Dario Salvi

Today's news: To protect women from abuse, Afghan Taliban locks them in prison; Over19,000 Palestinian casualties in Gaza, Israeli army mistakenly kills three hostages while Tehran executes "a Mossad agent"; Record number of bullying cases in Seoul schools; Tokyo sanctions Russian entities for war in Ukraine; Iranian woman to serve 13 years in prison for social posts regarding the killing of her son in protests over Mahsa Amini.

Stuck in Jerusalem, Fr Romanelli is in constant contact with his assistant parish priest and the faithful sheltering in his church. His many requests to Israeli authorities to go back “have fallen on deaf ears.” He is the "voice and memory" of Christian victims and those who suffer. A truce is needed, as people are dying even from the flu in Gaza. “Even one more minute of war means more deaths, wounded, untreated sick people, destruction,” he bemoans.

A spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of Health warns that Gaza faces “the spread of epidemics, infectious diseases, malnutrition and the lack of clean drinking water and personal hygiene.” About 327,000 cases of infectious disease have been detected. The situation is having catastrophic repercussions on children’s health. Women are forced to deliver babies at home because it is too dangerous to go to a hospital.

A month after Operation 1111 began, ethnic militias reportedly overwhelm junta forces, and are now close to complete control of the state capital, Loikaw, and Moebye, a strategically important township. Meanwhile, the civilian death toll continues to rise: At least 82 have been killed since the start of the offensive.

In this interview with AsiaNews, Avi Dabush, executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights, looks back at the tragic hours when terrorists attacked Kibbutz Nirim. Despite the fear and the violence, he considers the release of the hostages to be paramount and has launched a new outreach programme in the West Bank. For him, it is time to work for rights and justice. In Gaza, the parish of the Holy Family was also hit; a water tank and solar panels were destroyed.

According to Statistics Korea, the number of newly married couples dropped by more than 6 per cent in 2022. Of these, 46.4 per cent have not had children, a record since 2015, with 0.65 children per newlywed couple. The country's total fertility rate stood at 0.79 in the third quarter of 2023, well below the replacement level of 2.1.

A phenomenon that was previously evident in the north and is now also being felt in the south, in the area where the Tigris and Euphrates converge. According to the UN, it is the fifth country in the world for vulnerability to climate change, more than 130,000 people have lost land and homes. In 2023, 25 per cent of small farmers in the Nineveh Plain had to give up their crops.

The Maronite prelate Msgr. Nassar emphasises that for 12 years the Syrian population has been living "in a situation of incessant danger". The vain wait for peace broken by conflict, poverty, pandemic and earthquake. Without the new generations 'the Church loses its foundation and has no future' like the rest of the country. The Wfp will suspend its food aid programme from January.

"Fierce fighting" is underway in the Strip, but violence is mounting in the West Bank as well. Since the end of the truce, more than a thousand Palestinians have been killed. The families of Israeli hostages meet and slam Netanyahu. A Danish scholar remembers Gaza’s historical, cultural, and artistic value to Christians, Muslims, and Jews. The future of its people is at risk.

According to the authorities in Vinh Long, southern Vietnam, the 33-year-old monk was “uncooperative”. He had opposed the cutting of a centuries-old tree inside a pagoda and had not registered with the official Buddhist community. In November, police tried to raid the pagoda, injuring three monks during the scuffle.

Global revenues will fall in 2022 in the armaments sector. The turnaround is not due to a drop in demand but to the difficulty in finding materials. The Middle East is the only region to register growth, driven by Turkey and Israel. Baykar, a company linked to the Turkish leader, marks the highest percentage growth figure in the world, with +94% over 2021.

The denunciation by the Human Rights Association, which relaunches the official numbers of the Turkish Statistical Institute. Out of 4,146 cases in 2022, at least 81 involved minors under the age of 15 and 410 boys and girls between the ages of 15 and 19. At the root are economic issues and the consequences of closures for Covid. But also worrying in some areas is the increase in female suicides. The opposition accuses the Akp.