‘There is no time to wait, this is genocide’, said Dr Sukhudyan, describing the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, a landlocked enclave between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Deadly battles between Armenians and Azerbaijanis have previously raged there. Armenia is the world's first official Christian country, and 120,000 Christians live in the enclave. The road to it was protected by Russian peacekeepers, but on 12 December Azerbaijani protesters blocked it, preventing food, medicine, and other basic transport in or out. Now this ongoing dispute - in light of the past genocidal horrors - has human rights groups deeply concerned about what is to come. The minister of state for Nagorno-Karabakh said this is probably the prelude to an Azerbaijani armed attack, and if Russia does not step in, Armenia is not strong enough to stop them conquering the region. There will be massacres, with the oldest churches in the world possibly destroyed.

The US government has paved the way for pharmacies to sell mifepristone, the first of a two-drug procedure for medication abortions. Mifepristone is used first to block progesterone and cause the unborn baby to die over several days. It is followed by misoprostol, which causes painful uterine contractions which expel the deceased baby from the mother’s womb. Retailers CVS and Walgreens will seek government certification to dispense the drug to women with a doctor’s prescription. Women could then take it at home, despite documented medical risks. Pro-life leaders say the new regulation will turn neighbourhood retail pharmacies into participants in killing unborn children. Peer-reviewed data from California, Finland and Sweden show that chemical abortions result in higher rates of medical complications than surgical abortions. A pro-life research organisation said emergency room visits associated with chemical abortion increased by over 500% from 2002 to 2015. During those years chemical abortions increased from 4.4% to 34.1% of total abortions.

The war in Ukraine and the poor global economy have enabled dictators, regimes, and terrorists to take ad­vantage of the situation while the world’s attention was distracted. This will worsen in 2023, to the detriment of Christians. Ask God to protect China’s Christians as the crackdown on house churches accelerates. Pray for all the minorities in Myanmar, where the 2021 political coup has led to many attacks and bombings of churches. The internally dis­placed use churches as shelters. Iran has also taken the opportunity to crack down on churches, Christians, and Muslim-back­ground believers this year. Pray for Christian arrests and torture to diminish in 2023. Indian Christians need our prayers for an end to the anti-conversion laws being enforced in Hindu communities. Afghanistan has no national income and no natural resources, and all assets are frozen worldwide. Christianity is illegal. Those forced to stay or needing support to find safe havens need God's protection.

Jair Bolsonaro lost the presidential election to Lula da Silva in October, but his supporters do not accept that he lost. On 8 January thousands stormed key government sites, ransacking Congress buildings, breaking into the Senate chamber, presidential palace and Supreme Court in Brasilia. Lula’s inauguration on 1 January was peaceful, but when Anderson Torres took over as secretary of security on the 2nd he fired the entire command before going on a family holiday. The federal intervenor in public security accused Torres of ‘structured sabotage’. The attorney general said the police commander, and governor of Brasilia have been fired. The commander of the military police, former public security chief and others ‘responsible for acts and omissions’ leading to the riots were arrested. About 1,500 rioters are detained at the police academy and 600 elsewhere. Public prosecutors want to freeze Bolsonaro's assets because he has not admitted defeat in a tight election that divided the nation.