Pope arrives in Mozambique, kicks off Africa tour

The human rights defender Bianca Jagger continues her battle against the political repression of the Ortega regime in Nicaragua, where she was born. Several bishops and priests are incarcerated in Nicaragua, where the Catholic Church is suspected of supporting the opposition.

A court in Mozambique on Wednesday (November 30) started delivering its judgement in a case involving 19 people accused of various crimes for their alleged roles in the disappearance of hundreds of millions of dollars in government-backed loans.

A Mozambican court on Wednesday found a former president's son and 10 other people guilty on charges related to a $2 billion "hidden debt" scandal that crashed the southern African nation's economy, sentencing them each to more than 10 years in prison.

For the first time in centuries, a sitting pontiff will preside over his predecessor's funeral. Pope Benedict was the first Roman Catholic pope in 600 years to leave his post before dying.

The 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is a human rights treaty setting out the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children. The nations that ratified it are bound to it by international law. One of them is Mozambique. But in fact, the country has developed into a major hub of child trafficking in southern Africa.

Pope Francis starts a historic trip to Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan on Tuesday - two countries where protracted conflicts have displaced millions.

At the start of a trip to Democratic Republic of Congo, Pope Francis has said that Africa is not a "mine to be stripped" as he took aim at the "poison of greed" fueling conflicts on the continent.

Pope Francis strongly denounced the "economic colonialism" which "is unleashed" in Africa and in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), on the first day of his visit to the country. "After political colonialism, an equally enslaving economic colonialism was unleashed.

Large crowds turned out in the Democratic Republic of Congo's for mass with Pope Francis. The pontiff is on a six-day trip to the continent.

"May he convert the hearts of those who carry out brutal atrocities, which bring shame upon all humanity," the 86-year-old said. He added that the conflict in mineral-rich eastern Congo was driven by greed, at the expense of innocent victims, and called on combatants to lay down their arms.

Pope Francis is in Africa now. The trip takes him from Democratic Republic of Congo to South Sudan. For many in the Congolese capital, meeting the Pope is historic.

A papal mass drew a crowd of over a million people to Kinshasa this week. Prayers were said for peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the power of the Catholic Church is a counterweight to the state.