The Vatican has said it will wait for the conclusion of the appeal process before taking action against Cardinal George Pell, who has been found guilty of child sexual abuse by a jury in Melbourne. The outcome of the trial was “painful news that has shocked many”, Alessandro Gisotti, the Vatican press spokesman, told reporters in VaticanCity.

“We reiterate the utmost respect for the Australian judicial authorities,” he said. “In this respect, we now await the outcome of the appeal process, recalling that Cardinal Pell has reiterated his innocence and has the right to defend himself to the last degree.” Pell, Australia’s most senior Catholic, was on leave from his role in Rome as Vatican treasurer throughout the trial, but his term in the role expired on Sunday. He was found guilty of sexually penetrating a child under the age of 16 as well as four charges of an indecent act with a child under the age of 16. The offences occurred in December 1996 and early 1997 at St Patrick’s Cathedral, months after Pell was inaugurated as archbishop of Melbourne.

He is due to be sentenced next week but may be taken into custody at a plea hearing on Wednesday, having been out on bail since the verdict and recovering from knee surgery. “While waiting for the final judgment, we join the Australian bishops in praying for all victims of abuse, reaffirming our commitment to do everything possible so that the church is a safe house for everyone, especially for children and the most vulnerable,” Gisotti said.(theguardian)…[+]

THE HAGUE– The World Court yesterday told Britain to give up control over the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean, and said it had wrongfully forced the population to leave in the 1970s to make way for a U.S. air base. Britain split the archipelago off from its colonial island territory of Mauritius in 1965, three years before granting independence to Mauritius – minus the islands.

In the early 1970s, it evicted almost 2,000 residents to Mauritius and the Seychelles to make way for the base on the largest island, Diego Garcia, which it had leased to the United States. In a non-binding advisory opinion, the top United Nations court for inter-state disputes said Britain had acted unlawfully in the decolonisation process and should relinquish control over the islands, which it calls the British Indian Ocean Territory. Although the court was not asked to issue an opinion on sovereignty, Monday’s decision in effect urged Britain to hand the islands, which it has controlled since 1814, over to Mauritius.(reuters)…[+]

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is ex­treme­ly con­cerned about the in­volve­ment of the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) in the reg­is­tra­tion of Venezue­lans, es­pe­cial­ly with two up­com­ing elec­tions and the coun­try’s his­to­ry of vote rig­ging. She com­ment­ed yes­ter­day against re­ports that a pol­i­cy is cur­rent­ly be­ing pre­pared for re­view by Cab­i­net to al­low Venezue­lans, whether here legal­ly or il­le­gal­ly, to be reg­is­tered to work in T&T for up to one year.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who at­tend­ed the Siparia Women’s As­so­ci­a­tion’s an­nu­al Chil­dren’s Car­ni­val in Pe­nal, said: “In refugee pol­i­cy and with Unit­ed Na­tions there are cer­tain pro­to­cols to be fol­lowed but I be­came ex­treme­ly dis­turbed when I heard Min­is­ter Moses, in an­swer­ing a ques­tion in the Par­lia­ment, say­ing that the EBC would be in­volved in help­ing to pre­pare some kind of reg­is­tra­tion card.(Trinidad Guardian)…[+]