SYDNEY:
Pilgrims to 23rd World Youth Day Seek Asylum in Australia
PAN-AFRICA: Churches to Push for Effective Foreign Aid to
Continent
LIBYA: Lebanon issues arrest warrant for Gaddafi
WEST AFRICA: Coastline to Be Submerged By 2099
SOUTH AFRICA: Bishops Decry Lack of Ethical Leadership
SYDNEY: Pilgrims to 23rd World Youth Day Seek Asylum in Australia
At least
18 pilgrims who arrived in Australia for the international World Youth Day last
month have applied for asylum. Most are from African nations, including Zimbabwe,
Burundi and Kenya, but there are also some Pakistanis, according to The Australian
newspaper.
The Asylum Seekers Centre, which is providing assistance to the pilgrims, is
struggling to deal with the surge in claims. “Eighteen people with serious
concerns might not sound like a lot, but for us as an organization trying to
manage that, it's impossible,” director Tamara Domicelj said. “People
are presenting to us having slept outdoors and with the weather Sydney lately
being so cold and wet, it's a real concern.”
Amnesty International refugee co-ordinator Graham Thom predicted the number
would rise, with another two months before the majority of three-month WYD visas
expire. Thom said many of the asylum-seekers had come forward so early because
they were destitute. Domicelj said Department of Immigration officials had been
liaising with WYD organizers to clarify who should care for the pilgrims. But
a WYD spokesman said he doubted organizers were responsible for supporting the
pilgrims.
He said accommodation arranged for the event was no longer available. “The
entry and exit of people into and out of Australia are matters for the Department
of Immigration,” he said. “The church will co-operate with the department's
efforts in this regard.” A Department of Immigration spokesman said he
could not comment on specific cases because of “privacy reasons”.
He said most of the 100,000 international pilgrims entered Australia on special
three-month WYD visas, for which fees had been waived.
PAN-AFRICA:
Churches to Push for Effective Foreign Aid to Continent
Catholic development organisations and representatives of the Church in Africa
will next week appeal to the international community for effective aid to the
continent. The Catholic charities (under the umbrella of Caritas Internationalis)
will be at the negotiating table in Accra, Ghana, for the Third High-Level Forum
on Aid Effectiveness to be held in September from 2 to 4.
After a May meeting, the Church in Africa, represented by the Symposium of Episcopal
Conferences in Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), joined the All Africa Conference
of Churches (AACC) to make a joint ecumenical statement appealing for aid to
be distributed in more effective ways.
The Christian leaders are encouraging more decision-making power delegated to
local communities regarding the way money is spent, ZENIT reported. They are
appealing for an end to conditions placed by governments and institutions when
they donate aid. The ecumenical statement quoted studies that show half of all
aid is tied to technical assistance and supply driven. It noted the continued
militarization of aid and the promotion of consumer culture at the expense of
sustainable development.
"The Accra process," the statement concluded, "must be a step
forward in the journey for Africans to stand with pride, with no begging bowls
in their hands, but with bowls in our hands ready to contribute to help others
around the globe.”
LIBYA: Lebanon issues arrest warrant for Gaddafi
An arrest
warrant has been issued in Lebanon for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi over the
disappearance 30 years ago of a senior Shiite Moslem cleric after a visit to
the North African nation, officials said. Gaddafi was also indicted for allegedly
"inciting the abduction" of Imam Mussa Sadr, the spiritual guide of
Lebanon's Shiite community, investigating magistrate Samih el-Hajj said in a
charge sheet.
The "arrest warrant" equally named six other Libyan suspects who were
also indicted for taking part in the alleged abduction. Sadr, who founded the
opposition Amal Movement now led by parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, disappeared
while in Libya with two companions Mohammed Yacoub and Abbas Badreddin in 1978.
There has been no trace of the three men since the disappearance. Libya maintains
that the trio left for Italy on August 31, 1978 after their stay in Tripoli
and that it has no idea what happened to them afterwards.
Lebanon reopened the case in 2004 after relatives of Sadr and his companions
lodged several complaints with the authorities demanding action and amid accusations
by the influential Shiite Hezbollah movement of Libyan involvement.
WEST AFRICA: Coastline to Be Submerged By 2099
Swathes
of West Africa's coastline extending from the orange dunes in Mauritania to
the dense tropical forests in Cameroon will be underwater by the end of the
century as a direct consequence of climate change, environmental experts warn.
"The coastline [as it is now] will be completely changed by the end of
this century because the sea level is rising along the coast at around two centimetres
every year," said Stefan Cramer, Nigeria director of Heinrich Boll Stiftung,
a German environmental NGO.
Even where urban areas appear unscathed, sea level rise will still challenge
towns and cities by threatening the underground water supplies from which millions
of people across the region draw their water. "[Increasing salinity] will
make the ground water undrinkable and unsuitable for agricultural purposes.
