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(Vatican Radio) Following months of anti-government protests and violence from the Amhara and Oromo regions, Ethiopia has declared a state of emergency, which includes a ban of online communications. Diplomats are also restricted from traveling more than 40 km outside of the nation’s capital, Addis Ababa, without prior notice or approval. The state of emergency will last six months. Over the past year more than 500 people have died in anti-government protests, but the level of violence escalated when 55 people were killed this month at a religious festival in Bishoftu. About 60% of Ethiopia’s population has been involved in protest and civil unrest for the past year. The Ahmara and Omoro are the two largest ethnic groups in the nation and are also the majority of the protestors. International entities such as the United Nations and European Union have called for government intervention. The Bishops of the Catholic Church of Ethiopia are calling for actio...
(Vatican Radio) The United Nations' agency farming and food agency, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has issued a report saying the pledge to eradicate hunger and poverty must go hand in hand with rapid transformations of farming and food systems to cope with a warmer world.Agriculture, including forestry, fisheries and livestock production, generate around a fifth of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, the FAO says, and agriculture must both contribute more to combating climate change while bracing to overcome its impacts, according to The State of Food and Agriculture 2016."There is no doubt climate change affects food security," FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said while presenting the report. "What climate change does is to bring back uncertainties from the time we were all hunter gatherers. We cannot assure any more that we will have the harvest we have planted."That uncertainty also translates into ...
(Vatican Radio) Thousands of people rallied on Sunday in Hungary's capital Budapest for press freedom and against government corruption after the sudden closure of the country's largest leftist newspaper. Listen to the report by Stefan Bos Those attending a rally organized by civic groups and opposition parties gathered at Free Press Road, a traditional location for protests but made more symbolic by last week's closure of the largest opposition newspaper Népszabadság (People's Freedom). While the owner, publishing company Mediaworks, says last week's closure followed "considerable" losses and falling readership, critics maintain the government pressured it to close down. Though talks have been held about restarting the paper, Miklós Hargitai, a Népszabadság journalist, told protesters that he feared everyone will now lose their jobs. "Seventy people worked at the Népszabadság. Thei...
Southern India's Kerala state is planning to declare itself Open Defecation Free (ODF) on Nov. 1, an achievement made possible by cooperation between Catholic Church groups and the state's Communist-led government. The state government, as part of a federal campaign for a cleaner nation, hopes to eliminate open defecation by the end of October, 2016. Kerala will become the second state in India to achieve this distinction after the northeastern state of Sikkim. K. Vasuki, head of the Suchithwa (cleanliness) Mission, the government agency coordinating the campaign said church agencies and parishes played "a big role" both in facilitating the construction of toilets in such areas and changing the mindset of people who were against the idea of owning a toilet. About 50,000 self-help groups and social service organizations under 33 Catholic dioceses in the state are working with the government. Only 3 percent of h...
(Vatican Radio) The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has announced it will be holding its next meeting from November 14th to 16th, in Baltimore for the fall general assembly.A statement from the USCCB said that during the assembly, the bishops will elect a new president, vice president, and five committee chairs. In addition, they will discuss and vote on the Conference’s strategic plan for 2017-2020, and will receive a report and recommendations on promoting peace in violence-stricken communities.The bishops will hear from Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky, as he gives his final address as USCCB president upon completion of his three-year termThe bishops will also vote for new chairmen-elect of the following five USCCB committees: Committee on Canonical Affairs and Church Governance, Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis, Committee on International Justice and Peace, and the Committee on th...
IMAGE: CNS/Paul HaringBy Cindy WoodenVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Joe Tosini believes that on the last day Jesus willjudge people on whether they fed the hungry, clothed the naked and, especially,whether they loved one another, not on whether they were baptized with asprinkling of water as an infant in a Catholic Church or by being plunged intoa pool as an adult in an evangelical service.Tosini, a Pentecostal Christian, is founder of thePhoenix-based John 17 Movement,an ecumenical initiative about forming relationships and friendships amongChristians.Unlike the formal ecumenical dialogues the Catholic,Orthodox, Anglican and mainline Protestant churches engage in, the John 17initiative does not involve theological dialogue and the examination ofdoctrinal similarities and differences.Tosini and others in the movement focus on Jesus' actionsand words at the Last Supper and, particularly on his prayer in John 17:21: "That theymay all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they a...
IMAGE: CNS/Paul HaringBy Junno Arocho EstevesROME (CNS) -- The heroism of Mexico's newest saint, St. JoseSanchez del Rio, should embolden the nation's priests to continue theirministry with trust in God, said the vice postulator of the youngsaint's cause.For priests in Mexico, especiallythose who denounce the activity of drug traffickers and find themselves targeted for attacks,the life of St. Jose is a call to place their "full trust in God," Antonio Berumen, the vice postulator, toldCatholic News Service Oct. 14."There comes a time in which, evidently, we must livethrough difficult times, but in the end Jose's message is 'I trust in you,'" he said. "Itis complete trust in God and havingthe assurance that there is someone who acts and continues to act in the livesof men and women."As Pope Francis declared seven new saints Oct. 16, one ofthe banners hanging on the facade of St. Peter's Basilica showed a young boydressed in blue jeans and a white shirt.In his hands, the 14-year-old ...
VIENNA (AP) -- The house where Adolf Hitler was born will be torn down and replaced with a new building that has no association with the Nazi dictator, Austria's government announced Monday, as it moved to eliminate the property's significance for neo-Nazis as a place of pilgrimage....
NEW YORK (AP) -- It took nearly four decades to find and try a suspect in the haunting disappearance of first-grader Etan Patz. The trial itself spanned three months of testimony and 18 days of deliberations before a jury finally deadlocked....
