Agencies Race to Aid Pakistan’s Flood Victims

An assessment by five foreign aid agencies stated that the more than 1 million people left homeless by massive flooding in Pakistan face a potential cholera outbreak and poisonous snakes slithering through the muddy waters, the Associated Press reported.

The assessment, provided by Catholic Relief Services, Oxfam, Save the Children, Concern and Church World Service described a growing number of skin and stomach ailments among the victims in Baluchistan province, many of whom were living under an open sky and drinking polluted water from rivers.

The agencies planned first to provide plastic sheets and bamboo poles for temporary shelter since tents were unsuitable in the extreme summer heat.

Rebel Nuns Face Eviction

Polish court officials have notified 64 nuns they are to be evicted from a convent they have illegally occupied for two years, reported Reuters.

The nuns and their superior, formerly of the Sisters of the Family of Bethany, took over the building in the southern city of Kazimierz Dolny in 2005 in protest of their mother superior’s removal. They have defied orders from the Vatican and have been expelled from their order. A Franciscan friar who has been suspended for disobedience is also staying there with them.

Archbishop: Doctors’ Strike Against Natural Law

According to a July 2 report from AllAfrica, Archbishop Peter Sarpong of Ghana said the current doctors’ strike leaves the sick at the mercy of avoidable death.

The archbishop said it is part of natural law that a doctor whose profession is, by nature, to prevent death should not deliberately cause death by going on strike in pursuit of better conditions of services.

He called natural laws one of the manifestations of eternal law of God.