While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, April 27, 2025
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Pope Francis’s funeral mass in St Peter’s Square in Vatican City.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
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Pope Francis laid to rest as 400,000 mourn ‘with open heart’
Hundreds of thousands of mourners joined world leaders, including US President Donald Trump, to bid farewell on April 26 to Pope Francis, a champion of the poor who strived to forge a more compassionate Catholic church.
The Vatican said 400,000 people packed St Peter’s Square and lined the streets of Rome for the funeral of the first Latin American leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.
After a solemn funeral, the Argentine pontiff’s plain wooden coffin – a testament to a life of humility – was driven slowly to Rome’s Santa Maria Maggiore church, where he was interred in a private ceremony.
Cardinals marked his coffin with red wax seals before it was lowered into a tomb set inside an alcove, according to images released by the Vatican.
Trump says Putin ‘has to be dealt with differently’ after Zelensky talks
PHOTO: NYTIMES
US President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky met briefly in the hush of St Peter’s basilica before Pope Francis’s funeral on April 26 in their first encounter since a noisy White House clash, and the US president later cast doubt on whether Russian leader Vladimir Putin wants a peace deal.
Mr Zelensky said they discussed a possible unconditional ceasefire with Russia and was “hoping for results” from a “very symbolic meeting that has the potential to become historic”.
After leaving Rome, Mr Trump indicated a new approach to the Russian president.
Palestinian leader Abbas names likely successor in bid to reassure world powers
PHOTO: AFP
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas named close confidant Hussein al-Sheikh as his deputy and likely successor on April 26, the Palestine Liberation Organisation said, a step widely seen as needed to assuage international doubts over Palestinian leadership.
Mr Abbas, 89, has headed the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) since the death of veteran leader Yasser Arafat in 2004 but he had for years resisted internal reforms including the naming of a successor.
Mr Sheikh, born in 1960, is a veteran of Fatah, the main PLO faction which was founded by Mr Arafat and is now headed by Mr Abbas. He is widely viewed as a pragmatist with very close ties to Israel.
Iran says ‘extremely cautious’ on success of nuclear talks with US
PHOTOS: REUTERS, AFP
Iran and the United States have agreed to continue nuclear talks next week, both sides said on April 26, though Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi voiced “extreme cautious” about the success of the negotiations to resolve a decades-long standoff.
US President Donald Trump has signalled confidence in clinching a new pact with the Islamic Republic that would block Tehran’s path to a nuclear bomb.
Mr Araqchi and Mr Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff held a third round of the talks in Muscat through Omani mediators for around six hours, a week after a second round in Rome that both sides described as constructive.
Suspected chemical blast at Iran’s Bandar Abbas kills 14
A huge blast probably caused by the explosion of chemical materials killed at least 14 people and injured more than 700 on April 26 at Iran’s biggest port, Bandar Abbas, Iranian state media reported.
The explosion, which hit the Shahid Rajaee section of the port, occurred as Iran began a third round of nuclear talks with the United States in Oman, but there was no indication of a link between the two events.
Mr Hossein Zafari, a spokesperson for Iran’s crisis management organisation, appeared to blame the explosion on poor storage of chemicals in containers at Shahid Rajaee.
