Worldwide
Nigeria: the 'leopard unit'
30 Jan 2020
Insecurity in some parts of the country has led people to form their own vigilante units. A reporter writes, ‘Last week, I helped pay a ransom to free the kidnapped wife and two daughters of a…
South Africa: demobilising ‘child soldier’ gangs
30 Jan 2020
Hanover Park is a violent gangland neighbourhood of unemployed young men where even army deployment failed to stop shootings. Gangsters as young as 12 operate within a contested jigsaw of fiefdoms in the historically ‘coloured’ township…
Algeria: churches shut down by authorities
30 Jan 2020
Thirteen churches in Algeria have been closed since 2018. Hope Evangelical Church is the latest to be ordered to shut down as the government’s crackdown on houses of worship continues. A 2006 law is being used…
US / Mexico: drug-smuggling tunnels
30 Jan 2020
Since 2015 tunnels have run under the border from Mexico to America. Donald Trump has made building a border wall one of his key priorities to tackle illegal immigration and drug trafficking. On 30 January, US…
In Sahel and sub-Saharan Africa, the rise of Islamist militancy is a challenge to Christians and also to the existence of states and governments in the region, and thus to the rest of the world. The…
China: coronavirus Wuhan lockdown
23 Jan 2020
A virus that was first discovered on 31 December in Wuhan now has over 500 confirmed cases and has spread abroad. Anxiety is growing as 11 million people are told not to leave the city and…