News Letter Vol.4 - No.5

CJNM - Vol.4. No.5 - News

THE NEWS OF THE MONTH »

World Humanitarian Summit

An initiative of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, managed by UN OCHA, the first World Humanitarian Summit will be held in Istanbul on 23 and 24 May 2016.

What’s the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS)? It’s a global call to action and has three main goals:

Reaffirm the UN System’s commitment to humanity and humanitarian principles.
Initiate actions and commitments, which enable countries and communities to prepare for and respond to crises and be more resilient to shocks.
Share best practices, which help save lives around the world, placing affected people at the center of humanitarian action and alleviating suffering.

Why now this 1st WHS? The world is at a critical juncture. We are witnessing the highest level of human suffering since the Second World War. Nearly 60 million people, half of them children, have been forced from their homes due to conflict and violence. The human and economic cost of disasters caused by natural hazards is also escalating. In the last two decades, 218 million people each year were affected by disasters & at an annual cost to the global economy, that now exceeds $300 billion. And yet never before has humanitarian action delivered so much for so many vulnerable people around the world. But, unless more effective ways to address their suffering are adopted, we cannot aspire to a world of peace, security and sustainable development where no one is left behind. Decisive, collective action is needed to uphold our shared responsibility to save lives and enable people to live lives of dignity. Click here for the entire article . . .

THE GOOD NEWS »

The "protection of the churches in Islam"

The Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, a body linked to the Egyptian Ministry for Religious facilities (Waqf), will publish a vademecum on the subject of "protection of the churches in Islam". This was reported by Minister Mohamed Mokhtar, head of the department. The book in preparation - explained the representative of the Egyptian government - is intended to document that in Islamic societies reference to the Qur'an can be translated into a form inspired by the values of coexistence and respect among citizens of different religious belonging. The minister announced the news on Wednesday, March 30, during the presentation of another publishing venture, a manual-encyclopedia dedicated to the refutation of the false conceptions of Islam, that the representative of the Egyptian government has valued as a useful tool to combat extremism. In August 2014, the reaction of Islamist groups, affected by the military repression, targeted places of worship and Christian educational institutions across Egypt. More than forty churches were burned and looted. In recent days, an Egyptian administrative court ruled that churches, as places of worship, cannot be demolished. The administrative ruling concerned the case of a Greek Orthodox Patriarchate church sold a few years ago, whose owner had asked to demolish to build a new building in its place. Is this a piece of good news? It would be if at the same time the tribunal of Cairo misdemeanors would not have rejected the appeal by the Egyptian writer Fatima Naoot filed against "condemnation for blasphemy" issued against her in January. She was sentenced to three years imprisonment and a fine of 20,000 Egyptian pounds (some $ 2,550) for criticizing the Islamic practice of immolating each year lambs, calves and sheep on the feast of sacrifice (Eid al Adha). The writer is the second Egyptian public figure condemned for blasphemy in recent months. Last December, the same fate befell the researcher Beheri Islam, for expressing considered offensive considerations vis-à-vis Islam during a television program. There remains also confirmed the sentences to five years in prison in February issued against 4 Coptic students accused of insulting Islam after posting a 2015 video of a few seconds, realized using a mobile phone, in which they mimed the slaying of a Muslim at prayer, imitating the gruesome killings by the jihadists of the so-called "Islamic State". To know more . . .

THE WORST NEWS »

There is a legal discrimination between men and women in 155 countries

The ONE NGO recently presented the report "Poverty is sexist" where discrimination is shown that many women worldwide suffer, and highlights the 20 worst countries in which to be born as a woman. "Nowhere on Earth have women the same opportunities as men. In none!” states the beginning of the grueling document. It adds, "Still in 2016, 500 million women cannot read, 63 million girls are denied the right to education and 155 countries still have laws that differentiate between men and women." The report is disappointing from every point of view: "In many countries, born poor and woman means to be convicted by inequality, oppression and poverty for life. And in many cases it is also a death sentence. A girl born in Nigeria is 41 times more likely to die before the age of five than one born in Norway." The most important chapters of the document is the one that indicates the countries where there is greater inequality. This list of 20 nations is led by Niger. "It's a place where a child can expect to have 16 months less schooling than his brother (...), only 2.6% of women over 15 have a bank account, less than half of women have paid employment and only 13% of MPs are women." In addition, a woman in this country has "one chance in 20 during her life to die giving birth." The list is completed as follows: Nigeria, Somalia, Mali, Central Africa, Yemen, Congo, Afghanistan, Ivory Coast, Chad, Comoros, Pakistan, Liberia, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Benin, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Haiti, Djibouti, and Mauritania. To know more . . .

