Terrified residents expre-ssed grave shock as North Korean authorities publicly executed three teenagers by firing including two who alle-gedly watched and distributed South Korean movies, says a report.
A third teenager was accused of murdering his stepmother, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on Dec. 2 quoting witnesses.
The officials in the ultra-communist pariah state have claimed that the crimes committed by teens aged around 16 or 17 were “equally evil” and forced the shocked residents of Hyesen city near the border with China to watch the firing.
“They said, ‘Those who watch or distribute South Korean movies and dramas, and those who disrupt social order by murdering other people, will not be forgiven and will be sentenced to the maximum penalty–death,’” said a local resident. The execution took place in October at an airfield in the city, the resident said.
“Hyesan residents gathered in groups at the runway,” she said. “The authorities put the teen-aged students in front of the public, sentenced them to death, and immediately shot them.”
Brutal public executions are not uncommon in North Korea, which the authorities typically use to terrorize people to deter them from any behaviour not permitted.
The executions came about a week after the authorities declared the state will hand down tough punishments for crimes that involve foreign media, especially those from South Korea.

Suman Haldar, a Catholic who runs a small grocery store in a Bangladesh village, is feeling the pinch thanks to skyrocketing prices and falling income which has led to the rationing of food in his six-member household. “I could afford chicken once a week even during the Covid pandemic, but now it’s become difficult to have it even once a month,” the 37-year-old father of two told. Haldar lives with his wife, kids and elderly parents in Baniarchar, a village in Gopalgonj district, in the southern part of the country. Worse is the situation of some 33 million people, who are estimated to be living below the poverty line in Bangladesh.
“Six months ago I used to earn more than 15,000 taka (US$145) per month, but now I struggle to make 8,000 taka,” he said, adding how his family was surviving on rice and vegetables grown on a tiny plot of family land covering about one-tenth of a hectare.

Shafiq Masih, a 45-year-old Catholic in Pakistan, stood inside a manhole, half his body submerg-ed in the dark slush of sewage. Someone asked him to look up, and the camera clicked. That photograph, published in several international publications, made him the face of sanitation workers in the Muslim-majority country.
“But it only deepened my seclusion within my own Catholic community,” laments Masih, who says he rarely goes to church be-cause Catholics in his St. Paul’s Church in Lahore diocese ”do not consider me part of their” Cast out for doing the dirty work in Pakistan.
Shafiq Masih is one among the thousands of Catholic sani-tation workers who face discri-mination and social exclusion within the Church and society in Pakistan.
Shafiq Masih, a 45-year-old Catholic in Pakistan, stood inside a manhole, half his body submerg-ed in the dark slush of sewage. Someone asked him to look up, and the camera clicked. That photograph, published in several international publications, made him the face of sanitation workers in the Muslim-majority country.
“But it only deepened my seclusion within my own Catholic community,” laments Masih, who says he rarely goes to church be-cause Catholics in his St. Paul’s Church in Lahore diocese ”do not consider me part of their” commu-nity.
Masih is just one of the thousands of Catholic sanitation workers who face discrimination and social exclusion within the Church and society in Pakistan.

An interfaith group in South Korea organized a seminar to help people clear misconceptions about Islam, including the wearing the hijab, to forge better ties with the minority faith in the country.
The Korean Religious Peace Conference (KCRP) held a public seminar on the dialogue between Korean religions and Islam titled “Islam: Approaching Peaceful Co-existence and Future” from Dec. 5-6 in the capital Seoul, the Ca-tholic Times reported on Dec. 7.
In his opening address, Kim Dong-eok, president of the Korean Muslim Association, emphasized that Islam is a “religion of peace.”
“There are people who mis-understand the true meaning of Islam in Korean society. I hope that many people will understand and cooperate with Korean Islam through this seminar,” said Kim.
“The image of Islam has become increasingly fixed as one of violence, dictatorship, and oppression”
The KCRP was established in 1965 by leaders of six religious groups — Protestantism, Buddh-ism, Confucianism, Won-Buddh-ism, Cheondo-gyo, and Catholi-cism — with an aim to promote dialogue and harmony among followers of various religions.

Detaching itself from the horrendous memories of a nuclear explosion 77 years ago and mull-ing to bury its pacifist constitution behind it, Japan is getting ready to be armed from top to bottom to take head on three neighbour-ing nuclear-power nations at the same time.
Since the Ukraine war started in February this year by nuclear-powered Russia, Japan has been courting big-time defence spend-ers while adopting an unprece-dented level of economic sanct-ions against its maritime neigh-bour, which are also aimed at its communist neighbour China and Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s re-calcitrant leader.
With the ruling Liberal Demo-cratic Party (LDP) enjoying consi-derable clout in society and a two-thirds majority in both houses of the Diet, it may institute changes to Japan’s pacifist constitution and turn the country’s Self-Defence Forces into a full-fledged military. It’s just a matter of time.
The makeover will suit Ja-pan’s new level of aggression, the only country to ever be attacked with atomic weapons, and its in-creased role in Asia’s security.
“The government of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida also imposed an unprecedented level of economic sanctions against Russia.”

Pervasive persecution, at times amounting to genocide, has seen millions of Christians in the Middle East killed, kidnapped, uprooted, imprisoned and discriminated against.
It has taken a toll on the survival of the oldest Christian communities in the world, located in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine, where the Abrahamic faith was born.
Earlier, Christians in the Middle East were the bridge between warring factions of Shia and Sunni Muslims. Schools and social services run by them contributed to society at large by serving the entire community, regardless of faith. Christians in the Middle East stood for tolerance, democracy, human rights and freedom of religion.
A century ago, Christians comprised 20% of the population in the Middle East, but currently, the region is home to less than 4% or roughly 15 million Christians.
“Iraq, which housed the Church for hundreds of years, will soon be without the Christian faith.”
An enduring — and eventually flourishing — Christian presence in Iraq was the chief aim of Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church, when he invited Pope Francis to Iraq in March this year.
More than 500,000 Christians left Iraq due to the sectarian conflict that started with the self-styled caliphate of ISIS in 2013. Earlier, the 2003 US-led invasion had wreaked havoc on the oil-rich country.