Roman Catholics: The Unlikely Cardinal

From the pulpit where he stood one day last week, Richard James Cardinal Cushing, 68, looked down not at the familiar Irish faces of his own Boston congregation but rather into the docile and questioning gaze of brown Peruvian eyes. The occasion was the blessing of a new brick-and-concrete Roman Catholic church in a slum suburb of Lima.

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Steam and Bean Sprouts: On the Trail of the Killer Bacteria

After first sending Spain’s agricultural industry into a tailspin by falsely accusing that country’s cucumbers, German authorities on June 5 pointed a finger of blame at local beansprouts — specifically the produce of an organic farm in the village of Bienenbttel, around 70 kilometers south of Hamburg — as the source of an outbreak of deadly E.

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A Day in The Life . . . . . . Of China: Free to Fly Inside the Cage

A beautiful day for a wedding — crisp, clear and, for China in midsummer, relatively cool. The latest typhoon’s high winds have swept away the air pollution, and under a brilliant blue sky the guests are chatting in the hollow of a terraced field beside a single spindly tree — symbolic decoration in a country whose scant arable land continues to disappear

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Opposition official’s trial on hold in Zimbabwe

A Zimbabwean court postponed the trial of key opposition figure Roy Bennett on Saturday to allow his lawyers time to prepare their case. Bennett, the Movement for Democratic Change’s nominee for the deputy agriculture minister post, faces charges of possessing weapons for sabotage, banditry and terrorism

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Desperation stalks Zimbabwe’s white farmers

A desperate Zimbabwean farmer fighting to hold onto his land — a year after the country’s political rivals pledged to govern jointly — fears he will eventually lose to politics and violence. The power-sharing agreement included an undertaking by both parties to ensure property rights are upheld but farm attacks and invasions continue unabated in Zimbabwe

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