A villager carries kittens on a basket towards dry land as he wades through floodwaters, followed by the mother of the kittens, on the outskirts of Cuttack city, about 30 kilometres from the eastern Indian city of Bhubaneshwar yesterday. Around 700,000 people have been affected by floods in 14 districts of Orissa even as the state government launched relief and rescue measures on a war-footing, according to a news agency.

Priests protest at prayer decision

Religious leaders are protesting at New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s decision not to include a clergy-led prayer in the city’s ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

About two dozen ministers gathered yesterday in front of St Paul’s Chapel in lower Manhattan.

The group planned to walk to the edge of ground zero and hold a prayer service there.

The Rev Rob Schenck notes that clergy members ministered to people in New York after the attacks. He says it was hurtful not to include religious leaders in today’s ceremony.

Cambodian boy suckles from cow

A Cambodian man said his young grandson has lived partly on milk he suckles directly from a cow since the boy’s parents left their rural village in search of work.

Um Oeung said 20-month-old Tha Sophat started suckling the cow in July after he saw a calf do the same.

Um Oeung said he pulled the boy away at first. He relented after his grandson protested loudly and the boy has suckled the cow’s milk once or twice a day since then.

Tha Sophat has lived with his grandparents in Siem Reap province in north west Cambodia since his parents moved to Thailand looking for work.

Um Oeung said last Friday the cow doesn’t mind the boy suckling but he is worried about his grandson’s health if he continues.

Seven-year-olds armed with knives

British schoolchildren as young as seven are taking knives and other weapons into the classroom, research out yesterday reveals.

The Centre fo Social Justice claims a climate of fear is gripping pupils at some of Britain’s poorest schools and warns there is a “profound failure” in some institutions to deal with disruptive behaviour.

In its report No Excuses: A review of educational exclusion, it also found nine-year-olds in one school turned up regularly wearing local street gang colours.

It states: “The extent to which pupils in some of our schools are feeling unsafe and the impact that weapon-carrying street gang activity and conflict is having on their behaviour is staggering.

“During evidence to the CSJ, the head of a primary referral unit cited a number of examples of 7-11-year-olds being sent to the pupil referral unit for having brought knives into their primary school.

“Often the children said that they had brought the knives in because they were being bullied in school, to scare someone, or because they were being bullied by older children or, in one example, by someone’s father, on their way home from school.

“One witness to our review informed us that some pupils who truant may be doing so because they are getting robbed or bullied on the way home from school.”

Pope insists, not in God’s name

Pope Benedict XVI has insisted that violence must never be carried out in God’s name as he marks the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

The Pope sent a letter to Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York on the eve of the anniversary.

He said yesterday he was praying for the thousands of innocent victims of the “brutal assault” and hoped that their families may find continued consolation.

He says the tragedy of the day was compounded by the attackers’ claim that they were acting in God’s name. He insists that “no circumstances can ever justify acts of terrorism”.

He calls for a greater commitment to justice and a “global culture of solidarity” to rid the world of the types of grievances that spark such acts of violence.