More civilians killed in Myanmar junta airstrikes
July 4, 2023 · By UCA News Network for www.ucanews.com
More civilians killed in Myanmar junta airstrikes
Myanmar military junta has continued its deadly attacks on civilians as fighting against rebel groups and pro-democracy defense forces intensifies.
In the latest attack, as per the latest media reports, 10 civilians were killed and eight wounded after a military jet dropped three bombs on Nyaung Kone village in the northern Sagaing region on Tuesday afternoon.
Rights groups accuse the military of extrajudicial killings, razing villages, and using air strikes as collective punishment of its opponents. A villager alleged the military attacked the village though there was no fighting. Images published by local media showed people working to douse smoldering debris and ash, and a large building in ruins.
More than two years after the coup and ouster of an elected government, the military is struggling to crush resistance to its rule. It is resorting to artillery and air strikes amid fierce opposition on the ground. The military reportedly carried out 300 air strikes last year.
In this photo taken on March 8, 2023 members of the ethnic rebel group, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), take part in a training exercise at their base camp in a forest in Myanmar’s Shan State. At least 30 civilians have been killed in fighting between junta troops and rebel groups in the state in recent weeks according to a rights group. (Photo: AFP)
A group of laypeople in an Indian archdiocese burned a circular of the Vatican-appointed apostolic administrator, Archbishop Andrews Thazhath, which insisted on a disputed form of Mass, which has been at the center of a five-decade-old liturgical dispute.
The act of public protest by the parishioners of the St. Mary’s Basilica of Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese in southern Kerala state occurred on Monday.
During the protest, the group shouted slogans against the archbishop. The cathedral, the seat of the Major Archbishop of the Eastern-rite Syro-Malabar Church, has remained closed since last December following physical violence inside it over the liturgy dispute.
Most of the priests and laity in the archdiocese have rejected an order of the Mass approved by the Church’s synod and the Vatican. The approved Mass form requires priests to turn to the altar during the Eucharistic prayer. The archdiocesan laity and priests want the celebrants to face the people throughout the Mass.
Global rights group Human Right Watch decried the death sentence for four politicians in Bangladesh, saying the trial process failed to ensure fairness and justice. The group said it opposes “the death penalty as inherently cruel and irreversible.”
The reaction came after the International Crimes Tribunal handed down the death penalty to the accused on four charges — abduction, confinement, murder, and torture — during the 1971 Bangladesh war of independence from Pakistan. They were involved in politics with the main opposition BNP or Bangladesh Nationalist Party at some point in their lives.
Three of the four accused were tried in absentia. The war crimes tribunal was set up by the ruling Awami League in 2010. The tribunal has so far sentenced 135 out of 155 accused of war crimes, mostly members of the country’s largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, and the BNP. Six death convicts have been executed.
Despite popular support, the tribunal has been accused of falling short of international standards.
A court in Indonesia revealed former minister Johnny Gerard Plate, who is facing trial for graft, donated thousands of dollars to Catholic Church from his ill-gotten gains.
Plate is a Catholic and former communications and informatics minister who is charged with massive graft in a 4G mobile communications project worth about 10 trillion rupiah or 667 million US dollars. He allegedly donated funds to Catholic Church in March last year after he visited Kupang, the capital of Christian-majority East Nusa Tenggara province.
According to the indictment, Plate donated one billion rupiah equivalent to 66,600 US Dollars, to the Kupang archdiocese and 500 million rupiah to Widya Mandira Catholic University. The Base Transceiver Station 4G project was supposed to provide internet access to disadvantaged areas in East Nusa Tenggara and Papua provinces.
However, the project was stopped as many towers were not functioning. Plate is the fifth minister in President Joko Widodo’s administration to face corruption charges.
A Catholic bishop in the Philippines joined rights groups in calling the military to back off from a rebel-infected province after its members were accused of killing a four-member family.
Bishop Gerardo Alminaza of San Carlos demanded fair probe and justice for the killing and urged security forces to secure a court warrant before conducting any operation in Negros province. The bishop reiterated the call on Tuesday after issuing a statement on June 18.
This came after an alleged Communist party member, his wife, and their two teenage children were found murdered in separate places on June 14. 55 year old Rolly Fausto, together with his 49 year old wife, Imelda, and their two children aged 15 and 11 were killed in the Himamaylan community.
The military claimed the communist rebels were behind the killings. However, rights groups pointed fingers at the military’s 94th Infantry Battalion. The Commission on Human Rights has started probe into the murder.
Church leaders have called for collective actions to address issues including economic development, changes in family structure, technological and ideological impact, poverty, and migration and a lack of role models that contribute to a decline in priestly and religious vocation in Asia.
Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, president of the Federation of the Asian Bishops’ Conferences said the vocations thrived in Asia in the 1970s and subsequent decades but started to decline in the new century.
He spoke about challenges in terms of vocations the church is facing across the world, particularly in Asia, during his keynote address at the 80th convention of Serra International, in Chiang Mai of Thailand on June 22-25.
About 450 vocation animators including priests, religious, and laypeople from various countries attended the program. Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, the pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, urged Catholics to look at vocation as a Christian mission and to share stories of vocations to inspire others.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has dismissed an appeal for the release of 60 political prisoners. This came after the brother of the Khmer Bible editor and human rights activist, Theary Seng, has called for the release the prisoners in an address to the 53rd Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Sina Seng said her sister’s case represents a pattern of abuse and retaliation against democracy and human rights advocates by a regime that has weaponized its court system to reduce civic engagement and to silence opposition.
Theary Seng, a dual American-Cambodian citizen, was jailed for six years last June during a mass trial on charges of “conspiracy to commit treason” and “incitement to create social disorder,” alongside 60 other human rights activists and political opponents.
Hun Sen reiterated his position stating political prisoners who had received help from foreigners would not be pardoned.
South Korean Catholics joined special prayers for peace and reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the Korean War.
Hundreds of Catholics participated in special Mass in all dioceses last Sunday that was part of the month-long prayer campaign for peace in the region. In Uijeongbu diocese, just across the border with North Korea, Catholics joined the Mass and commemoration program.
Church leaders appealed the faithful to continue their prayer for peace and reconciliation though the relationship between South and North Korea is strained and difficult.
Korean Church holds prayers for peace and reconciliation from June 17 to July 27, the day when an armistice between the two Koreas ended the deadly war in 1953. The war from 1950-53 left the Korean Peninsula wounded and divided. An estimated four million were killed and ten million were displaced during the war.
Archbishop Tarcisius Isao Kikuchi of Tokyo, the head of the Japanese bishops’ conference has hailed the Sisters of the Infant Jesus for their outstanding pastoral and missionary works. The prelate gave his remarks during a Thanksgiving Mass at St. Ignatius Church in Tokyo last Saturday.
The event marked the closing of the 150th anniversary of the order’s arrival in Japan as the first female missionary religious group. Spanish Jesuit Saint Francis Xavier was the first missionary to arrive in Japan in 1549. Saint Mathilde Raclot, a member of the Sisters of the Infant Jesus, was the first female missionary to arrive in Yokohama, Japan in 1872.
Sister Raclot brought the first group of French nuns and established a hospice and homeless shelter where they assisted underprivileged mothers and children. The sisters provided education to girls regardless of their social standing.
Sister Raclot became one of Asia’s most significant missionaries due to her education ministry. The first convent schools in Malaysia, Singapore, and later Japan were founded by her. She died in 1911 and was buried in Japan.
