85% of third grade children in Sri Lanka do not reach the minimum literacy and numeracy skills. The country ranks last in South Asia in terms of education spending”. Unicef has denounced him, citing a national survey con-ducted by the Ministry of Edu-cation.
According to Unicef, the learning crisis has hit the most vulnerable children most of all, including the youngest in primary school and those living in the plantation region. “Sri Lanka currently devotes less than 2% of its GDP to education, which is well below the international benchmark of 4-6% of GDP and among the lowest in the South Asian region,” the statement read. In partnership with the Sri Lankan government, the UN children’s agency has launched a nationwide initiative to help 1.6 million primary school children affected by prolonged school closures and sporadic disruption of education in the past three years, to catch up on their learning.
“It is urgent to increase the national budget allocation for education – commented the Minister of Education Susil Premajayanthe – especially for elementary classes, where it is necessary to enhance basic learning for children, while ensuring the implementation of vitally important education reforms so that we can build the strong human resource skills needed to support the country’s development.”

Bayanhushuu is a poor district on the outskirts of Ulan Bator where an expanse of dilapidated houses stands alongside thousands of ger, the traditional Mongolian tents: cheap residences for those who migrate from the surrounding steppes in search of a life less hard, but in the capital it is difficult to find opportunities for emancipation.
At the top of a barren hill, unexpected compared to the surrounding degradation, a large, modern red brick building stands out: it is the school run by the South Korean nuns of Saint Paul de Chartres, present since 1996 in Mongolia, where Pope Francis will is due to travel from 31 Au-gust to 4 September to encourage a Church born three decades ago and which has just 1,500 faithful.
“We opened this institute two years ago and today two hundred students from the neighbourhood attend it”, says the director, sr. Clara Lee Nan Young showing the welcoming and well-kept classrooms, the computer and English laboratories and the library.
If the children study here up to the age of high school, the younger ones are welcomed in the building next door, a Montessori kindergarten where crowds of children in uniform play blocks on the carpets that cover the parquet floors. From every detail the philosophy of these missionaries shines through: even the children of the most disadvantaged families have the right to the best educational offer.

After angry mobs of Muslims attacked a series of Christian homes and churches in Pakistan on August 16, the country’s Catholic bishops have called for justice and urged greater respect for minorities, saying a full investigation is necessary.
In a statement following the incident, Archbishop Benny Travas of Karachi voiced “shock and disbelief,” saying the Aug. 14 celebration of Pakistan’s Independence Day was a reminder that “Pakistan belongs to all Pakistanis.”
Just 48 hours later, “we have once again been confronted with open hatred and uncontrollable rage shown towards the Christian community,” he said.
The incident happened Wednesday morning, when hundreds of Muslims attacked a Christian community in Jaranwala, an industrial district of Faisalabad in Pakistan, after apparently being prompted to do so by a nearby mosque loudspeaker. The crowd looted homes and burned or damaged around 22 churches after a Quran allegedly was desecrated by a young Christian man.
Several churches were set on fire by one mob, while another targeted private homes, setting them alight and breaking windows.
Wednesday’s attack happened after pages torn from the Quran were supposedly discovered near the Christian community with allegedly blasphemous content written on them. Those pages were then taken to a local religious leader, who reportedly told Muslims to protest and demanded that those responsible be arrested.
Angry protesters then went on their violent rampage. Due to the scale of the violence, government officials deployed additional police forces and sent in the army to help restore order. Several locals reported calling the police for help as the attack was unfolding, with no response.
According to the bishops, so far 128 people have been arrested in connection with Wednesday’s attack, including two people considered to bear primary responsibility for the destruction.

The Pakistan government has dropped a bill meant to protect the interests of its religious minorities on Aug. 9 amid civil society organizations calling for a stronger law to protect basic human rights. The National Assembly, Pakistan’s lower house, passed the draft law — the National Commission for Minorities Bill, 2023 — on Aug. 7.
However, the upper house, the Senate, did not table the bill for discussion on Aug.9, the last session of this government. Get the latest from UCA News. Sign-up to receive our daily newsletter
The bill now faces an uncertain future as the government recommended the dissolution of parliament to help the nation elect a new government within months.
Parliament dropped the bill amid opposition to it from the Joint Action Committee for Peoples Rights (JAC), which includes Muslims and Christians. The committee said the bill does not ensure that the rights body will be “effective, independent, autonomous.”

