The Limpopo River: Collateral Victim of the Mining Industry
The Limpopo River Basin is a fragile environment threatened by the combined pressure, of climate change, urban waste disposal and mining activities. The sluggish waters of the Limpopo, called Espiritu Santo River by the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama in 1498 and much later the “great grey-green, greasy Limpopo» by Rudyard Kipling, flow from South […]
Herbs & Plants: Cassava, one of the major staple foods
Manihot esculenta, commonly called cassava (Family Euphorbiaceae) is one of the most important and widely cultivated tropical food crops. It is a semi-woody perennial shrub growing to an average of up to 3 metres high; having single to few stems, sparingly branching. Cassava is the third largest source of food carbohydrates in the tropics, after […]
Israel: The best-known lake in the Gospels is drying up
Lake Tiberias where, according to the Gospels, Jesus walked on the water: Israel is trying to fill it with desalinated sea water. In Israel the situation of Lake Tiberias grows ever more critical, the lake upon which (according to the Gospel accounts) Jesus walked. It is drying up due to a five-year drought in Israel, […]
Love for the People and Passion for the Gospel
In 2018, 40 missionaries were killed in the world, 17 more, almost double, compared to 23 in 2017. Among them 35 were priests, one seminarian and four lay people. After eight consecutive years in which the highest number of missionaries killed was in America, in 2018 Africa had the primacy of the bloodshed: 19 priests, […]
Church asylum: commitment to a humanitarian state of affairs
It is an ancient pre-Christian and early Christian tradition to grant asylum to refugees in holy places. In Europe, this tradition was revived by the Charter of Groningen, passed in 1987 by religious communities and grass-roots church initiatives. It says: “When we have good reason to assume that a refugee or asylum seeker, threatened with […]
The Niger River of all challenges: from drought to floods and pollution
The Niger River is the main source of life of large parts of West Africa. But owing to climate change and human activities, riparian populations face growing challenges. Sailing down the Niger River from the Fouta Djalon Mountains of Guinea to the sands of Timbuktu, the pearl of the desert and to the mangroves of […]
Shared Electrical Mobility
Asia is exporting the Tuk Tuk, tricycles, to Africa. Now for the electrical version. Growing urbanisation and increasing pollution in African cities demand a new approach capable of providing transport systems that are clean and cost effective. In order to understand how to respond to this problem creatively, it is useful to analyse the solutions […]
Commercial War and Side Effects to Africa
The commercial war between the USA and the rest of the world has only just begun and some voices point out that the current escalation of tariffs can last up to 20 years. Since Trump came to power he has not stopped sending signals that pointed to his disenchantment with the economic agreements of his […]
Brazil: Bringing hope to the inferno of Cracolandia
Living with the street people. Evangelising the “inferno” of drugs. Experiencing “Mission Bethlehem”. It is just a small plywood house with a few bits of furniture, a chair or two and a wooden bed that is always covered with things. In a corner there is a small kitchen with a few cooking pots. There are […]
The Senegal River: Threatened by drought, climate change and man-made disasters
The Senegal River is a main source of life and prosperity for three West-African countries. But its vital role is put in jeopardy by a number of threats. The 1,641 km-long Senegal River, which has two headstreams in the Fouta Djalon highlands of Guinea and one in Mali, is vital for the four countries of […]
