Ismailis murdered in Karachi

AT LEAST 43 people from a minority Islamic sect have been killed in an attack on a bus in the Pakistani city of Karachi. The bus, carrying members of the Ismaili community, a small branch of Shia Islam, was boarded by five gunmen on Tuesday who shot dead dozens of unarmed civilians on their way to work. It was not clear which one of Pakistan's many terrorist groups was responsible. One, Jundullah, which is a splinter group from the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility, and said that it would attack more Ismailis, Shias, and Christians.

Bishop of Okinawa leads opposition to new US base

THE Bishop of Okinawa, in Japan, the Rt Revd David Eisho Uehara, is leading efforts by Christians on the island to oppose the construction of a new American military base. Bishop Uehara, who chairs the Okinawa Christian Council Committee, said in a letter to the Anglican Church in Japan that 80 per cent of Okinawans were against the plans to expand an existing United States Marines base. "The Bible teaches us to [hammer] swords and spears to make ploughs which . . . bear life," he wrote.

Statue of St John Paul II brought down by laicité

A SMALL town in northern France has been ordered by a local court to take down a nine-metre-tall bronze statue of St John Paul II. The statue contravenes a 1905 law regarding the separation of Church and State because of its "ostentatious" location in the town square, the court said. The Mayor of the town of Ploermel, where the statue was erected in 2006, has said that he will appeal against the verdict.