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Tag: rome

  • Tinubu arrives Rome for Pope Leo XIV’s inauguration

    Tinubu arrives Rome for Pope Leo XIV’s inauguration

    President Bola Ahmed Tinubu arrived in Rome on Saturday evening to attend the inauguration mass of Pope Leo XIV, the newly elected head of the Roman Catholic Church.

    Touching down at the Military Airport in the Italian capital around 5:00pm local time, Tinubu was received by senior Nigerian government officials stationed in Europe. 

    His visit comes at the invitation of the Vatican, following the recent election of Pope Leo XIV by the College of Cardinals, making him the 267th Pontiff and Bishop of Rome.

    The Presidency confirmed the president’s trip in a statement on Thursday, describing the visit as part of Nigeria’s ongoing diplomatic engagement with the Holy See. 

    The Vatican, in its formal invitation, emphasized the significance of President Tinubu’s presence at a time of global unrest and spiritual reflection.

    In a personal message sent to President Tinubu, Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin conveyed the Pope’s deep appreciation for Nigeria’s participation. 

    “Your presence is significant at this moment of particular importance for the Catholic Church and the world afflicted by many tensions and conflicts,” the Pope wrote, recalling his fond memories of Nigeria. 

    “Your great nation is particularly dear to me, as I worked in the Apostolic Nunciature in Lagos during the 1980s,” he added.

    Read Also: Tinubu commits to curbing insurgency

    Tinubu is accompanied by a high-level delegation that includes Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu; the Archbishop of Owerri and President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria, Most Rev. Lucius Ugorji; Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Abuja; and Archbishop Alfred Adewale Martins of Lagos.

    The inaugural mass marks the beginning of a new papal era and is expected to draw dignitaries from across the globe, reflecting the global significance of the Catholic Church’s leadership transition.

    The President is expected back in the country on Tuesday, according to a statement by Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga.

    Tinubu’s attendance underscores Nigeria’s commitment to interfaith dialogue, religious diplomacy, and global peace efforts.

  • Israel/Hamas war: Christian pilgrims now for Rome, Greece

    Israel/Hamas war: Christian pilgrims now for Rome, Greece

    The Nigeria Christian Pilgrims Commission (NCPC) has made changes in the destinations for Christian pilgrims in the hold lands.

    The ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas as well as concern for the safety and welfare of Nigerian pilgrims necessitated the change from Israel and Jordan to the Biblical sites in Rome and Greece.

    NCPC’s Executive Secretary, Reverend Yakubu Pam, announced this yesterday in Abuja.

    Pam said although the commission had arranged for Nigerian Christian pilgrims to embark on the year’s main pilgrimage to Israel and Jordan late last year, the outbreak of the October 7, 2023 invasion of Israel and the subsequent conflicts that spread beyond the country’s borders necessitated a pause and the new decision to redirect the Christian pilgrimage to Rome (Italy) and Greece instead.

    Addressing reporters in Abuja, Reverend Pam emphasised that the safety and security of Nigerian citizens has always been the prime concern of the commission.

    Read Also; Strengthening the National Safe Schools Initiative

    The NCPC chairman said the Christian pilgrimage to Israel and Jordan, earlier scheduled for December 2023, was suspended due to safety concerns.

    He added that it was being replaced with pilgrimage to Rome and holy sites in Greece by the end of this month.

    Pam said it took years before the NCPC under his watch considered visits to remarkable Biblical sites in Jordan, a Muslim country.

    The commission chairman said after a prolonged wait for the Israel/Hamas conflict to end, his teams’ previous researches on Biblical sites in Greece and Rome were properly analysed.

    Pam said he had personally led teams to inspect accommodation facilities and existing biblical sites, among other tasks.

    He said: “I have led NCPC teams to inspect holy sites across Greece and Rome. We have discussed extensively with government and local authorities and security. Accommodation and good hospitality is assured as the very first batch of Nigerian Christian pilgrims visit these places to connect physically with New Testament locations of the gospel and do spiritual exercises, including meditation and prayers for our dear nation.

