Pope Heavily Saddened by the School Shooting in US.

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI says he is praying for those who lost loved ones, especially children, in the U.S. school shootings.
Greeting English-speaking pilgrims in St. Peter's Square on Sunday, Benedict said he was ''deeply saddened by Friday's senseless violence" in a small Connecticut town. He prayed for consolation for grieving hearts and assured the families of the victims that he is close to them in prayer.
A gunman killed 20 children and six adults at a school in Newtown, Connecticut, leaving people shocked and grieving around the world.

Egypt Votes on its Constitution.

CAIRO — Egyptians endorsed a controversial, Islamist-backed constitution after the first day of voting, but without the support of the capital, according to initial results, raising new doubts that it could bring stability to an increasingly polarized Egypt.
According to newspaper tallies of the votes, 56 percent of Egyptians in the ten governorates who voted on Saturday endorsed the constitution. But in Cairo, 57 percent rejected it. The vote continues Dec. 22 when the remaining 17 governorates are scheduled to vote.
The vote appeared to be as much a referendum on Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, the party through which Morsi ascended to the presidency, as the constitution itself.
Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood heralded the new document as the pathway to stability. But the opposition groups – Christians, secularists, liberals and moderates – called it divisive and unrepresentative.
Where voters were once festive and exuberant to take part in past elections, on Saturday the crowds were weary, even those embracing the constitution. This was Egypt’s third election this year and with each vote, the country has only become more divided.
And since the constitutional assembly hastily passed the document earlier this month, nine Egyptians have died in protests, the deadliest political crisis since Morsi’s June election.
There were accusations throughout the day of judges swaying voters, vote rigging, supporters outside telling voters who to choose and voters already listed as having cast ballots when they had not.
There were fewer election monitors Saturday as international groups did not have enough time to send representatives, and opposition groups hurriedly looked for volunteers, creating a cloud of doubt over the process.
The main opposition group, the National Salvation Front, said it had received complaints of “tens of violations.”
Voters stood in long lines as many judges boycotted the process, leading to fewer polling stations. Some accused their opponents of impropriety. Others expressed little hope that the proposed constitution would be an enduring document.
Supporters called it flawed, but the starting point for a stable government. Many said they embraced it because it included provisions that allowed parliament to make changes.

Nigeria governor, 5 others die in Helicopter Crash.

LAGOS, Nigeria -- A navy helicopter crashed Saturday in Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta, killing a state governor and five other people, in the latest air disaster to hit Africa's most populous nation, officials said.
Nigeria's presidency said in a statement that the governor of the central Nigerian state of Kaduna, Patrick Yakowa, died in the helicopter crash in Bayelsa state in the Niger Delta.
The former national security adviser, General Andrew Azazi, also died in the crash, the statement said. Azazi was fired in June amid growing sectarian violence in Nigeria, but maintained close ties with the government. The other victims were aides to Yakowa and Azazi and the two helicopter pilots, it said.
President Goodluck Jonathan's spokesman, Reuben Abati, said in a statement that their loss was "extremely painful to the entire nation."
He said the president had ordered an investigation to determine the cause of the crash.
The crash occurred at about 3:30 p.m. after the navy helicopter took off from the village of Okoroba in Bayelsa state where officials had gathered to attend the burial of the father of a presidential aide, said Commodore Kabir Aliyu. He said the helicopter was headed for Nigeria's oil capital of Port Harcourt when it crashed in the Nembe area of Bayelsa state.
Aviation disasters remain common in Nigeria, despite efforts in recent years to improve air safety.
In October, a plane made a crash landing in central Nigeria. A state governor and five others sustained injuries but survived.
In June, a Dana Air MD-83 passenger plane crashed into a neighborhood in the commercial capital of Lagos, killing 153 people onboard and at least 10 people on the ground. It was Nigeria's worst air crash in nearly two decades.
In March, a police helicopter carrying a high-ranking police official crashed in the central Nigerian city of Jos, killing four people.

Gunmen kill Nigerian Lawmaker.

GUNMEN on a motorcycle have shot dead a prominent lawmaker in northern Nigeria, police say, in the latest in a series of such attacks in a region hit hard by a radical Islamist group.
It was not clear who carried out the shooting in Kano, Nigeria's second city, on Friday, but Boko Haram Islamists have repeatedly targeted politicians in the north as part of an insurgency that has killed hundreds since 2009.
"I can confirm that Danladi Isa Kademi, a lawmaker at the Kano state house of assembly was shot dead by two gunmen around 6pm (local time) today," said Kano state police spokesman Magaji Majia.
"The gunmen came on a motorcycle and fired several shots into the lawmaker," who was serving as the minority leader in the state assembly.
Kademi was shot outside a guesthouse he owned, Majia said.
Another state politician was killed in similar circumstances last month in Kano, weeks after a prominent retired general, Mohammed Shuwa, was shot dead at his home in the northeastern city of Maiduguri.

