Lowe serves both as the Catholic Bishop of Auckland and President of the New Zealand Bishops' Conference.

The fake social media accounts impersonating Lowe have surfaced on Meta's Facebook and Messenger platforms and, in responding to the data breach, Lowe wishes it to be known that he will not send friend requests or contact anyone through social media.

The NZCBC also warns that his email account may have been falsified.

Commenting on the NZCBC Facebook post, Bernard Liddington suggests the fake account was obvious as the gender was erroneously listed as female.

In another comment, Stephen Kennedy quipped "So he's not coming for tea tomorrow night? But I'm making my special potato bake just like he asked."

Mark Chang commented with a tongue-in-cheek remark, "All part of God's plan, surely?"

At the time of writing, another person linked the data breach with Satan.

The Bishops' Conference recently ran a campaign to help people stay safe online.

They suggested people learn more about Facebook privacy, do a Facebook privacy check-up and manage their Facebook privacy settings.

Facebook and its associated applications - Instagram, WhatsApp, and its most recent application, Threads (a Twitter clone) - are owned by the parent company, Meta.

These applications are free to use. However, Meta monetises user data to cover costs and provide shareholders with a healthy return.

Unfortunately, fake Facebook and Instagram accounts are common, and Meta has faced numerous privacy concerns stemming partly from its revenue model.

For example, Ireland's Data Protection Commission imposed a €1.2 billion fine last month against Facebook's parent, Meta, for failing to comply with Europe's General Data Protection Regulation laws.

According to one source, Meta profits by selling users' information and through targeting ads, attracting advertisers to its vast trove of data like vultures to carrion.

Donald Trump's successful use of Facebook data played a part in his election as President of the United States.

Facebook has always assured its users that their information is shared only with their consent and is anonymised before being sold to marketers. However, issues such as data breaches, platform vulnerabilities and the compromise of individual identities and private data regularly occur.

In response to escalating privacy concerns, some government agencies and groups with sensitive data on their work computers have prohibited the use of personal Meta accounts on work computers and mobile devices.

Tech journalist Leo Laporte describes Meta as "capricious". "If it's free, then you're the product" he often says when discussing Facebook's privacy issues.

Sources

• NZ Catholic Bishop's Conference Facebook
• Twit.tv
• Wikipedia
• How Facebook uses big data
• Washington Post
• Security Now - Steve Gibson

It ratted out Msgr. Jeffrey Burrill, the general secretary of the U.S. bishops' conference, and he had to step down.

According to The Pillar, Burrill "visited gay bars and private residences while using a location-based hookup app in numerous cities from 2018 to 2020."

While pundits and activists might see an opportunity to opine about Catholic hypocrisy, what we should all be asking ourselves is what kind of a dirty turncoat would be in possession of, and then share, that kind of information about a person.

Per The Pillar: "According to commercially available records of app signal data obtained by The Pillar, a mobile device correlated to Burrill emitted app data signals from the location-based hookup app Grindr on a near-daily basis."

So the rat was Burrill's cell phone (or maybe a tablet)—and for two years it was keeping daily tabs on him, compiling a dossier on his actions, a dossier that could be sold to anyone with the money.

It's not Grindr's fault, or if it is, it's endemic to the mobile economy.

The terms of service of nearly every program allow the company to gather any data it likes and use it as it sees fit.

Your actions, behaviours, interests, hopes, aspirations, and dreams are all fair game to be gathered and resold.

This data is of tremendous value to advertisers and others.

As cybersecurity expert Bruce Schneier said all the way back in 2010, "don't make the mistake of thinking you're Facebook's customer, you're not—you're the product."
Your phone is not your tool

And a decade before that, Microsoft had published "10 Immutable Laws of Computer Security." The first law stated simply that "If a bad guy can persuade you to run his program on your computer, it's not your computer anymore."

By that logic, "your" cell phone is owned by a collective of hundreds or thousands of different entities, some of which—or whom—you don't even know about.

You may have given your phone away to Facebook and Twitter (and Grindr?), but other people may have stolen your phone.

In 2014, it was revealed that the National Security Agency was secretly reading and storing data gathered legitimately by the Angry Birds game app.

The Guardian recently reported that NSO Group, an Israeli surveillance company, has sold hacking spyware called Pegasus to groups all over the world.

Pegasus allows operators to read messages and email, look at photos, record calls, and even surreptitiously listen to microphones.

Designed to fight criminals and terrorists, it has been used against human-rights activists, journalists, and lawyers. You wouldn't even know if someone had pirated a copy and deployed it against you.

