“As long as there is a dictatorship in Venezuela, it is better not to return,” said Alexander. “I feel that there is an illegitimate government, a power that literally controls everything, but also an opposition that has defrauded the people many times.”

A new report says that military budgets continue to spiral upward, but global spending on peace initiatives is already low and is further endangered by domestic politics.

Catholic Relief Services cut its services to needy people in the Gaza Strip by closing a U.S. government-funded program because of the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act.

Mexico's call for a summit is the latest twist in a crisis that continues to divide the world after Venezuela’s embattled socialist president, Nicolás Maduro, was sworn in for a second term.

"No one ever thought about depriving Caritas of these funds," Raggi told L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, Jan. 14. "The diocesan agency plays an important role for many needy and for the city of Rome, which wants to continue to be the capital of welcome for the weakest."

The U.N.’s International Organization for Migration reports that for the fifth consecutive year more than 4,500 people are believed to have died or gone missing on migration routes around the world in 2018.