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Category: World Touch

255 Killed And 700 Kidnapped In Car And Drc

During the abduction campaign, the LRA is alleged to have brutally killed adults and children who tried to escape, walked too slowly, or were unable to bear the heavy loads they were forced to carry, HRW found in its investigations in the region. Overall, the report says, the LRA has killed at least 255 adults and children, often by crushing their skulls with clubs. In dozens of cases, the LRA reportedly forced captive children to kill other children and adults. “The LRA continues its horrific campaign to replenish its ranks by brutally tearing away children from their villages and forcing them to fight,” Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior Africa researcher at HRW, said.  In southeastern CAR, the LRA reportedly began large-scale abductions on July 21, 2009 and, to date, has abducted 304 people, including many children. Meanwhile, a similar LRA abduction campaign is reportedly under way in the remote Bas Uele district of Congo. On March 15, 2009, the LRA allegedly attacked the town of Banda, abducting some 80 people. Already, tens of thousands of people are said to have fled the area, leaving entire villages abandoned.  Currently, the UN peace-keeping mission in Congo, MONUSCO, reportedly has 19,000 peacekeepers across the country, of which only 1,000 are in the LRA-affected areas of northeastern Congo – far too few for the scale and geographical breadth of the problem. In fact, there are no peacekeepers based in the Bas Uele district of northern DRC.  

www.fides.org

Hall Of Fame For World Mission

The annual awards ceremony took place at the University of Santo Tomas, in Quezon City, on October 13. The UST, the most ancient Asian university, is preparing to celebrate its 400th anniversary next year.  Fr. Miguel Llamazares, Delegate Superior of the Comboni Missionaries in Asia, and Fr. Dave Domingues, the dynamic promoter of the magazine, received the prize. World Mission expresses its gratitude to the Archdiocese of Manila, organizer and patron of the event, for the prize, and dedicates it to the magazine’s editorial staff, collaborators, subscribers, friends and readers.  On September 16, World Mission’s Editor, Fr. José Rebelo, was distinguished with the International Award for Excellence in Journalism by the Geneva-based International Catholic Union of the Press (UCIP), in a function-cum-dinner, during its triennial world congress in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.  The historic congress, in which 48 nationalities of all five continents were represented, was officially opened by the President of Burkina Faso, Blaise Compaore. Among other participants were former President of Ghana Jerry John Rawlings; Papal representative Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli; President of the Episcopal Conference of Burkina-Niger, Archbishop Seraphin Rouamba; His Majesty Moogho Naba Baongho, Emperor of the Mossi people; Secretary General of UCIP, Joseph Calstas-Chittilappily; and the President of Union of the African Press (UCAP), Alexandre Le Grande Rouamba. 

WM

Say “Yahweh” Instead Of “Allah”?

The intent is part of the ongoing dispute between the Christian and Muslim communities, which began in recent months with a lawsuit involving the Catholic newspaper The Herald. With the sentence of December 31, 2009, the High Court of Justice upheld the right of The Herald to use the word “Allah” to refer to God. The term “Allah” is, in fact, the only existing word in the Bahasha Malaysia language used to refer to God. The Christian community does not currently seem willing to accept the proposal of using the Hebrew word “Yahweh.” Reverend Thomas Philips, a Christian leader of the Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Taoism, an organization involved in interreligious dialogue, commented: “The faithful will continue to use the word ‘Allah.’ It is a sacred right that affects the freedom of expression. Every person who speaks a language has the right to use all the words of that language, without charges or limitations. The issue will be discussed in the Interreligious Committee formed by the government. We are working, with the spirit of understanding, to find just solutions to matters affecting the religious sphere. This also applies to the controversy over the use of the word ‘Allah.’ We are confident that a common solution can be reached for the good of the nation and people of all faiths.”  

www.fides.org

Evidence Of St. Peter’s Prison Found

The prison, which lies beneath the Church of St. Joseph of the Carpenters facing the Roman Forum, was closed for the past year as experts dug up old floors and picked away plaster. They found and restored a 14th-century fresco of Jesus with His arm around a smiling St. Peter and an 11th-century fresco of Jesus with the oldest known image of the Campidoglio, Rome’s city hall, behind Him. Patrizia Fortini from the city of Rome’s department of archaeological heritage led the excavation and restoration project. She told journalists late last month that they found proof that the site had been a place for venerating St. Peter by the seventh century, lending support to historical accounts that he had been incarcerated there. The prison has two levels: the upper chamber called the “Carcer” and the lower chamber called the “Tullianum,” which was built in the sixth century B.C. In the “Tullianum,” Fortini said, they found “traces of a basin that must have been where water was collected – water which, according to tradition, sprang forth after St. Peter pounded on the stone floor.” Tradition holds that, after he miraculously made the water gush forth, he converted and baptized his two prison guards as well as 47 others while he was imprisoned there. Near the basin, archaeologists found a trough which, centuries later, the faithful may have used to sprinkle themselves with water, she said. The stone walls had been painted, she said, but time and humidity took their toll.    

