Paris attacks suspect said to be planning new acts
BRUSSELS – The top suspect in last year’s Paris attacks told investigators after he was captured that he was planning new operations from Brussels and possibly had access to several weapons, Belgium’s foreign minister said Sunday.
Salah Abdeslam had claimed that “he was ready to restart something from Brussels, and it’s maybe the reality,” Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said.
Reynders gave credence to the suspect’s claim because “we found a lot of weapons, heavy weapons in the first investigations, and we have seen a new network of people around him in Brussels.”
Abdeslam, captured Friday in a police raid in Brussels, was charged Saturday with “terrorist murder” by Belgian authorities. He is a top suspect in the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead.
Pope decries indifference to refugees on Palm Sunday
VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis in his Palm Sunday homily decried what he called indifference to the refugees flooding into Europe, making a comparison to authorities who washed their hands of Jesus’ fate ahead of his crucifixion.
Before celebrating an outdoor Mass, Francis led a procession through St. Peter’s Square to usher in Holy Week, the solemn period leading to Easter. Faithful Catholics clutching olive branches and braided palm fronds received his blessing.
Francis abandoned his homily text to lament Europe’s handling of the influx of migrants and asylum-seekers fleeing war, persecution or poverty from Syria, Iraq, Africa and elsewhere.
Palm Sunday recalls a crowd’s triumphant welcome of Jesus entering Jerusalem. But soon Jesus would be condemned to be crucified after a series of authorities declined to rule on his fate. Francis drew a parallel to that with some European countries’ refusal to take responsibility for some of the more than 1 million refugees who reached European Union shores last year after risky sea voyages arranged by smugglers.
India shines light on the plight of the disabled
NEW DELHI – Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new push for accessibility has galvanized a disability rights movement in a country with a notably poor record on inclusive infrastructure. Experts say that the Accessible India initiative, launched in December, focuses for the first time on removing the barriers in the environment – a radical cultural shift from the charity and pity model that has long dominated how Indians have viewed people with disabilities.
Indians most commonly have served the disabled with a sympathetic helping hand and monetary donations but rarely envisioned a world in which they could function independently. That has left the more than 26 million people with disabilities in India facing inaccessible roads, buildings, schools, television programs and information. And activists say it places India at a stage similar to where the United States was in the 1960s. There are roughly 1 billion people with disabilities worldwide.
“Not too many people in India even know what disability access means. This is the first ever systematic effort to create a culture of accessibility,” said Mukesh Jain, joint secretary of the Department of Empowerment of Persons With Disabilities. “We just have 18 auditors today. We have to develop a pool of at least 1,000 trained accessibility auditors in the next four months.”
Over the next year, Jain hopes to inspect public buildings, airports and railway stations, redesign government websites and open a sign language university.
Associated Press & Washington Post
