DAWN.COM, December 15, 2010
UNDP press release
Athens, Greece: More than 33,000 football fans demonstrated their support tonight for the people of Pakistan and Haiti by filling the Karaiskakis Stadium in Piraeus, Greece, to watch top players reach a 2-2 draw in the eighth Match Against Poverty.
As in previous years, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and two of its goodwill ambassadors, Zinédine Zidane and Ronaldo, organized the match in support of the Millennium Development Goals which seek to reduce poverty and improve livelihoods worldwide by the year 2015.
This year, the host football club, Olympiacos, invited more than 50 players from teams across the world to compete in the star-studded match broadcast live in more than 30 countries.
“It is important that we reach out in solidarity with those affected by extreme poverty,” said Zidane at a press conference preceding the match. “We cannot allow the people of Haiti and Pakistan to suffer in silence. Through this match we hope to let the world know we’re in this together.”
Pakistan’s ‘Mother Teresa’ on floods frontline
Dawn, December 25, 2010 (AFP)
Dawn, December 25, 2010 (AFP)
KARACHI: Every morning Ruth Pfau stands short and frail before a tall crucifix in Karachi’s St Patrick’s Cathedral. She bows her head, shuts her eyes, places her right hand on her heart and prays.
It is the beginning of another long day for the 81-year-old nun known locally as Pakistan’s Mother Teresa, who has spent half a century caring for some of the country’s poorest and most ostracised people.
Pakistan is alleged to be one of the most dangerous countries in the world, where Washington says al Qaeda is based. Its northwest mountains border Afghanistan and are subject to US drone strikes and Pakistani military operations.
Bombings have killed 4,000 people in three years, kidnappings are common, militant groups violently opposed to all but their extremist interpretation of Islam control significant territory.
Sister Pfau, who needs a stick to walk, admits some disquiet over security, but says nothing would stop her serving people in distress.
“I find no difficulties even in the northwestern tribal areas, where most people know me because of my work and never create any hurdle when I go there to serve them,” she said, adjusting her white scarf on her silver-hair.
It was after the horrors of World War II in her native Germany that she decided to dedicate her life to serving humanity, become a doctor and join the Daughters of the Heart of Mary order, founded during the French Revolution.
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Related:
Is the flood over in Pakistan? - The News
The glass is half full: Positive aspects of floods - Tribune Express
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