Stories from around the globe show how a united world is already in motion. This platform highlights experiences, initiatives, and projects from people and communities working for unity and peace. Explore what’s happening and get inspired.
<p><em>We propose a news story of few months ago because her gesture is always actual. Mexican authorities awarded Martha Ivette Rivera Alanis who kept a group of children calm by singing to them as shots were fired outside, after her video of the incident became an internet hit.</em></p> <p><strong>The footage, posted on YouTube</strong>, shows Martha Ivette Rivera Alanis leading the five- and six-year-olds in song as they lay on the floor at the Alfonso Reyes kindergarten, in northern Nuevo Leon state, while bullets ring out in the background.</p> <p><strong>Police said gunmen had shot</strong> dead five people at a taxi stand near the school during the incident on Friday (May 2013).</p> <p><strong>Nuevo Leon state governor Rodrigo Medina de la Cruz</strong> recognised the teacher's "valour, devotion and courage to confront a risky situation" and handed her a framed certificate. "It shows us the path to follow in difficult times that our state and our country are experiencing, and it's with examples like this that we have to keep advancing," the governor added.</p>
<p><em>The Beijing Municipal People's Congress voted to limit and gradually reduce the total discharge smog.</em></p> <p><strong>The municipal legislature of Beijing</strong> on Wednesday passed a regulation on air pollution control featuring emission controls and harsher penalties in the city's latest effort to battle severe smog.</p> <p><strong>The Beijing Municipal People's Congress</strong> voted in favor of the regulation, the first of its kind for the Chinese capital, replacing a guideline issued in 2000.</p> <p><strong>The regulation says Beijing</strong> will limit and gradually reduce the total discharge of major air pollutants by setting yearly quotas for district and county governments and individual polluters, cutting coal burning and limiting car emissions.</p>
<p><strong></strong><em>Vienna to improve quality of housing and comply with directive.</em></p> <p><strong>Austria has embarked upon an ambitious programme</strong> for improving the energy performance of buildings, which covers both rehabilitation and new construction projects.<br /> <br /><strong>Comprehensive promotional programmes</strong> at national and regional level are now being co-financed by the European Investment Bank (EIB) under 150 million euros framework loan. The contract for an initial 50 million euros tranche has already been signed between the EIB and Bausparkasse der Oesterreichischen Sparkassen AG ("Erste BAU"), which will make the funds available to borrowers.</p>
<p><em>Sunday marked 100th annual World Day for Migrants and Refugees</em></p> <p><strong>Pope Francis met asylum seekers</strong>, homeless people and Catholic faithful at the Holy Heart Basilica in Rome on Sunday afternoon. The pontiff visited the basilica on the occasion of the Church's 100th annual World Day for Migrants and Refugees.</p> <p><strong>"Do not lose hope</strong> for a better world," he encouraged migrants.<em> </em>The pope also thanked those who helped and protected migrants. Volunteers and priests at the parish provide support for homeless people and migrants in the capital.
<p><em>UN chief Ban Ki-moon has invited Iran to take part in preliminary Syrian peace talks this week in Switzerland, an offer Tehran has accepted.</em></p> <p><strong>Mr Ban said he had received</strong> assurances that Iran would play a positive role in securing a transitional government. But Syria's main opposition group said it would withdraw from the talks unless Mr Ban retracted the offer to Iran.</p> <p><strong>And the US said the offer</strong> must be conditional on Iran's support for the 2012 deal on Syria's transition. The Syria peace conference has been more than a year in the making and now it is in disarray before it has even started, reports the BBC's Kim Ghattas.
<p><em>Deal will see creation of medicine faculty in Red Sea city.</em></p> <p><strong>The Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority</strong> (ASEZA), represented by Chief Commissioner Kamel Mahadin, the Aqaba Development Corporation, represented by its CEO Ghassan Ghanem, and Italy's University of Palermo, represented by Chancellor Roberto Lagalla, signed a cooperation agreement on Tuesday in Aqaba, Jordan.</p> <p><strong>"This agreement is a result</strong> of, and a continuation of, our efforts to develop cooperation with Italy that were launched as part of my recent visit to Sicily where we signed three agreements with different entities," Professor Mahadin said. "Our efforts were rewarded by the signing of an agreement that will eventually see the establishment of a faculty of medicine at the university of Jordan in Aqaba".</p>
<p> </p> <p><em>A delegation of 15 Argentine Jewish leaders was hosted Thursday for an informal kosher lunch at the Vatican’s Santa Marta guesthouse by Pope Francis.</em></p> <p><strong>Pope Francis conversing</strong> with members of the Jewish community of Argentina at the Santa Marta guesthouse<br />Latin American Jewish Congress Executive Director Claudio Epelman, who organized the meeting together with Argentine Rabbi Abraham Skorka, said it was an “extraordinary gesture by Pope Francis to take more than two hours out of his busy schedule for a conversation with Jewish leaders from his native Argentina.” Epelman said that the conversations with the Catholic pontiff focused on strengthening inter-faith dialogue.</p>
<div style="font: normal normal normal 11px/normal Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; color: #6b6b6b; margin-top: 2px; margin-bottom: 8px; padding-left: 8px;"><br /><em><span face="Arial, sans-serif" size="2" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 15px;">A Lebanese family who could have escaped to safer surroundings, decides to remain in their country to support their own people and spread hope.</span></span></em></div> <div> <p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 8px; margin: 0px;"><strong></strong></p> <p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 8px; margin: 0px;"><strong>Samir:</strong> <strong>In 1989, during the war in Lebanon</strong>, the situation became dramatic with death and destruction all around us: no work; no school; offices closed . . . We moved to the United States where my brother was living. As a university lecturer I was entitled to a sabbatical year.</p> <p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 8px; margin: 0px;"><strong>Daisy:</strong> It was an intense year with many trials that led us to experience God's love that kept us together. We often wondered which choice was better, whether to return to Lebanon or to stay on in a country that had so much to offer. We had both found a job and were eligible for American citizenship. Moreover, our children’s future would be secured.
<p> </p> <p><em>A student from Hull who came to the city after escaping Taliban rule in Afghanistan has secured a place at Eton College.</em></p> <p><strong>Rohid Zamani, who is a student</strong> at Hull's Sirius Academy, won a £30,000-a-year scholarship after beating off competition from hundreds of other applicants.</p> <p><strong>He fled Afghanistan</strong> with his family in 2000 when he was aged three. The 16-year-old said he hoped to pursue a career in medicine.</p> <p><strong>Rohid said that the stories</strong> told to him by his parents of life under the Taliban in the war-torn country had motivated him in his studies.(...)
Economy & Work
Thirty-five years ago a dream was born: the Economy of Communion. In late May Argentina will host an extraordinary celebration where people of all ages will come together to breathe new life into this project and write the future for a different kind of economy.
Lorna Gold, Executive Director of Laudato Si’ Movement, reflects on ten years of the encyclical, analysing how integral ecology is an essential path to global unity and tackling the climate crisis.
Operation Mato Grosso is working on over 100 missions across Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia, all rooted in education, hard work, and solidarity. Jacopo Manara, who has been a volunteer for years, tells us their story.
An interview on communication with Michele Zanzucchi, journalist and writer, former director of Città Nuova, professor of communication at Sophia University Institute and at the Pontifical Gregorian University, and author of around forty books.
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