EN | IT | FR – The personality and character of the new US President raises doubts about his ability to play his role responsibly. This is not a novelty. Some of his predecessors were not role models in their judgments and speeches, and the United States apparently survived.
EN | IT – On the occasion of World day against trafficking in human beings, 30 July, the network of Caritas organisations from the Euro-Mediterranean area launch a new report to cast the spotlight on the poor level of prevention of trafficking in conflict and post-conflict situations. Because of that, many vulnerable people who are fleeing from danger end up in the nets of unscrupulous criminals every year.
EN | IT | FR | DE – Although the TTIP is an agreement being negotiated primarily at European level, its consequences will also be felt at national level. The same is true for CETA (Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement) between Canada and the EU. What are the most significant bones of contention?
EN | IT | FR | DE – In contrast to the Fascist movements of the early 20th century, neo-right parties in Europe no longer pursue the objective of the abolition of liberal democracy, but its internal “transformation” through an ethnic consolidation of the political sphere. The Fascist differentiation between master races and inferior races has been replaced by the principle of peaceful co-existence between different ethnicities. The ideology of the so-called “ethnopluralism” affirms the concept of human rights, but erodes their universal substance with a racial interpretation of the term “nation”.
EN | IT – Pope Francis addressed his encyclical letter Laudato si’ on care for our human home to every person living on the planet. It has received an overwhelming echo all over the world. Most of the reactions have been positive. Indeed the Holy Father has expressed the single issue for our times that most concerns humanity. Pope Francis has not only spoken to all but he spoke on behalf of all of us. He has done so very modestly by taking into account the teaching of his predecessors, of fellow bishops and other religious leaders, by accepting the insights of modern science and by refusing to offer political remedies and technical fixes.
EN | IT | ES – The emerging countries of Latin America are experiencing a change of era in which 600 million people (of all Latin America, according to 2013 statistics) are trying to create new paradigms of existence and are looking closely at the events on the old continent.
EN | IT | FR | DE – After a whole month of negotiations, the ninth Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) did not manage to adopt a final document on 22 May 2015. Even though the draft text put before the Conference contained no new substantial measure, the failure can be laid at the door of three countries – United States, Britain and Canada – that refused to approve the proposal to convene, by March 2016 at the latest, a conference to create a zone in the Middle East that would be free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Yet agreement in principle on this zone had been reached in 1995 as a condition for the indefinite extension of the NPT.
EN | IT | FR | DE – On its websites, IS (Islamic State) claims that more than 10,000 young Jihadists from Africa and Europe are fighting in its ranks. The intelligence services of the Member States of the European Union confirm these reports and their governments have issued directives and guidelines to prevent young Muslims, both male and female, from leaving for Syria or Iraq.
EN | FR | IT – The Social Weeks of France (Semaines Sociales de France) have launched a call to build fraternity. This text, written after the January 11 demonstration, expresses the proposal of a “week of fraternity” that the Social Weeks of France had already presented following the 2008 session in Lyon. To sign the call
EN | IT | FR – The day after the largest demonstration France can remember, Paris is not a city like any other. The attacks of the last few days were supposed to strike a deliberate blow to the founding values of our common identity. This goes to show that these values should not be taken for granted: they are not given once and for all; and their absence does not apply only to other remote civilizations in time and space. Rather, this shows that these values are alive and, therefore, fragile, to be cherished and nourished every day.