Haiti, the western hemisphere’s poorest nation, is often devastated by floods, hurricanes and earthquakes, with poverty making these disasters harsher than in richer countries. Money sent home by Haitians overseas saves lives but does not fill Haiti’s biggest needs: roads, bridges, clinics, schools and electricity. 70% of Haitians are Catholics, but many mingle their Catholicism with voodoo, which is rooted in West African animism. Evangelicals have grown in numbers, through love in action and openly standing against voodoo. Pray for good leaders at every level of society and church who will build the nation rather than loot or exploit it. Pray for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Haiti that will transform lives and communities. A truly renewed Catholic Church would be a great force for good. Pray that Catholics re-centre on simple, personal trust in Christ so that God can build their lives.

In Tigray 353,000 starving people are in phase 5 (catastrophe) and 1.769 million in phase 4 (emergency). In other words, famine, though the Ethiopian government refuses to call it famine. Huge numbers of deaths by starvation are unavoidable. In remote villages people are found dead in the morning, having perished overnight. Women who were kidnapped by soldiers and held as sexual slaves, now in hospitals or safe houses, are separated from their children, tormented by the fear they will starve without their mothers' care. Death by starvation happens when the undernourished body consumes its own organs to generate enough energy to keep a flicker of life. Most of the nation is controlled by rebels or military who do not cooperate with humanitarian agencies. Eritrean forces joined the conflict and along with the Ethiopian army they pillage, burn crops, destroy health facilities, and prevent farmers from ploughing their land. This is a man-made famine. There is no drought, and last year's locust swarms have gone.

On 11 June Uganda recorded the highest number of Covid-19 cases in a single day since the pandemic began. Cases were up 137% this week, forcing the state to impose a partial curfew. Last week, the UAE banned flights from Uganda after recording cases of the Indian virus while already struggling with the South African and British mutants. Uganda has a curfew between 9 pm and 5:30 am and has closed all learning institutions. The ministry of health announced a halt to the vaccination process citing the lack of jabs. All intensive care and high-dependency beds in the country are already occupied and vaccination against Covid-19 is progressing very slowly. Barely 750,000 people have received one dose (35,000 have received two doses), in a country of 45 million people.

A tunnel used by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza has been discovered under one of the schools run by UNRWA. The school was one of two of the organisation’s facilities damaged during the 11-day conflict. But now officials at UNRWA have confirmed that a terror tunnel ran directly underneath the school. Also Israel’s bombing of Gaza’s Jala Tower caused international outrage as the office block housed media organisations Associated Press and Al-Jazeera. However, the building was also being used by Hamas’s military intelligence services to develop electronic jamming systems against the Iron Dome anti-missile defence system. Israel has defended its reasons for targeting the high-rise building, which it gave notice to evacuate, and as a good-will gesture has offered to rebuild the media offices.