Capital Day provided an opportunity to celebrate the efforts that, during the years of the terrible Stalinist dictatorship, made it possible to build one of Central Asia’s most beautiful cities on a desert plateau. Today, its modern buildings project it into the future.
A bill before the Knesset has passed first reading, granting Israel control over antiquities in the Palestinian territories, where violence settler continues. For Prof Sabella, a climate of insecurity is pushing families to leave. Jewish schools are fuelling an anti-Christian ideology. From Gaza and Iran to Lebanon, the trauma caused by wars must be overcome.
The victims, members of the Thadou Baptist Association, were attacked in Kangpokpi district as they made their way home from a religious conference, sparking concern in a region ravaged by ethnic violence for the past three years. For the archbishop of Imphal, the parties to the conflict must not deepen the pain. He calls for life to be defended, as well as “forgiveness” and “peaceful coexistence,” urging the authorities to restore trust.
Trump’s long-awaited visit to Beijing, the first by a US president since 2017, offers an opportunity to refocus attention on the fate of Jimmy Lai and many other defenders of religious freedom and human rights imprisoned in China. This includes Zion Church clergymen, whose families, to keep their fate in the public eye, are posting on Chinese social media images of the Ichthys fish, a symbol used by early Christians during persecution.
On 13 May 1981, feast day of Our Lady of Fatima 45 years ago, John Paul II was hit by two bullets. Today, Leo XIV remembered his predecessor before the general audience in St Peter's Square by kneeling at the spot where he was wounded. He dedicated today’s catechesis to Mary, "the perfect model" for the Church, entrusting to her "the cry for peace" of "peoples afflicted by war.”
Price rises linked to the oil crisis triggered by the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz have caused the sharpest surge in the Philippines in the last three years in the prices of essential goods and transport fares. This trend is hitting low-income families and those living in rural areas of the Visayas hardest.
