation has swirled ever since Francis was hospitalized, but the Vatican hierarchy has tamped it down. Parolin himself told Corriere della Sera over the weekend that such speculation was “useless” and that what mattered was Francis’ health.

In addition to the audience with Parolin, the Vatican released Francis’ message for Lent, the period leading up to Easter, in yet another forward-looking sign. In a subsequent bulletin, Francis named a handful of new bishops for Brazil, a new archbishop for Vancouver and modified the law for the Vatican City State to create a new hierarchy.

Many if not all of these decisions were likely in the works for some time. But the Vatican has said that Francis has been doing some work in the hospital, including signing documents.

The pope slept well

On Tuesday morning, the Vatican’s typically brief morning update said: “The pope slept well, all night.”

The previous evening, doctors had said he remained in critical condition at Rome’s Gemelli hospital with double pneumonia, but reported a “slight improvement” in some laboratory results. In the most upbeat bulletin in days, the Vatican said Francis had resumed work from his hospital room, calling a parish in Gaza City that he has kept in touch with since the war there began.

Doctors have said the condition of the Argentine pope, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, is touch-and-go, given his age, fragility and preexisting lung disease before the pneumonia set in.

But in Monday’s update, they said he hadn’t had any more respiratory crises since Saturday, and the flow and concentration of supplemental oxygen has been slightly reduced. The slight kidney insufficiency detected on Sunday wasn’t causing alarm at the moment, doctors said.

Allies and ordinary faithful hopeful

Francis’ right-wing critics have been spreading dire rumors about his condition, but his allies have cheered him on and expressed hope that he will pull through. Many noted that from the very night of his election as pope, Francis had asked for the prayers of ordinary faithful, a request he repeats daily.

“I’m a witness of everything he did for the church, with a great love of Jesus,” Honduran Cardinal Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga told La Repubblica. “Humanly speaking, I don’t think it’s time for him to go to Paradise.”

At Gemelli on a rainy Tuesday morning, ordinary Romans and visitors alike were also praying for the pope. Hoang Phuc Nguyen, who lives in Canada but was visiting Rome to participate in a Holy Year pilgrimage, took the time to come to Gemelli to say a special prayer for the pope at the statue of St. John Paul II outside the main entrance.

“We heard that he is in the hospital right now and we are very worried about his health,” Nguyen said. “He is our father and it is our responsibility to pray for him.”


Russian forces take control of three Ukrainian villages across multiple regions, defense ministry says

Russian forces take control of three Ukrainian villages across multiple regions, defense ministry says
Updated 16 sec ago
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Russian forces take control of three Ukrainian villages across multiple regions, defense ministry says

Russian forces take control of three Ukrainian villages across multiple regions, defense ministry says
  • Russian forces are engaged in a slow advance westward and Moscow announces the capture of new villages almost every day
  • Moscow controls a little less than 20 percent of Ukrainian territory, a move that Kyiv and most Western countries reject as illegal

MOSCOW: Russian troops have taken control of three villages in three different parts of the frontline running through Ukraine, the Defense Ministry said on Thursday.

Official Ukrainian reports of activity along the 1,000-km (600-mile) front disputed part of the Russian account, particularly concerning a key village in the southeast.

Reuters could not independently verify battlefield reports from either side.

The Russian Defense Ministry report named the three captured settlements as Kamianske in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, Dehtiarne in northeastern Kharkiv region, and Popiv Yar in Donetsk region, the main theater of Russian operations.

Russian forces are engaged in a slow advance westward, mainly through Donetsk region, and Moscow announces the capture of new villages almost every day.

Ukrainian military spokesperson Vladyslav Voloshyn told the liga.net media outlet that holding Kamianske, southeast of the region’s main town of Zaporizhzhia, was important to keep that city safe from attack.

But Kamianske had been all but flattened by long periods of fighting, he said. Ukrainian forces had moved out of it and successfully attacked Russian troops whenever small groups periodically ventured into it.

“The Russians cannot go into the village and hold it,” Voloshyn was quoted as saying. “There is not a single dwelling left intact, not a single wall left standing, nothing to hold, nothing to enable you to take cover.”

There was no acknowledgement from Ukraine that Popiv Yar had changed hands — the village lies northeast of Pokrovsk, for months a focal point of Russian attacks in Donetsk region.

For at least a week, it has remained in the “grey zone” of uncertain control as reported by DeepState, a Ukrainian military blog based on open source accounts of the fighting. There was no news from Ukrainian officials of the situation at Dehtiarne.

