THis is a test of how to update this famvin blog!

JUBILEE LIGHTENS DEBT
Pope Appeals to Local Churches and Civil Society

VATICAN CITY, JAN. 9, 2001 (ZENIT.org).- Despite the indifference
that reigns in our society, John Paul II's Jubilee appeal for debt
relief for developing nations has resulted in an impressive show of
solidarity.

The Pontiff himself acknowledged this in his recent Apostolic Letter,
"Novo Millennio Ineunte," where he dedicated a whole paragraph to the
issue.

The governments of many creditor nations "have voted for a
substantial reduction," noted the Pope. Now the governments must
comply "in a brief period of time with these decisions," and resolve
especially the problem of multilateral debt, that is, debt incurred
with international financial organizations.

Among the governments that have voted a reduction, the Italian,
British, Norwegian, and Swiss stand out. The United States, while
voting a reduction last November, forgave 12 times less debt than the
Italian government did, and made the measure dependent on acceptance
of birth control policies.

=46ar more extensive and capillary in action has been the movement of
among the general public and initiatives begun by local Churches and
civil society worldwide. For example, in a campaign to buy off
portions of the debt of two of the poorest countries (Zambia and
Guinea Bissau), and use it for development projects, the Italian
Episcopal Conference was successful in almost doubling the reduction
agreed to by the Italian Parliament, and the figure is still not
final.

At the level of public opinion, it is important to recall the Jubilee
2000 sensitization campaign, promoted by rock stars from all over the
world, among them, Bono and U2, who were received by the Pope.

On the political level, the most striking global initiative was the
motion approved on November 4 by the parliamentarians who were in
Rome to celebrate their Jubilee. They requested the immediate
implementation of the agreements arrived at during the G-8 summit in
Cologne, Germany, in 1999.

Herein lies, in fact, the most intricate knot. If unravelled, it
could open the way to a solution of the problem, as John Paul II
wrote. The G-8 countries have provided for the cancellation of the
debt of the 33 poorest countries of the world, in the amount of $90
million. However, the countries in question must present a document
articulating the objectives of a new development involving the civil
society. Ten countries have already complied, implying a total of $15
million; an additional ten are in the process of doing so, for a
total of $20 million. At this stage, it is the creditors who must
speed up their pace.

At present, the Jubilee's greatest success in this area was to
convince the industrialized world's financial institutions to relate
financial aid to development programs that include the active
participation of civil society, a task that is intensely promoted by
the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, presided over by
Vietnamese Archbishop François Xavier Nguy=EAn Van Thu=E2n.
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U.N. MAPS HUNGER IN WORLD
Africa Is First in Structural Poverty

NEW YORK, JAN. 10, 2001 (ZENIT.org).- It is no news that there is
hunger in the world, but the fact that the same part of the world
continues to suffer spells defeat, states a report of the U.N. World
Food Program, mapping out hunger in the world for the first time.

The warm areas of the world are in the red and, within this color,
Africa continues to have the darkest hue. This continent also
occupies first place in regard to AIDS, wars that have broken out
over the past 5 years, drought, and hunger and its consequent
illnesses.

"We've seen an alarming trend, where the poorest nations are hit
simultaneously both by natural and man-made emergencies, including
Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone,
Guinea, and Tajikistan," the head of the Rome-based agency, Ms.
Bertini, said.

The report shocks the reader with a most eloquent fact: more than one
person out of 7 in the world runs the risk of dying of hunger.

"War and drought continue to be the major factors that force people
to leave their own homes, harvests, and sources of subsistence, while
internal conflicts, social clashes, and natural disasters continue to
be the principal sources of food insecurity," Bertini explained.

The areas in greatest risk continue to be the same: Africa, Asia, and
Latin America. "We are witnessing an alarming tendency, which proves
that already poor nations sustain the additional weight of the
coincidence of natural disasters and those caused by man. I am
referring to Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Sierra
Leone, Guinea Bissau, and Tajikistan."

Unfortunately, the situation does not seem to have a chance of
improvement in 2001, Bertini reported. The World Food Program
provided food for 89 million people in more than 80 nations last
year. Some 16 million of them were in the Horn of Africa, where the
agency sought to prevent a repeat of the 1983-84 famine.

Bertini's map, illustrating pockets of hunger according to a nation's
population, showed African nations as the hardest hit. One of every
three persons in the region lacks sufficient food, often due to a
combination of war and drought.

The countries include Ethiopia, Eritrea, Angola, Burundi, Sierra
Leone, Guinea, and Somalia. In addition, millions of drought-affected
people live in Tajikistan, Pakistan, Iran, Armenia, and Georgia, as
well as Afghanistan, North Korea, Mongolia, Cambodia, and Bangladesh.

The map also showed that 11% of the population of 481 million in
Latin America and the Caribbean suffered from undernourishment,
lacking food to provide basic nutrients. The countries affected
include Haiti, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Honduras.

Bertini said donors responded quickly to hunger alerts in Ethiopia
and Eritrea last year. However, far less help went to Iraq, where the
programs for children age 5 and under were never fully funded, she
denounced.

Most of Baghdad's food supplies are bought by the government with
revenues from oil sales under the U.N.-supervised "oil-for-food"
program.

However, U.N. officials said that Iraqi people lack so many other
goods that they are selling their food rations for items such as
clothing.
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I have not been able to locate an online version of this. If anyone does please let me know. I think others might be interested in it.


Peace,

John Freund, C.M.

Greetings,

It may interest some to know that a new resource for praying Stations of
the Cross, especially with children, is available:

http://www.cptryon.org/prayer/child/stations/index.html

When a translation by a native Spanish speaker becomes available, it too
will be published on the Web.

Best regards,
Patricia

Patricia Tryon
Bread on the Waters Web Pages
http://www.cptryon.org