Displaying items by tag: Global

There are about 30-40 million Nomads, moving their cattle to find pasture in Africa, Tibetan yak herders, Siberian reindeer herders. Service nomads travel to offer their wares and labour. Gipsies are the most common example. Other nomads travel with funfairs or portable shrines. The Indian Lohar are blacksmiths. Many Gypsies have turned to Christ in Western Europe, yet they are culturally isolated from their fellow believers in settled communities. Pray that the Gospel may dwell in the hearts of nomadic people who have no permanent dwelling. Pray for more labourers to work among them, and for discipleship programs among them, especially ones that will empower indigenous Christians to reach their own people. Pray for Christ to bring peace and understanding between settled peoples and nomads. Pray for nomads to find a way of life that suits the 21st century. Many are isolated from health and education provisions.

From France to Zimbabwe and America to Chile, water shortages drive social and political conflicts. Rich countries can’t ignore it as a poor country's problem. So, between March 22 -24 the UN held its first water conference in 50 years. 6,500 policymakers, NGOs, water experts, and private sector groups attended the wake-up call to action. Water supply and demand is expected to reach 40% in eight years, making life as we know it virtually impossible for millions, possibly billions, of people. Governments and companies were asked to make ambitious commitments to form a ‘Water Action Agenda’. Progress on pledges and targets will be monitored over time, with the hope of significantly reducing the supply-demand gap by 2030. Pray for governments to upgrade ageing infrastructures, effectively fix system leaks, and improve tracking and billing capacities. Pray for the provision of incentives to ramp up research on water stress, and wastewater treatment solutions and develop new technologies.

We’re facing mountains of plastic pollution. 2 billion people have no safe way to dispose of rubbish, and its people in poverty who are suffering the worst impacts of the rubbish problem. They must live and work among piles of waste, which releases toxic fumes, floods communities and causes up to a million deaths annually. During 2023 and 2024, nearly 200 governments are meeting to develop the first-ever global treaty on plastic pollution. But it’s not a done deal, so Christians from six continents are calling people to take bold action and petition their leaders who are responsible for food and rural affairs or the environment, plus all who are negotiating on the plastics treaty - To create an effective, binding plan that holds big polluters to account, reduces plastic production, supports the vital work of waste pickers, and ends the impacts of plastic pollution on people living in poverty. See

Britain. Europe, the US, and other wealthy countries have a refugee problem. In the past week Mexican officials found over 340 migrants from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Ecuador in an abandoned truck trailer in the state of Veracruz. This included 103 unaccompanied minors. It is one of the biggest recent discoveries of migrant children travelling through Mexico. All appeared unharmed and the trailer had fans and ventilation ports. The driver's whereabouts are unknown. Fleeing Central America’s poverty and violence many migrants end up paying huge sums of cash to people-smugglers to get them across the US border. See A large operation off Italy's coast rescued 1,300 migrants in overcrowded boats near the southern region of Calabria, and two weeks ago73 migrants died in the same region. See UN figures state 103 million people were forcibly displaced around the world in mid-2022. Thirty-seven million were refugees or asylum seekers.

The US, UK and Australia have unveiled details of their plan to create a new fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, aimed at countering China's influence in the Indo-Pacific region. Under the AUKUS pact Australia is to get its first three nuclear-powered submarines from the US. The allies will also work to create a new fleet using cutting-edge tech, including UK-made Rolls-Royce reactors. The deal will create thousands of jobs in the UK's Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria, Derby and elsewhere. Beijing has strongly criticised the significant naval deal. Its foreign ministry accused the three nations of ‘walking further ‘down the path of error and danger.’ China's UN mission had earlier accused the Western allies of setting back nuclear non-proliferation efforts. Mr Biden said the deal would not jeopardise Australia's commitment to being a nuclear-free country.

