Daily Archives: September 27, 2013

Kenya

Many unanswered questions about Westgate attack

Daily Nation

In Summary

•    Mr Lenku maintained the number of terrorists killed stood at five, while 10 suspects had been arrested.
•    Officials, who accessed the site Wednesday, said there was a sick odour coming from the building.
•    The officers are also using sniffer dogs to check for booby traps or unexploded material.

Armed officers inside Westgate. Photo/FILE
Armed officers inside Westgate. Photo/FILE

Hopes of finding survivors following the Westgate mall terror attack faded last evening as the government announced it was getting into the next stage of operation.

The next phase, said Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Ole Lenku, will involve forensic process of identifying the dead through their fingerprints and DNA.
Continue reading Many unanswered questions about Westgate attack →

Church, Migration

Pope: Migrants and refugees are not pawns on the chessboard of humanity

 

Flight Into Egypt - Giotto
Flight Into Egypt – Giotto

Independent Catholic News

The first message of Pope Francis for World Day of Migrants and Refugees, has been released, on the theme of ‘Migrants and Refugees: Towards a Better World.’ The day, which will be celebrated on 19 January 2014. The full English-language text of the message, dated 5 August 2013, is published below:

Our societies are experiencing, in an unprecedented way, processes of mutual interdependence and interaction on the global level. While not lacking problematic or negative elements, these processes are aimed at improving the living conditions of the human family, not only economically, but politically and culturally as well. Each individual is a part of humanity and, with the entire family of peoples, shares the hope of a better future. This consideration inspired the theme I have chosen for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees this year: Migrants and Refugees: Towards a Better World.
Continue reading Pope: Migrants and refugees are not pawns on the chessboard of humanity →

Economic Justice

Act Now to Stop Tax Havens and Protect the Poor

Jubilee USA

econ

Write your Senators to Cosponsor the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act.

Thanks to Senators Levin, Whitehouse, Begich and Shaheen, we’ve introduced the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act – S.1533. This is a companion piece to the House of Representatives bill introduced in April.

This legislation addresses a systemic cause of poverty – the fact that many multinational corporations don’t pay taxes to the developing governments that need the revenue most. Between 2000 and 2008, $6.5 trillion left the developing world completely untaxed. If this money would have been taxed modestly, we wouldn’t be facing a global debt crisis and there would be better access to food in the poorest countries. Poor countries become trapped in cycles of borrowing because corporations keep more profits for themselves by avoiding paying taxes in these countries. A key way this legislation curbs tax avoidance is by requiring country-by-country reporting of corporate payments to governments.
Continue reading Act Now to Stop Tax Havens and Protect the Poor →

Japan

2013 – Safeguarding Japan’s Constitution

Japan Catholic Council for Justice and Peace
Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution
1) Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.
2) In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.
3) The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

Today, Japan’s peace constitution is probably more than ever – in danger!

This statement headlined a global campaign’s reaction when Shinzo Abe was elected prime minister of Japan, given his “ideological conservative right” stance. These days, Abe and his party, the LDP (Liberal Democratic Party), are attempting to make very significant changes to the Japanese Constitution. Their first step is to ease the amendment procedure by changing the 2/3 votes needed to a simple 50%+1.
Continue reading 2013 – Safeguarding Japan’s Constitution →

Nigeria, Peace

Nigerian Islamists kill at least 159 in two attacks

BENISHEIK, Nigeria
(Reuters) – Islamist Boko Haram militants killed 159 people in two roadside attacks in northeast Nigeria this week, officials said, far more than was originally reported and a sign that a four-month-old army offensive has yet to stabilize the region.

In the first attack, on Tuesday, Boko Haram guerrillas wearing army uniforms stopped traffic on a highway between the cities of Maiduguri and Damaturu, dragging people out of their vehicles and killing them, with 143 bodies recovered so far.

