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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.
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.
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.
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 And one recounted in meticulous detail and inspired by documents that remained unpublished until now.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.
The Indian Embassy in Beijing has begun stamping Chinese visas with a map showing disputed border territory between the two countries as belonging to India. The move comes in apparent retaliation to China’s newly–revised passports, which shows Arunachal Pradesh State and the Himalayan region of Aksai Chin as Chinese territories. India’s External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid has described the Chinese passport map as “unacceptable.” China is a longtime weapons supplier to Pakistan and, as such, is viewed in New Delhi with deep suspicion. While for Beijing, the presence on Indian soil of the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and 120,000 other exiles from Tibet, is a source of resentment.
Israel tops the list of the world’s most militarized nations, according to the latest Global Militarization Index released by the Bonn International Centre for Conversion (BICC). At number 34, Israel’s main regional rival, Iran, is far behind. Indeed, every other Near Eastern country, with the exceptions of Yemen (37) and Qatar (43), is more heavily militarized than the Islamic Republic, according to the Index, whose research is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Sister Kateri Mitchell was born and raised at the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation along the St. Lawrence River. She grew up hearing stories about Kateri Tekakwitha, the 17th–century Mohawk woman who was declared a saint in the Roman Catholic Church on October 21. Hundreds of people visited the Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs in Auriesville, NY on Saturday, July 21, 2012. The shrine is the site of the 17th–century Mohawk village of Ossernenon. Three French Jesuit missionaries were martyred there in bringing the Catholic faith to the new world. A stained glass window of Kateri Tekakwitha is in the Martyrs and Kateri Chapels. Kateri, a Mohawk, was born here.
Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, Archbishop Emeritus of Milan, was buried on September 3. Born in 1927, he died on August 31, at 85, after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. During the three days that his body laid in state in Milan’s Duomo, over two hundred thousand people passed quietly before his mortal remains to pay their respects and give thanks to God for their beloved shepherd. His funeral, which was attended by a big crowd, was very much like a state funeral, televised throughout Italy and in many other countries.
India has recorded more than 127,000 fresh cases of leprosy in 2011-12. Junior Health Minister Sudip Bandyopadhyay said the state of Uttar Pradesh topped the list with 24,627 cases, followed by Maharashtra with 17,892 cases and Bihar, with 17,801. According to the Waorld Health Organization (WHO), India accounted for 54% of the total number of leprosy cases detected worldwide in 2010, which came to 228,474.
The Philippine government’s state-run breast milk bank is intensifying collection efforts to boost breastfeeding among the poor and help women return to work immediately after giving birth if they want to do so. Hundreds of women come to deliver their babies at the Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital, the busiest maternity institution in Manila, the capital, where more than 12 million people live. Many women are barely able to afford even the minimal payment and, to help cover their costs, some of them donate breast milk to the hospital’s milk bank, which is used to feed babies whose mothers have lactation problems.
