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Category: World Touch
Africa

About 2.64 Million Fetuses Die After the 28th Week

The annual number of stillbirths in the whole world is twice the number of people who die from diseases associated with HIV. According to the weekly science magazine, The Lancet, about 2.64 million fetuses die after the twenty-eighth week of pregnancy, mainly in low and middle-income countries. The main causes are birth complications, maternal infections during pregnancy, disorders such as hypertension and diabetes, fetal growth restriction and congenital anomalies. According to experts, more attention to prenatal care would be sufficient to deal with this social plague.

www.fides.org
India

Christians Battle Against Corruption

The Christians in India are on the frontline in the war against corruption, which is involving large sectors of Indian civil society. At institutional and federal levels, the bishops are actively involved in the current national debate to approve a specific anti-corruption law called the “Lokpal Bill.”

www.fides.org
Philippines

Still Too Many Child Soldiers

Significant progress has been made in the Philippines against the use of child soldiers committed by rebel groups, but the problem still persists.

www.fides.org
World

Fuel, Food & Bio-plastic

At a time when most conventional fuels cast ever longer shadows of unintended consequences, algae – that lowly pond scum – offers a pleasant surprise: a near-term, low-tech alternative with apparently few of the hidden costs of more elaborate, expensive and exploitive energy sources, writes Mark Sommer.* The first, simplest, and fastest-growing life form, algae holds unheralded promise to become a pivotal resource for the planet’s future as the basis for a high-quality biodiesel that doesn’t (like corn) siphon food from humans. And it’s not just a fuel. It’s animal feed, human food (think spirulina), and the building block for a wide range of biodegradable bio-plastics to replace petroleum-based plastics. And algae does all this as it grows by absorbing enormous amounts of CO2 – the very greenhouse gas we most urgently need to reduce.

Mark Sommer
Pakistan

Catholic Defender of the Marginalized Killed

Shahbaz Bhatti, the Pakistani minister killed by the Taliban, was born on September 9, 1968, to a Christian family. His father, Jacob, served in the army before entering the field of education as a teacher and later as chairman of the board of the Churches of Kushpur. In the Autumn of 2010, he was hospitalized in Islamabad. According to local sources, his condition deteriorated significantly after the news of the assassination of the governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, on January 4, 2011. He entered into a form of mental and physical depression that, ultimately, led to cardiac arrest, and his death on Jan. 10, 2011.

www.asianews.it / www.fides.org
U.S.A.

Justice Award for Fr. McDonagh

Fr. Seán McDonagh, SSC, will receive the Eighth Annual Partnership for Global Justice Award on May 1, in New York. Fr. McDonagh, a regular contributor to World Mission, will accept the award and deliver a keynote address. The ceremony will be followed by an orientation symposium in preparation for the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development that will take place at the United Nations from May 2 to 14.

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Philippines

Designing Defense Against Climate Change

As the impact of climate change worsens around the globe, a disaster-resilient village is poised to be a solution for urban poor battling the constant floods and typhoons that hit the Philippines.

Kara Santos

Fighting Materialistic Accumulation of Wealth

The Southern African Bishops lament the fact that the Church’s voice is struggling to be heard in the general debate on issues such as the proper utilization of wealth. In his report at the Plenary Session of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC, which brings together the Bishops of South Africa, Botswana and Swaziland), Archbishop Buti Tlhagale of Johannesburg and President of the SACBC, said: “It is relatively easy to appreciate the public role of the Catholic Church in the area of social services, health care and development projects…. What is missing in the public spaces of our societies is the voice of the Catholic Church (or the religious sector) that genuinely seeks to engage the public on moral-ethical issues which impinge on the society at large.”

Tricia Garcia

A Country is Born

The landslide was greeted with dancing and flag-waving in the southern capital, Juba, where people braved blistering heat to celebrate the end of decades of marginalization. While the relatively peaceful conduct of the vote was welcomed, human rights groups expressed alarm at suggestions that Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, should be “rewarded.” Reports suggested he could receive a year’s reprieve from war crimes charges relating to Darfur, where the fights persist.

David Smith
World

Rampant Speculation Inflates Food Price Bubble

Billions of dollars are being made by investors in a speculative “food bubble” that’s created record food prices, starved millions and destabilized countries, experts now conclude. Wall Street investment firms and banks, along with their kin in London and Europe, were responsible for the technology dot-com bubble, the stock market bubble, and the recent U.S. and UK housing bubbles. They extracted enormous profits and their bonuses before the inevitable collapse of each.

Stephen Leahy
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