Your phone is not your tool

At best, your phone is a partner with mixed loyalties; while you use it, it is using you to serve its other masters.

This partnership may still be valuable, but that's a personal decision for each person.

In the long run, the bargain may prove Faustian.

What can be done?

The obvious solution is to prohibit the collection of unnecessary data.

While a cell phone needs to know where I am right now so that I can make and receive calls, there's no reason that it should remember where I was two hours ago, let alone two years.

Weather apps might need to know which city I'm in, but not which bars I frequent or in whose apartment I spend the night.

Words With Friends doesn't need my age, my birthday, my location, my contact list.

But while those programs don't need that information to work, the companies behind them need that information to make money.

Remember: once I've installed the app, it's no longer my phone anymore.

Maybe a technical solution would work? Upgrade the phone somehow to prevent apps from collecting data I don't want them to?

Unfortunately, technical solutions are only as good as the programmers, and the bad guys can hire skilled programmers as well.

Apple is generally considered a gold standard for security among commercial cell phone providers, but NSO Group (among others) have found ways to easily bypass Apple's security and extract or install whatever they want.

In a privacy arms race, the advantage is always to the attackers, because they only need to be successful once.

If Big Tech can't solve our problem for us, maybe Big Government can?

Many companies have been fined for violating European Union privacy and data access laws.

In December 2020, Irish regulators fined Twitter for doing so, but the fine was less than $600,000, barely a slap on the wrist for a major multinational company that made more than a billion dollars in the first quarter of 2021.

Furthermore, fines can be assessed only after a violation has occurred and after a lengthy assessment and adjudication process, which allows companies ample opportunity for political lobbying.

Fining Grindr five years from now will not restore Burrill's reputation and or give him back his job.

Indeed, many of the most egregious privacy violations are completely legal in the United States.

Grindr not only collects personal data, but sells it, and it is upfront about the possibility of such sales in its terms of service.

There are no easy solutions, and the hard solution, unfortunately, falls upon us, the users.

We have all been told the platitudes:

• Don't install the software you don't need.
• Read the terms of service before you click "agree."
• Turn off any information-sharing that isn't related to your needs.
• Turn off "location sharing" at the hardware level. And remember Schneier's dictum: you are the product.

But the harder issue is not just for us as users, but for us as members of society. Burrill was presumably good at his job, or he wouldn't have held it.

Whether he visited gay bars or not is—or should be—irrelevant to whether he can serve the needs of the conference of bishops. Learning that he did visit such bars should not affect our judgment of him as a person or his worth as an employee.

If anyone is to be condemned for this act, the obvious candidate is The Pillar, the organization that obtained the data from Grindr, knowing that the people whose data was bought would almost certainly prefer to keep their activities private.

Would the staff of The Pillar be happy to share all the intimate details of their personal lives with the world?

• Patrick Juola holds the Joseph A. Lauritis, C.S.Sp. Endowed Chair in Teaching and Technology in the Department of Computer Science and Mathematics at Duquesne University. He has authored two books and more than 100 scientific publications and serves as the director of the Evaluating Variations in Language (EVL) lab.
• This article was made possible through a partnership between Commonweal and the Carl G. Grefenstette Center for Ethics in Science, Technology, and the Law at Duquesne University.
• Republished from La Croix International with permission

Manual tracing is resource-intensive and ineffective. A number of countries, including Singapore and Australia, have adopted smartphone apps using Bluetooth.

New Zealand seems likely to follow a similar path.

These apps vary in detail but all work along more or less the following lines:

• Users download the app onto their smartphone and enable Bluetooth.
• Identifying information is required but converted into an anonymised ID.
• When a phone with the app installed comes within a specified distance, for a specified time, of another phone with the app, encrypted contact information is exchanged.

The exchanged information remains on users' phones for the period someone with the virus might have transmitted it to others.

At the end of that period - probably 14 to 21 days - the information is automatically deleted.

If one of the users is diagnosed with Covid-19, a health professional will give them a code which automatically sends a signal to all contacts on the app and the user's app may change colour, perhaps turning red.

When users receive such a signal (their app may also change colour, perhaps turning orange) they will be required to self-isolate or be tested. If they isolate, their app will return to its default colour (say, green) at the end of the specified isolation.

If they opt for a test, a health professional will give them a code which will turn their app green if negative, and red if positive.

As with all potentially intrusive technological initiatives, these apps raise important ethical issues addressed in the following guidelines.

