Category: World Touch

To Eradicate Poverty Is An Obligation

The prelate noted that “poverty is a reality even in so-called affluent societies, and not just in economically poorer countries.” And added: “Poverty profoundly affects the dignity of the human person. The human person deprived of the basic conditions to live decently, is humiliated, and must, therefore, be helped to recover. (…) It affects mainly those who are not capable of a decent livelihood, especially the children, the disabled, the elderly, and women. In fact, almost half of those living in absolute poverty today are children.” “Unfortunately,” Archbishop Chullikatt noted, “the combined food, fuel, and financial crises since 2008 have slowed down, and even reversed progress towards eradication of poverty in many developing countries around the world.” The prelate reported that “64 million more people are estimated to be living in extreme poverty in 2010 while some 40 million more went hungry last year because of the food, fuel, and financial crises.” He continued: “By 2015, 1.2 million more children under five may die, 350,000 more students may not complete primary school, and some 100 million more people may remain without access to safe water. Now, more than ever, is the time to recommit efforts towards such poverty eradication.” The Archbishop asserted that “eradication of poverty should not be considered as an act of charity but rather as an obligation of the international community.” “We have the means to bring poverty to an end,” he concluded. “Let us now demonstrate to the skeptics that we have the will to alleviate the suffering of those who go without the basic needs that everyone should have!”

www.zenit.org

Reversing The Resources Curse

The theme of the competition among global powers in the hoarding of African resources and the impact of this new “scramble for Africa” on the continent’s development were the focus of the workshop, sponsored by the Institute for International Policy Studies (ISPI) and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The seminar, held in Rome, was attended by several journalists and experts on African issues. The discussion showed that, due to the fact that traditional Western partners in Africa are faced with increasing competition of other powers (ranging from China to India, from Russia to Brazil), African countries can negotiate more advantageous contracts in handing over their natural resources. However, there is still the problem of corruption among the African ruling elite, which undermines the possibility of using the “royalties” of mining concessions to improve the conditions of the population and diversify African economies which are still too dependent on monocultures and the mining sector alone. In several African countries, there is, however, an emerging civil society that is asking its own leaders to give accounts of financial resources gained from the exploitation of minerals and oil. Among the most active in this field are several bishops’ conferences and individual bishops such as Comboni Bishop Michele Russo, Bishop of Doba in Chad, who launched an appeal asking that African resources be used to improve the living conditions of its inhabitants. Africa, a continent in turmoil, whose population has recently exceeded one billion inhabitants, has a huge economic potential, yet untapped. Most of its natural resources, in fact, have not yet been taken advantage of. The arrival of new economic partners could change that. However, as pointed out in the final conclusions of the seminar, including those of South-South cooperation, Africa is likely to remain the junior partner, as it has yet to do some “catching-up,” even in comparison to Asian and South American partners.

www.fides.org

Excessive Copyright Protection

A delegation of the Holy See told a gathering of the World Intellectual Property Organization that Pope Benedict is troubled by the “excessive zeal” with which rich countries have been protecting their intellectual property rights, especially when it comes to health care in developing countries, reports the ZeroPaid website. “On the part of rich countries, there is excessive zeal for protecting knowledge through an unduly rigid assertion of the right to intellectual property, especially in the field of health care,” Pope Benedict says in an encyclical letter quoted by the delegation at the 48th World Intellectual Property Organization General Assembly. The report said copyright holdings have become the bedrock of profits for an array of business interests, multinational corporations like those in the movie and music industry, in particular, and there has been an increasing push to protect them at all costs, even to the detriment of society and culture. “The raison d’être of the protection system of intellectual property is the promotion of literary, scientific or artistic production and, generally, of inventive activity for the sake of the ‘common good’,” said the delegation. “Thus protection officially attests the right of the author or inventor to recognition of the ownership of his work and to a degree of economic reward. At the same time, it serves the cultural and material progress of society as a whole.”

