South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has announced the creation of a new government ministry to tackle the country’s extremely low birth rate, which he has called “a national emergency,”.

The new ministry will “establish policies that span education, labour and welfare” to address the problem, Suk-yeol said.

South Korea saw a 0.72 fertility rate in 2023, the lowest in the world and far below the 2.1 that is required to maintain its population.

Just 230,000 babies were born last year in the country, which has a population of 50 million.

South Korea has spent more than $200 billion over the past 16 years to address the declining birth rate with no success. Initiatives have included extended paid paternity leave, social campaigns encouraging male participation in child care and housework, and even “baby vouchers” that offer monetary incentives.

A Catholic cardinal condemned a grenade attack on a village chapel during a Bible service that left two wounded in the southern Philippines on Sunday.

The grenade attack happened on Pentecost Sunday at Santo Niño Chapel in Cotabato City at about 10:30 a.m.

Cotabato City is in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao an area that has experienced religious freedom challenges in recent years.

Cardinal Orlando Quevedo, the archbishop emeritus of Cotabato, denounced the grenade attack, calling it a “dastardly bombing,” according to the news site of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.

Of the about 20 people in attendance, the two churchgoers injured in the attack were Maribel Abis, 46, and Aniceta Tobil, a senior citizen. Initial reports revealed the attack was by two men riding a motorcycle.

Quevedo called the attack a “horrendous sacrilegious act that cries out to heaven.”

Revenue officials warned of potential tax law changes arising from the family referendum before Ministers claimed the proposal had no tax implications, according to newly-released files that raise fresh questions about the truthfulness of the Government.

Commenting on the revelations, Michael McNamara, TD, said the government, “on the recent referendum, on immigration and how they have labelled the response of communities, and throughout this Dáil term, have been the greatest purveyors of misinformation in this State”.

Campaigners for No warned before the vote of “long-term consequences” for tax law. But when the Government was asked, it stated in unambiguous terms that there would be no tax impact.

“In relation to your specific question, the proposed amendment will not affect taxation, succession or family law,” the Government said during the campaign.

Now Revenue files – released by the Department of Finance under the Freedom of Information Act – show how the tax authority noted a lack of clarity “on the extent and scope” of how the proposed Constitutional change would “interact” with tax law.

A well-known catholic priest in Nigeria has been abducted at gunpoint on his way to a prayer ministry.

Fr Basil Gbuzuo was captured along Eke Nkpor in Ogidi, Idemili North in the South-Central part of the country.

So far, his kidnappers have not contacted his church with any ransom demands according to a statement by the Onitsha Archdiocese. Fr Basil is the fourth cleric to be captured in five months.

Three other hostages taken earlier in the year– two Claretian missionaries and a parish priest from Benin City Archdiocese – have already been released. Though three other priests kidnapped in the country – one in 2019 and two in 2022 – are still missing.

Aid to the Church in Need, a catholic charity which supports persecuted and suffering Christians worldwide, has called for the immediate and unconditional release of Fr Basil and has demanded the government step up security and protection of Christians in the African nation.

A Catholic hospice in Canada is fighting a law that would force it to offer assisted suicide to its residents.

Archbishop Christian Lépine of Montreal has submitted an appeal to the Quebec Superior Court demanding a stay of the application of a law that specifies that “no palliative care hospice may exclude medical aid in dying from the care they offer”.

Besides interference with the exercise of the right to freedom of religion and conscience, the lawsuit argues that the practical effect of the amendment is the state appropriation of a church building to administer euthanasia.

Moreover, lawyers for the archdiocese are clear in their view that if their case fails then the Church will have to withdraw from palliative care provision because euthanasia is directly contrary to Catholic teaching on the moral impermissibility of killing.

Canada will then run the risk of countries with older euthanasia laws and which have already seen the shrinking, and sometimes the collapse, of palliative care services.

Religious orders have made dozens of properties available to accommodate refugees since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine more than two years ago, the Association of Leaders of Missionaries and Religious of Ireland (Amri) has said.

The statement follows an appeal from the Government to the dioceses to offer up vacant land and buildings in an attempt to ease the strain on State services attempting to find beds for almost 1,700 international protection applicants who have been left without accommodation following their arrival in Ireland.

