This eruption is the longest since 2018 when the volcano caused a deadly tsunami

Police say efforts to find the driver of an abandoned car in Kings County last week likely saved his life.

CNA Staff, Apr 23, 2020 / 05:13 pm (CNA).- A Catholic youth organization in Indonesia has instituted a movement to provide assistance to families struggling during the coronavirus pandemic.

Orang Muda Katolik, or Catholic Young People, recently began the initiative “Adopt One Brother,” which encourages youth to volunteer time and money to support poorer families, many of whom are now unemployed.

Indonesia has over 7,500 cases of COVID-19, and 647 deaths. According to data from the country’s Ministry of Labour, Aljazeera reported, 2.8 million Indonesians have lost their jobs because of the pandemic.

Stefanus Gusma, who leads OMK’s COVID-19 task force, said the initiative has spread to 26 of the country’s 34 provinces and involved thousands of OMK members. He said volunteers are encouraged to donate 200,000 to 500,000 rupiah ($12-32) per week.

"First, we mobilized our own members to help our fellow brothers and sisters who are experiencing difficulties. Then we extended our reach to anyone who was willing to help others,” Gusma told UCA News.

"After we receive their data, we contact them about where they would like their donations to go,” he said. “If a donor wants to donate to a family in East Nusa Tenggara province, we will coordinate with our members there to seek a family in need.”

With help from the local dioceses and governments, the organization has also distributed about 2,000 aid packages, electricity vouchers, and hygienic products.

According to UCA News, other OMK members said the organization has not only provided aid to families but to hospitals and orphanages as well. Maskendari, an OMK member in Pontianak, said the organization has distributed “hundreds of aid packages and thousands of personal protection items such as masks and bottles of hand sanitizer.”

“We want others to act, not only through our organization but also individually or with other groups,” Gusma told UCA News. "We want to show the importance of showing human solidarity in the midst of this current crisis," he added.

Orang Muda Katolik seeks to mentor young Catholics, aged between 15 and 35, by providing educational resources, coaching, and volunteer opportunities.

Bishop Pius Prapdi of Ketapang issued a letter to OMK at the end of March. He encouraged young Catholics to follow social distancing rules and other safety precautions. However, he also challenged the youth to find creative ways to help the community, like investigating free food assistance for those in need and checking-in on neighbors through social media.

“Catholic Young People can also help others in a safe way,” he wrote. “With creativity, young people can become leaders in this situation and go through critical times together.”

“Pope Francis invites young people to become the main actors (protagonists) in renewing the world, let us in this crisis period stop for a moment to reflect back on what we have made for ourselves, the environment, the Church and the citizens of the world.”

A year after Zanu (PF)’s election victory and the formation of a new government, Zimbabwe’s politics and economy are increasingly precarious. Immediate prospects for a sustained recovery remain bleak, made worse by dire economic decline, endemic governance failures and tension over ruling-party succession.

The smiles of children are a great motivation to keep on working for the team members of OM Guatemala.

Mercy Teams International's Vocational Training Centre, Project Freedom and kindergarten in Cambodia continue to develop amidst changes locally.

Brian Beacom

Rare diseases in childhood can be debilitating and require lifelong care. Since 1983, the Orphan Drug Act incentives have stimulated the development and significantly improved the availability of treatment products for patients with rare diseases.

We report an increasing pediatric orphan product designations and approvals from 2000 to 2009. The trend indicates that the Orphan Drug Act has continued to address this important unmet need. (Read the full article)

Some but not all randomized trials have shown effects of probiotics on incidence and duration of diarrhea and respiratory tract infections among children in developing countries. Calcium improves resistance to intestinal infections in adults, but efficacy in children is unknown.

Lactobacillus reuteri DSM17938 may prevent diarrhea, especially in children with lower nutritional status. Regular calcium milk, alone or with Lactobacillus casei CRL431, did not reduce diarrhea. None of the interventions affected respiratory tract infections in these Indonesian children. (Read the full article)

Micronutrients are essential for brain development during gestation and infancy. Few randomized trials of maternal multiple micronutrient supplementation during pregnancy and postpartum have examined child outcomes beyond the neonatal period or tested which cognitive domains show long-term effects.

