Behind the designer label
Everybody shops! Go to the Fair wear site to find out where to shop ethically for Australian made garments. Fair wear

Nigeria 's unfair debt burden
Nigeria is one of the poorest countries on earth, where one in five children die before their fifth birthday. Yet it is being made to pay £7.2 billion in just six months to rich countries as part of a debt cancellation deal . In January 2006, the UK received more than £800 million from Nigeria , with a further £900 million following in March. CAFOD

Food shortages continue in Southern Africa
On the brink of its fifth consecutive harvest failure, concern is mounting in Swaziland as food shortages continue. The World Food Programme (WFP) has moved from an emergency response to recovery, but there is still a huge demand for relief food distribution. The organisation is already feeding 250,000 people, Swaziland faces a "triple threat" - the combination of food insecurity, poverty and HIV/AIDS. IRIN News

Project Compassion 2006
Have you thought about Project Compassion 2006 - a way of making a real difference to the lives of many?

Go to www.caritas.org.au for more information

Photo: Gerrit Fokkema

Joan Chittester on the difference between two t-shirts
O ne thing we know today: the United States is free from offensive T-shirts. One thing we do not know is whether or to what degree the United States is still free.

Two women, neither of them resisting, were put out of the House Chamber of the U.S. Congress for wearing T-shirts during the president's Tuesday night State of the Union address. National Catholic Reporter

For the Church, charity is not a kind of welfare activity which could equally well be left to others, but is a part of her nature, an indispensable expression of her very being.

To find out more about the latest Papal encyclical God is Love (Deus Caritas Est) read the document itself - it is surprisingly accessible.

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/
encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20051225_deus-
caritas-est_en.html

Hollywood Saves the Planet:
Jeff Skoll became a billionaire in his mid-30's, as one of the founders of the eBay internet auction site. Now he's trying to save the planet from itself, and his secret weapon is Hollywood . His film financing company, Participant Productions, has poured tens of millions of dollars into a slate of highly political and socially-aware films, and each one has a grass-roots, activist campaign built around it.

SBS TV Wednesdays 8:30 pm - Repeated Thursday and Monday 1pm

Not to know is bad. Not to wish to know is worse.
African Proverb cited in Commission for Africa, Our Common Interest: Report of the Commission for Africa, March 2005.