News

• 12 May 2005
  AFRICA/ANGOLA - Arms: south-south agreement. Angola will purchase weapons for 100 million dollars from Brazil Luanda (Fides Service) - A south-south agreement, sale and purchase of 100 million dollars worth of arms is being arranged between Brazil and Angola after a visit to Brasilia in early May by Angolan President José Eduar ...
• 12 May 2005
  AFRICA/NIGERIA - Ibadan Serra Club visits seminaries in the Archdiocese to supportand encourage vocations Ibadan (Fides)- A delegation of Ibadan Serra Club in Nigeria recently paid its annual visit to St. Theresa’s Minor Seminary and to the Saints Peter and Paul Major Seminary in the archdiocese of Ibadan. The delegatio ...
• 12 May 2005
  ASIA - Asia’s sad world record: over 12 million people reduced to slavery or forced labour says International Labour Organisation Geneva (Fides Service) - Asia has sad world record of over 12 million people reduced to slavery or forced labour. More than 75% of Asian workers live and work under subhuman conditions. This was denounced by the Internat ...
• 12 May 2005
  ASIA/PAKISTAN - Long list of persons booked under blasphemy law since 1988: 647 victims of a law which discriminates and is often a tool of exploitation Lahore (Fides Service) - The list has 647 names: these are the names of people arrested and detained on charges of blasphemy in Pakistan since the blasphemy law was introduced in 1988. Besides these people at least 20 ot ...
• 12 May 2005
  ASIA/JAPAN - Catechesis, prayer and works of charity for the year of the Eucharist Tokyo (Fides Service) - Japanese Catholics are living the Year of the Eucharist proclaimed by the late Pope John Paul II with great intensity. Early this year the standing committee of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference ...
• 12 May 2005
  AFRICA/TOGO - Violence, intimidation and fraud during 24 April elections says statement by Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference Lome (Fides Service)- Number of seats “variable” (between 5,311 and 5,320 according to various sources also official), incomplete electoral lists, voters found in possession of more than one voting paper, intimidatio ...
• 12 May 2005
  VATICAN - Beatifications - Mother Ascención Nicol: “Evangelise the poor in missionary situations where the Church is most in need” Mother Maria Auxiliadora Hernández Martínez Superior General delle Dominican Missionaries of the Rosary interviewed by Fides Vatican City (Fides Service) - The co-founder of the Dominican Missionaries of the Rosary Mother Ascención Nicol (1868-1940) will be beatified in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome on Saturday May 14. For the occasion Fides ...
• 12 May 2005
  VATICAN - Dominican Missionaries of the Rosary Vatican City (Fides Service) - The Congregation of the Dominican Missionaries of the Rosary was born in response to a missionary need to Christianise the forest peoples in Peru. In 1900 the Holy See created the Prefectur ...
• 12 May 2005
  EUROPE/ITALY - Sixty years since the death of Father Pfeiffer Salvatorian Fathers open “On Mission in Rome” Exhibition to commemorate the Catholic priest who saved hundreds of lives during Nazi occupation Rome (Fides Service) - To mark the 60th anniversary of the death of German born Fr Pancratius Pfeiffer (12 May 1945), the Society of the Divine Saviour of which he was a member has opened an exhibition in Rome in Via del ...
• 12 May 2005
  EUROPE/ITALY - Bambino Gesu Children’s Hospital and Umana Mente Foundation join forces to fight autism, violence against minors and food behaviour disturbances. Since 1999 over 25,000 calls for help to “Girasole 2” project Rome (Fides Service) - An operative nucleus operative 24 hours a day faces the spreading phenomenon of physical and psychological abuse and violence against minors very often at home. They are the experts of the Girasole ...
• 12 May 2005
  ASIA/CHINA - Flourishing Catholic community in the province of Yunan with the highest number of different ethnic groups Beijing (Fides Service) - In the south western mainland China province of Yunan, which has borders with Myanmar, Vietnam and Laos, people of 52 different ethnic groups make up 33.4% of the population. The Catholic Chur ...
• 11 May 2005
  AFRICA/GABON - National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies confirmed Vatican City (Fides Service) - Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples , on 5 May 2005 confirmed as National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in Gabon for ano ...
• 11 May 2005
  AFRICA/SAN TOME’ Y PRINCIPE - Outbreak of cholera could strike 50 per cent of the population on the Island of San Tomé Rome (Fides Service) - An outbreak of cholera in San Tomé y Príncipe threatens to strike 80 per cent of the entire population. Three weeks since the virus was identified at least 131 people have been infected and thre ...
• 11 May 2005
  VATICAN - Wednesday Audience: the Pope continues teaching on Psalms and Canticles “Nations must learn to 'read' in history a message from God. The human adventure is not confused and meaningless … it is possible to discern God’s hidden intervention in history” Vatican City (Fides Service) - “History is not in the hands of dark forces, of chance, or of merely human choices," "The Lord, supreme arbiter of historical events, rises above the discharge of evil energies, the vehem ...
• 11 May 2005
  AFRICA/SUDAN - Reconciling hearts after years of civil war: Jesuit Refugee Service programme for refugees in southern Sudan Khartoum (Fides Service)- Educate to peace to facilitate the return of refugees to their own country. This is the objective of a programme started by the Jesuit Refugee Service JRS, working in refugee camps in southern S ...