VATICAN CITY (CNS): Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was welcomed to the Vatican by Pope Francis for a private meeting on February 5. It was the first visit by a Turkish head of state in 59 years.
 
Erdogan had arrived in Rome amid heavy security measures for a two-day visit that was to include meetings with Italian authorities and business leaders. More than 3,000 police officers had been deployed for the visit, according to Agence France-Presse, and demonstrations had been banned in Rome’s centre for 24 hours.

AMMAN (CNS): “The two-state solution is accepted by all the world, including the Vatican. It corresponds to the legitimate resolutions passed by the United Nations,” Auxiliary Bishop William Shomali of Jerusalem, patriarchal vicar for Jordan, said as Church and political leaders in the Middle East intensified efforts to combat the unilateral decision by the president of the United States (US), Donald Trump, to recogonise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital along with plans to move the US embassy there.
 

BEIRUT (CNS): In their Christmas messages, the Catholic patriarchs of the Middle East—with hope, despite uncertainty in the region—called for peace, security, prayer and solidarity. 
 
From Baghdad, Iraq, Chaldean Patriarch Louis Sako, expressed his hope for a new phase for the country and that the recent triumph over the Islamic State, along with the termination of terrorist control of Mosul and other cities, will marked a step toward security and stability. 
 

WASHINGTON (SE): Advocates for persecuted Christians and minorities in the Middle East received unexpected tidings straight from the mouth of the vice president of the United States of America (US), Mike Pence, on October 25.
 
Pence informed a Christian solidarity group that from now on all US aid going to the Middle East would be channelled through non-government agencies for the support of persecuted Christians.
 

BAGHDAD (SE): “Peace must be achieved by us, as well as politicians, through courageous initiatives and responsible decisions,” the Catholic Chaldean Patriarch Louis Sako, the archbishop of Baghdad, said in announcing a 140 kilometre peace walk through the Nineveh Plain during Holy Week.

HONG KONG (SE): “I think that those who control the information in the west have a political agenda,” Bishop Antoine Audo SJ, the director of Caritas Syria, said in an interview with Vatican Radio.

URUMQI (AsiaNews): Observing the fast for the holy month of Ramadan was banned by the government for all public officials, members of the Communist Party, students and children in the Uyghur majority province of Xinjiang in the north-west of China.

An instruction, published on various government websites says that people in these categories “should not fast and should not take part in the religious activities.”

MOSCOW (AsiaNews): The plight of persecuted Christians in the Middle East has become the focus of the first concrete act of cooperation between the Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches following the historic meeting in Havana between Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow on February 12.

The Department for External Church Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church announced that the Moscow patriarchate and the Vatican will join forces to help restore churches in Syria.

RIYADH (AsiaNews): The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has carried out its 70th execution for this year. The Saudi Ministry of the Interior announced on March 7 that Alaa al-Zahrani was stoned to death after being convicted in Jeddah.

Last year, 153 death sentences were carried out, most of them for drug trafficking and murder. This was the highest number in 20 years.

LEEDS (SE) : December 4 has been set as a day of prayer for peace in the Middle East by the bishops of England and Wales.

Vatican Radio reported that the bishops made the decision at a meeting held in Leeds on November 15. They said, “Conscious of the civil war in Syria and its impact on neighbouring countries, as well as the continuing conflict in the Holy Land, they are calling on all people to pray for peace in the region on December 4, the feast of St. John Damascene.”