As we know China has both official state-sanctioned churches (Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association) and unofficial underground churches that maintain their allegiance to the Vatican. Even though it is hard to estimate the total number of Catholics in China, figures always tend to range between 10 to 12 million.
To address the historical division between them, one significant development was the signing of the provisional agreement on the appointment of bishops in September 2018.
This agreement aimed to resolve the longstanding issue of conflicting appointments of bishops by both the Vatican and the Chinese government, which had led to divisions within the Catholic community in China.
Understanding the true situation on the ground regarding whether these agreements will effectively mend the division between the two faith communities is a challenging endeavour.
While assessing the well-being and vibrancy of the visible official Church is relatively straightforward, as it is openly visible, gauging the condition of the underground Church is a more intricate task due to the limited first-hand reports available.
I had a rare opportunity to directly witness a clandestine gathering within the underground Church, an experience that stands as a testament to its existence and uniqueness.
“I was introduced to the climate of caution and secrecy under which the Chinese ‘underground’ Church operates”
It was around eight years ago and I was venturing into one of China’s most captivating cities, Qingdao. Here one could easily get lost in the alleys of Badaguan, feeling a world apart from the sweeping empire of new riches that have sprouted concrete monstrosities across the Chinese landscape. In contrast, this neighbourhood boasts charming villas with red roofs due to its German inheritance.
Fate had it that on board a bus en route to the city centre, I encountered a Chinese nun in secular clothing. Noticing the wooden cross she wore around her neck — an uncommon sight in China — I struck up a conversation. She resided in the Philippines and was visiting her ailing mother.
She opened up about the underground Church, a distinct entity from the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association that does not recognize the pope’s authority. Almost instinctively, I inquired about the possibility of attending a “secret” Mass.

Leaders of China’s state-run church say seminary formation, including textbooks used in seminaries, should be aligned with the government’s sinicization policy.
Their concerns were expressed at the latest meeting of the Working Group on the progress of the compilation of “unified teaching materials” in Catholic seminaries in Pingliang city in Gansu province in eastern China.
The meeting was arranged by the Seminary Department of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA) and Chinese Catholic Bishops’ Conference (BCCCC), says a report on the bishops’ conference website dated Aug. 7.
The participants of the July 28-30 meeting included Bishop Joseph Li Shan of Beijing, chairman of the CCPA, Bishop Joseph Guo Jincai of Chengde, vice-chairman of the BCCCC, Bishop Li Hui, deputy secretary-general of the BCCCC and head of the Seminary Department.
Members of the four teams assigned for the compilation of seminary textbooks attended the meeting.
Bishop Guo presided over the meeting and urged all to adhere to the spirit of state policy of the sinicization of religion in seminary formation.

Thirty-two years after Manila, World Youth Day (WYD) will return to Asia. Seoul will in fact host the event in 2027, while Rome (Italy) will organise the jubilee of young people in August 2025.
Pope Francis made the announcement this morning in Lisbon at the end of the final Mass of the great gathering that saw a million young people from all over the world travel to Portugal. “From the western edge of Europe to Far East Asia,” said the pontiff, is “a beautiful sign of universality”.
As a venue for WYD, Seoul was neither unexpected nor a certainty. Last October, AsiaNews had spoken to the recently appointed Archbishop Peter Chung Soon-taick of Seoul, OCD, on the sidelines of the General Conference of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC).
On that occasion, the young prelate had expressed the desire of the Korean Church to host the next WYD, hoping that it could be a “turning point” for the youth ministry in one of the many Asian countries facing demographic winter as a result of sub-replacement fertility levels.
South Korea now has the lowest fertility rate in the world, namely 0.78 children per woman in 2022, just 249,000 births in a nation of 51 million.