On Wednesday, Russia’s military announced the capture of the village of Novohatske, southwest of Pokrovsk. Another Ukrainian military spokesperson, Viktor Trehubov, told public broadcaster Suspilne on Thursday that the village was in Russian hands.

Moscow controls a little less than 20 percent of Ukrainian territory and says it has incorporated four regions — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson into Russia, a move that Kyiv and most Western countries reject as illegal.

In 2014, Russia seized and annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula, also a claim widely disputed internationally


Nationwide protests begin against Trump’s immigration crackdown and health care cuts

Nationwide protests begin against Trump’s immigration crackdown and health care cuts
Updated 17 min 6 sec ago
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Nationwide protests begin against Trump’s immigration crackdown and health care cuts

Nationwide protests begin against Trump’s immigration crackdown and health care cuts
  • Protest actions held Thursday in more than 1,600 locations around the country
  • Major protests planned in Atlanta and St. Louis, Oakland in California, and Annapolis in Maryland

CHICAGO: Protests and events against President Donald Trump’s controversial policies that include mass deportations and cuts to Medicaid and other safety nets for poor people have started Thursday at more than 1,600 locations around the country.

The “Good Trouble Lives On” national day of action honors the late congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis. Protests were being held along streets, at court houses and other public spaces. Organizers have called for them to be peaceful.

“We are navigating one of the most terrifying moments in our nation’s history,” Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert said during an online news conference Tuesday. “We are all grappling with a rise of authoritarianism and lawlessness within our administration ... as the rights, freedoms and expectations of our very democracy are being challenged.”

Public Citizen is a nonprofit with a stated mission of taking on corporate power. It is a member of a coalition of groups behind Thursday’s protests.

Major protests were planned in Atlanta and St. Louis, as well as Oakland, California, and Annapolis, Maryland.

Honoring Lewis’ legacy

Lewis first was elected to Congress in 1986. He died in 2020 at the age of 80 following an advanced pancreatic cancer diagnosis.

He was the youngest and last survivor of the Big Six civil rights activists, a group led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. In 1965, a 25-year-old Lewis led some 600 protesters in the Bloody Sunday march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Lewis was beaten by police, suffering a skull fracture.

Within days, King led more marches in the state, and President Lyndon Johnson pressed Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act that later became law.

“Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and redeem the soul of America,” Lewis said in 2020 while commemorating the 1965 voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

Chicago will be the flagship city for Thursday’s protests as demonstrators are expected to rally downtown in the afternoon.

Betty Magness, executive vice president of the League of Women Voters Chicago and one of the organizers of Chicago’s event, said the rally will also include a candlelight vigil to honor Lewis.

Much of the rest of the rally will have a livelier tone, Magness said, adding “we have a DJ who’s gonna rock us with boots on the ground.”

Protesting Trump’s policies

Pushback against Trump so far in his second term has centered on deportations and immigration enforcement tactics

Earlier this month, protesters engaged in a tense standoff as federal authorities conducted mass arrests at two Southern California marijuana farms. One farmworker died after falling from a greenhouse roof during a chaotic raid.

Those raids followed Trump’s extraordinary deployment of the National Guard outside federal buildings and to protect immigration agents carrying out arrests on Los Angeles. On June 8, thousands of protesters began taking to the streets in Los Angeles.

And organizers of the June 14 “No Kings” demonstrations said millions of people marched in hundreds of events from New York to San Francisco. Demonstrators labeled Trump as a dictator and would-be king for marking his birthday with a military parade.

 


UK signs treaty on defense, trade and migration with Germany as Europe bolsters security

UK signs treaty on defense, trade and migration with Germany as Europe bolsters security
Updated 18 July 2025
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UK signs treaty on defense, trade and migration with Germany as Europe bolsters security

UK signs treaty on defense, trade and migration with Germany as Europe bolsters security
  • Agreement commits both countries to boost investment and strengthen law-enforcement cooperation against people-smuggling gangs
  • Treaty builds on defense pact the two nations signed last year committing to closer co-operation against the growing threat from Russia

LONDON: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz signed a landmark treaty on Thursday that pledges to tighten defense ties, as European nations try to protect Ukraine, and themselves, from an aggressive Russia in the face of wavering support from President Donald Trump’s US-focused administration.

Merz said it was “a historic day for German-British relations” as he signed an agreement that also commits the two countries to boost investment and strengthen law-enforcement cooperation against criminal people-smuggling gangs using the English Channel.

“We want to work together more closely, particularly after the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union,” Merz said. “It is overdue for us to conclude such a treaty with each other.”

A partnership with a purpose

The treaty builds on a defense pact the UK and Germany, two of the biggest European supporters of Ukraine, signed last year committing to closer co-operation against the growing threat from Russia.