Benefits must outweigh risks

Ultimately, the ethical justification of tracing apps rests upon their capacity to deliver significant benefits to communities and individuals in ways which respect legitimate concerns about consent, privacy, and fairness.

This means there is an obligation to identify benefits and risks. Risks must be recognised and accepted, mitigated as far as possible and outweighed by countervailing benefits.

Use must be voluntary

One significant difference between approaches to contact tracing is the extent to which they require user consent.

Australia and Singapore encourage but do not require citizens to use their apps and New Zealand seems certain to take a similar approach. The app will work on a person's phone only if they download it, enable Bluetooth and carry their phones with them.

The voluntary approach carries some risks, with uptake the most obvious barrier.

Estimates of uptake levels required to deliver the benefits of the app vary between 40 and 60 percent.

Below those levels, too many contacts of confirmed cases will not be registered and won't be contacted automatically.

Concerns about uptake have led some governments - Israel, Poland, South Korea - to set aside individual consent. But consent is the most obvious way we show respect for the moral agency of others and we should not set it aside lightly.

More practically, regulations that lose common support are rarely successful: compulsion is usually not very effective.

So consent is crucial: Those downloading and enabling such apps must explicitly consent to their functions, and must have access to clear and understandable information about how it works, and what they need to do if they receive a positive diagnosis or a signal indicating they have been in contact with an infected person.

To ensure consent is informed, there must be as much transparency as possible about how the apps work and about the processes they set in train.

Apps must not be used beyond Covid-19

There is a predictable and reasonable concern that such apps might be used for purposes other than Covid control.

For example, just who has this suspected drug dealer been in contact with in the past fortnight?

Guarantees must be provided such apps will be used only for Covid-19 management, and they must have a use-by date after which they will cease to function.

Ethical concerns

There are a cluster of related ethical concerns around privacy, confidentiality, and security. The apps and processes around their use must:

• be designed and implemented to minimise the impact on privacy, with guarantees around limited use;
• minimise the use of identifiable information and protect any identifiable information which is used;
• be designed and implemented in ways that prevent unauthorised access to information and misuse of the app or its processes.

Equity issues

The impacts of Covid-19 have not been felt equally across the community.

Tracing apps could exacerbate legitimate concerns for fairness and equity. For instance, socially and economically disadvantaged individuals and groups are less likely to have access to smartphones, but the benefits and burdens of these apps should be delivered equitably across the community.

Efforts must be made to identify and address likely inequities in the uptake and use of tracing apps to address social and economic disadvantage. Continue reading

After the Pope had been to the dentist on Wednesday, he said he had the idea to visit the commission.

A security officer told Pope the visit would be "very complicated".

Francis replied by calmly saying, "I am the Pope; don't worry, we are in God's hands".

Continue reading

Security is expected to be extremely tight in Krakow, Poland, the WYD host city, as authorities in both countries work to prevent any incident that would threaten visitors, said Paul Jarzembowski, World Youth Day USA co-ordinator and assistant director of youth and young adult ministries for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.

He told Catholic News Service that current information indicates no threat to the celebration, scheduled for July 26-31. "The pilgrims' families can be assured that we're in regular communication with the State Department, the organisers in Krakow and the Polish Embassy in the United States," Jarzembowski said.

"Pilgrims can rest assured if they are vigilant and aware and up to date on the security situation, that the US and, most especially Poland, are doing everything they can to assure their safety," he added.

Continue Reading

Francis was surrounded by nearly 20 dark-suited bodyguards during his tour through St Peter's Square aboard his open-sided popemobile, more than the normal 12 who usually jog alongside him.

At each of the two main gates to the square, six or eight carabinieri guards checked pilgrims with wands and searched bags, more than usual.

After Francis finished, carabinieri patrol cars constantly looped along the main boulevard leading to the square.

Francis himself alluded to the security situation in his remarks to the crowd of about 20,000, saying the Church must always keep its doors open.

"There are places in the world where you still don't have to lock your doors, but there are so many other places where the doors are barred shut, and where that has become normal," he said.

"We shouldn't give in to the idea that we have to use this system, which is also for security."

"Please, no armoured doors in the Church," he said. "Nothing. Open doors."

Meanwhile, Italy's Interior Minister Angelino Alfano announced that drones will not be able to fly over Rome's air space during the Holy Year of Mercy, starting on December 8.

Following repeated threats attributed to ISIS on social media against Rome and the Vatican, security would be tightened around sites considered potential targets, particularly in and around St Peter's Square, Mr Alfano said.