AMRI, which represents religious institutes, societies of apostolic life and lay missionary organisations, said that since February 2022 “some 41 religious orders, congregations and societies in Ireland have made a range of properties available, including convents, retreat centres, former student houses, houses, apartments and individual rooms”. It said most of these had been provided “at no cost to the Government”.

A spokesman said “individual members of congregations/orders also provide pastoral care and various other supports such as English-language classes, counselling etc to integrate those newly arrived in the local community”.

A leading Catholic bishop has warned politicians that “divorce weakens the fabric of society” as the Philippines moved closer to legalising divorce.

“I urge members of Congress to reconsider the proposed divorce bill and instead focus on promoting policies and programs that support marriage, strengthen families, and protect the well-being of all members of society,” said Bishop Alberto Uy of Tagbilaran of the central Philippines, in an interview with Catholic-run Radio Veritas.

The bishop said a “society that values strong, stable families is a thriving society”.

“Divorce weakens the fabric of society by eroding the foundation of the family unit. It leads to social fragmentation, increased poverty, and a host of other societal ills. By promoting divorce, we are contributing to the breakdown of social cohesion and the erosion of moral values,” Uy said.

Among the grounds for divorce will be an already existing legal separation. That can be based on various fault grounds including abandonment without cause by a spouse for more than one year.

Divorce had been legalised in the Philippines in 1917 under the American occupation. The grounds were expanded under the Japanese occupation during World War II. This was rescinded soon after the country became independent. In 1977, a law recognising some Islamic practices allowed muslims to divorce. This also allowed ‘early marriages’ or ‘child marriages’ which allowed girls who had reached puberty to marry with the permission of a Sharia court. This latter element was not reversed until 2021 under legislation signed into law by President Rodrigo Duterte.

Explicit age limits will appear for the first time in statutory guidance issued to schools in the UK covering relationships, sex education and health.

Children in primary school will not be taught sex education until they are in Year 5 — aged nine — while discussion about explicit sexual acts will not take place until children are 13.

Teachers will also be banned from giving children lessons about gender identity — the idea that children can have a sexual identity unrelated to their biological sex, adopt different pronouns, names and wear uniforms of the opposite sex.

The move represents an attempt to deal with concerns that some children are being exposed to sensitive information when they are not ready for it.

When children are first taught any sex education, in Year 5, when nine years old, it should be in line with the science curriculum, with a factual approach teaching children about conception and birth.

Parents will need to be consulted about anything that children are taught. The guidance is explicit that primary school children should not be taught about pornography.

A clinic in Switzerland which provides assisted suicide to hundreds of people each year has apologised to the mother of a British man who took his own life without his family’s knowledge.

Following an ITV News investigation, Pegasos said it would change its procedures to ensure that relatives were always informed in future.

Forty-seven-year-old Alastair Hamilton told his mother he was flying to Paris last August, but instead travelled to Basel where he took a lethal dose of drugs.

As Judith Hamilton, 82, waved him off to the airport, she says her son told her: “He put his arms around me, looked me straight in the eyes and he was smiling. And he said ‘love you, mum, love you lots, always have, always will no matter what’.”

The chemistry teacher had dramatically lost weight and complained of stomach problems in the months leading up to his death, but did not have a diagnosed illness.

His family had been supporting him in seeking medical help and had no idea he was actually travelling to Switzerland to end his life.

The waiting period before a couple can divorce would be lowered from two years to six months under proposed new legislation.

Green Party TD Patrick Costello will introduce a bill to amend the minimum period of separation, which was already reduced from four years to two in 2019.

Mr Costello said the move to two years “does not go far enough”.

When the constitutional prohibition on divorce was removed following a referendum in 1995, a minimum period of four years was required to access divorce—a clause which was written into the Constitution.

In 2016, Fine Gael TD Josepha Madigan proposed a referendum that would remove the four year wait and replace it, in the text of the Constitution, with a two year wait.

However, in 2019, the Government decided for a referendum that would delete the length of the waiting period entirely from the constitution and leave it up to the Oireachtas to decide what it should be.

They also said they would introduce legislation that would set the waiting period at two years.

The referendum was subsequently passed by a large majority.