North Asia

Today's headlines: Tehran to execute more than 500 prisoners in 2022; new explosion in northern Afghanistan, at least seven dead and six injured; Chinese hackers stole millions from the US; Tokyo wants to increase defence budget by 56% in 2023-27; Moscow studies an 'atomic shelter' plan for the capital.

Russian ships launch missiles at Ukrainian targets from the sea. According to an agreement, the Caspian should only be used for peaceful purposes. So far no objections from Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Their silence is a form of connivance with the massacre of the Ukrainians.

Today's headlines: State of maximum alert for thousands of Indonesians in East Java after the eruption of Mount Semeru; Tokyo and Beijing create a military 'red line' to avert incidents in the East China Sea; Israeli President Herzog on an official visit to Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates; Kim Jong-un has reportedly identified his successor in his (nine-year-old) daughter Ju Ae, the 'most beloved'.

Group of Russian dissidents met in Lithuania. Expresses concern over the 'weariness' towards the war shown by the Europeans and the US. Western aid the only key to allow the Ukrainians victory. Putin waits for the right moment to strike.

When he refers to the cruelty associated with the aggression against Ukraine raising questions about some ethnic minorities, the pope uses with great precision the keys to interpreting aspects of the Russian world, namely Russia, the Russian state, and non-Russian ethnic groups, three different parts of a single and complex reality.

Today's other news: North Korea publicly executes two minors for distributing South Korean films; Indonesia is set to approve a law that punishes extramarital sex with prison for both Indonesians and foreigners; China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Russia on the US "blacklist" for violations of religious freedom; the number of child brides is up in Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power.

The two international 'pariahs' put up a common front against Western sanctions. Cooperation in the military field, with the Russians using Iranian drones in Ukraine. The centrepiece is energy cooperation. However, the Islamic Republic would like to replace Russia as gas supplier to Europe.

Newly re-elected to the presidency, the Astana leader meets Putin in Russia. Historic economic relations between the two sides underlined. Kazakhstan seeks a balance between the Kremlin and China. With the involvement of the EU, the former Soviet republic aims to confirm itself as a bridge between East and West.

Territorial tensions between the Russian Republic of Kalmykia and the Astrakhan region. More than 4 thousand square kilometres, mainly of steppe, are disputed. Putin's war adventures risk crumbling the Russian Federation: ethnic minorities mobilise.

Children have died from lack of access to treatments for rare diseases such as epileptic encelopathy. They need drugs distributed by foreign companies, which abandoned the country after the invasion of Ukraine. The war not only causes extermination and destruction on Ukrainian soil, but also suffocates the lives of the weakest and most fragile in Russia.

Whether they unconditionally support militant patriotism, are only hoping for the end of the nightmare, or timidly trying to oppose it by risking imprisonment in a lager and expulsion from all form of social life, all Russians look to the future with a sense of bewilderment and uncertainty, anger and guilt, frustration and the horror of emptiness.

In expressing his closeness, Francis writes: “There is no day when I [. . .] do not carry you in my heart [. . .], you who suffer the terror unleashed by this aggression.” For hi, the world “has come to see” Ukrainians as a “noble and martyred people”. Faced with the cold winter and the rockets landing on power stations that make the suffering even more tragic, Francis cites the trials of the Holy Family in Bethlehem, noting that “the light came, not from men, but from God”.