Asia
Myanmar: refugee status lost
At least 28,000 ethnic Chin (mainly Christian) refugees in Malaysia and India have lost their refugee status and are faced with returning to Buddhist-majority Myanmar (Burma), where they risk discrimination and military attack.…
India: Christian families persecuted
Five Christian families in eastern India were at a service in October when they received a phone call telling them to return to their homes immediately. They rushed back, but found that the…
Aasia Bibi out of prison but not yet safe?
Pakistani Christian mother Aasia Bibi has finally been freed from prison after spending over eight years on death row for allegedly committing ‘blasphemy’ against Islam, but she is not yet free. Government officials…
Pakistan: serving 'poorest of the poor' for 150 years
An eye surgeon from the Diocese of Peshawar, Khushbakht Peters, celebrates the work of the Christian hospital at Tank in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. She writes: ‘Tank is a city in the south of…
Saudi officials tried to remove evidence
Members of a Saudi Arabian team sent to help Turkish authorities investigate the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi worked instead to remove evidence. A Turkish government spokesman said that two members of the…
Iraq: IS left many mass graves
A UN investigation has found more than 200 mass graves in areas of Iraq once controlled by the Islamic State (IS) group. IS seized parts of Iraq in 2014 and imposed brutal rule,…
China denies Uyghur detention camps
Western nations including the USA, France, and Germany have called on China to close down detention camps in the western region of Xinjiang which activists claim hold as many as one million Uyghurs…
India: nuclear submarine’s first voyage
Prime minister Narendra Modi says the first successful voyage by India’s home-built nuclear submarine is a ‘warning for the country's enemies’. The INS Arihant recently completed a month-long ‘deterrence patrol’, meaning India now…
Yemen: vision of ceasefire
Pentagon chief James Mattis said the US had been watching the conflict ‘for long enough’, and believes Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are ready for talks. The comments came as the…
Indonesia: cause of plane crash not yet known
Indonesia has ordered inspections on all its commercial Boeing 737-Max 8 planes, after one crashed into the sea minutes after taking off from Jakarta, with 189 people on board, on 29 October. There…