It includes a promise to “assist one another, including by military means, in case of an armed attack on the other,” though it’s unclear what practical impact that will have, since both countries are NATO members and bound by the alliance’s mutual defense pact.

Starmer said the treaty — signed at London’s V&A Museum, which is named after Queen Victoria and her German husband, Prince Albert — sealed a “partnership with a purpose.”

“We see the scale of the challenges our continent faces today, and we intend to meet them head on,” Starmer said during a joint news confernce at an Airbus defense and space factory north of London.

The UK-Germany treaty follows agreements signed during a state visit last week by President Emmanuel Macron, in which France and Britain pledged to coordinate their nuclear deterrents for the first time.

Germany does not have nuclear weapons. The treaty with Britain says the countries will “maintain a close dialogue on defense issues of mutual interest ... including on nuclear issues.”

The treaty stressed a “shared commitment to the security of the Euro-Atlantic area, and underpinned by enhanced European contributions” — a nod to Trump, who has demanded European NATO members greatly increase military spending. Germany and the UK have both promised to raise defense spending to 3.5 percent of GDP in the coming years.

Merz, making his first trip to the UK since taking office in May, said it was “no coincidence” he traveled to London a week after Macron.

“The E3 – Great Britain, France and Germany — are converging in their positions on foreign policy, on security policy, on migration policy, but also on economic policy issues,” he said.

Weapons for Ukraine

Merz and Starmer discussed ways to boost European support for Ukraine, following Trump’s announcement of a plan to bolster Kyiv’s stockpile by selling American weapons to NATO allies who would in turn send arms to Kyiv.

Merz signaled that those plans are still a work in progress, saying it might take “days, perhaps weeks” before weapons reach Ukraine.

He said that “above all, we need clarity on how weapons systems that are given up from the European side will be replaced by the US”

During the trip the leaders announced that German defense startup Stark, which makes drones for Ukraine, will open a factory in England. They also agreed to jointly produce defense exports such as Boxer armored vehicles and Typhoon jets, and to develop a deep precision strike missile in the next decade.

Starmer also praised Merz for his help curbing the smuggling gangs that brought 37,000 people across the English Channel from France in small boats in 2024, and more than 22,000 so far in 2025. Dozens have died attempting the journey.

Berlin agreed last year to make facilitating the smuggling of migrants to the UK a criminal offense, a move that will give law enforcement more powers to investigate the supply and storage of small boats to be used for the crossings.

Merz committed to adopting the law change by the end of the year, a move Starmer said “is hugely welcome.”

Student exchange trips

Starmer has worked to improve relations with Britain’s neighbors, strained by the UK’s acrimonious departure from the European Union in 2020. He has sought to rebuild ties strained by years of ill-tempered wrangling over Brexit terms, and worked to reduce trade barriers and to strengthen defense cooperation.

But he has ruled out rejoining the 27-nation bloc’s single market or customs union, and has been cool to the idea of a youth mobility agreement with the EU.

Britain and Germany agreed on a more limited arrangement that will make it easier for schoolchildren to go on exchange trips.

“I am glad we were able to reach an agreement so that schoolchildren and students can come to Britain more easily in the future, and the other way round can come to Germany more easily, so that the young generation in particular has an opportunity to get to know both countries better,” Merz said.

 


5 US immigrants deported to Eswatini in Africa are being held in solitary confinement

5 US immigrants deported to Eswatini in Africa are being held in solitary confinement
Updated 19 min 57 sec ago
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5 US immigrants deported to Eswatini in Africa are being held in solitary confinement

5 US immigrants deported to Eswatini in Africa are being held in solitary confinement
  • The men , who the US says were convicted of serious crimes and were in the US illegally, are citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos
  • Eswatini is the latest nation to accept third-country deportees from the US. The others are Costa Rica, El Salvador, Panama, and South Sudan

CAPE TOWN, South Africa: Five immigrants deported by the United States to the small southern African nation of Eswatini under the Trump administration’s third-country program are in prison, where they will be held in solitary confinement for an undetermined time, a government spokesperson said.

Thabile Mdluli, the spokesperson, declined to identify the correctional facility or facilities where the five men are, citing security concerns. She said Eswatini planned to ultimately repatriate the five to their home countries with the help of a United Nations agency.

In cell phone messages to The Associated Press on Thursday, Mdluli said it wasn’t clear how long that would take.

The men, who the US says were convicted of serious crimes and were in the US illegally, are citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos. Their convictions included murder and child rape, the US Department of Homeland

Security said, describing them as “uniquely barbaric.”