Priest Gets Peace Award For Activism

Dear’s activism in peace includes being arrested more than 75 times in nonviolent civil disobedience demonstrations. He also is a speaker, author of 25 books, pastor and Red Cross chaplain. The awardee, a New Mexico-based priest who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, commented though: “Being in jail is terrible. It’s not easy at all.” His pathway toward activism began while making a pilgrimage to Israel in 1982. The young man was eager to view the land where Jesus lived. During the summer trek, he camped out by the Sea of Galilee and thought of Christ telling followers “blessed are the peacemakers.” However, peace proved elusive that summer as Israel and neighbor Lebanon engaged in battle. Dear warily watched jets flying overhead on bombing missions and resolved to do something constructive to promote peace. Dear adamantly refuses to halt his efforts toward helping humanity to establish peace on earth and peace within themselves. “War is not the will of God. War is never blessed by God … and frankly war doesn’t work,” he said. www.qctimes.com /

Mary Louise Speer

Disappointing Commitments Of Summits

As partners with Caritas Internationalis, the Catholic Church’s umbrella humanitarian and development agency, both organizations pushed the G-8 leaders to boost their commitment to women’s and children’s health concerns under the Muskoka Initiative. The development groups also urged the related Group of 20 Economic Summit in Toronto to step up efforts to reduce extreme poverty worldwide by 2015 as outlined in the Millennium Development Goals established by the United Nations. But representatives of the world’s leading economies at both summits were focused on other concerns as the worldwide recession continues. “We’ve entered a world where the only language that matters is economics,” Redemptorist Father Paul Hansen, Director of his Order’s Biblical Justice Consultancy, said after the motorcades disappeared and the dignitaries left town. The leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies agreed to cut their governments’ deficits in half by 2013 and stop growth of public debt relative to gross domestic product by 2016. Voluntary financial constraints on government borrowing will allow poorer countries to participate in a healthier world economy, the final G-20 statement argued. “Increasing global growth on a sustainable basis is the most important step we can take in improving the lives of all of our citizens, including those in the poorest countries,” the world leaders said. But Father Hansen was disappointed that G-20 leaders chose to ignore the opportunity to clamp down on speculation in financial markets. “What we have developed is no longer an economy based on goods and services, but an economy based on paper, transfer of hot money, currency speculation, derivatives, hedge funds that have zero basis in goods and services,” he said. The money pledged for women’s and children’s health concerns for the first time included funds from private foundations. Non G-8 countries, including Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, South Korea, Spain and Switzerland, also pledged funds to the effort. The United Nations estimates that between $15 billion and $33 billion is needed by 2015 to reduce child mortality and improve maternal health enough to satisfy the Millennium Development Goals. The United Nations pegs the G-8 share of the total at about $20 billion. About 9 million children per year die of diseases that are easily treatable with inexpensive immunizations, proper nutrition and better health care for pregnant women. Hemorrhages, infection, obstructed labor and very high blood pressure leading to seizures cause more than 350,000 preventable deaths annually among pregnant women. A group of Canadian aid agencies lobbied for a $24 billion fund over five years. Ikem Opara, Program Coordinator for Canadian Jesuits International, was pleased that the G-8 did not entirely walk away from the Muskoka Initiative. “That gave me some hope,” Opara said. “From my own experience growing up in Nigeria, those were the two things that seemed to affect everybody’s day-to-day life the most, child mortality and what maternal health meant.” To make significant progress toward the development goals, food security issues also must be addressed, he said. The Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace believes the G-20 took

