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Africa

Between terrorist threats and Unsolved problems.

The political instability seen before, the ethnic tensions both in the country and in the region, the collapse of the institutions in some of the neighbouring countries (first Mali then Burkina Faso) and other factors created the conditions for an increase of the terrorist risk in Ivory Coast Jihadist groups linked to Al Qaeda or…

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DR Congo. North and South Kivu, Security Companies, Business as Usual.

In the eastern regions of the country, strong presence of Wagner paramilitaries, arms traffickers, and former soldiers of the Foreign Legion. Former soldiers of the Soviet Armed Forces, veterans of the French Foreign Legion, businessmen engaged in arms trafficking and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are used as a front to finance rebel militias. It looks like…

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Africa. The New Eldorado of Beer.

Competing for the continent are the French Groupe Castel and the Dutch Heineken. An informal economy strongly rooted not only in the villages but also in the big cities, slow and insufficiently extensive distribution channels for goods, and low purchasing power on the part of the local populations are the three factors that in recent…

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Libya. The missing Uranium: a boomerang effect of NATO’s attack of 2011.

The revelation that 2.5 tonnes of uranium were missing from a warehouse in Southern Libya, by the International Atomic Energy Agency provides one more example of the damaging consequences of the 2011 attack by NATO to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi’s regime. In 2016, President Barrack Obama admitted that this Libyan episode was the worst mistake of…

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Africa and the Synod. Walking Together.

The upcoming World Synod of Bishops and its preparations in synodal processes around the world show how the signs of the times challenge the Church today in the light of the Gospel. We can no longer hide the great general problems currently shaking it. Sr. Anne Béatrice Faye, Senegalese, a religious of the Congregation of…

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Ivory Coast. An uncertain future.

A leading country in West Africa, Ivory Coast has weaknesses that could not only block economic development but also lead to turmoil. The consequences of two civil wars fought in the past decades are still felt and the leadership, who is responsible for these wars, has not yet implemented measures that could avoid the troubles…

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Rwanda. The Power of the Beat.

Ingoma Nshya is the country’s first female percussion troupe. Reconciliation, healing and peace are part of the group journey. We went to meet them. About 125 kilometres south of Kigali, and after an endless sequence of hills, is Huye. With nearly 320,000 inhabitants, until 2013 it housed the oldest university in the country. Here you…

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Mozambique. The Tete Mines Business.

The extraction and export of fossil deposits from the Mozambican province has grown in recent years. The benefits go into the pockets of Indian and Maputo companies. The local population not only does not see the fruits but is exploited and removed from their land. The bulldozers dig into the earth, lift tons of coal…

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Open wounds.

The wounds caused by the two civil wars are still open since they have not yet been healed. The politicians, the soldiers and the militias that committed crimes against the population for the most part have not been put on trial. And there has not been a sort of Truth and Reconciliation Commission, like the…

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Mozambique. Living the missionary spirit.

He received the appointment as auxiliary bishop with “fear and trembling”. But with a great desire to serve the church. We spoke about it with the Combonian Msgr. António Manuel Bogaio Constantino was recently consecrated as auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Beira. The archdiocese includes the entire province of Sofala in the central part…

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Ivory Coast and France.

The prolonged phase of unrest reduced the influence of Ivory Coast on the international scene. During the Houphouet-Boigny era the Ivorian president was a powerbroker in the region. He was considered a pillar of Francafrique, the network created by France to control her former colonies in Africa and therefore to play a prominent role on…

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South Africa. Much More than Tricks.

Fantasy and imagination but above all, ingenuity. 200 apprentices from different walks of life train their hands to demonstrate that magic ‘makes the impossible, possible’. It is difficult to escape illusion and optimism when you walk through the gate of the large colonial-style house that houses the College of Magic, in the Claremont district of…

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Advocacy

Maria Ressa. Information that gives hope.

“We want to create a federation of international journalistic organisations that collaborate in this effort, starting from the global South,” says Filipino journalist and 2022…

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Baobab

The Leopard, the Dog and the Tortoise.

Once upon a time, there was a leopard. He had a huge walnut tree that was full of nuts. Stingy as he was, however, he forbade…

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Youth & Mission

Mission. In the school of life and humanity.

Three young Comboni missionaries from three continents share their vocation stories and missionary experiences. Fr Victor Cunanan Parungao from the Philippines reflects on 15 years of…

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