Children of undernourished mothers given multiple micronutrients performed as well as children of well-nourished mothers in motor and visual attention/spatial ability at age 42 months; children of undernourished mothers given iron/folic acid showed 4- to 5-month delays in these abilities. (Read the full article)

Impaired visual development has been reported in infants born to mothers prescribed methadone in pregnancy. Immature visual evoked potentials have been reported in this population, but data were confounded by gestation, growth restriction, and illicit drug use.

Visual evoked potentials are small and immature in infants exposed to methadone and other drugs of misuse in utero. These changes are independently associated with methadone exposure and persist after controlling for gestation, socioeconomic deprivation, alcohol consumption, and cigarette smoking. (Read the full article)

High-quality professional learning is difficult to provide in education, principal Jasmine Kullar writes. Here's a solution.

Indonesia was rattled by more than 11 500 earthquakes last year, almost double the annual average of the past decade, according to the nation’s meteorological agency.

By Bishop W. Shawn McKnight

The November General Assembly of Bishops in Baltimore was a difficult but perhaps unavoidable experience for us to move forward as a Church. I was very disappointed to learn that the Holy See found it necessary to insist that the USCCB not take action at this time on the proposals presented by our conference leadership. My frustration, shared with many other people, is this: We have known about the scandal of Archbishop McCarrick since the end of June, and our Church must take immediate, decisive and substantive action in light of the deep wound the scandal has caused.

I am not so concerned about the time it is taking to punish the perpetrator. Pope Francis immediately required the Archbishop to resign from the College of Cardinals when Cardinal Dolan announced the New York review board found a credible and substantiated allegation of sexual abuse of a minor against him. I’m okay with the fact that further penalties (which could include McCarrick’s return to the lay state) will take more time for a complete canonical process. McCarrick isn’t going anywhere and he is already living a life of imposed prayer and penance.

But much more is needed than simply meting out a just punishment. How could his rise to such an influential position in the Church have happened? I am concerned how the national conference of bishops and the Holy See answer that question. An internal investigation of the McCarrick scandal without the use of competent and qualified lay investigators will hardly be considered transparent and credible. We need and must utilize the best and brightest people to do a top-notch investigation and study of the problem. Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta is the most qualified Catholic clergy to lead such an investigation, but without knowing that his collaborators include competent laity, the public may not perceive his eventual report as independent and complete enough to be believed.

At the time of this writing, there has not been one bishop, archbishop or cardinal in either the Holy See or the United States who has come forward on his own to repent publicly of his sins of omission or commission with regard to Archbishop McCarrick’s series of promotions over decades. Please, be men, not cowards, and come clean on your own! There doesn’t have to be a formal and long, drawn out investigation for a bishop to exercise a little compunction and concern for the well-being of the whole Church. An independent and transparent investigation is all the more necessary when culpable hierarchs exhibit an incapacity to do the right thing on their own.

The laity are the only ones who can keep the hierarchy accountable and get us out of the mess we bishops got ourselves into. My singular focus throughout the Baltimore meeting was to advocate and push for greater public involvement of the laity at all levels of the Church. Why can’t we have well qualified, nationally known and trusted lay experts named to the special task force announced by the president of the USCCB? We are too insular and closed in as a hierarchy, and so are some of our processes at the USCCB. The Second Vatican Council gave us not only the freedom but the obligation to utilize and engage the gifts and talents of the laity in the life and mission of the Church.

Beyond the McCarrick scandal, we have more work cut out for us with regard to putting into place protocols and institutional structures to build credibility in the hierarchy’s handling of sexual abuse cases going forward. History proves that we bishops are not capable of policing ourselves adequately on the issue of clergy sexual abuse. Why not include the laity to assist us with this problem? The document the Missouri Province of Bishops presented to the Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People on Oct. 6 was intended to offer a set of principles for the USCCB to consider as it was developing proposals for the full body of bishops, including the involvement of the laity. We Missouri bishops wanted something valuable to come from our November meeting.