Michael Swan

Warmest Year On Record

Despite the cold winter in the Northern hemisphere, the global temperature this year reached its warmest on record. This is based on a twelve-month-rolling average, according to Dr. James Hansen, the top American climate scientist who works at the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In an article published on the NASA website in June 2010, Hansen and his three co-authors claim that the mean surface temperature in the year through April 2010 was 0.65 degrees Celsius warmer than the period between 1951 and 1980. NASA scientists came to this conclusion after reviewing data from 6,300 monitoring stations around the world. Hansen is adamant that this data demonstrates that climate change is taking place. Michael Grubb, a member of the UK Climate Change Committee, a body which advises the UK government on climate change, said that, “Hansen’s paper looks like a modest addition to the continuing build-up of evidence,” for climate change. This is particularly important since concerns about climate change have been pushed to the political ‘back-burner’ for a number of reasons. Firstly, the winter of 2009/2010 was an unusually cold winter in China, Europe and North America. Secondly, climate sceptics have launched a well organised campaign, casting doubts on climate change data which has been produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Thirdly, there has been continuing fall-out from controversy at the UK’s University of East Anglia, where scientists have been accused of dissent on climate change. Grubb believes that “the public perception (on climate change) has been radically impacted by a short campaign” (by climate sceptics) and that this is “deeply troubling if you want a sensible long-term solution to climate change.” Grubb is hopeful that Hansen’s findings will reinvigorate attempts by governments to reach a fair, ambitious and binding agreement on greenhouse gases at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change which is scheduled for December, 2010 in Mexico. Many places, especially in Asia and Africa, are feeling the heat at this time. According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), the first four months of 2010 were the hottest ever measured, with record temperatures in North Africa, South Asia and Canada. In May and June 2010, heat waves hit Pakistan and India. Six people died and dozens more fell ill as temperatures soared to 47 degrees Celsius (116 Fahrenheit) in central Pakistan on May 21 and 22, 2010. These land temperatures were measured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. In the ancient city of Mohenjo-daro on the banks of the Indus, where civilization flourished over 4,000 years ago, temperatures reached 53.7 degrees Celsius on June 1, 2010. This is the fourth hottest temperature ever recorded. Previous highs were in 1922, when a record temperature of 57.8 degrees Celsius, the hottest temperature reached, was recorded at al-Aziziyah in Libya. This was followed by a temperature of 56.7 degrees Celsius recorded in Death Valley in California in 1913, and the third hottest, at 53.9 degrees Celsius, was

Fr. Seán McDonagh, SSC

Crime Is A Threat To Peace In The World

Illustrating the report called, “The Globalization of Crime: A Transnational Organized Crime Threat Assessment,” Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of ONUDC, said “Transnational crime has become a threat to peace and development, even to the sovereignty of nations. Criminals use not only weapons and violence, but also money and bribes to buy elections, politicians and power – even the military.” This situation is particularly acute in West Africa, a region used ever more frequently by Latin American drug traffickers as a transit point towards the rich markets of Europe. “West African countries need help to increase their ability to counter transnational organized crime” says the report. “Recent efforts against the trafficking of cocaine, with the backing of the international community, produced promising results. However the region is still particularly exposed and will continue to face a series of potential threats to governance and stability.” Looted natural resources in Africa include fauna. Every year, between 5,000 and 12,000 African elephants are killed to feed the ivory market (between 50 and 120 kg per year). Some organized crime specializes in the selling of counterfeit medicines in Asia and in Africa. “A good part of certain key drugs tested in South-East Asia and in Africa failed effectiveness tests and many are evidently fake. It is clear that organized crime deliberately swindles consumers in some of the poorest parts of the world often with lethal results” the report says. This, according to ONUDC, can have even more serious consequences: “watered down medicines can feed the reproduction of varieties of medicine resistant pathogenic agents, with global implications.” Somali piracy produces profits of 100 million dollars a year, a conspicuous sum at the local level, but very small at the general level. Somali piracy has made many countries mobilize their navies to protect international shipping along routes passing the Horn of Africa.

