MANDALY (UCAN): Myanmar must provide redress for illegally confiscating land and enact laws and regulations “to safeguard the rights of farmers” and other small landholders, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a July 17 report.
 
The report said that over the last 30 years the government as well as military officials have seized hundreds of thousands of acres from farmers while providing little or no compensation and that this has jeopardised their livelihoods and eroded their access to basic services.
 

MANILA (Agencies): As he delivered his State of the Nation Address (SONA) on July 23, at the start of his third year in office, the president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, Rappler reported that thousands of demonstrators from all sectors of society braved the threat of rain to protest among many things, the threat of constitutional change; labour issues;corruption in government; and the tragic, so-called war against drugs which has victimised the poor. 
 

MANILA (Agencies): Some 6,000 young people from over 100 nations participated in a three-day youth festival of sharing, music, art and concrete actions from July 6 to July 8 in Manila. 
 
The 11th edition of Genfest, the international youth festival of the worldwide Focolare Movement is the first such rally held in Asia and outside Europe. 
 

THAILAND (UCAN/Agenzia Fides): Almost 350 years have passed since the first Catholic mission in Siam began: to commemorate the forthcoming anniversary of the Apostolic Vicariate of Siam (Mission of Siam: 1669-2019), the Bishops’ Conference of Thailand organised a celebration at Chiang Rai Rajabhat University, in Chiang Rai province, northern Thailand, on July 7.  
 

JAKARTA (UCAN): Church leaders and activists in Indonesia welcomed what they think is a possible softening in the government’s hardline drug policy after the anti-narcotics agency said it would push for drug users to be rehabilitated rather than imprisoned.
 
The move was announced on June 26 when the Indonesia National Narcotics Agency (BNN) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) agreed on June 26, the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, to boost cooperation in rehabilitation efforts for drug addicts.

HANOI (UCAN): Some 20,000 Catholics from the Archdiocese of Hanoi, along with nine dioceses in northern Vietnam, braved the scorching heat to attend a special Mass on June 19 in Ha Nam province to open a jubilee year to mark the 30th anniversary of the canonisation of 117 Vietnamese martyrs.
 
The opening ceremony was held at the Martyrs Pilgrimage Centre of So Kien, which includes the 135-year-old Minor Basilica of Immaculate Conception of Mary in Ha Nam province.
 

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.