Nepal sets March elections after naming interim prime minister
Nepal’s President Ramchandra Paudel has dissolved parliament and called fresh elections for 5 March, following a week of deadly unrest that ended wi...
Pope Francis approved a new three-year process to consider reforms for the global Catholic Church, the Vatican said on Saturday, in a sign the 88-year-old pontiff plans to continue on as pope despite his ongoing battle with double pneumonia.
Francis has extended the work of the Synod of Bishops, a signature initiative of his 12-year papacy, which has discussed reforms such as the possibility of women serving as Catholic deacons and better inclusion of LGBTQ people in the Church.
The synod, which held an inconclusive Vatican summit of bishops on the future of the Church last October, will now hold consultations with Catholics across the world for the next three years, before hosting a new summit in 2028.
Francis approved the new process for reforms on Tuesday from Rome's Gemelli hospital, where he is being treated, the Vatican said on Saturday.
The pope has been in hospital for more than a month and his prolonged public absence has stoked speculation that he could choose to follow his predecessor Benedict XVI and resign the papacy.
But his friends and biographers have insisted he has no plans to step down, and the approval of a new three-year process indicated he wants to continue on, despite his age and the possibility he might face a long, fraught road to recovery from pneumonia, given his age and other medical conditions.
"The Holy Father ... is helping push the renewal of the Church toward a new missionary impulse," Cardinal Mario Grech, the Church official leading the reform process told the Vatican's media outlet. "This is truly a sign of hope."
After last October's inconclusive Vatican summit, which yielded no concrete action on possible reforms, Francis had faced questions of whether his papacy was running out of steam.
Vatican officials had said at the time that Francis was still considering future changes, and was waiting to receive a series of ten expected reports about possible reforms this June.
The latest medical bulletins from the Vatican on the pope's condition in hospital have said he is improving and is no longer in immediate danger of death.
They have not said when he will be discharged from hospital.
AnewZ has learned that India has once again blocked Azerbaijan’s application for full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, while Pakistan’s recent decision to consider diplomatic relations with Armenia has been coordinated with Baku as part of Azerbaijan’s peace agenda.
A day of mourning has been declared in Portugal to pay respect to victims who lost their lives in the Lisbon Funicular crash which happened on Wednesday evening.
A Polish Air Force pilot was killed on Thursday when an F-16 fighter jet crashed during a training flight ahead of the 2025 Radom International Air Show.
Music mega-star Taylor Swift and National Football League player Travis Kelce announced their engagement. “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married," the couple wrote in a joint Instagram post, alongside photos of Kelce proposing to Swift in a garden of pink and white flowers.
Nepal’s President Ramchandra Paudel has dissolved parliament and called fresh elections for 5 March, following a week of deadly unrest that ended with the country appointing its first woman prime minister.
A few days after U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order renaming the Department of Defense as the Department of War, his administration has carried out a similar rebranding within the White House.
London police will deploy additional officers on Saturday as right-wing, anti-immigration activists and anti-racism campaigners stage rival demonstrations, heightening concerns of possible clashes.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Washington stood firmly with the Philippines, rejecting what he called China’s “destabilising plans” for a disputed atoll in the South China Sea.
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