Starting today, every Monday, AsiaNews will feature voices, stories, and in-depth reports to explore, step by step, the South Korea that will welcome young people for World Youth Day (WYD) next August. The perspective will be one of “memory and hope” focused on the mission, an approach suggested today by Pope Leo XIV to South Korean priests and religious sisters living in Rome.
As China’s industry grows rapidly, its countryside stagnates and stays poor. The Communist Party, not farmers are to blame for the situation, as party officials use land to make huge profits whilst maintaining public ownership. Only if land is privatised can it become productive. Here is the analysis by one of China’s great dissidents.
Whilst Chinese companies have full access to European markets, their European counterparts do not have the same access in China. Brussels plans counter measures.
Card. Turkson, Justice and Peace, and the Custodian of the Holy Land for the fourth edition of the Day. Prayers and Eucharistic adoration, Mass at Calvary in Jerusalem. Angelus with the Pope.
For the first time in its history, the Episcopal Conference launches a survey aimed at all young people throughout the country's 15 dioceses. The results are surprising: young people "really understand Catholic teaching" and faith "helps them to improve the understanding of the world and their problems."
Last year growth was at 9.2. The Chinese statistics unreliable because of state intervention in credit policies and false growth data of the provinces and of actual inflation (16%). China will not buy sovereign debt of Spain or Italy.
Three peaceful demonstrations end in bloodshed this week. Scared by growing unrest, Beijing reacts with an iron fist and a disinformation campaign to convince the world that the Dalai Lama is to blame. A Buddhist source tells AsiaNews that some “6,000 Buddhists left Tibet for India” to hear their religious leader, showing they “unconcerned about consequences”.
The country’s Chinese community celebrates the Lunar New Year. Activities and festivals will be held over the next two weeks. In 1967, General Suharto had banned the event. President Gus Dur unbanned it 2000. Thousands of Catholics take part in Mass in Jakarta.
Kim Jong-un wants to inaugurate his reign with a gesture of grandeur, "but the state’s coffers are empty and the food is finished. So he distributes a skipping rope to children in the country, although at the moment there are 5 degrees below zero. " A source tells AsiaNews of the sad Korean New Year.
Fireworks increase the level of dangerous particulate matter in the air of Chinese cities. China has become the world’s largest importer of coal, a dirty energy. For Wen Jiabao, China cannot do without it for now.
A free trade pact centred on the southern part of the island is in the works. Taiwan could be the hub of the Far East. Investments in the south could turn voters away from the opposition. The island’s presidential elections are Taiwan’s “best gift” to the mainland.
Chinese security forces fired on protesters who were shouting for freedom for Tibet and the return of the Dalai Lama. Martial law imposed in Serthar. Beijing critical of reports of killings in Draggo, two days ago. The exiled Tibetan prime minister criticizes the silence of the international community. The "concerns" of the United States, who will receive Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping in February.
Shi Enhao, a leading member of an alliance of Chinese house churches, was supposed to purge one more year of forced labour. International human rights groups welcome his release but demand China does the same for other Christian religious leaders in jail. Three underground Catholic bishops and six priests are unaccounted for or in prison without charges or trial.
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