Father Adolfo Nicolás was elected Superior General of the Society of Jesus yesterday in a solemn ceremony following four days of prayer and conversation by the 217 electors who came to Rome from all over the world.
He succeeds Fr Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, SJ, whose resignation was accepted by the 35th General Congregation last Monday.
Fr Nicolás, who has a doctorate in Sacred Theology, was appointed the 29th successor of St Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus.
Born in 1936 in Palencia, Spain, Fr Nicolás was Provincial of the Province of Japan in 1993 before becoming president of the Jesuit Conference of South East Asia and Oceania in 2004, where he was responsible for bringing Jesuits across the region together to think beyond their own countries, and confront challenges facing the globe.
Today there will be a concelebrated thanksgiving Mass at 4 p.m. at the Gesù church in Rome.
Ten die in Angolan plane crash
A light aircraft crashed into a mountain near the Angolan city of Huambo yesterday killing all ten people on board, Portugal's Lusa news agency said on Saturday.
Portugal's Lusa news agency cited a source close to the Angolan government as saying two of the victims were Portuguese. The head of Angola's national aviation centre, Celso Rosas, told Lusa that bad weather may have caused the airplane to crash.
The airplane belonged to a company that operates chartered flights in Angola, a former Portuguese colony in southwest Africa.
Porn DVDs marked as auto parts
Shanghai railway police confiscated more than 8,000 bootleg pornographic DVDs that were being transported in boxes marked "auto parts", Xinhua news agency said yesterday.
Two men confessed they bought the discs in Guangzhou, the capital of China's southern Guangdong Province. They had hoped to cash in on the forthcoming Chinese New Year holidays, when more people will stay at home and watch DVDs.
On Thursday, police spotted the two young men loading boxes labelled as auto components at the rail station in a northern suburb. They confiscated the DVDs and detained the suspects.
China bans pornography as part of restrictions on 'spiritual pollution'.
Reward for killers of Belgians
Yemen offered a 15 million Yemeni rial (around $75,000) reward yesterday for information leading to the capture of gunmen who killed two Belgian tourists and their two Yemeni drivers, a security official said.
Friday's attack came less than a week after Al-Qaeda's wing in Yemen vowed to carry out unspecified operations to win the release of jailed Islamic militants.
Yemeni officials have not ruled out Al-Qaeda involvement in the attack and are searching for the attackers though no one has claimed responsibility for the shooting near the eastern city of Shibam, famous for its old towers, in the Hadramout region.
"We do not dismiss Al-Qaeda's involvement, considering the style of the attack and the group's frequent threats against foreign interests in the region," a government official said.
In July, a suicide bombing killed seven Spanish tourists and wounded six at the Queen of Sheba Temple.
Pressed out of presidential race
Former Russian Prime Minister and Kremlin critic Mikhail Kasyanov said yesterday the interior and justice ministries were conducting a co-ordinated campaign to prevent him running for president.
The March 2 presidential election looks almost certain to be won by current President Vladimir Putin's preferred candidate Dmitry Medvedev, allowing the popular Putin to retain influence after the constitution obliges him to step down.
Kasyanov, who earlier this week applied to the Central Election Commission to run, said state law-enforcement officials were putting heavy pressure upon members of his opposition Popular Democratic Front.
"With references to orders by higher authorities, people are threatened, pressed to confess to alleged illegal activities, forced to abandon membership in the political party," Kasyanov said in a statement published on his website.
Kasyanov is running as an independent in the election because his party is not represented in a parliament dominated by pro-Kremlin groups.
The election commission is expected to decide on Sunday whether he is qualified to stand as a presidential candidate.