Bishops fear crisis over impeachment

PHILIPPINES: Head of supreme court to answer for allegedly favouring former president

Religious leaders appeal to president

INDONESIA: Open letter says national leaders have failed in their pledges to combat corruption

N.Korea suspected in poison-needle attacks

KOREA: North Korea is being accused - although not officially - of using poisoned needles against activists who help defectors escape, writes Barbara Demick in the Los Angeles Times.

Book Review – When China rules the World

UNITED KINGDOM: UK's Professor Lord Alton of Liverpool - David Alton - a member of the All Party Parliamentary China Group reviews Martin Jacques' book, 'When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order', for the Independent Catholic News.

Wikileaks on Ramos-Horta

TIMOR LESTE: Leaked US embassy cables reveal Timor-Leste's Jose Ramos-Horta ripping into fellow leaders and the country's parliament - but also on the receiving end of criticism from a Vatican official, according to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Using religion for ‘political play’

MALAYSIA: Activists link religious strife to political ambitions

US report on religious freedom ‘biased’: Vietnam

VIETNAM: Vietnam rejects a US State Department's assessment, saying its people's rights to religious freedom were enshrined in the country's constitution, according to an AP report on ninemsn.com.au.

The Christian running for Jakarta’s City Hall

INDONESIA: Basuki Purnama was the first Christian, and a Chinese-Indonesian, to lead a Muslim-majority region as district head in 2005. Now he is aiming to be Jakarta's next governor, reports The Jakarta Globe.

Ambiguity of disarmament plan is of concern

NEPAL: The Nepal government's agreement with the Hindu-nationalist Nepal Defense Army is worrisome, said the president of Caritas Nepal, in an interview with Vatican Radio.

Muslims reacting to conversion claims

MALAYSIA: Marco Tosatti writes about some actions of Muslims in Malaysia against perceived threats, in an article on the Vatican Insider.

Allow non-Muslims to be PM, President

PAKISTAN: The Provincial Minister for Finance, Minorities Affairs and Human Rights in Pakistan's Punjab wants to see non-Muslims made eligible for the office of president and prime minister in the country, reports The Express Tribune.

‘Duplicitous politicians’ polarizing Malaysians

MALAYSIA: Bishop Paul Tan, the President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, said ordinary Malaysians do not want to be divided along the lines of faith, reports Free Malaysia Today.