    “Also, arrangements for smooth flight, good meals and local transportation have been concluded for the 2023/2024 main pilgrimage. State governments, states’ offices of Christian pilgrims welfare boards, churches and individuals have been formally informed about the modalities and the N3 million cost that only requires some augmentation of payment previously made for the Israel/Jordan trip.

    “Unknown to many, Apostles Paul and Peter, as well as the early Christians are why we have Christian sites in Rome. It was …also in Greece they founded several Christian communities in Asia Minor and Europe from the mid-40s to the mid-50s AD and began the spread of Christianity across the world,” he said.

  • Foreign Minister calls for responsibility in migration row

    EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini called on member states to take “more responsibility” for migrants rescued in the Mediterranean Sea, as the issue made its way onto the agenda of an EU defence ministers’ meeting in Vienna.

    Italy’s populist government has taken a hard-line stance on migration, refusing to disembark people rescued at sea unless other EU member states offer to take them in.

    The issue is threatening Operation Sophia, an EU naval operation to fight human trafficking off the coast of Libya, which is set to run until the end of the year.

    When it was established in 2015, member states agreed that any migrants rescued would be taken to Italy.

    Rome is now demanding a change to those rules, threatening to close its ports to Operation Sophia’s vessels otherwise.

    Mogherini, who is Italian, argued that the management of migration flow is a common European issue, not one for a single country.

    Read Also:Security, economy, migration to dominate Merkel’s visit

    “This is why we have a EU operation at sea and that is why I believe that, even if it’s a very difficult discussion, it would be good if member states consider taking more responsibility in this respect,” she said ahead of Thursday’s informal talks in Vienna.

    German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen appealed to Italy not to hijack Operation Sophia.

    “It is also a question of credibility and reliability of the European mission.

    “We brought it into being. It runs until the end of the year. And it must continue until the end of the year,” von der Leyen said.

  • Pope becomes ice cream man for a day, gives homeless 3,000 gelati

    Pope Francis became an ice cream man for a day on Monday as Rome charity workers dished out 3,000 helpings of gelato to the homeless and needy as his gift to them on his name day.

    Francis was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio and, in keeping with papal tradition, does not celebrate his birthday, but the feast day of the saint he was named after at birth; Monday is the feast of St. George and a holiday in the Vatican.

    The Vatican’s alms-giving office said 3,000 ice creams would be given out in the pope’s name to homeless and needy people, who use the shelters, soup kitchens, health facilities and baths for the homeless in Rome, most run by Catholic charities.

    Francis has in the past treated Rome’s homeless to private tours of the Vatican Museums and a day at the circus as his guest.

    In 2017, to mark the Church’s first World Day of the Poor, he said a special Mass for about 7,000 poor people in St. Peter’s Square and then treated them to a gourmet lunch in the Vatican and in pontifical universities in Rome.

    Reuters/NAN

  • 200 killed in migrant shipwrecks

    Almost 200 people are feared to have died in two Mediterranean Sea migrant shipwrecks during the weekend, according to reports on Monday.
    The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Libya said that seven people were rescued off the north-western city of Zawiya, and one of them said 113 others were missing.
    The information was posted on Twitter and confirmed by an IOM Spokesman in Rome, Flavio Di Giacomo.
    Separately, 80 people died on Saturday after the rubber dinghy they were travelling on overturned, according to the ANSA news agency, which sourced its report from survivors’ accounts to Italian prosecutors.
    The sea channel between Italy and Libya is the world’s busiest and most dangerous sea migration route.
    More than 6,600 people were rescued there between Friday and Sunday.
    On Sunday, the Head of the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR, Filippo Grandi, said more than 1,150 people died or went missing since the start of the year in sea crossings to Europe.
    Grandi added that the mortality rate on the Libya-Italy route was one in 35.
    He praised efforts by non-governmental organisations (NGOs), noting they had carried out one third of rescue operations since January 1, and renewed calls for EU authorities to open legal migration channels to spare people from dangerous sea journeys.
    NGO involvement in sea rescues has become controversial since an Italian prosecutor accused them of acting in cahoots with Libyan people smugglers.
    The prosecutor says he has suspicions but no proof; the NGOs have rejected all charges.