www.catholicnews.com

Mindanao Is The Worst Place For Children

In the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao, only 40% of children complete primary school, against the national average of 75%, while younger-than-five mortality remains three times as high as the national rate.  In August 2008, renewed hostilities between government forces and the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) broke out when a memorandum, that would have given the MILF control over land they claimed as ancestral domain, was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, resulting in more than 700,000 displaced. According to the International Organization for Migration, close to 83,000 people remain displaced due to conflict or clan violence, also known as Rido.  

www.irinnews.org

Unemployment Triggers Social Unrest

The ILO fears global employment will not recover until 2015. This is two years later than its earlier estimate that the labor market would rebound to pre-crisis levels by 2013. About 22 million new jobs are needed – 14 million in rich countries and 8 million in developing nations. “Fairness must be the compass guiding us out of the crisis,” said the ILO Director-General. Quoted by The Guardian, Juan Somavia added: “People can understand and accept difficult choices if they perceive that all share in the burden of pain. Governments should not have to choose between the demands of financial markets and the needs of their citizens. Financial and social stability must come together. Otherwise, not only the global economy but also social cohesion will be at risk.” Also quoted by the British newspaper, Raymond Torres, lead author of the ILO’s annual World of Work report, said there were two main reasons for the bleaker outlook facing many countries: “The first is that fiscal stimulus measures that were critical in averting a deeper crisis and helped jump-start the economy are now being withdrawn in countries where recovery, if any, is still too weak. The second, and more fundamental factor is that the root causes of the crisis have not been properly tackled.” The ILO said the global economy had started growing again, with encouraging signs of employment recovery, especially in some emerging economies in Asia and Latin America. But it added: “Despite these significant gains … new clouds have emerged on the employment horizon and the prospects have worsened significantly in many countries.” Since the crisis started in 2007, some 30-35 million jobs have been lost worldwide. The ILO forecasts that global unemployment will hit 213 million this year, a rate of 6.5%. For the United States, the number of jobs still needed to regain pre-crisis levels is 6.9 million. Many countries that experienced employment growth at the end of 2009 are now seeing the jobs recovery weaken. Even among people with jobs, satisfaction at work has deteriorated significantly. “The longer the labor market recession, the greater the difficulties for jobseekers to obtain new employment,” the ILO report said. “In the 35 countries for which data exists, nearly 40% of jobseekers have been without work for more than one year and, therefore, run significant risks of demoralization, loss of self-esteem and mental health problems. Importantly, young people are disproportionately hit by unemployment.”  

www.guardian.co.uk / Julia Kollewe

Priests Must Recover The “Lost Mysticism”

In a exclusive interview with AsiaNews, Archbishop Menamparampil explained: “When I speak of a mystic, I am not necessarily referring to a person who withdraws from the field of action, but one who moves into the thick of events to assist and save, to suggest and guide, to inspire and lead, to suffer and, if need be, lay down his or her life. In challenging times, we need, not pedestrian pragmatics who think ready-made solutions will spring from their ideological formulae like from a magician’s hat, but heroes and heroines who stir human hearts, hold out ideals, and hitch their wagons even beyond the stars. We need priests of this caliber. It is this kind of mystics that will give hope to those who seem to have lost all hope. Their contemplative starting points are often the slums, the hovels of the poor, places where the young are at risk, and conflict zones.” And speaking about India, where a reflection about the Year for Priests proclaimed by Benedict XVI is under way, he gave an example: “Amazingly, mystics transcend cultures and sectarian belief systems as Mother Teresa did. They quickly discover the common ground with people of other beliefs and try to build on it. They have an unexplainable ability to come on the wavelength of persons who are different. There is an inbuilt sense of self-confidence in them that enables them to reach out to those who differ from them most. They have developed their power of intuition that opens out new vistas to them. Could our priests be men of this category, deeply rooted in prayer but ready to confront the storms of life along with the rest of humanity? If they are, they will be needed in our country and in every other part of the world.” In India, he continued, “we are rightly anxious about the widening gap between the rich and poor. But any strategy that I would suggest to address this problem would be inclusive, fostering a sense of mutual belonging and interdependence. Any form of justice that I would propose would insist on being humane, concerned for the other, committed to the common good, with a holistic understanding of human and historic processes. Millions have died at the hands of people who wanted to make the ‘world flat’ by force.” Msgr. Menamparampil reminded: “Our Church is multicultural and multiethnic;” it “mirrors the Church Universal […] We may have in Guwahati people from 40 ethnic groups in the church on a festive occasion, and they interact as members of one family. This sort of relationship itself is a form of evangelization. When a human group as diverse as ours meets regularly on a Sunday and plans things together for the betterment of society, people can see that there is a faith-and-love-bond among the members.” Indeed, “people are more open than we often think. […] Cultural doors are opened only through cultural approaches, personal doors through personal approaches; not through cold, legal, dogmatic, and excessively

