VIENNA (SE): The secretary of the Bishops’ Commission for the Pan-Amazon Region of Brazil, Austrian-born Bishop Erwin Kräutler, is making a strong push for a married priesthood and women deacons in his preparation for a 2019 Synod of Bishops called by Pope Francis to study the Pan-Amazon situation.
 

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.
 

HONG KONG (SE): The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons was announced as the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace for 2017 by the Nobel Committee in Oslo on October 6.
 
What grew out of a small group of people in Melbourne, Australia, some 10 years ago, has now mushroomed into a coalition of non-government organisations in over 100 countries.
 

MANILA (UCAN): Caritas Philippines has launched an appeal for the restoration of the destroyed St. Mary’s Cathedral in Marawi, which was the first building to be attacked by the Maute Group when its militia took over the city on May 23 this year.
 
Father Edwin Gariguez, the secretary of Caritas in Manila, is placing a high importance on the restoration of the cathedral, as it is an important Catholic symbol in the predominately Muslim city on the southern island of Mindanao.
 

NEW DEHLI (UCAN): The Catholic Bishops Conference of India released its Guidelines to Deal with Sexual Harassment at the Workplace, the first such initiative, in New Delhi on September 14. The Council for Women of the bishops’ conference framed the guidelines.
 
Apart from Church institutions, all dioceses, parishes and religious congregations are to institute complaints committees to which a case of sexual harassment can be reported.
 

ROME (SE): A bishop in Spain issued a public apology after a parish priest allowed the local Hindu community to carry an image of the Hindu god with an elephant head, Ganesh, in a procession at the church.
 
The priest who allowed the procession to take place subsequently offered his resignation as the vicar general of the diocese. It was accepted.
 
On August 20, the Hindu community of Ceuta and Melilla, two autonomous Spanish communities located on the coast of North Africa, visited the church of Our Lady of Africa.

DOHA (AsiaNews): Qatar passed a law on August 22 attributing industrial rights to migrant workers, including domestic staff, stipulating a maximum 10-hour day, monthly payment of salary, a whole day off each week and a three-week vacation each year.
 
At the termination of employment or contract, three weeks salary is to be paid for each year of service completed. It also prohibits the employment of anyone over 60 or under 18.
 

MOSCOW (AsiaNews): Patriarch Kirill of Moscow published an encyclical on the occasion of the centenary of the formation of the Moscow Council of 1917 and 1918 which reestablished the Russian Patriarchate 200 years after it had been abolished by the tsar, Peter the Great.
 
He said that it is significant to remember that the Moscow Council restored the patriarchate during the days of the Russian Revolution, which led to its potential never being fully comprehended.
 

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.
 

ALEPPO (SE): The summer months in northern Iraq this year saw a special treat for some 860 young people who took up the offer to take part in two months of activities held by the Church in Aleppo.
 
For many of the younger ones it was not only the first time to have the freedom to join such a camp, but their first summer without the sound of bombs exploding in the background.