"Particular attention has been dedicated to the risk of an attack from the air, using drones," he said.

Rome's prefect, Franco Gabrielli, said on Wednesday that law enforcement authorities were prepared to shoot down unauthorised drones and ultralight aircraft if they violate the airspace ban.

Sources

• Reuters
• Associated Press
• Image: Daily Mail

Such religious leaders could also have to enrol in a "national register of faith leaders", as part of the UK Government's new counter-extremism strategy.

A leaked draft of the strategy from the Home Office was seen by the Daily Telegraph.

The strategy, due to be published this northern autumn, says that Whitehall will "require all faiths to maintain a national register of faith leaders".

It also states that the Government will "set out the minimum level of training and checks" faith leaders must have to join the new register.

Registration will be compulsory for all faith leaders who wish to work with the public sector, including universities, the document states.

In practice, most UK faith leaders have some dealings with the public sector and the requirement will cover the great majority.

The move marks a significant deepening of the state's involvement in religion and is likely to be resisted by many religious representatives.

A spokesman for the Catholic Church said it had not been consulted on the proposals.

Other senior Catholic sources told the Daily Telegraph that any plan for state supervision of priests would be "firmly resisted".

Imam Maulana Shah Raza warned the Government "not to meddle in religious affairs or to expand the state's involvement in deciding on religious and theological issues".

He said: "The Government needs to concentrate on ensuring that safeguards are in place to protect the public and treating all faith communities equally."

The document states the UK Government will also set out a new "framework for intervention" when local councils "fail" to tackle extremism.

The document states that Whitehall "will compel schools, including academies, to have at least one governor or trustee with no familial or business ties to the school, and who lives outside the catchment area".

Sources

• Daily Telegraph
• Image: Wikipedia

In an interview with Buenos Aires favela publication La Carcova News, the Pope said he had asked the Lord to take care of him.

"But if your will is that I die or that they do something to me, I ask you just one favour: that it doesn't hurt because I am a big wimp when it comes to physical pain," the Pope said.

If fanatics want to kill him, it is "God's will", he said. "Life is in God's hands."

Groups that could pose threats to the Pope reportedly include Islamist militants and the Italian mafia.

The interview with La Carcova News came about after the shantytown's parish priest collated inquiries from hundreds of children and young adults and boiled them down to about a dozen questions.

When the priest visited the Pope at his Vatican residence last month, he handed the written questions to Francis, who gave answers on the spot.

One of the questions saw the Pope asked about young people's attraction to "virtual relationships" and how to help them escape "their world of fantasy" and to experience "real relationships".

The Pope said "sometimes virtual relationships are not imaginary, but are concrete" and real.

However, he said, the best thing is for people to have real, physical interaction and contact with each other.

He said the big risk he sees is with people's ability to gather such a huge amount of information that nothing is done with it and it has no impact on changing lives.

He said this process turns young people into a sort of "youth museum".

Having a rich fruitful life is not found in "the accumulation of information or just through virtual communication, but in changing the reality of existence. In the end, it means loving".

Sources

• The Tablet
• Catholic News Service
• Image: CBC

The commander of the Vatican gendarmes, Domenico Giani, said security patrols of the Vatican perimeter are always on high guard.

"There are not only the threats of the Islamic State, but also the risk of action by individuals, which is more dangerous because it is unpredictable," he said in an interview for the monthly magazine of the Italian state police.

For months, there have been rumours of threats against the Vatican or Pope Francis by ISIS militants.

Concern heightened last month when militants claiming to be allied with ISIS murdered 21 Christians in Libya.

In a video, the militants said they would conquer Rome.

Mr Giani, who is the Pope's bodyguard, said that based on what he has learned from meetings with his Italian and foreign colleagues, he can say that the ISIS threat is real.

But he hasn't been told of any information about actual attack plans, he said.

Mr Giani, who worked in the Italian secret service before moving to the Vatican, said he is in frequent contact with Italian and other government intelligence services, including some from predominantly Muslim countries.

"I can say that today the Pontiff is seen and respected by Muslims as the most influential moral authority in the world — and that is on the part of both religious and civil leaders."

Asked how Pope Francis is living with the threat, Mr Giani responded: "The Holy Father does not intend to abandon the style of his pontificate, which is based on proximity, that is, on a direct encounter with the greatest number of people possible.

"Even as Pontiff, he has remained a priest who does not want to lose contact with his flock."

He said those entrusted with the Pope's security must adapt to Francis's style, not the other way round.

