The French village of Lourdes became a sacred pilgrimage site in 1858, after visions of the Virgin Mary were first reported there.

The Virgin Mary is said to have urged Saint Bernadette of Lourdes to drink and bathe in water from a spring in the Grotto of Massabielle.

Approximately six million people visit the site annually, in the hopes of receiving a miracle.

Although around 7000 people claim to have been miraculously healed there, only 70 have been officially certified by both the Catholic Church and the Lourdes Medical Bureau.

Kazik Stepan visited the holy site as a teenager after being diagnosed with an inoperable tumour on his spinal cord that left him unable to walk. He claims he was healed from the decease when he bathed in the natural spring on Saint Bernadette’s Birthday, a sacred feast day in 1965.

The International Medical Committee of Lourdes will be accompanying Stepan at Lourdes to verify his miracle. To do this, Stepans previous condition must first be proved to be incurable.

If the miracle is confirmed, Stepan will become the first official Briton to have been cured at the Roman Catholic site.

The case will be broadcast on Songs of Praise on 15^th September.

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Nora Quoirin’s body was discovered last month about 1.6 miles from the jungle resort of Dusun, where she had been on holiday with her parents and two siblings.

Hundreds of people were involved in the search operation.

The teenager – who was born with the brain defect holoprosencephaly and was described by her family as “vulnerable” – disappeared on August 4.

Her family believe she was abducted, insisting she would not have wandered off by herself.

However, police in Malaysia said they have so far found no evidence of abduction or kidnapping.

A post-mortem examination revealed Nora died from internal bleeding probably caused by hunger and stress.

Nora lived in London and was the daughter of French-Irish parents Sebastien and Meabh Quoirin.

Her funeral will take place next Tuesday at St Brigid’s Church in south Belfast, where she was baptised.

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He also pleaded for the government to fight the corruption that is ravaging the island’s environment and keeping its people in “inhumane poverty”.

Francis urged President Andry Rajoelina to provide Madagascar’s people with jobs and alternative sources of income so they aren’t forced to cut down trees to find fertile soil, poach the island’s wildlife and engage in contraband and illegal exportation of its diverse flora, fauna and mineral resources.

“The deterioration of that biodiversity compromises the future of the country and of the earth, our common home,” Francis warned Mr Rajoelina and other government authorities as he began the second leg of his week-long trip to southern Africa.

Madagascar is home to 5% of the world’s plant and animal species, with around 95% of its reptiles and 89% of its plant life existing nowhere else on Earth, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

Yet it is also one of the world’s poorest countries, with 75% of its 25.5 million people living on less than two US dollars a day.

Environmental groups and Transparency International have long highlighted the illegal logging of Madagascar’s rosewood forests and other endangered tree species as evidence of the rampant corruption that has made multimillionaires out of a few “rosewood barons” who have plundered the island’s northeastern forests.

“Your lovely island of Madagascar is rich in plant and animal biodiversity, yet this treasure is especially threatened by excessive…

Peter Lynas has called the proposed law change – that would legalise abortions in Northern Ireland for up to 28 weeks – a “travesty.”

Currently, abortions are only allowed there under limited circumstances.

Speaking at the event Peter said: “[The proposed law] is an absolute travesty and it was forced upon us without proper consultation or proper regulations to put it in place. It’s just bad law.

“100,000 people are alive in Northern Ireland because we don’t have that law, we don’t want that to change. We want to be a beacon of hope and a beacon of light instead.”

Some quick reflections on tonight’s incredible gathering of 20,000 people at Stormont against abortion #theycannotspeak #nivoiceless #bothlivesmatter pic.twitter.com/CYOYlX3BSq

— Peter Lynas (@peterlynas) September 6, 2019

On 10th July Westminster MPs and Peers voted to add amendments to Northern Ireland’s (Executive Formation) Bill that would introduce more extreme laws on abortion, unless the Assembly – which has not been functioning properly for the past two years – is restored by 21st October.

The bill would mean that an abortion would be legal up to nearly 7 months into a pregnancy, under any circumstances, a decision that many campaigners say is not in line with the public opinion of NI.

On Friday evening, 20,000 anti-abortion protesters stood in silent protest to defend those “who have no voice” and call on the government to put a stop the proposed law that would give NI the most…

However, this bill in theory forces the Prime Minister to do exactly what he promised he wouldn’t – delay Brexit beyond 31st October by only allowing the UK to leave the EU when it gets a deal, something that doesn’t seem likely within the next few weeks.

Boris Johnson would like to have a general election before then so that he has a mandate to pursue leaving the EU as soon as possible.

Lord Lesley Griffiths, a Christian and Labour peer in the House of Lords, spoke to Premier as he stepped out of the chamber debating the bill on Friday, saying: “I’m tearing my hair out,

“I’m afraid that all the opposition parties fear that to have a general election just because the Prime Minister wants one, to suit his convenience before he goes to Brussels, is not a position they want to give to him because on so many occasions he just has shown that he’s not to be trusted.

“I’ve already cancelled half my weekend in order to be here, spent the whole night here on Wednesday night and all day yesterday and so it really has been a week to end all weeks both in the Commons and here in the Lords.

Speaking about Boris Johnson’s comments in Aberdeenshire on Friday morning, in which the Prime Minister said he’d rather ‘die in a ditch’ than delay Brexit, Lord Griffiths said: “What’s the point of passing a law, what’s the point of living in a country that’s run on the rule of law, if…