East Asia

Sunday Gospel: witness and joy (VIDEO)

Pope Francis received in audience pop, rock, soul, gospel, and opera singers as well the promoters and organisers of the annual concert. Proceeds from the event will be donated to the Pontifical Scholas Occurrentes Foundation and the Salesian Missioni Don Bosco Foundation. As Paul VI put it, the world “needs beauty in order not to sink into despair”.

For months, the daily average stood at only 50 new infections per day. In the past week, the number averaged at least 600 per day. Today’s is the highest in 11 months. Out of a population of 52 million people, South Korea has reported 41, 736 cases with 578 deaths.

Her lawyer made the allegation, demanding her immediate release. After she went on a hunger strike to protest her incarceration, she was force-fed through a tube. She refuses to break her fast and finds comfort in prayer. She ended up in the crosshairs of the authorities after writing about the outbreak in Wuhan, the pandemic’s ground zero.

Even where it is impossible to proclaim the name of Jesus aloud, the testimony of Christians must be so clear as to stir up interest in Him. A councillor in the Salesian Missions Department, a former missionary in Papua New Guinea, gives his thoughts. The Salesians have a strong presence in Asia.

Reinhard Bütikofer wants Chen Quanguo, architect of the internment camps for Uyghurs, punished under the new EU mechanism for the protection of human rights. Discussions will start shortly on a list of offenders. For several observers, the European bloc must move from words to deeds.

It is one of the crimes under the national security law wanted by Beijing. Accused of giving interviews to foreign newspapers and calling for sanctions against city authorities. The democracy supporter and tycoon is already in jail on a fraud charge.

Teachers must sign a pledge, even if it violates the Chinese constitution. The atheism campaign in Zhejiang schools has been going on for years.

A group of Protestant Christians assists "heroic mothers" who bring their children into the world while under pressure to have an abortion. With help, more than 83% of women who aborted in China would have brought tehir children to term. 12 lessons to form "supporters" for human life.

Sri Lanka’s first state-owned wind farm is inaugurated. It is expected to generate 100 megawatts and save 20 billion litres of diesel in 20 years. A Chinese company will build a car tire factory near a port operated by a Chinese company. The country's dependence on Beijing is growing.

For the archbishop of Vasai (Maharashtra), who has been involved in interfaith dialogue for years, news that the pope will travel to Iraq is a sign of hope for the world that has been paralysed by the pandemic, but it is also a sign for peace at a time of divisions and angst.

This is the first time that a Chinese metropolis is among the top 10 in the Global Power City Index. Shanghai has benefitted from new ways of working during the pandemic. The Chinese capital is the most competitive metropolis thanks to online academic exchanges; based on pre-COVID measurement, it would be only 21st.