Sophia Nicole Garcia

Panda Diplomacy

Tai Shan, a four-year-old male, and Mei Lan, a three-year-old female, beloved by zoo-goers in Washington and Atlanta zoos, where they were born, departed for their ancestral homeland, Chengdu, capital of the south-western province of Sichuan. Here, they will join China’s panda breeding program, whose experts are desperately trying to encourage mating by one of the world’s most endangered species to ensure their survival. The pandas’ departure turned into a major event in the United States. Their last days on U.S. soil saw a flood of visitors who wanted to say farewell to the two animals. “I just hope they can have a good time in China and be able to make their own families,” 10-year-old Kelly Davis from the District of Columbia is quoted as saying in China’s official news agency Xinhua Zoo officials in Washington and Atlanta, who twice postponed the pandas’ departure, expressed mixed feelings. “We’re very proud to have shared Mei Lan’s life to the point where she can now begin making her own contributions to the world’s population of giant pandas,” Atlanta zoo official Rebecca Snyder said. Dozens of media reporters and members of the American public gathered outside the FedEx building at the Dulles International Airport to bid a final adieu to the pandas. Panda toys and pins were especially made for the event, with Tai Shan and Mei Lan’s images on them, along with Chinese and American national flags painted on the plane’s fuselage.  Dubbed the “FedEx Panda Express,” the flight was weeks in the making with and about a hundred staff members involved. The pandas’ luggage included water, 75 kg of bamboo and other items as well as a box of farewell letters from the American public.  

www.asianews.it

No More Dog Or Cat Meat On The Menu

In an interview with The Mirror, Chang said that, over the last four months, he has received a great deal of support, but some people are still unwilling to grasp the concept of animal welfare. He, therefore, decided to focus on pushing for legislation on torture first, and hoped to be able to pass the draft to the relevant government department for consideration in April.  In recent years, animal welfare has attracted growing attention in mainland China. For instance, the government’s decision to cull stray dogs across the country as a means to combat rabies drew fire from critics. In response, the authorities cited, in their defense, China’s ancestral traditions and culinary practices. But many others still remember the SARS outbreak caused by eating masked palm civet meat. “Banning consumption of dogs and cats should not have much impact. Given the improvement in our standard of living, the number of people eating dogs and cats is minimal,” Chang said. Still in southern China, dogs and cats remain a culinary delicacy. Ten million dogs and four million cats are sold as food for human consumption every year. In Guangzhou, capital of the rich southern province of Guangdong, staff at one of the restaurants known for serving such meats remember North Korean leader Kim Jong-il ordering take-out dog meat.  

www.asianews.it and Agencies

Shazia’s Story And The Reality Of Child Labor

In a joint statement issued in Lahore, Chairperson of Catholic NCJP, Archbishop Lawrence John Saldanha, and Peter Jacob, the Executive Secretary, said that this is not a lone incident of violence, because the domestic servants are usually subjected to extreme violence. Identifying the growing poverty and unemployment as the primary contributor to this situation,” they demanded that the Government “proceed with legislation on the ‘Domestic Violence Bill’ immediately.”  For example, in the Sialkot District (which, in 2009, was the site of anti-Christian violence), where thousands of Christian families live and work, there are children who work in the production of balls, shoes, clay bricks, and carpets destined for Western markets. The sports balls, in particular, made for the major brands of sports goods, are the work of 5,000 Pakistani children, who constitute 80% of the workers. In the past, the murder of the young Iqbal Masih, sold by his father to a carpet manufacturer when he was 4 years old, drew public attention to children working in Pakistan. Killed at age 12, after having told his story, along with that of his young friends, to a union leader, Iqbal has become a kind of symbol. The reality of child labor in Pakistan has other consequences: the infant mortality rate for children under five years is 136 per thousand and the illiteracy rate reaches 62%. Twenty-one percent of boys are not even registered in an elementary school and the same goes for 50% of girls.   

www.fides.org
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