News

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  17 August 2023
  AFRICA/ZIMBABWE - Presidential elections, the country heading to polls amid tensions and social emergencies Harare (Fides News Agency) - Zimbabwe is approaching the August 23rd presidential elections amid fears and socio-economic crisis. The southern African country, liberated in 2017 from President-Master Robert Mugabe, who, ...
• 12 August 2023
  AFRICA/CHAD - Erection of the Diocese of Koumra and appointment of the first Bishop Vatican City (Fides News Agency) - The Holy Father Francis has erected the new Diocese of Koumra, with territory taken from the Diocese of Sarh, making it a suffragan of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of N'Djaména. The ...
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  12 August 2023
  AFRICA/CHAD - "When you're hungry, it's difficult to hear others scream". The stream of Sudanese refugees is jeopardizing coexistence in frontier areas N’Djamena (Fides News Agency) - "Although in Europe they don't discuss it much, since April 15, 2023, Sudan has been experiencing a dramatic armed conflict between rivaling factions, headed by two generals that for ye ...
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  12 August 2023
  EUROPE/PORTUGAL - Chinese Pilgrims at World Youth Day: Faith is a “Joy and a grace” by Victor Gaetan Lisbon (Fides News Agency) - The five-star red flag of China flew big and bold, near ones from Argentina and Portugal, close to the front of World Youth Day’s stage as Via Crucis was about to beg ...
• 11 August 2023
  AMERICA/ECUADOR - Slaying of presidential candidate brings to light criminal underworld connected with international cocaine trade Quito (Fides News Agency) - Six Columbians were arrested yesterday, August 10, in connection with the murder of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio (see Fides 10/8/2023). During a police raid on an establishmen ...
• 11 August 2023
  AFRICA/NIGER - Chronicles from the military coup capital Niamey (Fides News Agency) - While the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) decided yesterday, at the summit in Abuja (Nigeria), to activate the "standby force" - tasked with intervening "as soon as possibl ...
• 10 August 2023
  ASIA/HOLY LAND - President of Israel visits Stella Maris Monastery in Haifa, object of vandalistic acts Jerusalem (Fides News Agency) - The President of Israel Isaac Herzog, along with his wife and a delegation, paid a private solidarity visit to the Stella Maris Monastery in Haifa, which - like other Christian places of w ...
• 10 August 2023
  AFRICA/NIGER - "No to the armed intervention" say the Bishops of West Africa on the eve of ECOWAS meeting Niamey (Fides News Agency) - "We are profoundly worried for the sub-regional tensions in connection with Niger's political situation", wrote the members of the Reunion of Episcopal Conferences in West Africa, in a statem ...
• 10 August 2023
  AMERICA/ECUADOR - Slain candidate: the Bishops' solidarity with the family Quito (Fides News Agency) - "We stand in solidarity with the victim's family, and we condemn every form of violence at all levels of society". This was how Ecuador’s Bishops expressed themselves in a statement after th ...
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  10 August 2023
  AFRICA/BURKINA FASO - Iulian Gherguţ released. Father Pier Luigi Maccalli: "Great news of liberation: HALLELUJAH" Ouagadougou (Fides News Agency) - Iulian Gherguţ - abducted in Burkina Faso 8 years ago - has been released and is already back in his home country of Romania. The news was announced by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ...
• 9 August 2023
  ASIA/JAPAN - Nagasaki, the city symbol of Japanese Catholicism Tokyo (Fides News Agency) - Today, August 9, is the 78th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, the second (and hopefully, last) in history, which followed that of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Nagasaki at the tim ...
• 9 August 2023
  AFRICA/NIGER - Outside pressure to return to democracy is critical, but will it be effective? Niamey (Fides News Agency) - "The Niamey putschists draw inspiration from the examples of Bamako and Ouagadougou, whose juntas survived the sanctions, and who opposed the "international community" and the ECOWAS (Economi ...
• 8 August 2023
  AFRICA/SUDAN - The crisis in Niger should not overshadow the one in Sudan, where the humanitarian situation is on the verge of collapse Khartoum (Fides News Agency) - The crisis in Niger has taken precedence over the war in Sudan, originating from the clash between the military and militiamen with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which may even draw in ot ...
• 8 August 2023
  AFRICA/NIGERIA - A Burkinabe White Father and a Tanzanian seminarian are the two people kidnapped in the diocese of Minna Abuja (Fides News Agency) - A White Father (MIssionary of Africa) from Burkina Faso and a Tanzanian seminarian are the two people abducted on August 3 in the assault at St. Luke's Catholic Church, Gyedna (diocese of Minn ...
• 8 August 2023
  AFRICA/ETHIOPIA - Clashes in the Amhara Region; Bishops: "Stop the fighting and start a dialogue" Addis Ababa (Fides News Agency) - The Catholic Bishops' Conference of Ethiopia has made a plea to the combatants, asking them to immediately cease the ongoing war between the Amhara militia (Fano) and the Ethiopian Natio ...