Kazuko Nabeshima was born 70 years ago in Nomozaki at the southern tip of the Nagasaki Peninsula, a town now part of Nagasaki City. But was “never religious” despite her peninsula housing many churches.
She left Nagasaki after graduating from school to take up a job and lived for more than 30 years without any contact with a church. The turning point came some six years ago when her only daughter Yumi, who lived nearby, decided to move with her family to Okinawa.
“I knew little about Okinawa…But even though I didn’t know anything or have any connections there, I was excited about moving and I thought Okinawa was a good place.”
And, Yumi welcomed Nabeshima’s “desire to be part of her family.”
After the move, Yumi unexpectedly became a Protestant Christian and quit her job as a medical nurse to involve herself in church activities on weekends and holidays.
“I felt isolated as I couldn’t talk to my daughter. I was worried if it was alright to be so obsessed with religion,” Nabeshima said.

Students at a Bible school in China attended a study session on last year’s 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and were urged to pay respect to three Christian figures who became associates of the party, says a report.
The Shaanxi Bible School in north-western Shaanxi province, managed by the state-sanctioned Protestant church body, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM), held the session on May 31, Bitter Winter magazine reported June 7.
The TSPM is known as a frontline organization promoting “Sinicization” – a favourite political ideology of the CCP that aims to impose communist principles on individuals and society.
During the session, the students studied the main speeches and conclusions of the CCP Congress held on Oct. 16-22 last year, in Beijing.
They watched videos of the congress and sang patriotic songs including the CCP’s favorite “Sing a Folk Song for the Par-ty,” Bitter Winter reported.
By singing patriotic songs, the students “expressed their love for the motherland and the CCP.”
During the session, the students were told to honour three revolutionaries, whose lives were narrated by three of its students.
Music composer, Ma Ke, medical doctor, Luo Jinwen, and Bishop Shen Zigao were known as supporters of the late communist leader and CCP chairman, Mao Zedong.
They are accused of betraying Christianity to become staunch supporters and associates of the CCP, according to Bitter Winter.
Ma Ke, raised in a Christian family, was an official music composer of the party for years. He is known for composing the CCP’s favourite revolutionary song “Nanniwan.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has ordered local authorities to take suicide prevention measures after various media re-ports revealed families committed suicide due to hunger and poverty. Kim officially defined suicide as an “act of treason against socialism” and issued a confidential suicide prevention order during emergency meetings of the party leaders all over the country, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on June 5.
An unnamed official from North Hamgyong told RFA that the details of suicide cases shared during the meeting shocked the gathered officials.
“Our meeting was held at the provincial party committee’s building located in Pohang district, in the city of Chongjin,” the unnamed official said.
He further added that “the large number of suicide cases in the province was revealed and some officials… could not hide their anxious expressions.”
According to a South Korean National Intelligence Service report published in May, North Korea saw a 40 percent increase in suicide rates compared to last year, RFA reported.
“There are a lot of internal unrest factors in North Korea due to the hardships of people,” the agency also reported that violent crimes are also on the rise as people struggle to make ends meet. During a meeting in North Hamgyong, the officials revealed that there were 35 suicide cases this year in Chongjin and nearby Kyongsong county alone with many of the cases involving fami-lies ending their lives together.

The Indonesian government has decided to ease rules for building houses of worship, including churches, by initiating changes to a 17-year-old decree, considered a major barrier to such plans.
Religion Affairs Minister Yaqut Cholil Qoumas told law-makers on June 5 that the Joint Ministerial Decree of 2006 will be revised, doing away with the need for a recommendation from the Forums for Religious Harmony (Forum Kerukunan Umat Beragama, or FKUB), the main arbiter on issues regarding inter-faith ties.
According to current rules, a government license for building a place of worship can be obtained only by getting a set of recommendations, including one from the Muslim-dominated FKUB.
The change would mean the recommendation from represen-tatives of the ministry in the local government would be sufficient to construct a house of worship.
“Often, the more recommendations the more difficult it is,” said the minister, who is a cleric and member of Indonesia’s lar-gest moderate Islamic organization Nahdlatul Ulama.
“We can’t deny that,” the minister said of many proposals new houses of worship are rejected in the country.
“We can solve all problems if we start with honesty, especially being honest with our religion,” said the Muslim politician.
Andreas Harsono, a researcher from Human Rights Watch, said that “by removing permits for houses of worship from FKU-B, the government is actually returning the principle of freedom of religion, according to the 1945 Constitution, to Indonesia.”

