LaNUBlog™

French President Francois Hollande has said a Roma girl who was removed from her school bus and deported can return to finish her studies, but that her family cannot. Leonarda Dibrani, 15, was expelled along with her parents and five siblings earlier this month after they lost their battle for asylum in France. The case has sparked protests by student groups across the country. A government investigation ruled that the deportation had been legal. But the report, released on Saturday, said any future such action against school children should be taken outside school hours. The Dibrani family left Kosovo for France five years ago and were living in Levier, in the Doubs region of eastern France. They cited discrimination in Kosovo as grounds for asylum. An order for their expulsion was issued after they lost their battle for asylum. After two postponements, it was rescheduled for October and the father, who was detained in a different town, was expelled on 8 October. Leonarda had s...

A maximum life sentence for the worst cases of human trafficking and exploitation is to be introduced. It comes after Home Secretary Theresa May said tougher sanctions would be brought in to tackle modern-day slavery earlier this year. The number of cases of human trafficking discovered in the UK has risen by 25% in the last year, according to new government figures. Trafficking from Albania, Poland and Lithuania has seen a big rise. Ministers are planning new legislation to simplify the law on slavery, and make it easier to bring prosecutions. Victims are often trafficked for sexual exploitation, construction work or begging gangs. A new report by the inter-departmental ministerial group on human trafficking has revealed that 1,186 victims were referred to the authorities in 2012, compared with 946 victims in 2011. The report revealed the largest number of victims of trafficking were from Nigeria, Vietnam, Albania, Romania and China. Forced begging There has been a 300% incre...

Pope Francis is in the Umbrian hillside town of Assisi to pray at the shrine of the 13th-Century saint whose name he adopted when elected earlier this year. Francis is accompanied by eight cardinals, with whom he has spent the past three days discussing a radical programme of reform for the Vatican. He has said he wants today's Catholic Church to resemble Francis of Assisi's "Church of the poor". He wants to use abandoned monasteries and convents to house refugees. "The world does not care about the many people fleeing slavery, hunger, fleeing in search of freedom Pope Francis on Lampedusa And he says he wants to see a less hierarchical Church that is less centred on the Vatican. 'Pastry-shop Christians' Speaking in a hall where St Francis was said to have thrown off his robes in a gesture of humility, the Pope called on the Catholic Church and its followers to rid themselves of earthly concerns. "The Church, all of us should divest ourselve...

It is likely the bones were washed from a nearby burial site along one of London's "lost" rivers - the Walbrook. Since the Crossrail project began, about 10,000 Roman items have been discovered. These latest finds could give new insights into the lives of Roman people. Near-intact pottery artefacts were also found which likely travelled along the same route as the skulls. Other bone fragments would not have been washed as easily down the river. Paved over in the 15th Century, the Walbrook river divided the western and eastern parts of the city, its moist muddy walls providing exceptionally good conditions for artefacts to be preserved. The discoveries were found about three metres below ground and underneath the the Bedlam cemetery, a burial ground where hundreds of skeletons have been unearthed. Though they have yet to be forensically dated, Nicholas Elsden from the Museum of London Archaeology said they were likely to be from the 3rd to 4th centuries AD, as ...

Born in Argentina, Pope Francis is the first Latin American to lead the Roman Catholic Church, as well as the first Jesuit. "It seems my brother cardinals went almost to the end of the world" to choose a pope, he told the crowd in St Peter's Square in his first address - a joke which belied his image as the cardinal who never smiles. Up until 13 March, he was Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires. Analysts did not see him as a favourite for the job of succeeding Benedict XVI and his advanced age - at 76, he is just two years younger than Benedict at the time of his election in 2005 - may have surprised those expecting a younger man as the 266th Pope. However, he appeals to both Church conservatives and reformers, being seen as orthodox on sexual matters, for instance, but liberal on social justice - through far from being a "liberation theologist". Humble lifestyle He was born on 17 December 1936 in Buenos Aires, of Italian descent. According to his off...

Pope Francis has held his first meeting with a special group of cardinals to consider ways to reform the Vatican. The group, known as the Vatican G8, has been chosen from outside the Holy See's administration to ensure independence. Made up of eight cardinals picked by Francis from around the world, the group is looking at ways to reshape the Roman Catholic Church's bureaucracy. Francis said in a newspaper interview that the Vatican had become too self-interested and needed to be inclusive. The Church's central administration has been hit by numerous scandals in recent years, with bishops around the world criticising it as autocratic and heavy-handed. As the three-day talks got underway, Italy's La Repubblica newspaper printed an interview with Francisin which he spoke about problems facing the Vatican's administration. In it he denounced its "Vatican-centric" attitude and conceded that his predecessors had been infatuated with the pomp of the Vatican and...

Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXIII will be declared saints on 27 April 2014, Pope Francis has announced. The Pope said in July that he would canonise his two predecessors, after approving a second miracle attributed to John Paul. Polish John Paul, the first non-Italian pope for more than 400 years, led the Catholic Church from 1978-2005. Pope John was pontiff from 1958-1963, calling the Second Vatican Council that transformed the Church. The decision to canonise the two at the same time appears designed to unify Catholics, correspondents say. John Paul II is a favourite of conservative Catholics, while John XXIII is widely admired by the Church's progressive wing. John Paul stood out for his media-friendly, globetrotting style. He was a fierce critic of both communism and what he saw as the excesses of capitalism. John is remembered for introducing the vernacular to replace Latin in church masses and for creating warmer ties between the Catholic Church and the Jewish fait...

Officials in Rome overseeing the continuing search for bodies around the wreck of the Costa Concordia say unidentified remains have been found. Two people have been unaccounted for since the night the ship sank off the Italian shore in a disaster which claimed the lives of 30 other people. The 290m (951 ft) vessel was raised upright last week in a major salvage operation off Giglio island. Its captain is on trial over the disaster in January of last year. Francesco Schettino is accused of manslaughter, causing the shipwreck and abandoning ship, but says he is being made a scapegoat for others' errors. "During a search in the water near the central part of the ship, coast guard and police divers found remains which still have to be identified with DNA," Italy's civil protection agency said in a statement on Thursday. An Indian waiter, Russel Rebello, and Italian passenger Maria Grazia Trecarichi were reported missing, presumed dead, after the disaster. Civil pro...

Pope Francis says the Catholic Church must strive to heal wounds Pope Francis has said the Catholic Church is too focused on preaching about abortion, gay people and contraception and needs to become more merciful. He warned that the Church's moral structure could "fall like a house of cards" unless it changed. The Pope used the first major interview of his papacy to explain comments he made in July about homosexuality. He told a Jesuit magazine the Church must show balance and "heal wounds". The pontiff used the 12,000-word interview with La Civilta Cattolica to set out his priorities as Pope, acknowledge his own shortcomings and open up about his cultural interests. 'Freshness and fragrance' His vision for relegating the Catholic Church's reliance on rules marks a contrast to the priorities of his predecessors, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, who saw doctrine as the paramount guide for clergy "The church's pastoral ministry cannot b...