Mr Giani said Pope Francis "is well aware of the threats" against him, "but his only concern is for the faithful".

Sources

• The Tablet
• Catholic Herald
• Image: Inside the Vatican

The warning came in a video apparently showing the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians next to the Mediterranean Sea in Libya.

In the video, an English-speaking militant said they are sending a message "from the south of Rome".

At the end of the footage, the same English-speaking fighter raises his knife to the water and says ISIS would "conquer Rome, with Allah's permission".

Also on the video, an Islamist says in English: "All crusaders: safety for you will be only wishes, especially if you are fighting us all together.

"Therefore we will fight you all together . . . The sea you have hidden Sheikh Usama Bin Laden's body in, we swear to Allah, we will mix it with your blood."

Italy's interior minister Angelino Alfano said security precautions around the Vatican have been "very high".

After Mr Alfano met Vatican officials this week, Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Pietro Parolin said the minister reported there are no specific threats against the Vatican.

Cardinal Parolin said that while there is "a media war on the part of ISIS", and jihadists frequently pledge to conquer Rome, there have been no concrete threats.

The cardinal concluded that Vatican officials should be "careful, vigilant, without falling into alarmism".

The head of the Swiss Guards said his forces are ready to protect Pope Francis if ISIS attempts a strike.

Colonel Christoph Graf said: "Following the terrorists' threats, we're asking the guards to be more attentive and observe peoples' movements closely.

"If something happens we're ready, as are the men of the Gendarmerie."

Last month, the Vatican played down media reports that it had been named as a probable next target for an Islamist attack.

According to the reports, Vatican authorities had received specific warnings from both Israel's Mossad and the US's CIA agencies regarding Pope Francis's safety.

But a Vatican spokesman responded at that time that the Holy See had received nothing "concrete and specific" about any attack plans.

Sources

• Catholic Herald
• The Tablet
• The Independent
• National Catholic Reporter
• Daily Mail
• Catholic World News
• Image: International Business Times

The chief executive of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Andrew Kibblewhite, said members of the group had been selected for their areas of expertise.

"They're a group of free thinkers who between them cover the big risk areas."

The members of the group are:

• Ian Fletcher - head of the Government Communications Security Bureau
• Sir Peter Gluckman - PM's chief science adviser
• Therese Walsh - chief executive of the 2015 Cricket World Cup
• Karen Poutasi - chief executive of NZQA
• Keith Turner - chairman of Fisher and Paykel
• Richard Forgan - consulting partner at PWC
• Hugh Cowan - Earthquake Commission executive
• Lt Gen Rhys Jones - former Chief of Defence Force
• Helen Anderson - director of Dairy NZ, Niwa and Branz
• Murray Sherwin - chairman of the Productivity Commission
• Led by GCSB boss Ian Fletcher, the group of 10 have been drawn from public and private life to find weaknesses in New Zealand's armour.

Papers released to the Herald through the Official Information Act show the advisory group was formed as part of a streamlining process and to help "in anticipating and mitigating strategic national security risks".

Source

• New Zealand Herald
• Image: Screenshot TNVZ

Threats to kill the Pope by the terrorist Islamic State were revealed by Iraq's ambassador to the Holy See in an interview in an Italian newspaper on Tuesday.

But Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi, SJ, said there was "nothing serious" in the threats and that "this news has no foundation".

"There is no particular concern in the Vatican," he said.

Fr Lombardi confirmed that the Pope would travel in the same open-top car he uses in St Peter's Square in Rome while he is in Albania this weekend.

The Pope said he decided to visit Albania because "it has suffered greatly as a result of a terrible atheist regime and is now realising the peaceful co-existence of its various religious components".

Pope Francis' trip to Albania will be his first to a Muslim-majority country.

His second, to Turkey, is expected to take place at the end of November.

Continue reading

Reflecting the simplicity and humility that has characterised his pontificate, the Pope's WYD accommodation will be a basic room with a simple bed, a nightstand with a telephone and a small desk.

Already Pope Francis has scrapped a scheduled day of rest and added events including a visit to the slums of Ro de Janeiro and a visit to the Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida, said Father Federico Lombardi.

Originally a "less demanding" schedule was drawn up for Pope Benedict XVI, because of his advanced age and declining health. When Benedict announced his resignation, he gave an assurance that his successor would attend WYD.

A crowd of around 1.5 million is expected to attend the concluding open-air Mass that Pope Francis will celebrate in Rio de Janeiro on July 28.

