This article was originally published in Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF) on April 20th, 2009. In early February, The New York Times released information detailing the involvement of the U.S. military in the bungled Ugandan mission to oust the rebel Lord’s...
ACTION ALERT! If you’ve been following the news recently, you’ve probably heard a lot about pirates. Not the swashbuckling, patch-over-the-eye, ruthless robber kind, but the disempowered, poverty-stricken, Somali kind. Although the piracy situation off the coast of...
Now that Laurent Nkunda is out of the picture and some other rebel groups have been integrated into the Congolese national army, what is the Congolese government’s excuse for neglecting to take care of the state’s men in uniform (FARDC in French acronym)? Consider...
In Goma, the capital of the North Kivu province and surrounding towns, there are many signs of hope. Since the announcement of the capture of the National Congress for People’s Defense (CNDP) rebel leader Laurent Nkunda on January 23, and the slow integration of CNDP...
by Beth Tuckey For many of us, the word “pirate” conjures up a whole host of images, most notably that of a swashbuckling, patch-over-the-eye, ruthless robber. In our history texts, pirates sailed the high seas in search of treasure chests of gold, often in...
Posted April 8th, 2009. Adapted from an article originally written for the US Catholic Missions Association.On March 19th, at the end of the Mass celebrated in the National Stadium in Yaounde, Cameroon on the feast of St. Joseph, Pope Benedict XVI presented the...
This month, the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change is launching a unique and unprecedented initiative, A Catholic Climate Covenant and the St. Francis Pledge to Care for Creation and the Poor. This ambitious project is in response to a growing desire by the Catholic...
As one of its principal missions, AFRICOM states (africom.mil/AboutAFRICOM.asp) that it will offer “the kind of support that will enable African governments and existing regional organizations… to have greater capacity to provide security and respond in...
Last week, AFJN joined dozens of organizations in thanking Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) for his work in appropriating more money to the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Senator Leahy pushed...
Nearly 700 participants will come together at Ecumenical Advocacy Days (EAD) this weekend in Alexandria, VA to discuss the relationship between climate change, migration, and poverty. AFJN has helped formulate the Africa Program at EAD for many years, and we are...