And so, I was disappointed that even the mild proposals up for consideration at the Baltimore meeting had to be pulled from a vote. It was a rather harsh reminder to me of what many lay people have been saying throughout our Diocese: We bishops are ineffectual in our attempts to address the problem of abuse of power by the hierarchy. The Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People has had a marked impact on lowering the number of incidents of abuse by clergy since 2003. But with the aggravation of the McCarrick scandal, the laity and clergy are now rightfully asking that we get it all out, once and for all, and respond with an urgency that this crisis deserves. We literally have people dying because of the harm caused by predator clergy, and survivors of abuse are further victimized when we fail to take swift action. Seeing certain retired bishops who were notoriously responsible for covering up clergy sexual abuse at this year’s General Assembly in Baltimore as welcome guests was a slap in the face to all who have been wounded by the clergy. This example of episcopal arrogance and clericalism evidences the fact that we still don’t get the problem.

The whole Church is needed to solve our problem which the whole world knows about. What more do we have to hide? If we are going to move forward, we need to have authentic communion and a genuine synodal process. And this requires transparency and better communication between the clergy and the laity, between the USCCB and its own members, and between the USCCB and the Holy See. We need to become the Church Christ founded us to be.

Some of the most poignant comments I heard during the listening sessions in our Diocese were in response to the question asking for people’s dreams for their children and grandchildren. People spoke of a Church where their children and grandchildren would find the love, mercy and hope of Jesus Christ, a community filled by God’s graces and led by holy priests. Despite our current lethargy, I believe we are witnessing the rebirth and renewal of our Church in our day. And I feel very blessed to be part of that renewal with each of you. We are better together.

 

 

Bishop McKnight's column was first published at Making Connections, his column on the website of the Diocese of Jefferson City.

Benfica, unbeaten at home in this competition, bid to reach the last 16 at the expense of a Shakhtar Donetsk side who won an eventful first leg 2-1 in Kharkiv.

Standing between Wolfsburg and a third UEFA Europa League quarter-final are Shakhtar Donetsk as the clubs meet for the first time.

Shakhtar Donetsk have the edge in the tie after a 2-1 win in Germany, but Wolfsburg boast an excellent UEFA Europa League away record.

Since, baking flours are flying off the shelves of grocery stores, we thought of saving some flour for our kitchen stock, and dug out these desert recipes that can be tried without using any kind of...

The Maruti Suzuki S-Presso has finally been launched in India at a very competitive price. We get behind the wheel of the manual and aAMT AGS automatic versions of the mini SUV which rivals the Renault Kwid and see what the entry-level SUV styled hatchback has to offer.

A majority of sugar companies decided to make hand sanitisers to supply to hospitals by using a part of the ethanol/ENA production, thereby ensuring that the country does not face any shortage of good quality hand sanitisers.

The Italian baroque master’s 'Supper at Emmaus' is usually exhibited at London's National Gallery but, with that shut, Stanhope’s giant interpretation is now on show in Ladywell, southeast London

Phishing is the most common method for scamsters to illegally siphon money from people. In simple terms, phishing is a method of scamming people by sending them emails pretending to be from reputable companies in order to get people to reveal their confidential information, such as passwords and credit card numbers. A report has revealed […]

The post Maximum Frauds Done Using Apple, Netflix Branding: This Is How They Fool You first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

1 Seychellois Rupee = 860.5146 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Trinidad and Tobago Dollar = 2186.2001 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Swedish Krona = 1511.8247 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Slovak Koruna = 665.2887 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Serbian Dinar = 136.2169 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Polish Zloty = 3513.5026 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Qatari Rial = 4057.4671 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Indian Rupee = 195.6638 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Pakistani Rupee = 92.5362 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Sierra Leonean Leone = 1.4983 Indonesian Rupiah

1 New Taiwan Dollar = 494.8052 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Thai Baht = 461.3746 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Turkish Lira = 2083.9599 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Singapore Dollar = 10457.5635 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Mauritian Rupee = 372.0285 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Nepalese Rupee = 123.371 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Bangladeshi Taka = 173.816 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Moldovan Leu = 828.5141 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Colombian Peso = 3.7915 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Uruguayan Peso = 342.4557 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Uzbekistan Som = 1.4614 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Russian Ruble = 201.2623 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Iraqi Dinar = 12.4146 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Cayman Islands Dollar = 17723.3443 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Swiss Franc = 15214.9061 Indonesian Rupiah

1 CFA Franc BCEAO = 24.4188 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Vietnamese Dong = 0.6313 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Macedonian Denar = 259.9724 Indonesian Rupiah