A court in China’s Shandong province handed down jail terms to a pastor and a co-worker of an independent house church for alleged “illegal business operations.”
Pastor Qin Sifeng and co-worker Su Minjun of Beijing Lampstand Church were sentenced to five and a half years, and three and half years respectively, ChinaAid reported on June 6.
Although their trial was held in April, the verdict has been made public recently, the report said.
They were arrested in July last year while they were traveling to Yunan province. The next month, police at Zibo in Shandong charged them with illegal business operations and detained them at Zibo Detention Center.
Local Christians said the arrest of Qin and Su came after the church printed some hymnals and theological materials for internal use. Local police started a probe leading to their detention.
Witnesses told ChinaAid that during the trial the defendants were treated like “hardened criminals” as they appeared in the court handcuffed and manacled. The court dismissed the plea of innocence handed by their lawyer.
The court verdict was approved by high-level state officials before the pronouncement.
Pastor Qin Sifeng said he still feels upbeat despite his imprisonment.
He said this is “an opportunity to spread the Gospel.”
Some reports suggest many pastors and Christians serving jail sentences continue to preach in prison. The act sometimes yields good results, earning respect from prison guards, while others are prevented from doing so in prison.
Article 36 of China’s constitution guarantees freedom of religious belief, but that freedom is seriously limited by the requirement that congregations adapt their “theology, conception, and organization” to socialist principles, according to Human Rights Watch.

A Hong Kong court has rejected a plea from Catholic pro-democracy activist and business tycoon Jimmy Lai challenging a government decision to deny permission for a foreign lawyer for his trial in a slew of criminal cases.
Lai, 75, had requested a judicial review last month after Hong Kong’s national security committee had advised the immigration chief to reject any future visa applications for his overseas counsel Timothy Owen, Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) reported on May 19.
Jeremy Poon, the High Court chief judge, in a written ruling, stated that Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) courts do not have jurisdiction over the national security committee’s work according to the security law.
“The HKSAR courts, as courts of a local administrative region, are not vested with any role or power over such matters of the [central government],” Poon said in his ruling.

In recent years, Japan’s identity as the renowned land of manga art and high tech has taken a backseat to a pressing concern: the country’s declining birth rate. Various reasons have been attributed to this demographic challenge, such as economic concerns, changing societal norms, and the high cost of child-rearing.
However, a recent online survey on Twitter with tens of thousands of participants has shed light on a significant yet often overlooked reason: the negative portrayal of family life in Japanese society. The survey actually materializes what were mere conjectural concerns that we highlighted in a previous commentary.
It revealed a real apprehension, that the prevailing narrative of divorce and complaints about partners has discouraged many Japanese individuals from starting families. This in fact came as the second reason why people chose not to have a family, the first being a lack of self-confidence in “making one’s partner happy.”
The societal perception of family life plays indeed a crucial role in shaping individual decisions and desires regarding whether to start a family.
In Japan, the portrayal of family dynamics in media, especially news stories concerning famous showbiz personalities, but also the general online experience on Instagram, Facebook, etc. often focuses on negative aspects such as divorce, conflicts and dissatisfaction within relationships.
These are often seemingly harmless posts, or short videos that ridicule the choice of being a parent. Like a famous condom ad featuring a young man at a stage in life when he could be considering marriage. In this scenario, he finds himself in a situation where he encounters a loud and unruly child in a supermarket; he just stares at him thinking how grateful he is to have used a condom in his previous sexual encounters.
By presenting this relatable scene, the ad effectively conveys the message that contraception is not a means like it would have been in traditional advertising, of warding off venereal diseases, but is there to empower individuals to only think about the adverse consequences of being a parent.