Celebrating!		Take Action now!
World Social Forum 2016 (WSF2016) The WSF2016 will take place this year in Montreal, Quebec, Canada from 9 to 14 of August. The WSF2016 seeks to gather tens of thousands of people from groups in civil society, organizations and social movements who want to build a sustainable and inclusive world, where every person and every people has its place and can make its voice heard. The WSF is “an open meeting place for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences and interlinking for effective action, by groups and movements of civil society”. Most of the participants “are opposed to neoliberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism, and committed to building a planetary society directed at fruitful relationships among humankind and between it and the Earth." Its repeated slogan since when it started on 2001 at Porto Alegre (Brazil) in Another world is possible! This of Montreal will be the WSF number 12 and the first to be held in one of the so called “developed and western countries”. To know more go to the official site, here, and also read more at the Canadian CED Network website.		An international investigation into the killings of Beni and Lubero (DR Congo) The population in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo-especially in the Beni and Lubero territories-, is the target of a massacres campaign. Since October 2014, men, women, children and old people are killed en- masse, in particularly cruel way, with a machete, axe, knife, hoe sledge, hammer. The seriousness of the crimes and their repetition betrays the genocidal intent of the perpetrators. The Congolese government attributed the killings to the Ugandan Islamist rebels, the ADF, but several sources put this version into question. It can help to stop these massacres demanding an international investigation designed to identify the perpetrators as well as their sponsors and accomplices so that they are arrested and brought to justice. We can help the victims, survivors and their families not to be forgotten and to maintain the hope that they can one day obtain justice and reparation, by signing this petition addressed to: the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, the High Commissioner UN human rights, the Congolese authorities and political leaders. To know more read here and to sign go to . . .

Time to rethink		Keep smiling
Panama papers: Denials expose more than the original exposé The leak once again reveals how states collude with private interests to protect the criminality of the powerful. Alternatively, how could journalists uncover the Panama Papers while states, which carry on surveillance on millions of people, listen to billions of phone calls and read billions of e-mails were apparently unaware of the underhand dealings? Read here all article . . .		We are the result of what we think and feel. That's why much of what happens to us in our daily life is influenced by our own decisions and our interior forces. To see the PowerPoint click here . . .

Must Watch.		Resources.
What's behind companies Did you ever you wonder what's behind companies like Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola and Associated British Foods? There are unfair land grabs to ensure for themselves water and sugar in large quantities without paying the right cost. To watch the video click here . . .		The scourge of bio-piracy Bio piracy describes a practice in which others use indigenous knowledge of nature for profit, without permission from and with little or no compensation or recognition to the indigenous people themselves. See more at . . .

Witnessing
When faith becomes advocacy Vietnamese Catholics and activists are mourning a senior Redemptorist priest they said raised hopes among the poor and oppressed, and worked for justice and peace. On March 2 at the age of 76, Father Matthew Vu Khoi Phung, Redemptorist returned to God the Father. The local faithful will always remember how he encouraged and consoled through a great example of time after the fall of Saigon in 1975. All remember him as one of those courageous priests that contributed to not letting the flame of faith be extinguished when the Church was going through dark times in the country. He was dedicated to the poor, the marginalized and the oppressed, working all his life for justice and peace, even when, during the last phase of his earthly existence, he guided the Redemptorist monastery in Hanoi. The faithful have appreciated him as a man and religious dedicated to a living witness to the Gospel, bringing hope to the poor and the victims of social injustice. Even when the condition was critical for the Church and many activities prohibited, Father Vu Khoi Phung held Bible meetings in secret, the sacraments and continued to teach catechism, to strengthen the faith of youth after northern communists took control of U.S.-backed South Vietnam in 1975 and church activities were banned. In his life, he has launched many social programs and initiatives to help the needy, including migrants and AIDS patients. In recent years, he has dedicated himself to the defense of fundamental rights, visiting in prison various activists and people arrested for political or religious reasons. At his funeral, celebrated on March 5 in Hanoi, attended by thousands of Catholic faithful, people have solemnly promised to follow his example by continuing his work of proclaiming the Gospel and social commitment. For more information, see . . .