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Slavery in India ranges from bonded labor in quarries and kilns to commercial sex exploitation. It must be noted that slavery still exists in all 162 countries surveyed by Walk Free Foundation, an Australian-based anti-slavery group.
For Philippine diplomat Yeb Saño, the close of U.N. climate talks in Warsaw, last November 23, came with an unusual prize: he can eat again.
On weekday mornings in Mingora, the largest city in Swat Valley, Pakistan, the streets are filled with boys heading to school. Among them are smaller groups of schoolgirls laughing and tucking books under their arms, as they, too, head to school. The scene highlights how far the region has come in the past few years: The Swat Valley, famed for its picturesque mountains, saw more than 400 schools destroyed – more than half of them girls’ schools – when the Taliban took control of the region in 2008.
“It is not my work only. It is the Lord’s.” Such was the summation of Sr. Angelique Namaika, a member of the Augustine Sisters of Dungu and Doruma, as she spoke to reporters in an international conference call, upon winning the Nansen Refugee Award bestowed annually by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Namaika has been working for the past four years with women forced to leave their homes in the northeastern Congolese bush because of the ongoing civil strife in the Congo.
Governments in rich and poor countries alike should renounce their focus on agribusiness and give more support to small-scale, local food production to achieve global food security and tackle climate change, according to UNCTAD, the U.N. trade and development body.
The Comboni Missionaries are celebrating the 75th anniversary of their arrival in Peru, their first missionary field in Latin America. It was on September 11, 1938 that the three pioneers, Fr. Alois Ipfelkofer, Fr. Michael Wagner, both from Germany and Fr. Andrew Riedl from South Tirol, arrived at Callao Harbor near Lima, the capital.
Two vast underground aquifers, storing billions of liters of water, have been discovered in the poorest and least developed area of Kenya. The finds, in Turkana county in the north west, were uncovered using new technology to interpret ground-penetrating radar from satellites.
Deep in China’s “spirit world,” an inflation crisis is brewing that would give central bankers chills. For hundreds of years, Chinese have burned stacks of so-called “ghost money” for their ancestors to help ensure their comfort in the afterlife. The fake bills resemble a gaudier version of Monopoly money, emblazoned with the beatific-looking image of the Emperor of the Underworld.
“Each community is “mature” when it professes faith, celebrates it with joy during the liturgy, lives charity, proclaims the Word of God endlessly, leaves one’s own to take it to the “peripheries,” especially to those who have not yet had the opportunity to know Christ,” Francis says in his message for the 87th World Mission Day which will be celebrated next October 20, just after the end of the Year of Faith.
Unemployment, poverty and political marginalization are contributing to the Islamic radicalization of Kenya’s youth, a situation, experts say, that must be addressed through economic empowerment and inclusive policies.
