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Survivors struggle as Cyclone Mocha pummels Myanmar, Bangladesh

Cyclone Mocha left a trail of devastation in Myanmar and Bangladesh, prompting humanitarian responses from church groups and aid agencies.

Published: May 19, 2023 11:10 AM GMT

Updated: May 19, 2023 11:11 AM GMT

Church groups and humanitarian organizations have reached out to the victims as deadly Cyclone Mocha hit Myanmar and Bangladesh last Sunday.

In Myanmar, the death toll hit 81 as the cyclone battered the coastal region. Thousands of houses and trees were flattened but no death was reported in Bangladesh, where about 400,000 people were evacuated to safe places.

Catholic charity Karuna distributed rice, oil, onion, and tarpaulins to affected families in Rakhine state and Chin states in Myanmar. The military junta declared 17 townships in Myanmar’s western coast as a natural disaster-affected area. The cyclone was the strongest in years and it made landfall while packing winds of up to 248 kilometers per hour.

Heavy rainfall and tidal surge inundated many parts of Myanmar's coast, and communication towers and trees as well as thousands of buildings were badly damaged. In 2008, Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta and left more than 135,000 people dead, and damaged tens of thousands of homes.

Residents walk past fallen trees in Kyauktaw in Myanmar's Rakhine state on May 15 after Cyclone Mocha crashed ashore

Residents walk past fallen trees in Kyauktaw in Myanmar's Rakhine state on May 15 after Cyclone Mocha crashed ashore. (Photo: AFP)

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The people of Thailand overwhelmingly voted for pro-democracy parties and rejected nearly a decade of military-aligned rule in the national election held last Sunday.

The newcomer, Move Forward Party or MFP, that channeled the energy of youth-led pro-democracy protests in 2020, secured the most votes. Led by 42-year-old Pita Limjaroenrat, the MFP wants to reform Thailand's strict royal insult laws and reduce the political influence of the monarchy and the military.

Move Forward Party leader and prime ministerial candidate Pita Limjaroenrat (center) leaves the party’s headquarters as votes continue to be counted, during Thailand's general election in Bangkok on May 14. (Photo: AFP) 

Observers say the MFP’s stance is ripe for a potential clash with the kingdom's powerful royalist-military elite as the kingdom has seen the democratic process thwarted by military coups and court orders at regular intervals. 

Election Commission data showed MFP secured 14 million in the popular vote followed by Pheu Thai with 10.6 million. The military-backed United Thai Nation party was a distant third on 4.6 million. Pita Limjaroenrat said he is ready to be the prime minister and is open to a coalition government with opposition parties.


Christians in India continues to face a slew of arrests on alleged charges of conversion by radical Hindu groups. Last Sunday, police arrested 10 people from a Christian prayer gathering of some 70 people in Madhya Pradesh state in central India on the charge of violating anti-conversion law.

During the raid, police accused them of conducting "religious conversion activity." Copies of Bibles and other documents were seized from their residence. The arrestees were remanded in judicial custody. Police claimed the raid came after a local indigenous man complained he was offered hefty amounts to convert to Christianity, which has been debunked by Christian leaders.

Activists of the pro-Hindu Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) protest against Christian missionaries in Allahabad on Oct. 22, 2013. Ten people were arrested on suspicion of involvement in conversion activities by police in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh on May 13. (Photo: AFP/ UCAN files)

Meanwhile, the next day, police in Ghaziabad City in northern Uttar Pradesh state arrested eight people including a pastor and his wife in two separate cases for violating the anti-conversion law by allegedly trying to convert people. Both the states are run by pro-Hindu Bhartiya Janata Party, and have stringent laws criminalizing conversion.

The 2022 US Report on International Religious Freedom highlighted targeted attacks on minorities and hate speeches, especially against Christians, Muslims, and Dalits in India.

Two schoolgirls were killed, and five others hurt when a police constable opened fire at a Catholic school in Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Tuesday.

Sangota Public School is managed by the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin in the restive Swat Valley. Angry parents protested and blocked the road outside the school. Alam Khan, the accused policeman, has been arrested. The district police said he 'was mentally ill' and suspended 'twice for violent behavior.’

Students from Public School Sangota in Swat district in Pakistan perform a dance on March ‎29, ‎2017. Tragedy struck the school on May 16 when a policeman guarding the school shot and killed two school girls. (Photo: YouTube screen grab) 

The Ecumenical Commission for Human Development urged the government to review the security breach at the school. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan condemned the shooting and slammed the government for failing to protect the young from violence.

As a mark of protest and mourning, 12 Presentation Convent Schools in the country were closed on Wednesday. Swat Valley was a stronghold of the Taliban before the military flushed out the militants. Taliban strongly opposed education for girls and bombed the same school. It reopened in 2012.


Sri Lankan protestant Pastor Jerome Fernando is under fire for allegedly defaming Buddhists and followers of other religions. President Ranil Wickremesinghe ordered a probe against him on Monday and said his irresponsible statements can cause religious strife and affect the harmony in the country.

Pastor Fernando, whose followers include famous cricketers, film stars, and businessmen, is accused of making derogatory statements about Lord Buddha during a gathering of members of his Born-Again Christian church that was broadcast live on social media.

