Bhutan

| ASIA – PACIFIC

The latest data on international arms transfers over the past five years come from Sweden-based SIPRI. India is the world's top importer, while the United States, for the first time in 25 years, is Asia’s largest supplier. Driving rearmament, experts explain, is the perception of a Chinese threat (which continues to boost its war production).


Today's headlines: in Siberia, permafrost melts causing the methane-releasing Batagaika depression to sink further; Israeli army kills two teenagers in the West Bank; U.S. semiconductors in Russia despite sanctions through Maldives; Chinese youth stop at Propaganda Fide in Rome on their way to WYD.

| 22/07/2023
| ASIA TODAY

The kingdom's goal is to reach pre-pandemic visitors level while preserving nature. But this could prove in vain due to global warming. According to a new report, Himalayan glaciers are melting at an alarming rate.

| 20/06/2023
| BHUTAN

Today's headlines: Afghan Taliban against music and dancing at weddings; Burmese junta shuts down oil wells in Magway, over 300,000 workers at risk, Beijing studies a new "water network" against drought, Holland and Canada want to try Damascus in the International Court for torture; Bhutan sets its sights on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency to build a 600-megawatt power plant; Tehran ready to build an assault drone factory in Russia.

| 13/06/2023
| ASIA TODAY

“We can hardly fail to see that these days, in addition to the pandemic, an ‘infodemic’ is spreading: a distortion of reality based on fear, which in our global society leads to an explosion of commentary on falsified if not invented news,” Francis said. “Fake news has to be refuted, but individual persons must always be respected, for they believe it often without full awareness or responsibility,” he added. “[T]ruth is never merely a concept having to do with judgment about things; no, that is only a part of what truth is. Truth regards life as a whole”.

| 28/01/2022
| VATICAN

Humility is “the one way to come to worship God in the same house, around the same altar.” The “great band of martyrs’ around Jesus, indicates “to us here below a clear way, the way of unity!”

 

| 25/01/2022
| VATICAN

Today's headlines: Beijing imports four million barrels of Iranian oil; India and Pakistan tested 26 missiles last year, Pyongyang six; a human rights award goes to Vietnamese activist Pham Doan Trang; Japan bulls US soldiers 'trojan horse' for Covid entry; Isis assaults a prison in Syria. 

| 21/01/2022
| ASIA TODAY
Editor's choices
 
On the ninth anniversary of his death, a Eucharistic celebration marked the end of the local investigation towards the beatification of the young man who died protecting others during a deadly Islamist attack in Youhanabad. “We pray for this grace ...
| 15/03/2024
| PAKISTAN
 
Baek Kwang-soon, 53, is being held on espionage charges. The Love Rice Sharing Foundation, a Protestant charity he works for, says that “all sorts of Russians, Thai and North Korean workers” are “in need, and we provide them with clothes, ...
| 13/03/2024
| RUSSIA - SOUTH KOREA
 
Inaugurated by Modi in the foothills of the Himalayas, it will facilitate connections in Arunachal Pradesh, including military links to the de facto border with the People's Republic of China. Claiming sovereignty over the region, Beijing issued ...
| 12/03/2024
| CHINA - INDIA
 
Hong Kong’s Legislative Council is set to fast track the approval of a national security bill tabled today that imposes unprecedented restrictions to all forms of freedom in the former British colony, including life in prison for “treason” ...
| 08/03/2024
| HONG KONG - CHINA
 
The worst case is Myanmar, where both the regular army and armed resistance make extensive use of landmines. Almost half of the countries that are not signatories to the UN treaty are in Asia or the Middle East. In Southeast Asia region, Cambodia has ...
| 01/03/2024
| ASIA
 
by Dario Salvi
The 2024 Niwano Peace Prize, the “Nobel Prize for Religions" was given to a Sufi Muslim, who teaches at the American University in Washington, for his "holistic contribution to the cause of peace”. After the Hamas attack sparked Israel's ...
| 27/02/2024
| GATEWAY TO THE EAST
 
An image of Christ on the cross painted in Stanley Prison by the Catholic businessman on trial under the National Security Act is on display at the Catholic University of Washington. Meanwhile Agnes Chow from Canada recounts her imprisonment in Hong ...
| 27/02/2024
| HONG KONG - UNITED STATES
 
by Santosh Digal
The archbishop of Goa was elected today in Bangkok by the heads of the continent's Bishops' Conferences. Next January he will become the third Indian to head the collegial body, taking over from Card Bo, Archbishop of Yangon, who led the organisation ...
| 22/02/2024
| ASIA
“L’Asia: ecco il nostro comune compito per il terzo millennio!” - Giovanni Paolo II, da “Alzatevi, andiamo”