Asia

• 7 July 2004
  ASIA/INDIA - India’s Bishops welcome government’s promise to draft a law to protect religious minorities- Link Fides: to origins of Christianity in India New Delhi (Fides Service) - The Catholic Bishops of India have welcomed the government’s decision to draft a law to protect religious minorities in India. The spokesman of the Bishops’ Conference Father Babu Joseph, ...
• 6 July 2004
  ASIA/INDONESIA - On the horizon a second round of voting for Indonesia’s president Jakarta (Fides Service) - There will probably be a second round of elections for presidency in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country with 230 million people 87% Muslim. About 80% of the more than 150 mill ...
• 6 July 2004
  ASIA/NORTH KOREA - New Vicar Episcopal appointed for Catholic diocese of Pyongyang: hopes for new springtime of the Church in North Korea Pyongyang (Fides Service) - Even at difficult times the Church in south Korea has never lost hope of starting once again to evangelise in north Korea and help the faith to flourish. Today these hopes are closer to coming ...
• 5 July 2004
  ASIA/INDONESIA - Polling stations closed: good turnout 150 million Indonesians place first ever vote for President Jakarta (Fides Service) - Good turnout, no incidents so far, great hopes for today’s elections say Fides sources in Jakarta where 150 million Indonesians expressed their choice for the new president of the world’s mo ...
• 5 July 2004
  ASIA/CHINA - Twenty days of intensive formation for 102 catechists from parishes in Liao Ning Liao Ning (Fides Service) -The Liao Ning Community Formation Centre in Liao Ning (north east China) holds courses for priests, religious and laity, catechists in particular. As every year before the Summer the Centre off ...
• 3 July 2004
  ASIA/INDONESIA - Monday 5 July Indonesia will elect a new president: fears and hopes for a nation balancing between Muslim fundamentalism and democracy Jakarta (Fides Service) - Indonesia, the world’s most popular Muslim country, which in recent years started out on the path to democracy, struggling with ferments of dangerous fundamentalism, is about to elect a new pr ...
• 3 July 2004
  ASIA/INDONESIA - Candidates and strategies in first direct presidential elections Jakarta (Fides Service) - This is the first time that Indonesians will vote their president. During the dictatorship (1966-1998), and in the following years, the President was elected by the People’s Consultative Assem ...
• 3 July 2004
  ASIA/INDONESIA - Old policies and a new course: path bristling with obstacles for Indonesia’s fragile democracy Jakarta (Fides Service) - “Ghost of the past may return”: this is the observers’ fear on the eve of presidential elections on July 5. Reliable Fides sources in Jakarta say that the present day political scene feels ...
• 3 July 2004
  ASIA/INDONESIA - Religion, ethnicity, fundamentalism and attempts at dialogue in the archipelago of Indonesia Jakarta (Agenzia Fides) - An archipelago of 17 thousand islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans Indonesia is one of the world’s most populous countries (215 million), with a millennial culture, more than 250 ethnic gr ...
• 3 July 2004
  ASIA/INDONESIA - Links to Fides Archive Vatican City (Fides Service) - On the occasion of presidential elections on 5 Jul2004 in Indonesia, Fides gives a list of links from its archives to supply background to the present political and situation in Indonesia. ...
• 2 July 2004
  ASIA/IRAQ - Christians threatened by extremists “but we are still here” Iraqi priest tells Fides. Concern that new Iraqi television speaks only of Islam ignoring other faiths in Iraq Baghdad (Fides Service)- “Christians are not running away from Iraq. Some media keep reporting that Christians are leaving en masse but this is not true,” Father Nizar Semaan, a priest in Mosul, northern Iraq told Fi ...
• 2 July 2004
  ASIA/INDIA - The Voice of Christianity, presented by Reverend Dominic Emmanuel on Jain Tv Private channel proclaims the Gospel and helps remove prejudice and promote interreligious dialogue New Delhi (Fides Service) - To evangelise the media culture is the aim of The Voice of Christianity programme broadcast by a private TV channel Jain TV. The programme produced by the Social Communications Office of the a ...
• 2 July 2004
  ASIA/HONG KONG - Prayers and freedom of expression at peaceful rally on July 1 anniversary of Hong Kong hand- over to China: Basic Law fundamental for Hong Kong Hong Kong (Fides Service) - The citizens of Hong Kong held a democratic rally, prayed in silence exercising the right sanctioned in Basic Law, Constitution of Hong Kong, in force since the hand-over from Britain to China ...
• 2 July 2004
  ASIA/PHILIPPINES - Dramatic testimony of Filipino workers in regions where freedom of religion is non-existent Manila (Fides Service) - “At customs they took away my rosary a small cross and prayer book…but what most offended me was that they broke the crucifix in front of me! Mass on Sunday we can’t even talk about it!”. ...
• 1 July 2004
  ASIA/INDIA - Catholic Sisters from Tamil Nadu open new mission in West Bengal Calcutta (Fides Service) - A journey from south to north across the nation in the name of faith and love for the poor and for evangelisation was undertaken by Sister Servants of the Sorrowful Mother OSM a congregation s ...