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In an undercover investigation, a BBC correspondent visited a hospital in Tianjin, where he was told he could get a new liver at the cost of something less than 95,000 US dollars. The chief surgeon confirmed that one of the China’s many executed convicts would be the “donor”: death row inmates “offer” their organs “as a gift to society.” The organs, taken from the bodies of executed prisoners, are largely sold to foreigners who need a transplant.
In 2006, military expenses in the world will beat the Cold War record. Only in Africa, according to a UN organization, every year 15 billion dollars are wasted on war. This is true even in the poorest countries, where hunger is like a plague and money for development measures is always scarce.
Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Holy See’s permanent observer to the United Nations, called a high-level meeting of the organization for a “surge of solidarity” with the least developed countries, suffering from the scourge of poverty.
The warming phenomenon of seawater threatens the corals, scientists are affirming. Then, the coral reefs, with an area calculated worldwide in more than 280 thousand square kilometers, give sustenance to more than 25 per cent of all the known marine species, and therefore its disappearance will inevitably have consequences for the survival of some of these species.
To supply modern lighting to over 250 million Sub-Saharan Africans by 2030 in an ecological and inexpensive manner without the use of fossil fuel is the goal of a ‘Lighting Africa’ initiative launched with the contribution of the World Bank.
In a 13-page report, the Fides news agency of the Vatican Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples takes a look at the death penalty, calling it “cruel and unnecessary.”
The therapeutic potential of spirituality has always been a point of discussion. It emerged from the results of a recent survey published in ‘Archives of Internal Medicine’ magazine that one third of Americans turn to prayer as a source of good health.
For his pivotal role in the integral growth of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC), the Ateneo de Manila conferred the Bukas Palad Award upon Fr. Edward F. Malone, a Maryknoll Missionary.
Benedict XVI said, in a meeting with volunteers that closed his trip to Austria, that human societies need volunteerism. “Love of neighbor is not something that can be delegated,” the Pontiff said. “The state and the political order, properly concerned with the relief of the needy and the provision of social services, cannot take its place.”
The environmental magazine Grist has rated Pope Benedict, who rides an electric popemobile and has installed solar power at the Vatican, as among the world’s top religious leaders on “green” issues.
