MOSCOW (AsiaNews):  Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev of Volokolamsk, the second most important cleric in the Russian Orthodox Church after Patriarch Kirill, visited Beijing, China, from November 23 to 24 before travelling to North and South Korea. 
 

VATICAN (CNS): “Welcome! It is nice to see you,” Pope Francis said, greeting visisting South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, at the entrance to the library of the Apostolic Palace on October 18. 
 
“I come here as the (South) Korean head of state but I am also Catholic and my baptismal name is Timothy. And for me it is an honour to meet you,” Moon replied.
 

SEOUL (UCAN): A new chapel will be built in the Joint Security Area (JSA) at Panmunjom, the truce village on the inter-Korean Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) that was established when Korean War (1950-53) ended in an armistice.
 
The chapel will replace an older structure built in 1958. Bishop Francis Xavier Yu Soo-il, of the Military Ordinariate of Korea, celebrated a ground-breaking ceremony on June 5.
 

HONG KONG (SE): Talks between Donald Trump, the president of United States of America, and Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, are truly historic and bring hope for the start of a new era of peace, Archbishop Alfred Xuereb, apostolic nuncio to South Korea and Mongolia, said in a Vatican News report on June 12.
 
He said that a “very important” new page has been turned and that, “It marks the beginning of a still long and arduous journey, but we are hopeful because the start has been very positive, very good.” 

PAJU (UCAN): Peace on the Korean Peninsula calls for repentance and atonement between Pyongyang and Seoul a three-day symposium ending on December 3 in Paju City in South Korea on the role of Catholic people in fostering peace in the region has concluded.
 
But the symposium was closing just as the United States of America (US) and South Korea were launching military air exercises, heightening tensions between the two Koreas, as well as South Korea and China.
 

AGANA (SE): People in Guam began organising prayer gatherings and vigils for peace in the light of a threat from the leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Kim Jong-un, to launch a nuclear warhead, which in all probability would be aimed at the tiny unincorporated territory of the United States of America (US), before August 15.
 

HONG KONG (SE): The World Council of Churches called on all Christian organisations and Churches to observe a Sunday of Prayer for the Peaceful Reunification of the Korean Peninsula on August 13, basing their prayer around the theme from Romans 14:19, “Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.”
 

BANGKOK (SE): "A rare Catholic leader in Asia, South Korea's new President Moon Jae-in is a very faithful man, in a Catholic sense," Michael Sainsbury says in pointing to the great appeal he had to many people who hope he can break the dominance of big corporations over government.
 
However, while he won an overwhelming majority of the popular vote in the capital of Seoul, as many a prophet of good tidings, he was not nearly as welcome in his home town of Busan.