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Zimbabwe evictions of urban poor decried; Methodist deported: Pastors call on government to end crackdown

Religious and human rights groups, along with a top UN official, are calling on the Zimbabwe government to end its campaign of evicting the urban poor and destroying their shacks and market stalls.

An estimated 200,000 people have lost their homes and another 30,000 have been arrested or detained since the government began its “cleanup” May 19, according to Miloon Kothari, a UN expert on housing.

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Italy named a mountain peak for Pope John Paul II on what would have been his 85th birthday May 18. At the same time, some 12,285 people have signed an online petition to call the late pope “John Paul the Great,” even as his potential sainthood has been approved for fast-track status by his successor, Pope Benedict XVI. John Paul died April 2 at age 84. His 26-year reign was the third-longest in church history. The peak named after John Paul is in the Gran Sasso Mountains in the Apennines range east of Rome.