Rebuilding the Global Financial System (GFS)
I am reliably informed that GPS car installations were the Christmas gift of choice in 2008. Every time I get lost on the A43 into Lyon I pine for one!…
Miguel Barcelo and Geneva Ceiling
I spent almost all of Friday, December 12th, in the new Human Rights Council chamber at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. A special commemorative session to mark the 60th…
Who are the poor?
The current issue of Le Monde 2, the week-end supplement to Le Monde, the prestigious French daily, carries an interview with Professor Paul Collier. Along with Jeff Sachs, Paul Collier…
Shaking of the Foundations
Paul Tillich, the theologian, wrote a book in the 1960s that influenced a whole generation. It was entitled The Shaking of the Foundations. At the time it was the set…
Corporal Punishment
We have come a long way from a time when violence against children and young people in the form of corporal punishment was widely acceptable. Studies of childhood remind us…
Child Soldiers in the Philippines
Reports are coming out of the Philippines concerning the presence of child soldiers with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Humanitarian law proscribes the recruitment, whether voluntary or forced, of…
Friend of the Poor is no longer with Us
Yesterday, October 20th, Madeleine Cinquin, more popularly known as Soeur Emmanuelle, died at the age of 90 at a nursing home in Callian, France. Soeur Emmanuelle was a sister of…
Greed is no longer good
We all remember that famous Michael Douglas character quote from the movie Wall Street: “Greed is good”. Those were days of irresponsible and ruthless disregard for the common good. Unashamed…
DRC: The violence still goes on
A recent Amnesty International Report on human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) draws attention to the continuing perpetration of violence against children and young people…
Franciscans International Statement on recent Violence in India
In recent months there has been an upsurge of violence against Christians in the State of Orissa in India. Churches have been burned. People have been killed. A climate fear…