KATHMANDU, June 17: Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Ishwar Pokhrel said that recent bombing attacks in Sri Lanka signalled that a new type of terrorism threat has arrived in South Asia.

COLOMBO, April 28: Churches across Sri Lanka suspended Sunday mass as security concerns remained high a week after suicide bombers killed over 250 in churches and hotels across the island nation.

COLOMBO, April 24: The U.S. had no prior knowledge of the Easter bombings in Sri Lanka that killed over 350 people, the American ambassador said Wednesday, despite local claims that foreign officials had been warned an attack was looming.

COLOMBO, April 24: The death toll from the Easter Sunday suicide bombing attacks on churches and hotels in Sri Lanka rose to 359, police said on Wednesday without providing any further details.

KATHMANDU, April 21: Nepal’s Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Bishwambhar Pyakurel, has said that all Nepali nationals in Sri Lanka are safe.

COLOMBO, April 21: Sri Lankan police on Sunday reported there had been a seventh explosion, the fourth at a hotel, following six reported at hotels and churches earlier in the day that killed nearly 140 people.

COLOMBO, April 21: Easter Day bomb blasts at three Sri Lankan churches and three luxury hotels killed 138 people and wounded more than 400, hospital and police officials said, following a lull in major attacks since the end of the civil war 10 years ago.

COLOMBO, April 21: Easter Day bomb blasts at three Sri Lankan churches and three hotels killed more than 20 people and wounded nearly 300, a hospital official and police sources said.

COLOMBO, April 21: Two explosions hit two churches in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, wounding at least 50 people, witnesses said.

MELBOURNE, Feb 26 : Vatican treasurer Cardinal George Pell has been found guilty on five charges of child sexual abuse committed more than two decades ago against 13-year-old boys in Australia - the most senior Catholic cleric to be convicted of child sex offences.

Dogs, cats and birds were blessed at a church in Madrid on Thursday on the feast day of St. Anthony, the patron saint of animals, with many of the owners making an annual pilgrimage for their pets.

CHILE, July 24: Last month, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of five Chilean bishops amid accusations of abuse and related cover-ups. Chile is now investigating 158 members of the country's embattled Catholic Church — both clergymen and lay people — for perpetrating or concealing the sexual abuse of children and adults, prosecutors said on Monday.

INDONESIA, May 13: At least nine people have been killed and 40 others injured in bomb attacks, including a suicide blast, targeting churches in Indonesia’s second biggest city, Surabaya.

Hong Kong, Jan 11: A church in northern China was demolished this week, the second in less than a month, sparking fears of a wider campaign against Christians as authorities prepare to enforce new laws on religion.

CAIRO, Dec 30: A gunman on a motorcycle opened fire Friday outside a church in a Cairo suburb and at a nearby store, sparking a shootout that killed at least nine people, including eight Coptic Christians, authorities said. It was the latest attack targeting Egypt’s embattled Christian minority.

QUETTA, Dec 17: Two suicide bombers attacked a packed Catholic church in southwestern Pakistan on Sunday, killing at least eight people and wounding up to 45 before one of them blew himself up and police killed the other, officials said.

SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, TEXAS, Nov 7: A former National Rifle Association instructor who grabbed his rifle and ran barefoot across the street to open fire on the gunman who slaughtered 26 people at a small-town Texas church was hailed as a hero Monday, along with the pickup truck driver who helped chase the killer down.

SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, TEXAS, Nov 7: The gunman who killed 26 people at a small-town Texas church had a history of domestic violence and sent threatening text messages to his mother-in-law, a member of First Baptist, before the attack, authorities said Monday.

SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, TEXAS, Nov 6: A man dressed in black tactical-style gear and armed with an assault rifle opened fire inside a church in a small South Texas community on Sunday, killing 26 people and wounding at least 16 others in what the governor called the deadliest mass shooting in the state’s history. The dead ranged in age from 5 to 72 years old.

CAIRO, April 9:  A bomb exploded in a church north of Cairo that was packed with Palm Sunday worshipers, killing at least 21 people and wounding 38 others, officials said.

CAIRO, Dec 22: The Islamic State group claimed responsibility Tuesday for a suicide bombing at a Cairo church two days earlier that killed 25 people, highlighting a new escalation of violence in Egypt against civilians and Christians in particular.

WARRI, Nigeria, Dec 11: A hospital director says 160 people were killed when a church roof collapsed onto worshipers in southern Nigeria.

Two men armed with knives took several people hostage in a church in a town in France's northern Normandy region on Tuesday, a police source said.