South East Asia

The Chinese are not participating in multilateral talks on debt relief for the poorest nations. China also wants the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to agree to a cut. This year developing states have to repay foreign debts amounting to $35 billion, 40% of which is owed to Beijing.

A report by UN Women and the Government of Cambodia notes that in 20 years, the proportion of women in management positions increased only by 2 per cent. Although the role of women was crucial during the pandemic, only Vietnam has a woman in charge of the Ministry of Health.

Displaced people have a month to "relocate" and find accommodations. Reception facilities can no longer admit displaced people. The UN notes that over a million people have been displaced. Those who engaged in civil disobedience cannot be hired under penalty of arrest. “Depression, addictions, and trauma are on the rise among the young and very young,” sources tell AsiaNews.

Some 200 delegates from 29 countries will meet until 30 October for a synodal event marking 50 years since the FABC’s foundation. The Churches in Asia are called to a “new epiphany” in “Asia’s century”, said Card Bo in the opening Mass. In a video message Pope Francis said: “let the laity assume their baptism” and show “respect for the particularity of every Church.”

Yesterday, Prime Minister Yaakub had the king dissolve parliament. The ruling UMNO party is trying to capitalise on a favourable moment to boost its narrow majority. The economic crisis remains the issue to tackle as Malaysian face uncertainty amid rising prices.

An Islamist held Ms Leila de Lima hostage for a couple of hours during a breakout attempt from a prison inside the headquarters of the Philippine National Police. Unharmed during the incident, the former senator has been in jail since 2017 on drug trafficking charges she says were fabricated. For the chairperson of the ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights group, she should not be in prison “surrounded by criminals and terrorists”.

Inaugurated at theend of teh Bishops' Conference Plenary Assembly. A large building at the service of formation and evangelisation that will host the local Synod next month. The bishops also thanked the communities of the Vietnamese diaspora "for their love of the Church and the motherland".

Located in a district that covers Bangkok’s port, Klong Toey is home to 100,000 people, many of them internal migrants. Here, the Sisters recently began providing meals to people further impoverished by the pandemic. With their school “only a few blocks away from the biggest slum,” the Sisters heeded Pope Francis’s call to “serve the poor at the borders of our society”.

Findings come from a UNICEF report released last week. Boys are the main victims and 23 per cent of respondents told no one about their disturbing experience. Police response has been poor while adults know little about how Internet is affecting teenagers.

A police officer kills 37 people, including 23 children. In his message of condolences, Pope Francis expressed his “spiritual closeness to all those affected by this act of unspeakable violence”. Police recruitment practices are coming under closer scrutiny as are abuses of power, drug use, and easy access to weapons.

The Benedictine monk died at the age of 50 in a hospital in Germany from cancer that doctors suspect was caused by poisoning. His community had been subjected to violence for years over a dispute over a few hectares of land that the local authorities had expropriated. Already seriously ill in 2019, he had tried to return to Vietnam, but was turned back at Hanoi airport.

Today's headlines: Joint military exercise by Tokyo and Seoul (with the US) in response to North Korean launches; Vientiane suspends mining operations at a Chinese-owned gold mine; cholera continues to strike in Syria, first case of contagion in neighbouring Lebanon; Moscow's Orthodox churches propse a liturgy for soldiers engaged in the war on Ukraine.