World Touch Archives - Page 27 of 71

Vietnam

Sex Workers, No Longer Detained

Sex workers in Vietnam are struggling to figure out their next steps after the government’s decision earlier this year to release them from compulsory detention centers that have been widely condemned for alleged human rights abuses. Until recently, women aged 16–55 caught selling sex were sent to these “rehabilitation” centers where they were detained for up to 18 months without due process, and required to take classes and receive vocational training. But detention has done little to prepare these workers for a life off the streets, they said. What was the legal change? In a move to what it calls “voluntary rehabilitation,” the National Assembly passed the Law on Administrative Sanctions in June, which requires authorities to release all women detained on sex work charges by July 2, 2013.

Irin News

Lesley–Anne Knight, New CEO of The Elders

The Elders warmly welcomed the appointment of Lesley–Anne Knight as chief executive officer from January 2013. She will manage the London–based staff and foundation that supports the work of The Elders.

www.theelders.org

World

Two Factors Could Help to Save the Planet

Top political and financial leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos say recent natural disasters, along with Obama’s inauguration announcement that he is making the battle against rising temperatures a pillar of his second term, could rev up the glacially slow climate pact negotiations and revive fund–raising for global action to cool the planet.

www.scmp.com

Religion/Global South

The Unaffiliated are the Third–largest ‘Religious’ Group

A new report on global religious identity shows that, while Christians and Muslims make up the two largest groups, those with no religious affiliation – including atheists and agnostics – are now the third–largest religious group in the world. The study, released by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, found that more than 8 in 10 (84%) of the world’s 7 billion people adhere to some form of religion. Christians make up the largest group, with 2.2 billion adherents, or 32%, worldwide, followed by the Muslims, with 1.6 billion adherents, or 23%, worldwide.

Kimberly Winston

Land-grabbing

It Must Be Stopped!

A statement signed by over 60 environmental, development and farming groups calls for pension funds and other financial institutions to stop land grabbing. “Africa, Asia and Latin America are seeing an acceleration of land grabbing at a rate not seen since colonial times,” says Nyikaw Ochalla of the Anuak people from Ethiopia, whose livelihoods are threatened by land grabs of foreign companies. “Land is the lifeline of hunter–gatherers, pastoralists, fishing and farming communities in the Ethiopian lands targeted by a land grabbing policy. It is a myth that our lands are ‘wastelands,’ only suitable for commercial agricultural development.” Land grabbing by pension funds and other financial institutions must be stopped.

www.grain.org

Philippines

New Abduction Law Welcomed

Families of missing activists have urged the government to immediately implement a new law that criminalizes enforced disappearances. Bayan Intise, son of a couple believed to have been abducted by state agents, said the challenge for the government is to prove that it can end abductions of people by agents of the state.

Kerima Navales

Global

Rethinking Urban Poverty

Efforts to end urban poverty are failing because policymakers in aid agencies and in governments do not always understand it, asserts a new book by experts from the International Institute for Environment and Development.

Irin News

Kenya

Agroforestry And Commercial Tree Farming

In 2010 and 2009, Kenya lost a whopping 5.8 billion Kenya shillings (US$68 million) and 6.6 billion shillings ($77 million), respectively, to deforestation, a new report released by the government and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) reveals. This is despite the fact that forestry–related commercial activities brought just 1.3 billion shillings into the national economy in the same period.

http://www.irinnews.org

Pakistan

Girls Enrolled In Catholic School Hit By Taliban

The Catholic girls’ school of the Sisters of the Presentation in Sangota, in the heart of the Swat valley (province of Khyber–Pakhtunkhwa), “reopened a few months ago. It has more than 200 enrollees and is in the process of complete reconstruction” said Sister Riffat Sadiq, part of the team of educators, formerly headmistress of the same school. The institute, founded in 1962, was forced to close in 2007 and, in 2009, was destroyed by the Taliban, who then ruled the valley. In the campaign against female education, Taliban groups forced the closure of more than 400 schools and 150 were destroyed or affected by the bombings. In the Spring of 2012, the school of the Sisters of the Presentation – whose specific charisma is to work for education – has reopened. In a few months, enrollment has risen up to 200 “but as soon as more classrooms are completed, there will be a lot more,” notes Sister Riffat, remembering that before the forced closure, the school had over 1,000 girl students.

www.fides.org

Church

The Real Thérèse Of Lisieux

It is a story of true holiness and manipulated documents, told by Gianni Gennari in his new book “Teresa di Lisieux, il fascino della santità. I segreti di una “dottrina” ritrovata” (Thérèse of Lisieux, The appeal of Sainthood. The secrets of a rediscovered “doctrine” – Lindau publishers). And one recounted in meticulous detail and inspired by documents that remained unpublished until now. The volume reconstructs the life of an extraordinary woman. Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus is remembered by the faithful as the “little saint” and is identified with the “spiritual infancy” described in Matthew’s Gospel: “If you do not change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” And, yet, Thérèse Françoise Marie Martin, who died in the Carmel of Lisieux at the tender age of 24 in September 1897 and was canonized by Pius XI in 1925, never used the expression “spiritual infancy” in her original writings.

READ

DONATE

SHOP

CONTACT

Category: World Touch