Africa

Mary's Meals has launched a worldwide emergency campaign in the wake of nearly 21 million children across southern Africa facing malnutrition as poor harvests and some of the worst African droughts in living memory continue to plague countries well into the new year.

A "silent genocide"—mimicking the Rwandan one of 1994—is occurring eastern Congo, said some Catholic Church sources, as shock greeted the killing of 70 people in a Protestant church in the North Kivu Province.

Amid what a Catholic charity called "unimaginable" suffering of civilians trapped in civil war brutality in Sudan, the United States declared that one of the fighting factions is committing genocide in the country and slapped sanctions on its leader.

The Kenyan capital descended into chaos June 25 as protests over legislation dubbed a finance bill left several dead and dozens injured. The country's bishops called for peace and urged the president not to accede to the measure aimed at raising revenue by levying additional taxes.