Zhao Baomei controls the country’s gold market. With her IMC, she has received numerous licenses, particularly in the areas of Yaloké, Bambari, and near the border with Cameroon. The IMC has caused serious damage to local populations and the environment. The queen of the mines of the Central African Republic is a 54-year-old Chinese entrepreneur.…
One day frog swam to the surface of a little pond and glanced around him for a place to rest: “The water is cold today – he complained – it would do me good to bask in the sun for a little while.” And so, he left the water and crouched on a warm, flat…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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,…
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…