World Touch Archives - Page 12 of 28

World

Jump In Death Penalty

The number of executions worldwide increased last year despite a global trend toward capital punishment abolition. This is the finding of the 2014 report entitled “The death penalty in the world,” compiled by the Italian organization, Hands Off Cain, and presented recently in Rome, Italy. Asian and Middle Eastern nations are in the lead for the number of people sent to their death. Once again, in 2013, China won this sad award, followed at some distance by Iran and Iraq.

www.asianews.it

Global

City Population To Reach 6.4b By 2050

Global urban population is expected to increase by another 2.5 billion people by 2050 from current levels of 3.9 billion or 54% of population, with the greatest growth expected in India, China and Nigeria, according to the 2014 revision of the World Urbanization Prospect.

www.chinanationalnews.com

West Africa

Fear And Ignorance As Ebola Goes ‘Out Of Control’

When Ebola first struck Pujeh, a village deep in Sierra Leone’s forested interior region, residents did what they always do when a mysterious illness brings death: they consulted the traditional healer. But the elderly herbalist soon caught one of the world’s most contagious diseases, and then became a source for spreading it as visitors streamed in.

www.theguardian.com

Australia

Boat People Not Welcomed

Australia is pursuing draconian measures to deter people without visas from entering the country by boat. In doing so, it is failing in its obligation under international accords to protect refugees fleeing persecution.

www.nytimes.com

Afghanistan

Where Being A Child Is A Full-Time Job

Before the sun has risen, Sami is pushing a dented wheelbarrow through the dim streets, at 13, still a tiny figure among the vegetable hawkers and butchers slicing bloody flanks of sheep from carcasses hung on hooks. He gathers water from a public well and takes it back to the bakery.

www.ucanews.com/ David Zucchino

Philippines

Poverty Pushes Children To Hard Labor

When he was seven years old, Jun Rey Bigallera would wake up before dawn, not to get ready for school but to go to a public market in the southern Philippine city of Davao to sell vegetables. Jun recalls walking for two hours to reach the market.

www.ucanews.com

China

Christians Fear New Persecution

Once a hub of Christianity, worshippers in Wenzhou fear their faith is facing its biggest threat since the Cultural Revolution.

www.theguardian.com/ Brice Pedroletti

Indonesia

Southeast Asia’s Largest Red-Light District Closes

Southeast Asia’s largest red-light district, in the Indonesian city of Surabaya, was shut down recently after pressure from locals. Authorities have announced the closure of the Dolly prostitution complex in Putat Jaya village, Sawahan subdistrict, stating that the area should be transformed into a “dignified” space that will attract businesses.

www.ucanews.com

Consecrated Life

Celebration And Challenge

November 29, 2013 was a very big day for religious life in the Church.

Fr. David K. Glenday, MCCJ

Pakistan

Taliban Provokes New Hunger For Education

Following scattered defiance of the Taliban earlier, a new wave of students is now heading for education in schools and colleges across the troubled north of Pakistan. “There is a steady increase in enrolment of students because parents have realised the significance of education, and now they want to thwart the Taliban’s efforts to deprive students of education,” Pervez Khan, education officer in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), stated. In 2012, he says, the literacy rate for girls was 3% in FATA. That rose to 10.5% in 2013. The boys literacy rate shot up correspondingly to 36.6% compared to a previous 29.5%.

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Category: World Touch