The office of Rodrigo Duterte, the controversial Philippine president, on December 6 was forced to play down remarks he had made about killing bishops, claiming it was only “hyberbole” and not a genuine threat. In a speech to local government officials on December 5, Mr Duterte, who has a running feud with the influential Catholic Church over its criticisms of his drugs war, lashed out again, calling it “the most hypocritical institution” and denouncing priests as “useless.”

“These bishops, kill them, those fools are good for nothing. All they do is criticise,” he said, according to the Rappler news site.

Salvador Panelo, the presidential spokesman, later clarified to reporters that the president’s provocative statement was borne out of frustration that his efforts to improve the country were being under-appreciated.

“I think that’s only hyberbole on the part of the president. We should be getting used to this president. He makes certain statements for dramatic effect,” he said.

“The president, just like any ordinary human being, is upset when the good things that he does for this country and not even appreciated by people who are supposed to support it, like the Church,” Mr Panelo added.

However, the country’s Commission on Human Rights slammed his statements against religious leaders as “gravely alarming,” warning that they could embolden violence against government critics, reported the Philippine Star.

“Churches and priests… work directly with communities and families who continue to suffer the many forms of human rights violations allegedly stemming from the government’s drug campaign,” said Jacqueline Ann de Guia, the CHR spokesperson.

“In light of the difficulties and challenges you face in the midst of the current situation in the Middle East, and in light of the bleak migration that threatens your future and the Christian presence [in the region] as a whole, we stand by you,” the Conference of the Catholic Patriarchs of the East wrote in a statement capping their Nov. 26-30 annual meeting in Baghdad.

The meeting ran under the theme “Youth is a sign of hope in the Middle East countries.”

“As we share the same present pain, we look forward to a bright future with your presence, and we assure you that we will work together to provide the foundations of your steadfastness and steadfastness in your land,” the patriarchs said, as reported by Catholic News Service.

The last official census in Iraq in 2003 put the Christian population there at between 1.2 million and 2.1 million but their numbers have since dwindled to about a quarter of a million, according to the American NGO Open Doors.

Cardinal Louis Sako, Patriarch of Chaldean Catholics, drew attention to the danger posed by groups like Islamic State (IS), which routinely target Iraqi Christians and other religious minorities for kidnappings and killings.

Filipino Catholics are not letting relentless attacks by President Rodrigo Duterte on the church and its leaders go unchallenged. An influential lay organization has called on Catholics “to stand up for God and defend our faith in Him … [and] renew our commitment to go and fill our churches.”

The Sangguniang Laiko ng Pilipinas, the Council of the Laity, said “more than ever, [Catholics] are called upon to live a life worthy of our Christian vocation.”

Julieta Wasan, its president, called on Catholics to proclaim their faith “courageously” not only through words but especially “by the life that we live as faithful followers of Christ.”

The Catholic Theological Society of the Philippines, mean-while, has expressed its “solidarity” with Bishop Pablo Virgilio David of Kalookan, who has been a major target of Duterte’s vitriolic attacks. The president claimed the prelate stole money from church collections and even insinuated that the bishop may even be involved in illegal drugs, making him a target for extrajudicial killing, according to some observers.

About 100 Protestant Christians and seminary students were arrested in Chengdu (Sichuan) between 9 and 10 December. Some of the faithful, later released claimed they were “raped and abused” by the policemen who kept them in custody.

Among those arrested are Pastor Wang Yi and his wife Jiang Rong , taken away by the police; two others, Guo Hai and his wife, were dragged away from home, leaving their two children alone.

Many were arrested at the community headquarters; others were taken from their homes. The arrests continued even today, when Li Yingqiang, who had hidden himself in the first raid and warned the media, was also arrested.

The community has about 500 members and 300 sympathizers. It is not new to arrests and raids. Last June their headquarters was closed because the community had wanted to remember the people killed in the Tiananmen massacre with a memorial service. Some of his members were arrested two months ago because they were evangelizing in the street near the Chengdu station.

Thousands of impoverished ethnic minority women in Myanmar’s war-torn Kachin and Shan States have been forced into marriages in neighbouring China, say the authors of a new study published by Johns Hopkins University in the United States.

Thousands more disadvantaged women in the country’s mountainous northern most rural hinterland remain at risk of being trafficked across the border to marry local Chinese men against their will and bear children for them, the experts warn.

For the study, which is the most comprehensive research of its kind to date, experts from the American university teamed up with the Kachin Women’s Association Thailand, a rights group, to conduct surveys in 40 communities around three adjacent administrative areas: Kachin State and northern Shan State as well as Yunnan province in China.

All told, researchers say, about 7,500 ethnic minority women in economically disadvantaged communities have in recent years been lured by human traffickers into forced marriages in China on false promises. Three-quarters of the women were found to have borne children in these unions.

“These women are usually undocumented, members of minorities, poor and undereducated, and don’t know how to get legal redress [after being trafficked]. This is known to traffickers who exploit it,” says W. Courtland Robinson, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health who was the study’s lead author.