     

  • Italy quake toll rises to nearly 250

    Italy quake toll rises to nearly 250

    ***rescuers struggle to find survivors

    The death toll from a devastating earthquake in central Italy rose sharply to almost 250 people early on Thursday after rescue teams worked through the night to try to find survivors under the rubble of flattened towns, Reuter reports.

    The provisional toll jumped to 247 from the 159 dead listed on Wednesday night, national and regional officials said as a wave of aftershocks rattled a cluster of mountain communities 140 km east of Rome. The strong 6.2 magnitude quake struck early on Wednesday as people slept, razing homes and buckling roads.

    It was powerful enough to be felt in Bologna to the north and Naples to the south, both more than 220 km from the epicenter. The sun rose on Thursday on many people who had slept in cars or tents, the earth continuing to tremble under their feet. Two powerful aftershocks registered 5.1 and 5.4.

    The toll appeared likely to surpass that from the last major quake to strike Italy, a temblor that killed more than 300 people in the central city of L’Aquila in 2009. At least 368 injured people had been taken to hospital by late on Wednesday, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said.

    One hotel that collapsed in the small town of Amatrice probably had about 70 guests and only seven bodies had been recovered so far, said the mayor of the one of the worst-hit towns. Rescuers working with emergency lighting in the darkness saved a 10-year-old girl, pulling her alive from the rubble where she had lain for some 17 hours in the hamlet of Pescara del Tronto.

    Many other children were not so lucky. A family of four, including two boys aged 8 months and 9 years, were buried when their house imploded in the nearby village of Accumoli. As rescue workers carried away the body of the infant, carefully covered by a small blanket, the children’s grandmother blamed God. “He took them all at once,” she wailed.

    Renzi said the Cabinet would meet on Thursday to decide measures to help the affected communities. “Today is a day for tears, tomorrow we can talk of reconstruction,” he told reporters late on Wednesday. Aerial photographs showed whole areas of Amatrice, last year voted one of Italy’s most beautiful historic towns, flattened by the quake.

     

  • Refugees are gift, not problem – Pope

    Refugees are gift, not problem – Pope

    Pope Francis on Tuesday issued a fresh call for solidarity toward migrants in a video message sent to the Italian chapter of the Jesuit Refugee Service, an international Catholic charity.

     

    He said “forgive the closure and the indifference of our societies, which are afraid of the changes in lifestyle and mentality that your presence requires.

     

    “Treated like a burden, a problem, a cost, you are instead a gift,’’ Francis said in the video which he directly addressed refugees.

     

    The remarks came three days after Francis visited a migrant centre on the Greek island of Lesbos and returned to Rome with 12 Syrian refugees who would be taken care of by the Vatican.

  • PTD sends officials to Rome for training

    PTD sends officials to Rome for training

    As part of efforts aimed at exposing its members to the best global practices in haulage, logistics business, health and safety, the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD), a branch of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas (NUPENG), said two batches of its members would head for Rome Business School, Italy, for a week training.

    The union said the training, with the theme: “Haulage, logistics, health and safety for petroleum tanker drivers”, is part of the transformation agenda pledged by the PTD National Chairman, Comrade Salimon Oladiti, for leaders of the union last year.

    A statement by PTD’ s National Public Relations Officer, Comrade Atanda Adebayo, said the first batch is presently in Rome for the one week course. The second batch, which will be led by the Deputy National Chairman, Comrade Lucky Osesua, had left the country for Rome, to return last Sunday.

    Adebayo said the trainings would also be undertaken at zonal and unit levels, while drivers on wheels are being trained locally in collaboration with the Federal Road Safety Corp (FRSC).

    He declared that continued training and retraining of officers and members, especially those on wheels, is pivotal and a continuous programme aimed at exposing the union members to modern technologies and techniques on new trucks and a change in attitude to driving.