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August 2009
“The indigenous rich heritage, ways of life,
Stewardship of the planet, spirituality
And cosmological insights are invaluable treasures which may enrich us all.”
An estimated 642 million people in the Asia-Pacific region suffer from hunger. The alarm was raised by the FAO. The UN organization for food and agriculture confirms that, for the first time in history, the number of people suffering hunger in the world will reach 1 billion in 2009, a sixth of the global population.
Fr. Shay Cullen, a regular contributor to World Mission, has been honored with the Humanitarian Award at the 2009 Meteor Ireland Music Awards. The founder of the PREDA Foundation received the prestigious statuette with a Celtic design, together with a donation of $140,000. Fr. Shay, nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize, is a missionary priest from Dublin and a member of the Missionary Society of St. Columban who has worked tirelessly in protecting women and children and human rights in the Philippines since 1969.
Chronic hunger may be “the defining human tragedy of this century” as climate change causes growing seasons to shift, crops to fail, and storms and droughts to ravage fields, an advocacy group said. Oxfam International made the warning in a report released as leaders of the Group of Eight (G8) or the wealthiest nations prepared to meet in Italy, with an agenda to include both food security and climate change.
As an African Union Summit on Agricultural Investments opened in Libya, donors and non-profit groups called the participants’ attention to the role smallholder farmers – mostly women – can have in feeding their communities.
Pope Benedict XVI has appointed Fr. Alex Thomas Kaliyanil SVD, the Mission Superior of Zimbabwe, as the new Archbishop of Bulawayo. Fr. Kaliyanil was born on May 27, 1960 in Vallamchira parish in the Archdiocese of Changanacherry, Kerala, and is the youngest of five siblings.
A burgeoning rodent population is damaging crops and worsening the food security situation for thousands of families across northern Laos, but experts believe the introduction of barn owls could ease the problem. A study by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) proposes introducing barn owls (Tyto alba) to control the rodents. Native to Laos, the owl is a natural predator of rats which make up 99% of its diet.
According to The Guardian, the acquisition of farmland from the world’s poor by rich countries and international corporations is accelerating at an alarming rate, with an area half the size of Europe’s farmland targeted in just six months. New reports from the UN and analysts in India, Washington and London estimate that at least 30m hectares are being acquired to grow food for countries such as China and the Gulf states which cannot produce enough for their populations. The land grab trend is accelerating and could severely impair the ability of poor countries to feed themselves.
In Africa, billions of dollars from oil, gas and mining revenues go missing, leaving populations dependent on international assistance, according to a new report on natural resource use in the continent. The report, which details resource management in seven West African countries, was released in July at the launching of the West Africa Resource Watch (WARW) Institute in the Senegalese capital Dakar. Established by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), WARW is set up to provide information, training and policy advice – for policymakers and citizens alike – to foster sound and equitable use of natural resource revenues.
It was an all too familiar story, similar to that of thousands in Asia and Eastern Europe. Born into poverty, living in a poor village on Negros Island in the Philippines and dreaming of a better life, Jennifer went with a recruiter, and with her parent’s approval, to work as a domestic helper in the capital Manila. But soon, her naive dreams of earning a modest wage for 12 hours a day to help her five brothers and sisters were shattered when her employer and his sons abused and raped her. She was their sexual slave for weeks and they took her out to parties with their friends who also took turns abusing her.
Relativists beware. Whether you like it or not, truth matters – even in the economy. That’s the core message of Pope Benedict XVI’s new encyclical Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth).
Indigenous peoples, who usually see their ancestral lands as sacred and not as a profitable commodity, are being threatened by the oil, gas and mineral wealth that hides beneath their soil. That is coveted by powerful nations and big corporations.
Whereas plantations, logging and dams were the main culprits that displaced Filipino indigenous communities from their ancestral domains and wrought havoc in their way of life in the 70s and 80s, the specter since the 1990s until today is large-scale mining and energy-generation projects. That, ironically, are strongly supported by the government of the Philippines.
Naked, alone, just with the aid of an arch and a bunch of arrows, Karapiru walked for ten years. All started with the murder of his wife by hired gunmen; all ended after wandering over 1,300 kilometers, with the find of his lost son and the start of a new family. This almost incredible survival story was only possible because Karapiru is a Brazilian Indian, used to living in communion with Nature. And tells us a lot about many other Indians, culturally and spiritually deeply attached to Mother Earth.
India has 70% of all leprosy cases worldwide. Fr. Carlo Torriani is a missionary of the PIME who, since the 1970’s, has built hundreds of clinics in the slums of Mumbai, and has founded an association to prevent, diagnose, and treat the disease. Today, he lives in a small community of 40 people, some of them terminally ill and others healed.
“Give them some food yourselves.”
(Read Mark 6:34-44)
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