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Elizabeth Martin  Other Articles by Elizabeth MartinPrinter Friendly Version   Lent: A Time for Prayer, Reflection and Giving March 1, 2007 After many years of work with Catholic Relief Services, Lent, and its seasonal period of reflection, prayer, fasting and almsgiving, grows more meaningful to me year after year. It's not just because of the stories I hear about the help that CRS provides to those who are suffering. It is the fact that with each season of Lent we are coming closer and closer to the realization of a global community — of one human family.Each Lent we...

The United States has not forgotten the Palestinian people, despite the current crisis in Lebanon, the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, insisted today after meeting the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, in the West Bank. "The Palestinian people have lived too long with violence and the daily humiliations that go along with the circumstances here," Ms Rice said in Ramallah. "I assured the president that we had great concerns about the sufferings of innocent people throughout the region," she told reporters, saying "even as the Lebanon situation resolves, we must remain focused on what is happening here." "You have our...

'Iron ricebowl' is broken By Richard Spencer in Beijing (Filed: 08/01/2003) The "iron ricebowl" - China's guarantee to public servants of jobs and pensions for life - is finally to be scrapped. Over the next five years, state media reported yesterday, all 30 million employees of China's 1.3 million state institutions, will have life-long tenure replaced by employment contracts. The announcement, though it only formalises changes already well under way, brings the end of China's cradle-to-the-grave universal welfare state another step closer. It comes as the new Communist Party chief, Hu Jintao, is touring the country stressing the need to...