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Natural disasters in Asia in 2011 could be the costliest ever, experts say. “Never before has this world suffered so much economic loss due to natural disasters, most of which have been in Asia and the Pacific,” said Sanjay Srivastava, UN regional adviser for disaster risk reduction. Of the global US$270 billion of economic losses to natural disasters in 2011, 90% were in Asia.
The murder of infants, particularly girls, by poverty-stricken parents in Pakistan appears to be on the rise. Late at night some months ago in a village in Pakistan’s Punjab Province, the parents of a two-day-old infant girl smothered the child, and then buried her tiny body in a distant field, carefully patting down the soil to hide any signs of digging. The mother cries often and says she still has nightmares about the event. Suriya Bibi, a ‘dai’ or traditional midwife from the village, says: “I myself cried. I had delivered the baby and she was perfectly healthy. But her parents had two daughters already, and felt they couldn’t afford another. The father, a laborer, earned only 4,000 rupees (US$46.50) a month, and I know those people ate just once a day.”
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) was a Jesuit priest and a scientist who labored hard to reconcile the language
of science and the language of religion. A mystic, afire with a vision of the Divine at the heart of matter, he wrote: “There is a communion with God, and a communion with the earth, and a communion with God through the earth. I want to teach people to see God everywhere, to see Him in all that is most hidden, and most ultimate in the world.” Systematically opposed during his whole life, he responded by a heroic silence and obedience. His prophetic vision is still source of inspiration for both scientists and theologians.
