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| INEB’s SENS 2020 transformative learning program to launch in January | The Bangkok-based International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB) has announced the imminent launch of its new School of English for Engaged Social Service (SENS 2020), an annual three-month transformative learning program to nurture young Asian adults and mentor them as community leaders and agents of compassionate social change. The 2020 course kicks off in Thailand in January under the theme “Transform Your English, Transform Your World.” | |  | |
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| UNESCO Listing Proposed for Sarnath, Site of the Buddha’s First Sermon | The Varanasi circle of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) this week forwarded a proposal to place Sarnath on the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) list of World Heritage Sites to India’s Ministry of Culture. If listed, Sarnath will become the fourth UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and the 39th for the country. | |  | |
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| Mexico president opposes bill to end church-state separation | President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Wednesday he does not support a proposal to further relax Mexico’s strict legal separation of church and state, throwing cold water on a draft bill that would upend longstanding political doctrine in the country. | |  | |
| Indian president signs controversial citizenship bill into law | Indian President Ram Nath Kovind has signed the controversial Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB), officials said on December 13. "The president has given his assent to the CAB and thus it has become an Act," an official said. "The collected set of rules in the CAB comes into effect with its publication in the official gazette on Thursday." | |  | |
| Thai Buddhist Order Finds Itself at Home in Dutch Catholic Church | In 2017, a Catholic church in the village of Afferden in the Netherlands was sold to Buddhist monastics from the Dhammakaya movement in Thailand and converted into a Buddhist temple. The sale followed a trend of closing Catholic churches in the country, but it is the first to be transferred to a Buddhist group. Today, the Buddhist and non-Buddhist communities of the area have found harmony. | |  | |
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| Cardinal Tagle is the new Prefect of Propaganda Fide | The Cardinal Archbishop of Manila, Luis Antonio Tagle is the new Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. The appointment by Pope Francis was announced on Sunday 8 December. The current Prefect, Cardinal Fernando Filoni, assumes the post of Grand Master of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher in place of Cardinal Edwin Frederick O'Brien, who resigned in April 2019 and turned 80. | |  | |
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