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The world’s two most populous countries, China and India, are now seriously competing with each other to engage resource-rich Africa, thereby imparting a new dimension to South-South relations. Last April, New Delhi hosted heads of government of 12 African nation-states and a similar number of regional economic groupings. Many see this as a modest answer by India to the grand Africa summit that Beijing hosted in 2006.
Christians and Buddhists “can be harbingers of hope for a clean, safe and harmonious world.” They can do so by promoting a culture of respect for creation in the world, one that focuses on sustainable development and climate change. This statement is a part of a Holy See’s document published last month.
The Vatican is asking for measures to keep the production of biofuels from bringing about increased food prices to the point of threatening starvation in many countries. The demand came from Monsignor Renato Volante, the permanent observer of the Holy See at the Rome-based U.N. Organization for Food and Agriculture (FAO), during the Organization’s Regional Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean, held recently in Brasilia, Brazil.
Muslim scientists and clerics have called for the adoption of Makkah time in lieu of GMT, arguing that the Saudi city is the true center of the Earth. The call was issued at a conference held in the Gulf State of Qatar under the title: Makkah, the Center of the Earth, Theory and Practice.
It is in a new combination of subsidiarity and solidarity that one can find “the key” for transforming globalization – with its positive and negative effects on society – into a “civilization of the common good.” This was the “wager” in play at the plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, held last month in the Vatican to examine the theme “Pursuing the Common Good: How Solidarity and Subsidiarity Can Work Together.”
One hundred years ago, on June 18, 1908, the Japanese ship Kasato Maru, which had left from Kobe three months earlier, reached the wharf of the port of Santos (Brazil, 60 kilometers south of São Paulo). Seven hundred ninety-one Japanese farmers got off the boat. They were the first group of immigrants who had come to Brazil following an agreement between the governments. That little group put down solid roots. According to statistics compiled by the Nikkei Association (Japanese naturalized in foreign countries), today there are 1.6 million Japanese-Brazilians in Brazil, 62% of all the Japanese naturalized abroad.
“Leper priest” Belgian-born Blessed Damien De Veuster who died after contracting leprosy from patients to whom he ministered in Hawaii is on the way to sainthood after experts attributed a second miracle to his intervention.
Philippine Catholic bishops have backed a government decision to prohibit kidney transplants on foreign patients as part of a bid to regulate sales of kidneys and other human organs. GMA News reports the Catholic Church threw its full support behind the Department of Health’s decision to totally prohibit the transplants.
Pope Benedict will visit Australia from July 12 to 21 for World Youth Day, the Holy See has announced. The Vatican gave no further details of the trip. The Sydney Morning Herald reports the 81-year-old pope will make his first visit to the country as pontiff to take part in the July 15-20 event designed to bring young people from around the world together to learn about the Catholic faith. Organizers in Sydney say they expect 123,000 international visitors to come to Australia’s largest city. The pope will cruise Sydney’s famous harbor as part of his official welcome, they said last month.
A Burmese Catholic recounts how, behind the calm and the apparent freedom of movement, the most savage oppression, which prevents any step “outside of the lines,” is hidden. “We are like half statues, half human beings. We can feel and see the suffering of our people, but we cannot speak.” This is part of a testimony on the difficult situation of “religious freedom” in Burma – renamed Myanmar by the military junta – obtained by AsiaNews. The name of the source is not mentioned for security reasons.