Pastor Jerome Fernando (Photo: Facebook)

In his sermon, Fernando claimed that every Buddhist needs Jesus while saying that Buddha was looking for light and hence was looking for Jesus. He further said that Muslims can't call Allah their Father while also going on to question why Hindus venerate animals.

A group of Buddhist monks and several other organizations complained to the police over the statements. The monks have demanded a public apology from the pastor.


Indonesia’s Attorney General's Office detained the country’s only Catholic minister after he was named a suspect in a multi-million-dollar corruption case involving the construction of communication infrastructure in remote areas, including in Christian-majority provinces.

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Johnny Gerard Plate, the minister of communication and informatics was detained on Wednesday. He is among the five suspects in the graft case related to a communication project that reportedly caused a loss of state funds equivalent to 537 million US dollars.

Indonesian Minister of Communication and Informatics Johnny Gerard Plate, a Catholic, is accused in a multi-million-dollar graft case. (Photo: Ministry of Communication and Informatics)

The Attorney General's Office said it has sufficient evidence of Plate’s involvement in criminal corruption. The project was supposed to target 7,904 blank points or areas not having an internet network, to achieve equal distribution of internet access, especially in disadvantaged areas, such as in Christian-majority provinces of East Nusa Tenggara and Papua.

However, the project was deemed redundant as many towers were not functioning. Plate is the fifth minister in the administration of President Joko Widodo facing a corruption case.


Cambodia has come under strong criticism from the European Union, France, Germany, Australia, and pro-democracy advocates after the main opposition Candlelight Party  commonly called as CLP, was disqualified from contesting the July 23 election.

Western diplomats said they are deeply concerned about the decision by the National Election Committee which claimed the CLP’s registration forms were unacceptable. They have also expressed concerns about the future of democracy in a country where a party cannot register to stand for election.

Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen and his government have been cracking down on opposition politicians, dissenters and the independent media. The latest disqualification of the main opposition party from contesting the July 23 election has drawn criticism from across the globe. (Photo: AFP)

The uproar came after the Election Commission said on Monday the CLP had failed to register with original documents dating back to its formation. The party claimed those papers were lost during a raid on its headquarters by police about six years ago.

Analysts say that in the absence of the CLP, the long-ruling Cambodian People’s Party of Prime Minister Hun Sen will clinch the election like in 2018 and keep intact Cambodia’s status as an absolute one-party state.


Catholic nuns from South Korea and Japan joined a regional meeting in Seoul where they decided to promote and work towards a “culture of listening, dialogue, discernment, care, and peace” in both nations.

The nuns made the decision during the Korea-Japan General Assembly of the International Union of Superiors General that ended last Sunday.

Korean and Japanese nuns pray during their May 9-13 meeting in Seoul. (Photo: Catholic Times) 

The heads of 18 female religious orders in Korea and 10 religious orders in Japan attended the conference. Korea and Japan had bitter relations for decades due to Japan’s colonial rule and atrocities in Korean Peninsula that ended after World War II.

To improve bilateral relations, leaders from both nations came together in Seoul for their first summit in 12 years, in March. South Korea seeks a public apology from Japan for atrocities such as forced labor, torture, killings, and sexual abuse during the colonial period from 1910-1945.


China’s communist regime has come under strong criticism from survivors and parents of schoolchildren who died in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake for highlighting improvement in victims’ lives and focusing too little on the causes behind building collapses.

The uproar was triggered after the state-run Global Times newspaper released a video on the 15th anniversary of the earthquake last Friday. The video focused on the improvements in victims’ lives and the implementation of "disaster prevention" drawing sharp criticism in Sichuan province where the disaster killed about 90,000 people.

An elderly Chinese woman cries as she arrives in Beichuan to prepare for the first anniversary of the May 12, 2008, Sichuan earthquake where 87,000 people were left dead or missing and five million others homeless. (Photo: AFP)

The dead included more than 5,300 children who were mostly in classrooms when the 7.9-magnitude quake hit. As many as 375,000 people were injured by the falling of debris and the collapse of buildings.

Parents of the deceased children and survivors alleged the authorities have forgotten the victims and still haven’t investigated why so many buildings caved in. Some alleged that families were not even allowed to visit the site of the erstwhile school building and mourn for their loved ones.


Vietnamese rights activist Tran Van Bang who campaigned against the communist government’s injustices and the Chinese invasion of Vietnam’s sea has been sentenced to eight years in jail last Friday.

A court convicted Bang for “making, storing, disseminating or propagandizing information, materials, and products that aim to oppose” the Republic of Vietnam.

Tran Van Bang (in dark blue shirt) is coming out of a court in Ho Chi Minh City on May 12. (Photo: Vo Hong Ly)

State-run media reported that 62-year-old Bang wrote and posted 39 articles with contents that slander the government and propagate misinformation, causing confusion among people.

He allegedly expressed hatred and discontent towards communist leaders. Bang is a former Catholic and an irrigation engineer from Hai Duong province. Rights activists deplored the harsh sentence and said he was completely innocent.

Since 2018, Vietnam has convicted and jailed 60 bloggers and activists on charges of posting anti-state materials.

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