News Briefs

The 2010-11 Respect Life Program is now available for Respect Life Sunday, Oct. 3. • The Catholic aid agency Caritas appealed on Sept. 7 for food and clothing for the victims of torrential rains in Guatemala that left more than 14,000 people homeless and more than 40 dead. • Kenya signed an agreement Sept. 6 with the International Criminal Court to investigate the 2007-8 violence that claimed 1,133 lives and uprooted more than 600,000. • Peru’s bishops challenged two presidential decrees of Sept. 1 aimed at clearing human rights offenses by the military, charging the new measures “facilitate a process of impunity that would be another embarrassment for the country.” • Muslim employees of Catholic Relief Services in Pakistan experienced the “most meaningful Ramadan fasts” of their lives, said a Catholic Relief Services manager, exchanging Ramadan celebrations for extra work responding to the nation’s floods. • In a joint statement issued Sept. 9 the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops responded to threats of Koran burning: “All acts of intolerance aimed at a religious community should find no place in our world, let alone in our nation which is founded on the principle of religious freedom.”