Aid to the Church in Need has stories of interest – about Chavez effectively shutting down the Catholic television station in Venezuala, and a Peruvian bishop’s accusations again mine owners.

Pope gives 100,000 Euros to a Ukrainian Catholic university.

More on unrest in China related to the one-child policy.

Last September legal scholar Teng Biao and blind human rights activist Chen Guangcheng slammed the authorities in Linyi (Shandong) for using violence against families with “illegal” children.

In Gaoping (Hunan) in the last four years, officials took away 12 children from their families in order to get them to pay the fine because they failed to respect quotas.

Also in Hunan province, the authorities forced unmarried women to under go “pregnancy checks” making the test compulsory for any woman seeking a share of community land-sale revenues and voting rights.

The one-child policy is likely to fuel further social unrest as human rights activists have pointed out. Increasingly people are unwilling to accept the unfairness of a system that allows rich people—for example, actors, landowners and business men—to have more than one child because they can afford the fine whilst others cannot. The one-child policy is thus feeding into the debate over the growing gap between rich and poor and the rising corruption scandal among rank and  file party officials, too ready to turn a blind eye on extra children in order to collect taxes and money.

Much more from around the world at the Fides News Agency.