Meanwhile, at least 14,000 people have fled their homes in the Bicol region of the Philippines after the country’s most active volcano, Mount Mayon, spewed lava and noxious gases.

The volcano started spewing ashes on June 8 and lava was seen flowing at the volcano’s crater together with occasional earth tremors.

People rest inside the Gabawan elementary school, used as an evacuation center following increased seismic activity from nearby Mayon volcano, in Daraga, Albay province on June 11. Thousands of people living near the Philippine volcano have taken shelter in evacuation centers as officials warned of health risks from ash and toxic gases spewing from the rumbling crater. (Photo: Charism Sayat / AFP)

People who fled their homes since Monday may have to extend their stay inside the classrooms and basketball courts as the Philippine volcanic experts expect the ongoing eruption to continue for several months. The police authorities have established checkpoints to forbid people from entering within the 6-kilometer radius of the volcano.

The Diocese of Legazpi, which covers the affected region, has been giving food packs and relief goods to thousands of residents sheltered inside government schools and basketball courts. 

The Global Knanaya Reform Movement, a lay Catholic group, has petitioned the Vatican seeking a probe into the Kottayam archdiocese in southern India’s Kerala state for denying the sacrament of marriage to a couple.

The archdiocese follows the centuries-old practice of endogamy to maintain the purity of its Knanaya community, which claims to have descended from the fourth-century Jewish-Christian trader Thomas of Kana, who came to the Kerala coast with some 70 families.

Groom Justin John and bride Vijimol Shaji pose for photographs after their traditional marriage ceremony at St. Francis Xavier’s Church in Kottody village in southern Kerala state on May 18. They were denied sacramental marriage following the endogamy practice of the Kottayam Knanaya Archdiocese. (Photo: supplied)

The marriage of one of its member, Justin John, with Vijimol Shaji, a member of the Syro-Malabar Tellicherry archdiocese, was scheduled for May 18. The couple, however, was denied a Church marriage after John's parish priest refused to issue the mandatory no-objection letter.  The couple held a symbolic customary marriage, garlanding each other in front of a church in presence of some 1,000 guests.

A civil court in Kerala declared endogamy illegal on April 30, 2021, after three decades of legal battles. The archdiocese challenged the order in the Kerala High Court in March 2022. The court asked the archdiocese to follow the lower court’s order until the final verdict. The Vatican on several occasions termed endogamy as an unchristian practice.

An Indonesian court has sentenced three Papuans to two years in jail for treason after they held a worship service to commemorate the 11th anniversary of the Papua separatist movement.

The Makassar District Court in South Sulawesi province sentenced the three after they were charged for treason for holding a meeting on the 11th anniversary of the Federal Republic of West Papua, considered a separatist movement by the Indonesian government, on Oct. 19, 2022.

Three Papuans (from left) Kostan Karlos Bonay, Andreas Sanggenafa, and Hellesvred Bezaliel Soleman Waropen were found guilty of committing treasonous acts by an Indonesian court on June 12. (Photo: supplied)

Rights activists slammed the sentence and alleged the verdict “is another slap in the face of democracy and for the people of Papua.” After the end of Dutch colonial rule, Indonesia annexed Christian-majority Papua two years after it declared independence in 1961.

An armed insurgency for independence and military operations left thousands dead and tens of thousands displaced in the past decades.

Fighting has intensified in Vietnam’s Central Highlands after security forces deployed tanks and helicopters to suppress an insurrection and protests by ethnic minority groups.

The authorities said at least nine people have been killed and 39 people detained due to the unrest in Dak Lak province, home to nearly 30 groups known collectively as the Montagnards, or Dega. Violence erupted when about 40 people wearing camouflage vests attacked two police stations in the Ea Tieu and Ea Ktur communes last Sunday.

In this file 21 June 2005 photo, Montagnards perform in Freedom Plaza in Washington DC during a protest against alleged human rights abuses committed against them by the Vietnamese government. Security forces in Vietnam's Central Highlands are battling a small group of insurgents, said to be Montagnards, who authorities say attacked police stations on June 11. (Photo:AFP)

State media reported that of the dead four were police officers, two were commune officials and three were local people. Dega people are considered a part of the Montagnard hill tribe community who fought alongside the US and allied troops during the Vietnam War.

