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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.
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.
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.
Once a hub of Christianity, worshippers in Wenzhou fear their faith is facing its biggest threat since the Cultural Revolution.
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.
November 29, 2013 was a very big day for religious life in the Church.
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%.
The cooperation between women religious and London’s Metropolitan Police to combat human trafficking has been of enormous importance and has produced great results. The hope is, therefore, that this experience can be repeated in other countries as well. This is according to the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Gerard Nichols, who chaired the international conference promoted by the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, entitled “Combating Human Trafficking: Church and Law Enforcement in Partnership.”
Joshua Alvarez and his family fear for their lives when the monsoon rains come. Last August, their two-bedroom flat in Manila was flooded when severe tropical storm Trami dumped 15 inches of rain (380mm) in a few hours and the local reservoir overflowed. They fled to a flyover with thousands of others as five large areas of the capital were inundated with muddy waters up to three meters deep and a state of calamity was declared in three Philippine provinces.
A worrisome report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization predicts that food production may not keep pace with population increases and dietary changes as some people become wealthier and consume more calories. Up to half-a-billion people could be chronically hungry in Asia alone, according to the report. Already, it is Asia, not Africa, which suffers the most from malnourishment and hunger.
