A voice of conscience in the Kenyan media
Leading journalist Chaacha Mwita discusses the challenge of achieving citizen power in Kenya. "Daddy, you have dinner with us these days!" piped six-year old Monika, eldest daughter of Chaacha Mwita,…
US teen sex statistics show ‘disheartening’ trend
Birth rates among teenagers are on the rise again in the United States after large declines between 1991 and 2005, according to a report from the Centres for Disease Control…
Gender equity at close quarters
By mixing women and men on board, isn’t the navy asking for trouble? It was a shock-horror story for a slow Sunday night, but the news of a sexual scandal…
Headlines don’t do Caritas in Veritate justice.
Caritas in Veritate, an encyclical about love, is sparking argument in the media over what it really means. The headline from The New York Times sent me back in time;…
Money from love
In an encyclical released this week, an intellectually adventurous Pope asserts that love is ultimately the solution to the world economic crisis. Today, by "economy" or "economical", what first comes…
Where teen pregnancies come from – the Brits still don’t get it
A programme launched by the British government in 2004 to reduce the number of teenage pregnancies in the UK has had the opposite effect, a study published in the British…
Pope’s letter calls for openness to human life
Pope Benedict XVI’s new encyclical letter, “On Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth”, discusses a wide spectrum of social realities, among them the need for openness to new human…
A family-friendly White House?
American first couple Barack and Michelle Obama are trying to keep some balance between their hugely demanding jobs and family life. They have also promised a family-friendly workplace for their…
Drink! Drink! Drink! Students keep bingeing during general decline
Good news and bad news about young people and binge drinking: in the United States, anyway, reckless drinking is down over all, but not among college students. Among 18- to…
Japan’s woman-shy, homebody men
A new breed of Japanese men is provoking a national debate about how the country’s economic stagnation since the early 1990s has altered men’s behaviour, and whether or not it…
The wrong cure for infertility
Turning baby-making into a technology can have devastating results. For some men and women, IVF can seem like a godsend. Inability is always felt as a grievous loss for loving…
The private world of child abuse
The abusive institutions have closed but adults are still trampling all over the rights of children. One of the great discoveries of the twentieth century is the rights of children.…