Catholic bishops in Burundi are being accused of “spitting venomous hatred” over their message denouncing intolerance and political violence ahead of next year’s presidential elections. The Burundi Conference of Catholic Bishops, message was read out in churches on Sunday. It expresses the bishops’ concern about the country’s next election, which is set for May 2020. Read more
Civilisation will collapse unless we make some urgent changes, Sir David Attenborough told delegates from almost 200 nations at the UN Climate Summit (COP24) taking place in Katowice, Poland. “Right now, we’re facing a man-made disaster of global scale,” Attenborough said on Monday, just two months after a UN report underlined the need to keep Read more
The New Zealand Government has not yet decided whether New Zealand will be among the signatories: Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway has said he and Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters are still considering what to do.
An estimated 85,000 children under the age of five may have died from extreme hunger or disease since the war in Yemen escalated, according to new analysis by Save the Children. Using data compiled by the UN, Save the Children evaluated mortality rates for untreated cases of Severe Acute Malnutrition. Read more
About 13 Catholic nuns who had been abducted in Cameroon were later released by their captors. The nuns were abducted last week when they were travelling through the country. None of them knew their captors. They spent the day and night with their abductors as negotiations went on for their release. They were released the Read more
Pope Francis’s Share the Journey campaign urging world leaders to reach an agreement on refugees has taken a new twist in Britain with an installation at London’s Westminster Cathedral. Led by two Catholic charities, CAFOD and Caritas Social Action Network (CSAN), Share the Journey has resulted in hundreds of pairs of shoes being displayed outside Read more
The world’s worst humanitarian crisis being played out in Yemen is about to escalate. The United Nations estimates 8.4 million people are on the brink of famine. So far at least 10,000 Yemenis have been killed since the war broke out in Yemen in March 2015. Cafod, a Catholic Aid agency, says the Saudi-led coalition’s Read more
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is formally investigating claims of sexual misconduct against two members of its Fiji staff. The head of Fiji’s Women’s Crisis Centre says the allegations of sexual misconduct are a sign that all organisations should be open to scrutiny. The investigation follows complaints laid by three female employees against two Read more
New Zealand’s child poverty, inadequate housing, incarceration and violence has “shocked” a United Nations committee reviewing the country’s human rights record. Members of a committee overseeing the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) were last month incredulous at some of New Zealand’s worst statistics, chief human rights commissioner David Rutherford said. Continue Read more