Church leaders in India have blamed a lack of education for the high number of women being lynched for allegedly practicing witchcraft.

The reaction came after a mob allegedly beat a woman called Chinta Devi to death in the eastern state of Bihar last Sunday. She was not only killed but her house was set on fire after the body of a 4-year-old missing boy was found near her home.

The bodies of five women killed by villagers for allegedly practicing witchcraft lie in plastic bags in Jharkhand state, India in this Aug. 8, 2015 file photo. There is no central law in the country to prevent attacks on women in the name of black magic. (Photo: AFP)

Church sources say Dalit and tribal people, who are largely poor and uneducated, mainly practice black magic. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, more than 2,500 women have been killed for allegedly practicing witchcraft since 2000.

Observers say the actual number is higher as many cases go unreported. Tribal expert and Jesuit priest Father Vincent Ekka said a lack of education and knowledge forced people to believe in witchcraft. India still does not have a law to tackle crimes related to witchcraft, superstition, or occult-inspired activities.

An Islamic hardline group in Bangladesh has launched a campaign to deter a proposed law that aims to protect the rights of the marginalized transgender community. The campaign by the National Fatwa Board includes publishing literature with anti-transgender messages and holding seminars and press conferences.

The board aims to propagate that transgender people are cursed and should be banished. The group says Muslims should oppose any legal recognition of transgender people as artificial gender transformation is forbidden in Islam. He also alleged that the in name of protecting the rights of transgender people, the proposed law seeks to promote homosexuality.

Transgender people face various forms of abuses and discrimination in Muslim-majority Bangladesh. (Photo: Munir Uz Zaman/AFP)

Islamic hardliners have long opposed the legal recognition and rights of transgender people who have long faced social ostracism and discrimination.

In 2013, the government recognized hijra, a collective term for eunuchs, intersex, and transgender people in South Asia, as the third gender. Islamists argue hijras are born naturally while transgenders alter their sexual identity. 

Sri Lankan Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith has accused influential government figures of being behind the planting of a hand grenade in a Catholic Church two years ago.

The grenade was found at All Saints Church in Borella in the capital Colombo just days before a commemorative event to mark the deadly 2019 Easter Sunday bombings. Ranjith made the allegations while speaking at a Mass in the same church last Sunday.

Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith at a press conference in capital Colombo on Sept. 6, 2023. (Photo: AFP)

He said the man who planted the device two years ago was “a government supporter," and that "strongmen sent him" to “intimidate" the Church in its struggle for justice for victims of the 2019 terror attack.

The Easter bombings killed 275 people and injured more than 500 after suicide bombers targeted three churches and three luxury hotels. Ranjith called top police officials to conduct a proper investigation into the incident. Financially bankrupt and politically unstable Sri Lanka is expected to hold a national election at the end of the year.

The South Korean government is considering allowing ‘registered cohabitation marriages’ in a bid to combat a demographic crisis fueled by record-low birth rates and a rising elderly population.

The government is considering a “cohabitation system” to tackle low birth rates, said Kim Young-mi, vice chairman of the National Committee on Aging and Low Birth Rate. Kim pointed out that the system is based on the French civil union contract system introduced in 1999.

A South Korean woman looks after a baby in this file image. The East Asian nation is facing demographic crisis fuelled by falling birth rates. (Photo: Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Images)

The civil solidarity pact is a civil union contract entered into by two persons over the age of 18 to structure their lives together. The French system has been credited with increasing the birth rate, even though there are no specific statistics available.

Live births in South Korea dropped by 4.3 percent from 2022. In the second quarter of 2023, the country registered a record-low total fertility rate of 0.7. Meanwhile, about 18.4 percent of South Korea’s estimated 51.5 million people are 60 years and above.

A court in communist-ruled China has sentenced a Protestant pastor to 14 years imprisonment for alleged involvement in "illegal business practices" amid an ongoing crackdown on religious groups that refuse to join government-controlled bodies.

The Ganjingzi District People’s Court in Liaoning province in northeast China sentenced pastor Kan Xiaoyong of Dalian House Church. Kan’s wife Wang Fengying was sentenced to four years, co-worker Chu Xinyu to ten years and the other three defendants received three-year sentences.