www.fides.org

Soccer Was Invented By Paraguayan Indians

In an article titled, “The Guarani Invented Soccer,” reporter Gianpaolo Romanato asserted that soccer was born in the 17th century in the region known today as Paraguay. His source for the claim is an account by a Spanish Jesuit priest, Jose Manuel Peramas, who lived for several years at the St. Ignatius of Mini mission, south of Asuncion, which was one of the 30 native missions established by the Jesuits in colonial Paraguay. Father Peramas described the pastimes enjoyed by the Guarani in his 1793 book, “De vita et moribus tredecim virorum paraguaycorum” (Of the life and death of the 13 men of Paraguay). “They often played with a ball that, although it was made completely of rubber, was so light and quick that instead of them hitting it, it bounced around without stopping, driven by its own weight. They did not throw the ball with their hands like we do, but rather they kicked it with the upper part of their bare feet, passing it and trapping it with great agility and precision,” the priest wrote. “Three centuries ago, the Guarani were surely masters of the ball. They are truly the descendents of the real inventors of soccer,” L’Osservatore Romano reported, although many British soccer enthusiasts would be quick to dispute such a claim.

www.catholicnews.com

The Dark Side Of Modern Sport

However, questions have been raised, over the years, about the pay and working conditions of those who work in the football-producing factories. Bob Crilly of the Irish Times discovered that the workers who produce footballs, which retail at €100, often receive only $3 per day. One informant told him that “People buying these balls should understand more about how they are made and insist that the workers are looked after and well paid.” One of the workers told Crilly that, “if they sack a person, there will be 10 queuing the next day for the job.” In recent years, pressure from international agencies has improved the lot of many of the workers, but much more needs to be done. A report by The International Labor Rights Forum found that half of the 218 workers surveyed do not earn €118 a month, which is the minimum amount of money a family would require to meet their basic needs. The ‘exciting ball game’ needs to address and solve this injustice as a matter of urgency.

Fr. Seán McDonagh, SSC

From The Olympics To The Convent

Holum was born into speedskating royalty. Her mother Dianne was a world-class speedskater who won the Olympic gold in 1972 and reached even greater heights as a coach, mentoring the legendary Eric Heiden to his clean sweep at Lake Placid in 1980. Despite an ongoing battle with exercise-induced asthma, Holum was a champion waiting to happen. Instead, Nagano would signal the final time she would pull on a pair of skates with competitive intent. From that point on, her life began an entirely different journey. “Speedskating was such a huge part of my life,” Holumn said in a telephone interview. “I still loved the sport, but I had this incredibly strong calling that it was time to move on and take a different path in life.” There is no television and no internet at St. Joseph’s Convent in Leeds, England, meaning Holum didn’t watch the 2010 Winter Olympics, that took place last February in Canada and where she was supposed to become a star. The peaceful surrounds of the convent is where Holum, now known as Sister Catherine, devotes her life to religious service as a Franciscan nun. That calling had begun on a trip to Our Lady of Fatima, the holy shrine in Portugal famed for the apparition of the Virgin to three little shepherds nearly a century ago. It was outside the Fatima basilica where Holum decided that a path of religious dedication, not frozen skating lanes, would be her destiny. “It is funny now to think of how different my life is now,” she said. “I had the wonderful privilege of being able to compete as an Olympian, and now I am blessed to be able to serve God and help those less fortunate.” After completing an art degree, including a thesis on the Olympics at the Art Institute of Chicago, Holum joined the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal, a faith whose mission is “work with the poor and homeless and evangelization.” Based first in New York, Sister Catherine and her fellow nuns stepped onto the mean streets of the Bronx to work with some of the Big Apple’s most underprivileged children in areas steeped in gang culture. Such work and sacrifice in homeless shelters and soup kitchens gave her a deep-rooted sense of satisfaction that skating had never been able to provide. She attacked each new project with the tenacity of an Olympian, and, according to Sister Lucille, who leads operations at the Order’s Bronx chapter, the “compassion of an angel.” She added: “It is wonderful to see people’s faces light up when Sister Catherine shares her experiences of her time in speedskating. She never boasts about it but she has come to realize that we are incredibly proud of her and are lucky to have her as part of our religious family. The Sisters and the people we try to reach love hearing about what she accomplished.” Last year, missionary work took Sister Catherine to England, where she has found her previous life as an

Yahoo! Sports (Martin Rogers); Wikipedia

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