Displaying items by tag: Asia

For three years no stable government has been established despite five elections. Currently a right-wing, religious government rules. But the opposition refuses to accept it. There are civil uprisings involving all sectors of society, even the military. Police usually crack down on right-wing and settler demonstrations. Now they are allowing protesters to shut down highways etc. Many say ‘Israel is being shaken to its very foundations’ and it’s getting worse daily. The conflict is a spiritual battle between secular and religious visions. Israel's first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion was never able to reconcile the opposing secular and religious sectors for Israel and finally gave up on the idea of formulating a foundational constitution or charter for Israel. He decided the state of Israel would be founded on the UN's general principles of human rights. Is Israel to be a state like all other nations, or does God have a different calling for Israel?

Human Rights Watch reported the United Arab Emirates is detaining 2,400+ Afghan asylum seekers at makeshift facilities after being evacuated from Kabul following the 2021 Taliban takeover. They are living in cramped, miserable conditions and stranded in limbo, with no hope of being resettled. The UAE denied conditions were poor and said they were working with the US to finish resettlement processes. Over 10,000 other Afghans who were flown to the UAE have been resettled in America, Canada and elsewhere. A further 70,000 were evacuated directly to the US before American troops left Kabul. The Afghans are housed in two converted apartment complexes known as Emirates Humanitarian City and Tasameem Workers City. Some Afghans had previously worked for US government-affiliated entities or programmes in Afghanistan. They reported constraints on their freedom of movement, limited access to fair refugee status, lack of adequate access to legal counsel or children’s education plus no psychosocial support.

Toxic chemical attacks across the Islamic republic are poisoning schoolgirls. Over 1,200 girls have been hospitalised so far. School authorities and government bodies deny or downplay the strange objects landing in schoolyards and loud bangs being heard. Many believe the attacks are ‘revenge’ tactics against young Iranian women leading a revolutionary movement that erupted in September. Iran's Ali Khamenei demanded punishment for the females involved in the uprising, saying the punishment for teenagers would be special because they're aware of what they are doing. Officials try to blame foreign ‘enemies’ for the attacks, but student’s families believe the real enemy is their government. Parents gathered in one school chanting ‘death to the child-killing regime.’ Meanwhile, widespread social media footage shows a concerned mother brutally attacked by plainclothes security forces for demanding answers about her poisoned daughter. Other parents demand to know why school security cameras were off when the poison gas spread.

Aftershocks are still shaking the eastern Mediterranean as far as Iraq, following on from the severe earthquakes in southern Turkey and northern Syria which left over 50,000 dead and millions homeless. Amidst all the misery, death and destruction, we are hearing testimonies from people who were buried alive and rescued from the rubble after more than a week. They all experienced a bright figure in white who came towards them and gave them something to drink.

Scores of Jewish settlers stormed Hawara torching vehicles and houses in a ‘revenge’ attack after two Israeli brothers were killed by a Palestinian gunman. West Bank’s safety has deteriorated with deadly attacks in Israel, leading to raids on Palestinian terror cells by Israel’s army. Israeli defence forces are being criticised for not quickly quelling Hawara’s violence, revealing stark divisions in Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government; some even encourage the settlers. Meanwhile, Netanyahu called on Israelis not to take the law into their own hands and condemned ‘anarchy.’ Many analysts say that he, the strong-minded leader, fears he is losing control of the security situation in the West Bank. This is a sensitive issue that will deepen government fissures if it goes unchecked. Jews rioting in Huwara have been rightly condemned. But why does the world tolerate Palestinian terrorism? Palestinians regularly take to the streets to celebrate the murders of Jews.

In January we prayed for the 120,000 Christians stranded in Nagorno-Karabakh, a landlocked enclave between Armenia and Azerbaijan, asking God to halt the obstructions to one of Christianity's oldest communities. The situation continues and requires immediate action. Currently, inhabitants of Nagorno-Karabakh cannot travel freely out of the region; 954 are still stranded on either side of the corridor. Only the Red Cross and Russian peacekeepers’ vehicles are allowed to travel along this corridor, which is clearly insufficient to fulfil the needs of the population. It is vitally important that goods can get through in time for the sowing season. Furthermore, the repeated disruption of gas and electricity supply to the territory has resulted in serious violations of the rights of the inhabitants: many have lost their jobs and children are deprived of education since schools had to close. Azerbaijani military positions are within Armenian sovereign territory, sometimes well beyond any disputed border.

‘Help me, I am being tortured by my employer. I'm covered in blood every day, help me!’ Meriance Kabu wrote, then folded the note and threw it out of the locked iron gates of the apartment where she worked as a live-in maid. A passer-by found it and took it to a retired police officer. ‘If she had stayed there, she would have died,’ he later said. That same day Malaysian police knocked on the door of the apartment Meriance hadn't left in eight months. ‘I felt as if I was falling,’ she says, recalling when she saw the officers. ‘They said, “Don't be afraid, we are here”. At that moment I felt like I could breathe again. The officers called me closer and I told them the truth.’ Her story contained distressing details. Nine years later she still fights for justice. Recently Malaysia and Indonesia agreed to improve the conditions of Indonesian domestic workers. Indonesia is lobbying for the case against Meriance's employer to be resumed.

The death toll is tens of thousands. The devastation and trauma is palpable, after the 7.8-magnitude earthquake shook Turkey. Over several years, many foreign Christians have been expelled from Turkey. Most of those remaining are local Turkish believers, 0.5% of the population. Amid the suffering, Turkish Christians are helping one another and embracing Muslim neighbours with aid. In areas where rescue teams were slow to arrive, believers rushed in from other parts of Turkey to help. Their presence is opening doors to offer Gospel comfort. We pray for the grieving. We pray for the spiritually lost. Lord Jesus, break down deep-seated prejudices against Christianity. Move through your remnant church.

As China declares victory over the pandemic, the landmark protests in November which spelled the end for zero-Covid rules have begun fading from memory. But as the country moves on, many who took part in the demonstrations are missing, taken by authorities in a quietly deepening crackdown on dissenters. Thousands rallied against restrictive Covid policies in White Paper protests, holding up blank white sheets in a rare show of criticism of the Communist Party and its leader Xi Jinping. Police made few arrests at the time. Now, months later, scores of those protesters are in police custody, say Chinese activists. International rights groups and foreign universities have called for their release. Activist groups have published lists naming the detainees from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Nanjing protests. Many prisoners are well-educated; some attended universities in the UK and America. They include writers, journalists, a musician, a teacher and a financial industry professional.

Rescuers once again searched for people under rubble after a 6.4 magnitude earthquake and 5.8 aftershock struck near Antakya, where massive quakes had devastated communities two weeks earlier. Buildings weakened by previous tremors collapsed this time. The death toll is relatively low because the area was almost empty after being hit by previous quakes. 294 people were injured - 18 of them seriously. Pray for God to comfort survivors like Ali who was looking for the bodies of his family after the previous earthquakes when the latest tremors hit. He said, ‘We grabbed each other and right in front of us, the walls started to fall’. Pray for the 865,000 people living in tents, 23,500 in container homes, and the 376,000 in public guest houses and student dormitories. Meanwhile Turkey is widening investigations into building servicers violating safety standards. By 23 February 564 suspects were identified, 160 arrested, and many more were under investigation.