Nine Christian leaders were arrested after hosting a prayer vigil at the Minister for Justice’s office. They were part of ‘Love Makes A Way’ and were protesting over the deportation of 267 people to detention camps in Nauru. Most of the people were seeking asylum and medical treatment in Australia and 30 of them were babies born in Australia to refugee mothers. But Australia has worked hard to deter refugees. ‘No-one should be detained on Nauru, where there is no functioning hospital – it would be particularly cruel to rip children out of classrooms and send away these 37 babies born on Australian soil,’ said Love Makes a Way spokesperson Kate Leaney. The Christian leaders occupied the office to pray and to appeal to Justice Minister Michael Keenan so that he might stand for freedom from oppression for people seeking asylum in Australia. 10 churches have offered to take in the asylum seekers.

Police face criticism for allegedly failing to stop Wednesday's mob attack on an African student in Bangalore. A young Tanzanian woman was pulled from her car, stripped, beaten, paraded naked and sexually assaulted by young Indian men. Her car was set afire and a local policeman took no action. A short time before this outrageous attack a drunk Sudanese student ran over and killed an Indian woman on the same street. He too was pulled from his car and beaten; his car was set afire. Both were horrendous incidents on the same street just minutes apart. Both incidents fed the prejudices bubbling just below the surface of young Indian males. Pray for more to be done to prevent racial discrimination and for the mob culture emerging to be eradicated.

The pontiff showed solidarity with migrants in a rebuttal to the GOP (Grand Old Party – Republican) front-runner. Without naming him, Pope Francis rebuked Donald Trump and GOP immigration hardliners during a visit to the US/Mexico border. He led Mass in a field just a few hundred feet away from the United States. He laid flowers at a nearby memorial honouring migrants who had died trying to cross the border. He said, ‘We cannot deny the humanitarian crisis which in recent years has meant migration for thousands by train, highway or foot, crossing hundreds of kilometres through mountains, deserts and other inhospitable zones. The human tragedy that forces migration is a global phenomenon. They are expelled by poverty, violence, drug trafficking and criminal organisations. No more death! No more exploitation! There is still time to change, there is still a way out and a chance, time to implore the mercy of God.’

An estimated 50 people were killed in missile attacks on at least four hospitals and a school in rebel-held northern Syria on Monday. Russia has been accused of being responsible for the attacks. The UN said intentionally directing attacks at hospitals constitutes a war crime. In an article by President Putin’s press secretary Mr Peskov in a Russian newspaper, the Kremlin said, ‘accusations against the Russian Federation in the video-conferencing application of air strikes on hospitals in Syria were unacceptable. We categorically allot as deplorable those who make such statements and are unable to somehow prove their allegations’. Asked by journalists to comment on the information about the hospital bombardment in Syria’s Idlib province, as well as accusations of Russian air and space forces in this incident, Peskov called for people to go back to the source and noted that Syria's Ambassador to Russia, Riyad Haddad said that the hospital in Idlib province was destroyed by the Americans, not by the Russian for