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Monthly Archives: September 2023

Mauritania. Caught in the Nets of the Fishing Mafia.

The fishing tradition goes back a long way in Mauritania. But as more and more Chinese fishmeal factories have set up in the country, local fishermen are often left empty-handed. This unscrupulous business threatens the basic supply of the Mauritanian population. At first glance, the Mauritanian fishing village of Nouamghar, about 150 kilometres northeast of…

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Music. King Ayisoba.

Kolongo is a musical genre that takes its name from a two-stringed lute of the Frafra ethnic group, between Burkina Faso and Ghana. Among its main performers is King Ayisoba, a Ghanaian musician. The artist has just released Work Hard, one of the best African albums of recent years. In Africa there is one great…

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Social-economic inequality.

According to the estimates of the last census, carried out in 2022, the Dominican Republic has a population of 10,695,000. Of these 3/4, equal to 73% are mestizos, 16% white and 11% black. The other minor ethnic groups present in the country are Asians, especially Chinese, and Europeans (mainly Spanish). There is also a small…

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World Bank. New President, Old Doubts.

Marrakech will host the annual assemblies of the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from 9 to 15 October. The event, which marks a return to Africa comes 50 years after the assembly in Kenya. This time the World Bank will be led by a new president. Ajay Banga’s new course faces…

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Africa. UN Peacekeeping missions in crisis.

Last June, the UN Security Council ended the mandate of MINUSMA in Mali while the DRC government announced the end of MONUSCO’s mandate within six months. There are also tensions between MINUSCA and the Central African government. Increasingly, African fragile states are banking on private military companies to regain control of their territory. On the…

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Israel. At the Service of the Bedouin Communities.

Sister Lourdes García, a Mexican Comboni missionary, works in the Bedouin communities of Jahalin, in the Judean desert. Her testimony. Assalamu Alaikum (‘Peace be upon you’) is the greeting with which we are greeted every time we visit the Bedouin communities in Palestine. Although the word ‘peace’ is part of the daily encounter, its experience…

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Towards the 2023 Synod. Synodality, a path of renewal and conversion.

The synod on synodality focuses on the call for interior renewal and constant conversion. To quote an African adage: “The one who does not dig his field dies of hunger”. Life is like a seed. Those responsible should regularly check the soil for seed fertility, growth, and flowering. And this is also true in human…

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Peru. The Ashaninka Ancestral Wisdom. Their Sensory Awareness.

An indigenous ethnic group, the Ashaninka live in the central forest of the Ucayali department in the Atalaya province of eastern Peru. The children learn not only from practice but also through feeling and listening. The Ashaninka children do not learn through theory but by daily practice from an early age: the boys still barely…

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Uganda. “Giving our lives to the people of Karamoja”.

For over a hundred years, the Comboni Missionaries have been working in north-eastern Uganda. “Being a missionary here means living side by side with the people, knowing their language and culture, and, if necessary, giving one’s life for them”. This is what Father Longinos López Fernández, from Spain, and Father Germano Joaquim dos Santos Serra,…

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Progress in the Tourism Sector.

The economy of the Dominican Republic is a liberalized, open, and strongly export-oriented economy. For about a decade, it has been experiencing a phase of expansion, becoming one of the fastest growing in Latin America and the Caribbean, as evidenced by the estimates of the World Bank. The engine of this growth, which generated an…

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Ghana. ‘Hogbetsotso’, a Festival of the Exodus.

It is one of the indigenous festivals in Ghana celebrated by the Anlo people of Southern Ghana to commemorate the escape from the region of Notsie in Togo to their present abode in the Volta Region of Ghana between the 14th and the 15th centuries. Hogbetsotso is a festival that reminds the Anlo people of…

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Inequalities. Africa and Climate Change, New Fiscal Rules Are Needed.

Africa is responsible for only 4% of CO2 emissions but is suffering enormous agricultural and health damage. It is proposed to provide help by taxing multinationals and the consumption of the richest countries. Climate change is making its effects felt on humanity, affecting the cornerstones of survival and social organization. But accountability and consequences don’t…

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Advocacy

Sister Rosita. Four Decades of Refugee Advocacy.

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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Baobab

Kalulu and the Great Spirit of the Forest.

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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Youth & Mission

Towards World Youth Day 2027 in Seoul with the courage…

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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