A pastor of an underground church conducts a Christmas Eve service at an apartment in Beijing on Dec. 24, 2014. (Photo: AFP)

Kan and others were accused of several offenses including illegal business practices and his church was accused of being a xie jiao or banned cult. Kan and the church allegedly drew the ire of the communist regime for refusing to join the Three-Self Church, a state-sanctioned body overseeing Protestant churches in the country.

Rights groups say unregistered religious groups have endured intensified crackdowns since Xi Jinping became president in 2013.

The national human rights commission and Church officials in the Philippines have called on the government to ensure justice and inclusivity for the country’s transport modernization program as the deadline for the phasing out of the iconic jeepney draws near.

The government of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. set Jan. 31 as the deadline for the phase-out of the popular vehicle as part of its Public Utility Vehicle Modernization Program. Jeepneys were repurposed from US military jeeps left behind after World War II.

The Philippines has announced plans to replace iconic jeepneys nationwide with new public transport vehicles. (File Photo: AFP)

The vehicles are capable of accommodating up to 32 passengers. The government says vehicles with chassis as old as 50 to 70 years are unsafe for the environment and public health and thus should be phased out.

Transport groups have opposed the government plan and organized a series of strikes to resist the move. On Tuesday, transport groups Manibela and Piston organized another nationwide strike against the government plan where thousands of jeepney drivers, operators and others joined.

Twenty-three people have died after an explosion at a fireworks factory in central Thailand on Wednesday. Images shared by the local rescue service showed metal debris littering on the ground and a huge plume of black smoke.

The blast occurred near Sala Khao township in central Suphan Buri province. There was no indication of what may have caused the explosion. Officials have sealed off the surrounding area and they will begin to identify the bodies once the situation has stabilized.

This handout from the Novice Kaew Suphanburi Highway Rescue Association taken and released on Jan. 17 shows smoke rising after an explosion at a fireworks factory near Sala Khao township in Thailand's Suphan Buri province. (Photo: AFP)

Explosions at workshops producing firecrackers and other pyrotechnics are not uncommon in Thailand. At least 10 people died after an explosion in a fireworks warehouse in Sungai Kolok town in southern Narathiwat province last year.

Some 11 people were also injured when a fireworks factory exploded in the northern city of Chiang Mai in the same year. The Southeast Asian kingdom also has a poor safety record in the construction sector and deadly accidents are common.

Phan Thiet Catholic diocese in Vietnam has started the beatification and sainthood cause of Church's first bishop and French missionary Piere Lambert de la Motte.

The missionary from Paris Foreign Mission Society or MEP is hailed for his contribution to building sound foundations for organized missionary work in Vietnam. The formal opening of the diocesan inquiry, the primary step for canonization, was held in the Our Lady of Ta Pao Center in the south-central province of Binh Thuan last Saturday.

Around 20,000 people attended the opening of the diocesan inquiry of French Bishop Piere Lambert de la Motte in the Our Lady of Ta Pao Center on Jan. 13. (Photo courtesy of hdgmvietnam.com)

Some 20,000 Catholics attended the event, which coincided with the 50th anniversary of the diocese's establishment. In his homily, Archbishop Joseph Nguyen Chi Linh of Hue said Bishop Lambert “had unusual virtues and made huge contributions to the Church in Vietnam at the beginning.”

Bishop Lambert is considered one of the four co-founders of MEP, the prime missionary congregation that served Asia since 1660.

Despite a truce for ceasefire between the military junta and rebels last week thousands of displaced Christians in conflict-torn Myanmar’s Shan state have refused to return home due to security reasons.

A church source said at least 700 people are still sheltering in churches and monasteries in the state capital Lashio City. The displaced people are surviving on aid from the church and others including UN agencies and private donors.

This photo taken on Dec. 14, 2023, shows a girl playing in a bomb shelter near her home amid clashes between the ethnic minority armed group Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and Myanmar's military in Namhsan Township in Myanmar's northern Shan State. (Photo: AFP)

Deadly fighting between the military and rebels in the past months displaced more than 628,000 people in northern Shan and Kayah states while more than 2.6 million were estimated to have been displaced nationwide at the end of 2023.

Myanmar’s military and the armed groups reached a truce during a third round of talks mediated by China in the second week of January.