The Easter Sunday bombings in and around Sri Lanka’s capital left hundreds dead and injured. In recent years, besides becoming a base for hundreds of foreign fighters, the Indian sub-continent has also become fertile terrain for the expansion of the main Islamist terrorist groups. On 3 September 2014, Ayman al-Zawahiri announced the formation of a…
Read moreAnother so-called Arab – or at least North African – Spring? Given the significant risks and the fact that a few hundred lives have already been lost, rather than spring, geopolitical ‘meteorologists’ might use a less charming season as a metaphor for the civil revolts, wars and political overthrows now affecting Sudan, Algeria and Libya.…
Read moreIt possesses great nutritional and medicinal values. The plant is used in the treatment of a number of diseases. And also as a body cream. Xylopia aethiopica which is commonly referred to as the grains of Selim, Ethiopian pepper or African grains of Selim, is an evergreen, aromatic tree that can grow up to about…
Read moreAfter the liberation of Mosul and the Plain of Nineveh, thousands of Christians are returning to their homes and their communities. Committed Churches. It was in the summer of 2014 when the Islamic State (IS) men entered the city of Mosul. At the great mosque of Al-Nuri, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi proclaimed himself ‘Caliph of the…
Read moreA poor woman takes a foreign mother into her house and looks after her sick daughter. She goes to the church and asks the missionary to pray that the child gets well. In the eyes of many, Nyamuone is a woman of little account. Her husband abandoned her because, in his opinion, she was unable…
Read moreFaced with the evident failure of the multilateral free trade and investment agreements promoted by the European Union (EPAs, TTIP, MERCOSUR), Europe has developed its commercial strategy through bilateral economic agreements with third countries. The last of these bilateral agreements has been the one of the EU and Singapore added to a long list. In…
Read more
If it is true that the Christian Europe of the Middle Ages was shaped by monasticism, more so it can be said of the Ethiopian Christianity. Ethiopia converted to Christianity around the year 330 through the work of two Syrian young brothers who were taken prisoners in the Red Sea and brought to the court…
Read moreTwenty-five years after the genocide of the Tutsis in 1994, the country is peaceful and the economy is booming. But citizens are striving for more freedom. September 1994. Two months after the end of the genocide, the capital, Kigali was offering a picture of sadness and devastation. The windows of most government offices were broken.…
Read moreFrom its very foundation, Debre Libanos grew in prestige and power until it surpassed all the other monasteries, thanks in the first place to the personality of its founder, Tekle Haimanot, but also to the permanent support of political power. It is still today at the head of the monastic life in Ethiopia. The data…
Read moreThe Addis Ababa – Nairobi route, it’s often a necessary ‘rite of passage’ for those heading for a variety of African destinations. And so it was for the 157 people who boarded the tragic flight of an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX, flight ET302, which crashed at 08.44 on the morning of Sunday March 10,…
Read moreFour years after the crisis sparked by President Pierre Nkurunziza’s determination to run for a third mandate against the spirit of the constitution and the 2000 Arusha Peace Agreement, Burundi has sunk into oblivion, isolation and dictatorship. Burundi is a forgotten but ongoing crisis. On the last 21 February, 35 NGOs launched in Nairobi a…
Read more
Among the many Ethiopian monasteries Debre Damo deserves to be mentioned first. Not because it is the largest or the most important, but because it concentrates in itself certain original characteristics that do not occur in others. In the first place, its antiquity. Founded by Aregawi, one of the ‘Nine Saints’, at the beginning of…
Read more
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,…
Read more
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…
Read more
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…
Read more
