Ever since it won the first democratic elections, held in November 1989 and supervised by the UN, by a comfortable 57%, the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO, now called the ‘SWAPO Party of Namibia’) has continued to enjoy an absolute majority over its opponents. A majority that grew even further over the years from…
Read moreThe structure of the economy of Namibia reflects the contradictions that are typical of all southern Africa. On the one hand, the country may boast of one of the highest per capita incomes in the continent (almost 12,000 dollars which, in terms of 2017 real purchasing power, amounts to five times that of the poorest…
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Advocacy is a strategy used around the world by NGOs, activists, and even policy makers themselves, to influence policies. Advocacy is about creating reform of policies, and their effective implementation and enforcement. A policy is a plan, course of action, set of regulations adopted by government, business or an institution, in order to influence or…
Read moreA Camillian and also professor at the University of Ouagadougou, Father Jacques Simporè assists the sick and most neglected. He has always worked with tenacity against the spread of HIV decimating the country. Fr. Jacques Simporè’s dream was to place himself at the service of science and the poor: besides the motivation he received from…
Read moreThe 2,720 kilometre wall, which separates the areas occupied by Morocco and those liberated by the Polisario Front in Western Sahara, is actually the largest active military barrier in the world, and the second longest wall after the Great Wall of China. One can observe the wall only from the mandatory safety distance of five…
Read moreThe Bari, a South Sudan ethnic group who live on the Savannah along the White Nile, believe that death is not a curse but a ‘going to rest’ . Among the Bari, death is seen as something natural, the common fate of all. It is desired by God but is not seen as a curse.…
Read more0nce upon a time there was a colony of little fishes who lived together in their own small pool, isolated from the rest of the fish in the river. It was a still, grey pool, dotted with stones and clumps of weed, and surrounded by thorn bushes and a few palm trees. Most of these…
Read moreOriginally from the Argentine, Mons. José Luis Gerardo Ponce de León has for five years been Bishop of Manzini in the Kingdom of Eswatini, the former Swaziland. He shares his experience with us. Before becoming Bishop of Manzini I had been appointed, in 2009, to the Apostolic Vicariate of Ingwavuma in South Africa, a diocese…
Read moreWith only 2.6 million inhabitants and an area of 824,292 square kilometres, Namibia presents a particularly complicated ethnic and cultural geography. Low population density and the absence of large urban centres of development (Windhoek, the political capital and the main city of the country, has little more than 300,000 inhabitants) deprive Namibia of the powerful…
Read moreThe world is afire again, the flames heartbreakingly consume shrubs, trees and forests in Australia, Portugal, Brazil, and recently in California and Siberia and elsewhere too. The world community has reacted in protest to the hundreds of fires burning the Amazon rainforest. These are destroying the habitat of thousands of endangered species and the communities…
Read moreShe lives and works in the Democratic Republic of Congo and has dedicated all her life to her mission to welcome and care for the worst cases, those who need her as an experienced surgeon and as one who has unfailing faith in divine providence. “In the Congo, it is the missionaries who are really…
Read moreMore than a half century after a group of bishops at the Second Vatican Council made a solemn pledge “to live a simple lifestyle close to their people”, a group of participants from the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon signed a new pact in the Catacombs of Domitilla. On 16 November 1965, just a…
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When asked how a farmer’s daughter who became a Catholic nun ended up as one of Brazil’s most influential refugee advocates, Sister Rosita Milesi, 79,…
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Vusi was an honest man and a hard worker. He had cleared a large piece of moorland and turned it into a beautiful fertile field. He…
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On 24 November, the Solemnity of Christ the King, on the occasion of World Youth Day in the Particular Churches, in St. Peter's Basilica the traditional…
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