Many converted to Christianity and now complain of repressive policies like religious persecution and the expropriation of land by local officials. 

Two groups of Japanese priests visited South Korean dioceses with the aim to strengthen friendship and promote pastoral cooperation between churches. The priests’ group from the Diocese of Fukuoka of Japan along with Bishop Josep Maria Abella Batlle paid visits to Incheon in the first week of June.

The Japanese priests joined a training program at the Social Pastoral Center of the Incheon diocese. They also held meetings with the clergy of the diocese to share pastoral activities and to pledge cooperation on issues such as undocumented migrants, catechesis for the elderly and children, and a decline in religious vocation.

Bishop John Baptist Jung Shin-chul of Incheon Diocese in South Korea speaks to a group of Japanese priests during their visit on June 6. (Photo: Catholic Times)

In the last week of May, another Japanese delegation of 10 people led by Bishop Paul Yoshinao Otsuka of Kyoto diocese paid visits to the Diocese of Jeju. They visited Jeju diocesan offices, attended a prayer gathering dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and held meeting with the clergy.

The collaborative efforts are seen as a vital way of promoting friendship as many Korean still hold negative views of Japan for its colonial rule and atrocities in Korea from 1905-1945.

Cambodian-US citizen and Khmer Bible editor, Theary Seng, marked her first year behind bars in a Cambodian prison amid messages of support with her plight expected to be raised at the United Nations Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva later this month.

Family and friends said she was coping well with incarceration at a prison near Preah Vihear in the remote north of Cambodia. Theary Seng was jailed for six years on June 14 last year after she was convicted of treason and supporting a plot to oust Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Cambodian-American human rights advocate Theary Seng, dressed as Lady Liberty, shouts slogans in front of Phnom Penh municipal court on June 14, 2022. (Photo: AFP)

She lost her final appeal in October and Hun Sen recently ruled out any prospect of a pardon for her, saying any individual who receives help from foreigners “will never be tolerated or pardoned.”

Theary Seng’s conviction for treason followed an attempt by Cambodian opposition leader in exile Sam Rainsy to return to Cambodia in late 2019 and stage a popular rebellion.

The Japan Alliance for LGBT Legislation slammed a new law that the activists allege does not guarantee an end to discrimination toward sexual minorities in the country.

The LGBTQ group alleged that the legislation passed by the lower house of Diet on Tuesday primarily safeguards the majority of society and not the sexual minorities. The group said it "ignores the interests of LGBT people and instead caters to the side that exacerbates discrimination.”

Japan Alliance for LGBT Legislation has slammed a new law that aims to promote the understanding of sexual minorities. (File Photo: Yuichi YAMAZAKI/AFP)

The bill is expected to be passed by the House of Councilors, the upper house, at the end of the current parliamentary session next week. The government says the bill aims primarily at banning unjust discrimination against people based on sexual orientation as Japan lags behind the other G7 advanced nations in terms of legal protections for sexual minorities.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida led Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition Komeito drafted the bill despite opposition from conservative lawmakers.

Laos is pushing ahead with plans to build its seventh of nine hydro-power dams on the Mekong River ignoring widespread concerns about social and environmental damages and opposition from thousands of villagers who fear displacement.

The $2.4 billion US Dollar dam is a joint venture between Laos and the Charoen Energy and Water Asia Company of Thailand and is projected to complete in 2029.The dam is expected to generate 728 megawatts of electricity mostly to be sold to Thailand, although it will also be used to power parts of southern Laos.

An artist's rendering of the Phuo Ngoy Dam in Laos. (Photo: Charoen Energy and Water Asia Company Limited via RFA)

The dam is a part of the Laos government’s vision to become the “Battery of Southeast Asia” by building dozens of hydropower dams on the Mekong and its tributaries to export electricity to other countries in the region to boost its economy.

Besides environmental damages, the dam is feared to displace more than 7,000 residents of 86 villages in Laos’ Champasak province and inhabitants of six villages in neighboring Thailand’s Ubon Ratchathani.