The result will be food and water insecurity," agreed George Awudi, Ghana
Programme Coordinator for the environmental lobby group Friends of the Earth.
The effects of sea-level rise will be most "dramatic" in Nigeria's
economic capital Lagos which is just five metres above sea level, with some
parts of the city lying below sea-level, Cramer said. The flooding is likely
be most severe in Lagos because of its position at the southern end of the Gulf
of Guinea where stronger tropical storms from the South Atlantic create storm
surges up to three metres high, Cramer said. He estimates that most of the 15
million inhabitants of Lagos will be displaced and Nigeria's southern Delta
region where oil installations are located will also be swamped.
Other major urban centres in West Africa which experts have identified as at
risk of flooding are Banjul in The Gambia, Bissau in Guinea Bissau, and Nouakchott
in Mauritania. All three capitals are at or close to sea level.
Blame:
Environmentalists blame the gradual melting of the 3,000 metre-thick Greenland
ice cap in the Arctic as being responsible for the coastal erosion along the
Coast of Guinea. Greenland is three times the size of Nigeria and its emptying
into the Atlantic causes a rise in the sea-level.
"It
is all due to climate change - the greenhouse gas emissions result in global
warming and subsequent melting of the Greenland ice cap," Cramer said.
Compounding the situation in West Africa, in August 2007 a tropical storm 5,000
kilometres off the coast caused a shift in the strong currents that run near
the Nigerian coast and destroyed a protective sand bar.
The solution:
Environmental experts have different solutions to the problem. "I think
the best way out for the moment is devising simpler and more cost effective
solutions such as how to preserve towns and villages under threat and preventing
sea water intrusion", the director of the UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC) Yvo de Boer said. "The sensible option is moving to higher
ground which is a tough option especially for Nigeria as it means giving up
its economic centres in Lagos and its oil installations in the Delta",
Cramer said.
But Awudi at Friends of the Earth described relocation as an "unthinkable
option" due to its economic, social and cultural implications. "Every
solution to a problem must focus on the major cause of that problem and in this
case greenhouse gas emissions by industrialised countries which are responsible
for sea-level rise must be effectively tackled," Awudi said. "The
industrialised countries should take proactive steps in curtailing their emissions
responsible for climate change which will have a positive impact on sea-level
rise," he said.
However according to Cramer even if the industrialised countries do stop their
greenhouse gas emissions, the trend of rising sea levels would continue unchanged
for another 50 to 100 years. The experts all made their comments on the sidelines
of a UNFCCC working meeting in the Ghana capital Accra where representatives
of 150 countries have gathered to continue preparatory negotiations for a landmark
climate change conference due to be held in Copenhagen in December 2009 where
a successor to the Kyoto Treaty is to be signed.
SOUTH AFRICA: Bishops Decry Lack of Ethical Leadership
Ahead of
national elections next year, the Catholic Church has expressed concern about
the quality of political leadership in South Africa. At the recent plenary meeting
of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference (SACBC), "lack of
ethical leadership, slow service provision and delivery [and] lack of service
from the Public Service were all extensively discussed," according to Fr
Chris Townsend, the bishops' information officer.
President Thabo Mbeki is to step down at the end of his second term in 2009.
His sacked deputy, Jacob Zuma, succeeded him as party leader of the African
National Congress and is likely to become the next president. The hugely popular
Zuma has been charged with corruption and was acquitted of rape two years ago.
He, however, admitted having sex with the HIV-positive woman. The bishops also
criticized the still popular ANC for having "taken the title of 'ruling'
party to heart, with little concern for other groupings." It had lost the
sense of 'governing', they said.
The bishops
felt that the future of democracy was at stake and that positive intervention
was necessary. They resolved to issue two pastoral letters on the elections,
one when the polls are announced and the second shortly before polling day.
Other issues discussed at the plenary included the Second Synod for Africa,
scheduled for October 2009. The Lineamenta, or working document, for the synod
was discussed and will be finalised by the SACBC secretariat. The 15th plenary
meeting of the Symposium of Episcopal conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM)
which might be hosted by South Africa next year was also discussed.
On the Year of St Paul which began on June 29, the bishops proposed a pastoral
letter. Study material on the subject will be available by the Catholic Bible
College. The church leaders also discussed evangelization, focusing on the overwhelming
call by the 2007 Pastoral Forum for formation of the laity. Fr Barney McAleer
reported on his efforts throughout the territory. The bishops felt it important
that there be an animated group of laity who could bring Christ and his ideals
into the political, economic, social and cultural spheres.
The conference resolved to give its full and enthusiastic support to the cause
for the beatification and canonisation of the Servant of God Abbot Francis Pfanner,
founder of Mariannhill Monastery and the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters
of the Precious Blood. Other issues the bishops addressed were the role of Catholic
education in evangelization, the youth, HIV/AIDS, and Christian formation, liturgy
and culture.