It was International Women's Day this week to draw attention to how slavery disproportionately affects women and girls and is a huge violation of human rights. One of the many missions working to establish a world where women can know their full potential is the Nomi Network. They categorize modern slavery as bonded labour, domestic servitude, commercial sexual exploitation, and child labour. Poverty and economic marginalisation make women and girls vulnerable to exploitation. Nomi Network creates pathways to safe employment and economic stability, empowering women and girls to break cycles of slavery in their families and communities by:- Training women in life skills and technical skills. Connecting women to jobs with private sector employers and promoting fair labour standards. Creating transparent supply chains with responsible sourcing with ethically-made products. Raising public awareness of human trafficking. The organisation is named after Nomi, an 8-year-old Cambodian who was trafficked by her stepfather and suffered unthinkable abuse. Nomi Network provides a future for thousands of other women and girls like her.

This week, a US judge ordered Swiss mining and commodity giant Glencore to pay US$700 million in a long-running corruption probe. Last year, Glencore pleaded guilty to channelling at least US$100 million in bribes to public officials globally - from Brazil to the DRC, and Nigeria to Venezuela. Glencore negotiated with Brazil, the UK and America to pay up to US$1.1 billion. This week’s sentence confirms the US portion of the coordinated settlement. But it doesn’t address the full scope. There are more populations and individuals who suffered harm from Glencore’s scheme. Pray for a more comprehensive effort to identify and adequately compensate all those affected, particularly the most vulnerable. Meanwhile Indonesia wants guarantees from the UK that they will receive a portion of any future financial settlement resulting from a corruption inquiry into an aircraft manufacturer after Jakarta was excluded from an agreement made with Airbus, even though Indonesia assisted with the investigation.

Beginning at sundown on 22nd March over a billion Muslims around the world will abstain from eating, drinking, smoking, and sex from dawn to sunset during the holy month of Ramadan. Fasting is one of the Five Pillars of Islam and one of the highest forms of Islamic worship. Abstinence from earthly pleasures and curbing evil intentions and desires is their act of obedience and submission to God and an atonement for sins, errors, and mistakes. Fasting is an act of faith and worship to  increase their spiritual piety. Fasting together as a worldwide community (Ummah) affirms the brotherhood and equality of man before God. Throughout the day many go out of their way to help the needy, both financially and emotionally. Believing that a reward earned during this month is multiplied 70 times and more. For this reason, Ramadan is also known as the month of charity and generosity.

Finance ministers of the world's largest economies failed to agree on a closing statement after China refused to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine or accept parts of G20’s statement deploring Russia's aggression ‘in the strongest terms’. Moscow said ‘anti-Russian’ countries had ‘destabilised’ the G20 after China’s plan was viewed as pro-Russian. President Zelenskiy will meet China’s president to discuss China’s cease-fire proposal, saying a meeting would be ‘important for world security.’ China's 12-point ‘political settlement’ plan does not require Russia to leave Ukraine and was met with scepticism from Ukraine’s allies. Emmanuel Macron called on Beijing to ‘help us pressure Russia’ to end the war as peace was only possible if ‘Russian aggression stopped, troops withdraw and territorial sovereignty of Ukraine and its people is respected’. Joe Biden said, ‘China as a peacemaker in Ukraine is not rational. Putin's applauding it, so how could it be any good? I've seen nothing in the plan that would benefit anyone other than Russia, if China's plan were followed.’ See also

Researchers, including those from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia, say that lightning-ignited wildfires produce large emissions of carbon, nitrogen oxides and other gases, playing a key role in the climate crisis. Previous studies already found that the global occurrence of lightning flashes may increase due to global heating over land and in the oceanic region of south-eastern Asia. A warming planet could lead to more ‘hot lightning’ strikes in many parts of the world. Hot lightning bolts are much more likely to spark wildfires and the climate crisis could lead to more wildfire-inducing ‘hot lightning’. Lightning strikes of all kinds could increase by 30% by 2100, researchers say,and a new model suggests major ice sheet collapse will happen before the Paris Climate Agreement temperatures are reached.