Displaying items by tag: Asia

On 7 June, president Ashraf Ghani announced a ceasefire with Taliban insurgents until 20 June, coinciding with the end of Ramadan, but said fighting against IS will continue. He added that the ceasefire is an opportunity for the Taliban to realise that their violent campaign is not winning hearts and minds but further alienating people. He recently offered to recognise the Taliban as a legitimate political group, in a proposed political process that he said could lead to ending more than sixteen years of war. At that time he proposed a ceasefire, releasing prisoners, new elections involving the militants, and a constitutional review in a pact with the Taliban, to end a conflict that last year alone killed or wounded over 10,000 Afghan civilians.

Nestled in the Himalayas in north-eastern India, Sikkim has been leading a green revolution. Despite being small and isolated, with its people living in extremely tough mountainous terrain, it became the first Indian state to ban disposable plastic bags (1998) and is among the first to target single-use plastic bottles. In 2016 Sikkim banned packaged drinking water in government offices and events, and banned the use of disposable plates and cutlery to cut down toxic plastic and refuse problems. Pray for more governments to be active in promoting environmental programmes that end the global use of single-use plastic. Pray for more research and development into alternative materials to be used to manufacture food packaging, carrier bags, plastic pipes, electrical cable insulation, and artificial limbs. Pray for more innovative recycling and composting programmes, and thank God for the work of Christian environmental organisations such as A Rocha.

The Myanmar army is waging a ‘genocidal campaign’ against Kachin Christians, using the same tactics that forced nearly a million Rohingya to flee the country. ‘What we found in this forgotten part of the world was worrying evidence of a second genocidal campaign, this time against the Kachin’, stated a Sky News correspondent on 4 June. Attacks on Kachin areas have increased substantially since January. The forces that spent months driving the Rohingya Muslim ethnic minority out of western Myanmar are now deployed in the north and applying similar tactics, including helicopters, heavy artillery, and burning villages to the ground. The most recent attacks have displaced 10,000 from the mainly-Christian Kachin ethnic minority. One mother of four told journalists, ‘The Burmese government is trying to carry out ethnic cleansing of the Kachin people. Whenever they see Kachin civilians they kill them. If they see a Kachin woman they will rape her, even a pregnant woman.'

Kim Yong Chol, a top lieutenant of Kim Jong-Un, is meeting with US secretary of state Mike Pompeo in New York, in one of three sets of parallel talks aimed at salvaging a summit between Kim and Donald Trump. Lower-level officials have been meeting at the inter-Korean border and in Singapore for other pre-summit negotiations. South Korea's president said, ‘Kim Jong-un believes a face-to-face meeting with US President Donald Trump could put an end to the history of war between the two nations.’ Pray that this hope is realised. He also said that Kim had reaffirmed his commitment to ‘complete’ denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula when they had a surprise meeting at the demilitarised zone. Pray for Pyongyang and Washington to agree on a roadmap of talks that will resolve their differences.

With a rising death toll (15) and the deaths of a nurse and a soldier in Kolkata, panic about Nipah virus is spreading in Kerala. Half-informed WhatsApp messages about Nipah are making it hard for people to distinguish fact from fiction, but what is known is that it is fatal in 70% of cases and there is no vaccine. On 29 May health experts flew to Kerala to help contain the virus that the WHO lists alongside Ebola and Zika as a disease that could cause a global epidemic. Emergency measures have been imposed to curb its spread; dozens of patients have been quarantined since the outbreak was detected two weeks ago. Nipah spreads from bats or pigs to humans, with many strains capable of spreading from person to person. This increases the chances of a strain emerging that spreads rapidly among the densely populated communities and beyond. See

President Trump cited 'tremendous anger and open hostility' from North Korea as reasons for cancelling a landmark meeting with Kim Jong-un on 12 June in Singapore. In a letter to Kim he said, ‘It is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting. The world and North Korea have lost a tremendous opportunity for lasting peace and great prosperity and wealth. This missed opportunity is truly a sad moment in history.’ His announcement came two days after he hosted South Korean president Moon Jae-in in Washington for talks widely seen as a salvage effort to ensure the summit went ahead. A statement from Pyongyang referred to vice-president Mike Pence as a ‘political dummy’, and said it is just as ready to meet in a nuclear confrontation as at the negotiating table with the United States.

Three world leaders outlined their opinions on Iran. The US secretary of state threatened to impose ‘the strongest sanctions in history’ if Iran doesn’t meet a list of demands, including abandoning involvement in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Afghanistan. President Putin said Iran and Hezbollah should leave Syria when the civil war ends; and Israel’s Netanyahu lauded Donald Trump for putting pressure on Iran to stop its intervention in Syria and end its uranium enrichment. An Iranian spokesman told Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV, ‘No one will extract us from Syria. We will remain and keep supporting Syria so long as it needs our help. No one can force Iran to do anything’. Meanwhile please continue to pray for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a Christian, serving a five-year sentence allegedly for spying and now having new charges made against her. See

Hamas said fifty of the people killed by Israeli forces on Gaza’s border recently were its fighters and named them online, including photographs and details of their ranks within the group. Yet the IDF’s response to the clashes was condemned worldwide. See If this was the first time the media caused Israel’s self-defence actions to kill civilians, they could be excused, but this is something that Hamas repeatedly does. Fathi Hamad of the Palestinian Legislative Council said, ‘For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry in which women stand out, and all the people who live in this land. Older people excel in this, as do mujahedeen and children. This is why we have made human shields for women, children, the elderly and mujahedeen, to challenge the Zionist bombing machine. It's like telling the Zionist enemy, “We want death as much as you do life”.’

The persecution against Christians is worse today than in any period of history, said a report by Aid to the Church in Need. The great rabbi of France, Haim Korsia, made an urgent request to Europe and the rest of the West to defend the non-Muslims of the Middle East, whom he compared to the victims of the Holocaust. A new human rights report has revealed that Iraqi minorities such as Christians, Yazidis and the Chabaqui people are victims of a ‘slow-motion genocide’ that is destroying their ancestral communities to the point of disappearance. 81% of Iraq's Christians have disappeared. For the Sabians, the devout community of San Juan Bautista, the number is even worse: 94%. As for the Yazidis, 18% have died or left the country. Another human rights organisation, Hammurabi, reports that there were 600,000 Christians in Baghdad, but there are only 150,000 now.

Moqtada al Sadr, the Muslim Shiite cleric, and his Marching Towards Reform alliance with Iraq's communists look to be in first position coming out of the national polls.The elections rejected the Iraqi elite that has run the country since the ousting of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Running a campaign highly critical of both the USA and Iran, the controversial cleric and militia leader has struck a chord with millions of poor Shia voters. Only 44 percent of voters turned out, the lowest in the four elections since the removal of Saddam. During the next two weeks, the various parties will jockey for position as they seek to form a governing coalition.