With a shortfall of US$ 446 million, the UN agency faces the "worst financial crisis in its history" and could cut many critical services. The situation is due to the US decision to reduce its contribution. This “could push the suffering in disastrous and unpredictable directions.”
Last week the nationalist party won big in state elections. The anti-Bangladeshi feelings and the illusory promise of development were decisive in Tripura. Through its flexibility, the prime minister’s party has been able to use manipulation to gain power.
Today Eastern Ghouta and Afrin are the main battlefields. The evacuation of sick people has begun from the rebel enclave near Damascus. In the north the Turks are close to victory, a claim the Kurds deny. The civilian population is increasingly poor and desperate: 80 per cent live below the poverty line.
"If I want the Lord to listen to my requests, I must return, and return again, to knock at the door of God’s heart, since my own heart is committed to [this petition]! But if my heart is not concerned for this need, or the person for whom I am praying, neither will it be capable of courage and patience".
For the Bishops’ Conference, the apparent remedy “might end up destroying even those marriages that could have been saved”. Card Luis Antonio Tagle, archbishop of Manila, calls on married couples to make decisions for the good of their children. The Couples for Christ movement is against the bill because of the “sacredness and indissolubility of marriage”.
Thousands of people were forced to undergo sterilisation because of intellectual disabilities or mental illness under a law in force between 1948 and 1996. The first lawsuit for compensation will be heard on 28 March.
