Dossier articles from the past 3 months
The Muslim religion is the unifying feature of Mauritanian culture and society which, however, presents notable differences in other aspects. To fully understand the extent of Islam’s role in the country, we must start from the decision taken in 1958 when it was not yet independent, to define itself as the Islamic Republic of Mauritania.…
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The presidential elections, scheduled for June 22, constitute a test for the Mauritanian political system. The outgoing president, Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, elected for the first time in 2019, is widely expected to win. The majority parties have designated him as their candidate ever since the announcement of the elections last December by the Independent National…
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Nouakchott has not suffered large-scale attacks for 12 years. There are three reasons: collaboration with neighbouring countries, the intervention of religious authorities and having “institutionalised” the demands of Islamist parties and movements. The Sahel is an endemically poor region and Mauritania struggled significantly after independence, to achieve economic development that lived up to expectations. Over…
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The government is focusing on green hydrogen to diversify the rapidly growing economy, aiming for growth in the renewable energy sector. The country is among those most suffering from the climate crisis with increasingly frequent and destructive floods and longer periods of drought. On the one hand, the prospect of becoming Africa’s third largest gas…
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Under the Pol Pot regime, the Church lost everything: bishops, priests, men and women religious and catechists. Since the 90s it has emerged from the catacombs and is slowly growing in numbers as well as in social commitment. Monday, April 14, 1975, was an overcast afternoon. From his window, Father Joseph Chhmar Salas watched as…
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Still traumatised by the bloody Khmer Rouge regime, Cambodia is struggling to recover its economic strength, which is leading to a real social “cultural revolution” for the seventeen million inhabitants of the Land of Smiles. Cambodia is one of the oldest empires in the world. Throughout its history, it has been marked externally by wars…
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The onset of industrialization brought about the brutal decomposition of rural Cambodian families since poverty and indebtedness led to the emigration of an unskilled workforce from the countryside especially to the capital, Phnom Penh. The first clothing factories started up here and were followed by many others. They are run by Chinese, South Korean, Bangladeshi…
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Pol Pot’s regime caused one million seven hundred thousand deaths, devastating families and the entire country. Being a French protectorate brought no significant changes in Cambodian life or economy except for introduction of more formal rules for civil registration and education. Thus, the pagoda monks retained responsibility for primary schools but were required to obtain…
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After the catastrophic war against the Triple Alliance, the country was crisscrossed by bitter political struggles and episodes of civil war between gangs, supported by Brazil and Argentina, who competed for the division of the Paraguayan territory. The Colorado party was in power and governed uninterruptedly from 1870 to 1904 when it was ousted by…
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Paraguay is a country with a strong rural vocation where the agri-food sector predominates, firmly in the hands of the landed oligarchies active in the production of soya, mostly transgenic, wheat, and rice. These crops also constitute the majority of exported goods, together with hydroelectric energy of which the country is the world’s leading exporter…
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The country has a population of 7,353,000 inhabitants, with a population density of approximately 16 people per km2, of whom 56% live in urban areas. The distribution on the territory is uneven because only a small percentage, around 3% of the Paraguayan population, which is largely mestizo and descended from Spaniards and indigenous people, live…
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A landlocked country with almost all its rivers navigable. The difficult road to independence. Lugo’s parenthesis. The world of the triple frontier. The landed oligarchies. Paraguay nestles in the heart of the southern Latin American cone between Bolivia, which surrounds it to the north and northwest, Brazil which it borders to the east, and Argentina…
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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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