18 Children Among 27 Killed in US School Shooting

Eighteen children were killed on Friday morning in a shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, about 65 miles northeast of New York City, according to a person who had been briefed on the shooting. Another law enforcement official said preliminary reports suggested there could be as many as 20 fatalities.
(Past midnight India time, both AP and Reuters were reporting at least 27 deaths, including the 18 children. School staff were among the dead, police said.)
One state official said that an adult gunman was believed to be dead in the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The gunman had at least two firearms, the official said.
A student at the school told an NBC affiliate in Connecticut: “I was in the gym and I heard like seven loud booms, and the gym teachers told us to go in the corner and we huddled. We all heard these booming noises, and we started crying. So the gym teachers told us to go into the office where no one could find us. Then a police officer told us to run outside.”
Meredith Artley, managing editor of CNN.com quoted a friend who works at the school: “She said three people went out into the hall and only one person came back, the vice principal, who was shot in the leg or the foot, who came crawling back. She cowered under the table and called 911. She never saw the shooting. There must have been a hundred rounds,” Artley said.

The Prestigious UNESCO/Bilbao Prize Clinched by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

South Africa’s Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu was this week awarded the prestigious Unesco/Bilbao Prize for the Promotion of a Culture of Human Rights.
“In selecting Desmond Tutu, the jury recognized the outstanding role he played in building the new democratic, non-racial South Africa and his invaluable contribution as chairperson of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission … which became a model for other post-conflict societies,” Unesco (the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) said in a statement.
The prize recognized Tutu’s “courageous activism, particularly with young people, to promote non-violence and oppose all forms of discrimination and injustice”.
The biennial prize, which comes with a a US$30 000 cheque, was established in 2008 thanks to the City of Bilbao.
French human rights activist Stéphane Hessel was the first laureate, followed by Pakistani human rights campaigner Asma Jahangir in 2010.
South African President, Jacob Zuma, congratulated Tutu, saying he had been “a tireless and visible ambassador of our country all over the world, promoting human rights and justice.
“Even in his retirement he continues to be a beacon of hope, an elder statesman who is highly regarded by the South African people,” Zuma said in a statement.
“He has never veered away from his mission of building a better society. We extend our sincere congratulations on behalf of government.”

ANPP:Opposition Parties to Conclude Merger Plans by 2013.

The ANPP has disclosed that it will conclude its merger arrangement with other opposition political parties by the first quarter of 2013 in order to produce the next president in 2015.
The party said this on Thursday, in Enugu, at its 2012 South-East zonal summit, where it described the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan as a failure.
he party’s National Chairman, Rebuilding and Interparty Contact Committee, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau,a former Governor of Kano State said the 21-man committee would come out with the new identity of the merger by 2013.
Shekarau said the party was already in merger talks with the Congress for Progressive Change, Action Congress of Nigeria, Democratic People’s Party, Governor Rochas Okorocha’s faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, among others.
“The merger plan will be concluded not later than the first quarter of next year so that we would have at least two years to go into every nook and cranny of the country before the 2015 general elections.said Shekarau.
“This committee was put up by the party to catch up with the views, aspirations and visions of ordinary Nigerians for change for the better.
“The plan became necessary since the Goodluck Jonathan administration has failed Nigerians in all sectors. There is no employment for the youth, no security, and no power and above all, the rate corruption has increased and highly placed Nigerians can’t even be touched.”
Shekarau added, “People are clamouring for alternatives. What is happening today is a situation of making the available the desirable since the desirable is not available.
“We are only tolerating the  government at the centre because we don’t currently have an alternative, and since we cannot wait for heaven to provide us with an alternative, we have chosen to take the bull by the horns to build a strong merger to push out Jonathan government in 2015.”
Shekarau had earlier said the committee was in the South-East to gather the observations, criticisms and advice of party members with a view to rebuilding the party.
Meanwhile, he listed the committee terms of references to include looking at the party and recommend ways to make it more attractive, particularly on ways to get party leaders to show more interest in participating in party functions and to exhaustibly discuss issues of party funding.
Others are to identify party leaders who left the party and have remained without joining other parties; with the view to bringing them back into the party and to enter into merger discussions with other political parties as a way of performing better in subsequently among others.
A member of the merger committee, Senator Bukar Ibrahim, expressed optimism that a merger was the only alternative for a substantive change in the 2015 elections.
Ibrahim, currently in the Senate, prayed against Boko Haram menace in the country. He said, “Let us pray that this Boko Haram problem will stop in Nigeria before the next elections otherwise, I do not think there will be any election.”
Some of the members of the party who spoke at the summit supported the merger plan, adding that the party must not lose its value because of the plan.