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Magazine

World Watch

World Watch: Foreign Aid, A Moral Imperative

By Susan Gunn | December 1, 2025
We’re witnessing the largest contraction in humanitarian assistance in history. Earlier this year, the United States abruptly shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which distributed over $38 billion in aid in 2023 alone — which was less than 1% of the U.S. budget. European donors also have cut their foreign aid amid d...
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World Watch: Back From the Brink

By Thomas Gould | September 2, 2025
Eighty years ago, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, killing and maiming hundreds of thousands of people. Despite the terrible lesson of lives lost, tremendous destruction and chronic suffering and illnesses for survivors, the world is now dangerously close to a nuclear precipice. During the past year, Russian President Vladimir P...
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World Watch: Climate Action Must Continue

By Thomas Gould | June 2, 2025
This year marks a significant crossroads for global climate action. On the first day of his second term, President Trump issued an executive order withdrawing the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement. Since 2016, the agreement has sought to limit global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The withdrawa...
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World Watch: Global Debt Crisis Needs a Jubilee

By Thomas Gould | March 3, 2025
A global debt crisis looms over countries in the Global South, home to 85 percent of the world population. By the end of 2024, countries in the southern hemisphere spent over $1 billion a day on debt payments alone. At least 45 countries are paying more than 15 percent of their annual budgets on debt, and debt payments are growing to consume more o...
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World Watch: Modern Slavery at Sea

By Thomas Gould | December 2, 2024
More than 130 people from at least 17 countries participated in the three-day International Conference on Fisher’s Welfare in Taichung City, Taiwan, this past May. The conference was organized and hosted by Maryknoll Father Joyalito Tajonera, who serves as the director of Stella Maris-Taiwan. Stella Maris is the Catholic Church’s Apostolate of ...
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World Watch: Water Rights Victory in Peru

By Thomas Gould | September 3, 2024
AMaryknoll-supported organization in the southern Andes of Peru has won a landmark victory in a case for water rights. Maryknoll Sister Patricia Ryan founded Derechos Humanos y Medio Ambiente (Human Rights and Environment) to elevate voices of Indigenous peoples in the area who are easily exploited by extractive industries and often marginalized in...
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World Watch: Indo-Pacific Economic Prosperity?

By Thomas Gould | June 3, 2024
Out of the limelight of public awareness, a deal is being forged right now between the United States and 13 major economies in the Indo-Pacific region that would cover 28% of all global goods and services trade and 40% of global gross production.  The Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) was launched on May 23, 2022, by the Bi...
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World Watch: Ethnic Cleansing in Sudan?

By Thomas Gould | March 4, 2024
In the civil war in Sudan, independent sources confirm reports of renewed ethnic killings of civilians in the long-conflicted Darfur region.  The civil war that broke out on April 15 of last year pits the Sudanese army against a rival military group known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The RSF and associated militias have been accused of e...
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Climate Action: Loss and Damage

By Thomas Gould | December 4, 2023
The year 2023 has shown us that climate change can be very costly, and often leaves irreversible damage — especially affecting those who contribute the least to causing it. Around the world, consequences border on the incomprehensible. In Libya, more than 15,000  people died or were missing after a single flood that scientists estimate was m...
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