Will Saudi Arabia make Friday a working day? A proposal to that effect has sparked heated debates and elicited strong opinions. It is also proof that things are changing in Islam’s birthplace, home to its two holiest cities, Makkah and Madinah.
The Okaz newspaper recently published an op-ed titled “Friday is a working day”, breaking a taboo about Islam’s holy day of prayer.
In her piece, writer Mona Al-Otaibi questions the traditional Friday-Saturday weekend, saying that the kingdom needs an overhaul. This has sparked a storm on social media between those for and against it.
The author notes that Saudi Arabia suffers financial losses because Friday is an important working day in the world of finances.
Hence, Saudi authorities should consider a Saturday-Sunday weekend, like in the United Arab Emirates, which switched last year after announcing it 2021.
Under a decree issued by King Abdullah in 2013, the weekend was moved from Thursday-Friday, to Friday-Saturday in order to align Saudi financial and business activities with international markets,
Qatar, a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), was one of the first to adopt the Friday-Saturday weekend some 20 years ago, followed by Bahrain in 2006 and Kuwait in 200. The Sultanate of Oman implemented the change a month before Saudi Arabia in 2013.
In the Arab world the Friday-Saturday weekend is in place in Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, and Iraq; in Lebanon (which has a large Christian population), Morocco and Tunisia, Saturday and Sunday are days off. In these countries, some businesses voluntarily close to allow employees to attend Friday prayers.
A prominent Saudi dissident and activist, known online as Mujtahidd, was among the first Saudi to react to the article. he suggests that the idea to “cancel the Friday holiday” probably came from former royal adviser Saud Al-Qahtani.

According to Estela Padilla, one of the ten non-bishop members from Asia for the forth-coming Synod of Bishops this October, it will be an occasion for the church’s authentic renewal.
She has been a consultant to the Basic Ecclesial Communities (BEC) of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) and the Executive Secretary of the Office for Theological Concerns in the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conference (FABC).
When asked what her feelings were when Pope Francis included her as one of the non-bishop members from Asia for the Synod of Bishops, Padilla told AsiaNews, “I felt deep joy and an even deeper sense of responsibility. The Synod has fascinated and energized me from the start. Since I have participated in the local, national, and international Synodal processes, I am looking forward to seeing the seeds planted grow and nourish towards authentic renewal.”
“I hope the Synod will be a space for aware-ness-raising, graceful listening, and speaking with parrhesia. The participation of the non-bishops will be an exercise in authentic communal discern-ment and decision-making, guided by the question, ‘Where is the Spirit leading us’?”

Mushtaq Asad was among the first five Pakistani lay people sent for a two-year study program in Rome in the early 1980s to ensure lay participation. That was two decades after the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), which stressed the role of lay people in the Church’s mission.
Only two of those five returned home. And since then, the hierarchy stopped sponsoring lay people for studies abroad, says 65-year-old Asad, who prefers to wear the traditional shalwar kameez (tunics with pleated trousers) just like other Pakistani men.
After returning home, Asad taught for over a decade at the National Catechists’ Training Centre in Khushpur, in Faisalabad district. Now he spends time giving biblical reflections on his YouTube channel to over 4,000 subscribers, from his modest house in Malkhanwala, a village in Punjab province.
Seven decades after the Second Vatican Council, “there is no lay participation in the Church’s decision-making bodies. Their only job is to come to church, listen and return home. It is as if we are born to listen, while the clergy do all the talking,” Asad said.
In the Muslim-majority nation, the role of the laity has been “consciously limited to recitations, collecting tithes and presenting garlands to priests and bishops,” he said.
“Even catechists are not consulted while making decisions. They are considered paid workers. The Church doesn’t accept the participation of the laity, especially women. It is still not ready to see them in leadership roles,” said Asad, a lay theologian.
Emmanuel Neno, the only other person who returned home after studies in Rome, said the Church in Pakistan lacks a clear pastoral vision resulting in poor lay participation.