Violence in northeast Nigeria has intensified over the past two months, as the Islamists fight back against a military operation that President Goodluck Jonathan ordered in May to try to crush their four-year-old rebellion.
Continue reading Nigerian Islamists kill at least 159 in two attacks →

Church, Immigration

As migration rises worldwide, pope calls for international cooperation

A man receives a haircut in mid-April at Casa del Migrante in Reynosa, Mexico. The shelter provides housing, food, clothing and medical care to people who are planning to cross the border, and to those who have been deported from the United States. Pope Francis called for greater international cooperation to improve conditions for the world's rising numbers of migrants. (CNS/Reuters)
A man receives a haircut in mid-April at Casa del Migrante in Reynosa, Mexico. The shelter provides housing, food, clothing and medical care to people who are planning to cross the border, and to those who have been deported from the United States. Pope Francis called for greater international cooperation to improve conditions for the world’s rising numbers of migrants. (CNS/Reuters)

By Francis X. Rocca
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis called for greater international cooperation to improve conditions for the world’s rising numbers of migrants and called on the media to combat prejudices that make immigrants unwelcome in their new countries.

The pope’s words came in his annual message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, which will be celebrated Jan. 19, 2014. The message was released by the Vatican Sept. 24.

“Contemporary movements of migration represent the largest movement of individuals, if not of peoples, in history,” the pope wrote.
Continue reading As migration rises worldwide, pope calls for international cooperation →

Kenya, Water

Kenya Strikes Massive Water Reserve in Turkana

1 Comment

 

An official from the district water office in Kenya's Turkana county in the water pumping exercise. Photo: UNESCO/Nairobi
An official from the district water office in Kenya’s Turkana county in the water pumping exercise. Photo: UNESCO/Nairobi

All Africa.com

By Olive Burrows, 11 September 2013

Nairobi — The discovery of the biggest aquifer yet in Kenya’s history could soon put an end to the drought residents of Northern Kenya experience perennially.

The aquifer discovered by UNESCO in Lotikipi of Turkana County is said to have the potential to grow Kenya’s water reserves by about 10 percent for the next 70 years at an abstraction rate of 1.2 billion cubic metres annually.

Scientists involved in the project say the discovery is even greater in significance to the black gold discovered in Turkana a few years ago.
Continue reading Kenya Strikes Massive Water Reserve in Turkana →

Congo

DRC Peacebuilding Ignores Local Solutions

M23 rebels near Sake, Eastern DR Congo. Credit: William Lloyd-George/IPS UNITED NATIONS,
M23 rebels near Sake, Eastern DR Congo. Credit: William Lloyd-George/IPS UNITED NATIONS,

By Rousbeh Legatis

Sep 13 2013 (IPS) – Despite existing local expertise and strategies in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to build peace-supporting structures at the community level, official debates and media coverage continue to focus predominantly on military interventions.

“€œLocal actors work in isolation and their actions are not part of a global peacebuilding process in the DRC. Their recommendations and their work on the ground are not taken into account,”€ Eric Malolo from Reseau Haki na Amani (RHA), a network of civil society organisations, told IPS.
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Peace

Syria: Nun questions authenticity of media images from Damascus gas attack

Independent Catholic News

peace8A Melkite Catholic nun, who has lived and worked in Syria for 20 years has complied a comprehensive report on some recent films and images of the civil war which are being circulated by the media.

Mother Agnes Mariam el-Salib, Mother Superior of St James’ Monastery in Qara, questions the validity of the photographs and video footage which are being circulated as proof that the Syrian President used sarin gas on his own people. No one doubts that a lot of children died, but Mother Agnes has examined the pictures and asked why there are only piles of dead children. She asks: Where are all their parents? And why do the same bodies in the same clothes keep on cropping up in different locations?
Continue reading Syria: Nun questions authenticity of media images from Damascus gas attack →

Brazil

Rancher convicted over murder of US nun Dorothy Stang

BBC

American nun Dorothy Stang was shot six times over a land dispute. American nun Dorothy Stang was shot six times over a land dispute
American nun Dorothy Stang was shot six times over a land dispute. American nun Dorothy Stang was shot six times over a land dispute

A Brazilian court has convicted a rancher for ordering the murder of an American nun over a land dispute – a case that caused international outrage.

It is the third time Vitalmiro Bastos Moura has been tried for Dorothy Stang’s 2005 death after previous convictions were overturned.

Ms. Stang, 73, campaigned for 30 years to save rainforest from the interests of wealthy landlords.

She had tried to block Moura’s attempts to seize land and was shot six times.
Continue reading Rancher convicted over murder of US nun Dorothy Stang →