Their deportations were announced by Homeland Security on Tuesday and mark the continuation of President Donald Trump’s plan to send deportees to third countries they have no ties with after it was stalled by a legal challenge in the United States.

Here’s what we know and don’t know about the deportations:

A new country for deportees

Eswatini, a country of 1.2 million people bordering South Africa, is the latest nation to accept third-country deportees from the US. The Trump administration has sent hundreds of Venezuelans and others to Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama, and deported eight men earlier this month to South Sudan, also an African country.

The deportees to South Sudan are citizens of Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Vietnam and South Sudan. They were held for weeks in a converted shipping container at a US military base in the nearby country of Djibouti until a Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for them to be finally sent to South Sudan. The US also described them as violent criminals.

Eswatini’s government confirmed on Wednesday that the latest five deportees were in its custody after landing on a deportation plane from the US.

Local media reported they are being held at the Matsapha Correctional Complex, outside the country’s administrative capital of Mbabane, which includes Eswatini’s top maximum-security prison.

The men’s fate is unclear

The Eswatini government said the men are “in transit” and will eventually be sent to their home countries. The US and Eswatini governments would work with the UN migration agency to do that, it said.

The UN agency — the International Organization for Migration or IOM — said it was not involved in the operation and has not been approached to assist in the matter but would be willing to help “in line with its humanitarian mandate.”

Eswatini’s statement that the men would be sent home was in contrast to US claims they were sent to Eswatini because their home countries refused to take them back.

It’s unclear how sending the men to Eswatini would make it easier for them to be deported home. There was also no timeframe for that as it depends on several factors, including engagements with the IOM, Mdluli said.

“We are not yet in a position to determine the timelines for the repatriation,” she wrote.

Four of the five countries where the men are from have historically resisted taking back some of their citizens deported from the US, which has been a reoccurring problem for Homeland Security. Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the administration was happy the men were “off of American soil” when she announced their deportations.

Another secretive deal

There have been no details on why Eswatini agreed to take the men and Mdluli, the government spokesperson, said “the terms of the agreement between the US and Eswatini remain classified.”

Eswatini has said it was the result of months of negotiations between the two governments. South Sudan has also given no details of its agreement with the US to take deportees and has declined to say where the eight men sent there are being held.

Some analysts say African nations might be willing to take deportees from the US in return for more favorable relations with the Trump administration, which has cut foreign aid to poor countries and threatened them with trade tariffs.

The Trump administration has also said it’s seeking more deportation deals with other countries.

Rights groups have questioned the countries the US has chosen to deal with, as South Sudan and Eswatini have both been criticized for having repressive governments.

Eswatini is Africa’s only absolute monarchy, meaning the king has power over government and rules by decree. Political parties are banned and pro-democracy protests have been quelled violently in the past.

Several rights groups have criticized Eswatini since pro-democracy protests erupted there in 2021, citing deadly crackdowns by security forces and abusive conditions in prisons, including at the Matsapha Correctional Complex, where pro-democracy activists are held.


UN chief calls Cyprus peace talks ‘constructive’

UN chief calls Cyprus peace talks ‘constructive’
Updated 18 July 2025
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UN chief calls Cyprus peace talks ‘constructive’

UN chief calls Cyprus peace talks ‘constructive’
  • Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when a Turkish invasion followed a coup in Nicosia backed by Greece’s then-military junta

UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Thursday that meetings between Cyprus’s rival leaders at the organization’s New York headquarters were “constructive,” even as questions remained about crossing points on the divided island.

Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar have been holding talks and had reached a breakthrough on forming a committee on youth and three other topics, Guterres said.

The opening of four crossing points, and the exploitation of solar energy in the buffer zone between the two sides of the island remained unresolved, he said.

“It is critical to implement these initiatives, all of them, as soon as possible, and for the benefit of all Cypriots,” Guterres said.

The meeting follows one in Geneva in March, which marked the first meaningful progress in years.

At that gathering, both sides agreed on a set of confidence-building measures, including opening more crossing points across the divide, cooperating on solar energy, and removing land mines.

Guterres said there were specific technical issues still to be resolved on the issues of crossing points, but did not give details.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when a Turkish invasion followed a coup in Nicosia backed by Greece’s then-military junta. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, declared in 1983, is recognized only by Ankara.

The internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus, a member of the European Union, controls the island’s majority Greek Cypriot south.

The last major round of peace talks collapsed in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, in July 2017.

“I think we are building, step-by-step, confidence and creating conditions to do concrete things to benefit the Cypriot people,” Guterres said in remarks to reporters.