AMSTERDAM (CNS): Despite rumors of its demise, the AIDS pandemic is far from over. “We broke the conspiracy of silence, but now we face the conspiracy of complacency,” said Michel Sidibe, executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), during a July 24 conversation with Catholic and other faith leaders at the biennial International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
 
The conference brought together more than 15,000 AIDS researchers and activists.
 

JERUSALEM (CNS): “It is beyond conception that a law with constitutional effect ignores an entire segment of the population, as if its members never existed,” said a July 30 statement from the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem which strongly criticised Israel’s recently adopted Nation State Law.
 
The law, which defines Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, was passed by the 120-seat Knesset (parliament) early on July 19, receiving 62 votes.
 

VATICAN (CNS): The world needs leaders who can “put into practice a more just way for all of us to live in this world as sharers in a common destiny,” Pope Francis said in a letter to the international conference of Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church, which met in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, from July 26 to 29.
 

Australian missionary staves off Philippine deportation again
 
MANILA (UCAN): Sister Patricia Fox, of the Sisters of Our Lady of Sion, who has been facing down the government of Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, won a reprieve from deportation after her lawyers filed a motion for reconsideration on July 22.
 
The Bureau of Immigration found the nun to allegedly be “in violation of the limitations and conditions of her missionary visa” for reportedly joining partisan political activities.

MANILA (UCAN) “Peace and harmony will be enjoyed if this new Bangsamoro government is inclusive and does not discriminate others,” said Archbishop Martin Jumoad of Ozamiz in Mindanao, after Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, signed off on a law on July 26 that aims to give greater autonomy to Muslims in the southern Philippines.
 
The Bangsamoro Organic Law comes into effect four years after the government signed a peace agreement with the rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
 

MANILA (Agencies): The problem with Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, is that he “lives on hype, on promises.” Fidelino Josol, a 50-year old public schoolteacher, was reported as saying in an article in La Croix on July 25.
 
She said, “I voted for him because he sounded firm and full of convictions,” but noted that Duterte’s promises “all went down the drain.”
 
The article noted that Duterte, seems to have failed to impress his “children.” 

MANILA (UCAN): A Catholic lay worker in Timor-Leste, a psychiatrist in India, a peace advocate in the Philippines and a social worker in Vietnam are among this year’s winners of the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award.
 
Carmencita Abella, president of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, said this year’s winners have been key in advancing causes to improve lives and transform societies across Asia. 
 

NEW DEHLI (Agencies): “This demand is absurd and it displays ignorance about the sacrament of confession,” said Oswald Cardinal Gracias of Mumbai, president of Catholic Bishops Conference of India, reacting to a proposal by the National Commission for Women, an Indian federal agency, to abolish the sacrament of confession CNS reported.
 

Mandalay (UCAN): Bishop Francis Daw Tang of Myitkyina, Myamar, called for an urgent improvement of jade mining regulations and protect the environment. He said there are no proper regulations or systems for properly managing soil dumps that have killed hundreds of people annually in conflict-stricken Kachin State.
 

MANDALAY  (UCAN):  “We are getting more assessments and then delivering aid to other affected areas,” Father Paul Thar San, director of Karuna, in Hpa-an, the capital city of Kayin State, Myanmar. The area was been hit with strong monsoon winds and heavy rain since the third week of July, causing rivers to swell.
 
At least 11 people have died and more than 100,000 people have been displaced by the widespread flooding, according to the disaster management department.