Worldwide
China: earthquakes and fracking
On 17 June buildings collapsed, trapping people underneath in a 6.0 magnitude earthquake in the south-west Chinese province of Sichuan. Thirteen people have died so far, and 4,000+ people have been relocated from damaged and destroyed…
Facebook’s new currency
Facebook will launch a Swiss-based cryptocurrency and payment system, called Libra, which could ‘reinvent money’. It is a huge political gamble, but the rewards could be enormous. Facebook is asking its 2.5 billion users and government…
China, Hong Kong: Catholics urge restraint
A proposed bill allowing mainland China to pursue government critics and criminals in Hong Kong and extradite them to China drew protest marches by thousands on 9-11 June, causing a debate on 12 June to be…
Praying for the world: Catholicism
Half of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics live in the Americas, a quarter in Europe, and the rest in Africa and Asia. Catholicism is slowly declining. Traditionally Catholic countries are becoming mixed populations of Catholics, non-religious,…
