Kodaiji Temple in Japan has a new addition. It is not a new statue or an ancient artifact on display. Instead, it is a robot priestess that recently gave its first speech. The humanoid robot is named Mindar and is made largely of aluminum with silicon hands and face. Its first speech was on the…

With a Muslim insurgency threatening to destabilize Thailand’s south, armed soldiers have begun shadowing the area’s Buddhist monks as they make their daily rounds begging for alms. “With its barbed wire, sandbag bunker and armed guard, Wat Lak Muang in Thailand’s strife-torn deep south looks more like a military outpost than a typical Buddhist temple,”…

A 40-year-old Buddhist nun whose melodies have transformed her into one of Nepal’s most popular singing stars, has caused a new stir for which she refuses to apologize. She has extended sanctuary to a nun half her age who became stigmatized after being gang-raped last month. In Nepal’s culture, a rape victim is often blamed and…

“Polly, Mandana, Franziska and Adrian, all between the ages of seven and nine, are supposed to be lying still on their mats – a tall order after having just been chasing each other around the school halls, playing to their hearts’ content with their classmates,” writes Oliver Cech, writing on the website of the German broadcaster Deutsch…

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