Organisers of the widespread street protests that swept through Brazil in June have announced plans to take to the streets again while Pope Francis is in Rio de Janeiro, under the banner of "Pope, look how we are treated!"

The head of Brazil's main intelligence agency has told reporters the spectre of a new round of protests was a "major concern", and officials in Rio de Janeiro have vowed to stage "the biggest police operation in the city's history".

But the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes, felt compelled to tell people the Pope "has no direct connection to the sins of Brazilian politicians", adding that perhaps the Pope would forgive them if they made a good confession.

And the chief of staff to Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Gilberto Carvalho, predicted that Pope Francis himself is his own security system.

"The Pope will be safe here," Carvalho said, "and not because of the armed forces, but because of ... the sympathy he inspires, since he represents a new hope not just for the Church but for mankind."

Sources:

Catholic News Service

Catholic News Agency

National Catholic Reporter

Image: Catholic News Agency

"If the pope says, 'I want to go greet these people', the pope goes ahead, and the security people go along," said Lombardi

"This is something brand new."

"You have to respect the pope's personal style," Lombardi said.

"The security officials are aware that it is not they who are running the show but the pope, and they have to adjust to that."

"Security detail in fibrillation, faithful delirious" is how the Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano described the scene as finding himself near a Vatican exit and hearing people chanting his name outside, Pope Francis responded with an impromptu walkabout that looks set to become a frequent occurrence.

"Everyone remembers how many times John Paul II broke the rules in order to meet people directly, even in situations that could be risky or unpredictable," Lombardi said.

"That was his style. He wanted to do that and had to be able to do that. Those in charge of security did the best they could."

Lombardi acknowledged that security personnel naturally like to err on the side of caution when they can, but Lombardi is adamant that security officials are at the service of the pope and they will need to adapt to Pope Franics' style.

Responsibility for papal security is shared by about 100 Swiss Guards — the traditional papal security coterie — plus about 100 Vatican police and another 140 Italian police who maintain a round-the-clock patrol at the edges of the tiny city state.

On Tuesday for Francis's inaugural mass, at least 3,000 security personnel will be deployed including sharpshooters.

Sources

• Inquirer News
• Image: Reuters

"His continued presence in the Vatican is necessary, otherwise he might be defenseless. He wouldn't have his immunity, his prerogatives, his security, if he is anywhere else," said one Vatican official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"It is absolutely necessary" that he stays in the Vatican, said the source, adding that Benedict should have a "dignified existence" in his remaining years.

Vatican sources said officials had three main considerations in deciding that Benedict should live in a convent in the Vatican after he resigns on February 28. Continue reading

"Life begins to return slowly back to normality. There are no particular difficulties," the bishop said.

"In the past days Masses were celebrated without problems and safely," he added.

"Among the Catholics present in Libya I once again want to recall the Filipina nurses who have remained to ensure their service even in the most difficult moments. These people have left everything to serve the sick in hospitals.

"The new authorities are working to ensure order and safety," he continued.

The priority is to make normal the security of the people and working for a lasting peace, the bishop reported to Fides.

Speaking from Italy where he is receiving medical treatment, Martinelli said he was not able to officially confirm a statement from Human Rights Watch that the National Transitional Council is arbitrarily arresting and abusing African migrant workers and black Libyans assumed to be mercenaries, however he said he has been told there has been some exacerbation against African migrants.

Sources

• Fides
• Human Rights Watch
• Image: Yale Journal of Human Rights

Sub-saharan Africa leaps out as the place where the most people fear for their next meal, while the rich world has more to fear from obesity.

But there's plenty of salutary reminders and fascinating detail, like India's food problems and the vulnerability of Spain.

And it demonstrates the sickening, symbiotic relationship between lack of food and conflict: where one leads, the other follows.

We must start with the worst, in the horn of Africa.

In Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea, human failings mean a severe drought has tipped millions into famine. It's a textbook case of why things go wrong.

• War begets poverty, leaving food unaffordable.
• Devastated infrastructure destroys both food production and the ability to truck in emergency food.
• The collapse of society means the effects of extreme weather such as drought cannot be dealt with. And
• the fear of violence turns people into refugees, leaving their livelihoods and social networks behind.

The recent spike in food prices, linked by some to the uprisings across north Africa and the Middle East, had also hit hard in Somalia. Maize prices in Mogadishu were 100% higher in June 2011 than in June 2010, and the price of sorghum in Somalia rose by 180% compared with 2010 prices.

Continue reading how Food is the ultimate security