A pending contract between China and Congo will give Congo $6bn of desperately needed infrastructure – about 2,400 miles of road, 2,000 miles of railway, 32 hospitals, 145 health centres and two universities. In return, China wiii get a slice of Congo’s precious natural resources to feed its booming industries – 10m tonnes of copper and 400,000 tonnes of cobalt. More
Pope meets privately with victims of priestly sexual abuse
Catholic News Service
Pope Benedict XVI held an unscheduled meeting with victims of priestly sexual abuse, shortly after pledging the church’s continued efforts to help heal the wounds caused by such acts. More
Benedict XVI’s Address to Catholic Educators
“Freedom Is Not an Opting out, it Is an Opting In”
Your Eminences,
Dear Brother Bishops,
Distinguished Professors, Teachers and Educators,
“How beautiful are the footsteps of those who bring good news” (Rom 10:15-17). With these words of Isaiah quoted by Saint Paul, I warmly greet each of you — bearers of wisdom — and through you the staff, students and families of the many and varied institutions of learning that you represent. It is my great pleasure to meet you and to share with you some thoughts regarding the nature and identity of Catholic education today. I especially wish to thank Father David O’Connell, President and Rector of the Catholic University of America. Your kind words of welcome are much appreciated. Please extend my heartfelt gratitude to the entire community – faculty, staff and students – of this University. More
Pope’s Homily at Nationals Stadium
“Americans Have Always Been a People of Hope”
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
“Peace be with you!” (Jn 20:19). With these, the first words of the Risen Lord to his disciples, I greet all of you in the joy of this Easter season. Before all else, I thank God for the blessing of being in your midst. I am particularly grateful to Archbishop Wuerl for his kind words of welcome. More
Benedict’s Discomforting Message
Truth Dig
The word “countercultural” is the key to understanding how Benedict’s message runs crosswise to conventional liberalism and conservatism. Benedict came to the United States as a quiet but forceful critic of “an increasingly secular and materialistic culture,” as he put it during Thursday’s Mass. Almost any American who paid attention to his sermon had to be uncomfortable because all of us are shaped by the very forces he was criticizing. – E.J. Dionne More
Wild animals compete with humans for scarce water resources
Would you care about climate change more if you lived in a mud hut?
GreenPeace
That’s what Archbishop Desmond Tutu is asking the leaders of the most polluting economies, living up to his reputation for calling a spade a spade in, um, spades. More
World Bank Climate Profiteering
Policy in Focus – Institute for Policy Studies
The World Bank’s long-running identity crisis is proving hard to shake. When efforts to rebrand itself as a “knowledge bank” didn’t work, it devised a new identity as a “Green Bank.” Really? Yes, it’s true. Sure, the Bank continues to finance fossil fuel projects globally, but never mind. The World Bank has seized upon the immense challenges climate change poses to humanity and is now front and center in the complicated, international world of carbon finance. It can turn the dirtiest carbon credits into gold. More
Bishops call for end to ‘exploitation’ of undocumented farmworkers
Catholic News Service
Expressing “deep concern for the men and women” who labor in the fields of southwestern Arizona and northern Mexico, the bishops of Tucson and Mexicali, Mexico, have issued a joint statement calling for legislation to end “exploitation of the undocumented farmworker.” More
Four Part Series on Climate Change
CLIMATE CHANGE: The Future Is Now – InterPress Service
Rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in Earth’s atmosphere can be compared to a flooding river, swamping low areas at first but inevitably bursting its banks. More
CLIMATE CHANGE: The Fault Lies Not in Our Cars but in Ourselves – InterPress Service
Rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in Earth’s atmosphere can be compared to a flooding river, swamping low areas at first but inevitably bursting its banks. More
CLIMATE CHANGE: A Vision Worth Fighting For – InterPress Service
Sweeping societal change is a slow and erratic business. The civil rights movement in the United States went nowhere for decades and then exploded in the 1960s. Not long ago, smokers could light up anywhere they pleased in Canada and the U.S. Now they are mostly confined to a few outdoor areas and as a consequence, far fewer people smoke. More
CLIMATE CHANGE: A Game With Too Many Free Riders – InterPress Service
The evidence is piling up that climate change threatens to bring a chaotic future unlike anything ever known. Taking collective action in time to avert the worst means rewarding climate-safe behaviour, punishing climate transgressors and publicly praising those who are trying to protect the environment, a new study suggests. More