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In 1960, the “Year of Africa,” when most African states became independent, there was only one city in sub-Saharan Africa with a population of more than 1 million inhabitants (Johannesburg, South Africa). Now, in 2010, it is estimated that at least 33 African cities have over 1 million people.
The US Postal Service has recognized Mother Teresa’s humanitarian work with a stamp, as part of its 2010 program. Noted for her compassion toward the poor and suffering, Mother Teresa, who was an honorary US citizen, served the sick and destitute of India and the world for nearly 50 years.
A 13th-century letter from Genghis Khan’s grandson demanding homage from Pope Innocent IV, and another from 20th century Japanese Emperor Hirohito are among a collection of documents from the Vatican’s secret archives that have been published for the first time. The Holy See’s archives contain scrolls, parchments and leather-bound volumes with correspondence dating back more than a thousand years.
Thirty-seven priests, nuns and missionaries were killed worldwide in 2009, nearly twice as many as in 2008 and a record high for a decade. Most deaths occurred in Latin and North America, where 23 of the Catholic workers were killed, 11 died in Africa, 2 in Asia and 1 in Europe.
In 2003, Ms. A paid a job broker to smuggle her from Myanmar into Thailand where she was promised work as a maid in Bangkok. She did not know that the broker had sold her to her Thai employer for five years during which she would be paid no salary, and be effectively a slave in a strange country where she did not speak the language. It would be comfortable to think that Ms. A’s was an isolated case but it is not. Every year, an estimated 2.4 million people are sold into slavery, although today we call the crime trafficking.
Barack Obama defended America’s involvement in Afghanistan as a just war as he received last December the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. Addressing head-on the incongruity of receiving the prize days after announcing a military “surge” in Afghanistan, the US said American forces were in Afghanistan, in a conflict that he did not start.
The Iraqi Parliament has approved almost unanimously the new election law, paving the way for the vote in 2010. The green light came during an emergency session that ended shortly before the deadline for an agreement. It should put an end to a period of political deadlock. Sources in Baghdad have called it a “truce” between political factions, but warn that “tension remains high.”
The world celebrated recently the 20th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, approved on 20 November 1989.
Seven children die of hunger every minute because they do not have access to treatment, but the impact of climate change on the drivers of undernutrition – food insecurity, health threats and water stress – could push up this number, the UN Standing Committee on Nutrition (UNSCN) said at the UN Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen (COP15).
Among civilians in Cotabato and neighboring provinces, there is great fear and indignation at what they call, in Mindanao, “war road”: violence between paramilitary groups and the proliferation of various militia groups. These armed forces belonging to clans with strong political or ideological-religious reference (defined by “Muslim” or “Christian” antagonism), are often manipulated by the interests of powerful men in local areas or by corrupt members of the army.
