In the coming week, Pope Francis visits the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Russia responds to the Western tank aid announcement for Ukraine,

and the UN confronts a desperate aid dilemma in Afghanistan.

It's January 26, 2003, and time for the world next week. I'm Bob McMahon.

And I'm Jim Lindsay.

Bob, let's start in Central Africa.

Next Tuesday, Pope Francis, will visit the Democratic Republic of Congo.

This is the first people visit to the DRC since

1985. The Vatican says that the main purpose of the trip is to awaken faith and also to console

those affected by violence in the country. What sort of impacts might this visit by His Holiness

have? Jim, first I'll note that this is a trip that the Pope very much has wanted to make.

He had to cancel it last year because of recurring problems with his knee.

And he's also going to South Sudan as part of this trip.

So it's a four-day visit, pretty sizable by papal visits,

and then on to South Sudan for at least two days.

And I think, as you mentioned in the intro gym, he's very much hoping this to be a visit to encourage pacification,

and also galvanizing the country. This is a country which has tens of millions of Roman Catholics,

something like 40% of the population is Catholic, another 30% is Christian.

And so, as we've discussed before, it's a vast country, impoverished, war-torn.

And in fact, he had to cancel a trip he was going to make to Goma, the city of Goma in the east,

because of the violence there, was seen as too alarming at this stage to allow for people visit in which people you know, people might be in harm's way and so forth.

So there will be victims of that violence coming to see the Pope and various events he's going to be at in the capital, Kinshasa.

...