“Huge setbacks”: In the year to end child labour, COVID wreaks havoc
EMELINE WUILBERCQ, of Thomson Reuters Foundation, reports on how the coronavirus pandemic impacted the fight against child labour…
World’s children bearing brunt of COVID pandemic, Vatican studies say
Vatican CityReuters The world’s children are bearing the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic, with marked increases in violence, abuse, child labour, lost schooling, and malnutrition, two Vatican studies said on Wednesday. The studies, based on academic, scientific, United Nations data and other source material, were produced by the Vatican’s development office and the Pontifical Academy […]
“Unprecedented need”: As COVID continues, US church-run food pantries, ministries adapt and expand
BOB SMIETANA, of Religion News Service, reports on how US churches adapted food assistance programs during the COVID-19 pandemic…
Essay: Omicron – why the WHO designated it a variant of concern
In an article first published on The Conversation, ED FEIL, professor of microbial evolution at The Milner Centre for Evolution, University of Bath, looks at the emergence of the Omicron variant…
Kuwait’s stateless bedoun in limbo as hundreds lose bank accounts
KuwaitReuters Frontline worker Ahmad al-Enezi, a member of Kuwait’s stateless community, has spent the last 14 months lost in a bureaucratic maze after his bank account was suspended, freezing access to his salary and savings in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Enezi’s predicament has its origins in a push by the Gulf country to […]
Amid global vaccine inequality, Vatican weighs ethics of booster shots
Vatican CityRNS While Catholic US President Joe Biden received his third shot of the COVID-19 vaccine, experts at the Vatican on Tuesday considered the ethics of such “booster shot” distribution in wealthy countries when many in other parts of the world have yet to receive the first dose. Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, who heads the Pontifical […]
Essay: COVID will likely shift from pandemic to endemic – but what does that mean?
In an article first published on The Conversation, LARA HERRERO and EUGENE MADZOKERE, of Griffith University in Australia, explore how the COVID-19 pandemic might evolve…
Essay: Why it will soon be too late to find out where the COVID-19 virus originated
In an article first published on The Conversation, Australian DOMINIC DWYER, who was a member of the team that visited Wuhan in China earlier this year as part of the World Health Organisation’s investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 virus, says the clock’s ticking…
Australian teenagers suffering COVID-19-related anxiety and trauma, says Mission Australia report
Sydney, Australia Teenagers across Australia are suffering from increased anxiety about their education, experience of isolation, mental health and future prospects due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the annual Mission Australia report on youth says. The Young Voices of the Pandemic: Youth Survey COVID Report 2020, released on Wednesday, shows amongst those reporting personal concerns, 58.7 […]
US Catholic school association seeks rebound from grim year
The organisation overseeing Catholic schools in the United States welcomed a new chief executive this week as it seeks to rebound from its biggest one-year enrollment drop since the 1970s. Amid the pandemic, more than 200 schools closed permanently, and enrollment at the 5,981 remaining schools fell by 6.4 per cent – or more than […]