The Sri Lankan president has ordered a probe against a Protest-ant pastor for allegedly making controversial comments about Buddhists and followers of other religions.
President Ranil Wickremesi-nghe while announcing the probe on May 15 said the irresponsible statement by Pastor Jerome Fer-nando, whose followers include famous cricketers, film stars and businessmen, can cause religious strife that may affect the harmony in the country.
The pastor is accused of mak-ing derogatory statements about Lord Buddha while addressing a gathering of members of his Born Again Christian church that was broadcast live on social media.
In his sermon, Fernando clai-med that every Buddhist needs Jesus while saying that Buddha was looking for light and hence was looking for Jesus.
He also said that Muslims can’t call Allah their Father while also going on to question why Hindus venerate animals.
“Why do they have a God that looks like an elephant? Why do they venerate cows?” the pastor questioned during the sermon. Fernando’s critics alle-ged that he had insulted Buddh-ism, Islam and Hinduism.
The New Bhikshu Peramuna, a group of Buddhist monks, and several other organizations com-plained to the Criminal Investi-gation Department to investigate the pastor’s statements.
Meanwhile, Pivithuru Hela Urumaya, an opposition party, also complained to the CID, demanding strict enforcement of the law against the pastor.

Francisco Sales believes he could have saved the lives of his wife Gloria Operario and their unborn child during childbirth three years ago if he had enough money.
Gloria had a risky third pregnancy due to gestational diabetes and high blood pressure and needed special treatment in a good hospital, which the poor couple could not afford.
Just like Gloria, each year at least some 2,500 women die in the Philippines due to complicated pregnancy and childbirth, mostly because of poverty.
Pediatrician Jerilee Cledera says cases like that of 30-year-old Gloria are common. Cledera said babies whose mothers are diabetic may have excessive birth weight, making normal delivery almost impossible. A cesarean section delivery is advised in such cases, she said.
But a C-section costs about 120,000 pesos (US$2,154) in the Philippines and Francisco’s family, who live on the outskirts of Naga City,  could not afford it.
Francisco, 32, earned some US$325 monthly from his carpentry work and Gloria earned some US$200 from a convenience store she managed.
The income was hardly enough for the family with two children and financial struggles forced them to avoid expensive medical check-ups for Gloria. For emergencies, they depended on a local health center in their neighborhood.
For the delivery, just like in the past two childbirths, they engaged a midwife to conduct the delivery at home in August 2019.

Christian leaders in Pakistan have cheered a court granting bail to a local Christian woman and a Muslim man accused of blasphemy less than a month after their arrest, terming it a new record and a hopeful sign.
Usually, it takes years for bail to be granted in such cases, often because judges fear possible retribution from an angry public.
Musarrat Bibi, a mother of three, and Muhammad Sarmad, a gardener, were arrested on April 19 for allegedly burning pages of the Quran while cleaning a girl’s school in a village in Punjab province.
Bibi, an office assistant at the school for more than a decade, was accused of burning the Quran, while Sarmad was accused of helping her with the cleaning up and burning of the waste. Both were released on bail on May 13.
“Sometimes bail in a blasphemy case, particularly involving Christians, can take up to two decades depending on the hype, investigation officer and attitude of the judge,” said Human rights lawyer Nadeem Anthony.
“Bibi and Sarmad are lucky to get bail in a blasphemy case in record time,” he told UCA News.
“It should set a precedence for other judges”
He said someone accused of blasphemy is seen as a sinner and public anger in the Muslim-majority nation overshadows justice. “Few judges show bravery against public pressure,” the lawyer explained.
Bail delaying tactics include presenting incomplete files or judges being absent during the court hearing.
The latest bail verdict “gives hope to Christians in Pakistan,” said Cecil Chaudhry, South Asia deputy team leader of Christian Solidarity Worldwide.
“It should set a precedence for other judges to follow when hearing cases of blasphemy,” said Chaudhry, former executive director of the Catholic Bishop’s National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP).
Advocate Lazar Allah Rakha, who represented Bibi in court told UCA News, “there was no case to begin with” regarding the allegations against Bibi and Sarmad.
The complaint was filed four days after the alleged incident. “There was no deliberate intention to burn the Holy Quran. The lives of two illiterate persons were endangered due to an accident,” said Rakha, a Christian.