Czech aid worker recounts torture by IS convicts in Sudan prison
World Watch Monitor The Czech aid worker released in February, 2017, after being imprisoned for 14 months in Sudan on spying charges has revealed how he was tortured by fellow inmates. Petr Jasek explained at a conference in the US organised by charity Voice of the Martyrs that he was treated like a “slave” during […]
Aid agencies call on Australia to increase foreign aid budget
World Vision Australia is calling on the Australian Government to increase the amount of foreign aid it gives after a report showed it had dropped two places in the latest ranking to 17 out of of 29 wealthy nations. The latest Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report puts Australia’s relative generosity at 19th of the […]
BOOKS: EXPLORING THE NEXUS BETWEEN SACRED SPACES AND DEVELOPMENT
DARREN CRONSHAW looks at a scholarly text on in inter-relationships between faith and development spaces…
Migrant workers prey to modern slavery in UK construction industry, say charities
Thomson Reuters Foundation Modern-day slavery underpins Britain’s construction industry where tens of thousands of European migrants work in dangerous conditions without pay or a proper contract and suffer verbal abuse and beatings, anti-trafficking charities said on Monday. At least a third of London’s 100,000-odd European migrant construction workers from nations including Romania and Poland have […]
Museum tells story of Japan’s hidden Christians
World Watch Monitor A monument in Nagasaki for the 26 Catholics who were executed here for their faith in 1597. PICTURE: Thaths via Flickr; CC 2.0 A museum telling the story of Christian persecution in Japan has opened within the premises of Japan’s oldest standing church in Nagasaki. The facility, located in a former seminary and […]
US: AT “RED LETTER REVIVAL”, LEADERS GIVE VOICE TO EVANGELICALS ON THE MARGINS
JACK JENKINS, of Religion News Service, reports from a gathering of the ‘Red Letter Christians’ in the US…
Major faiths reject use of religious identity for political gain ahead of Indian election
World Watch Monitor Leaders of six major faiths have issued a joint call condemning the use of religion for political ends, ahead of India’s 2019 general election. Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jain, Muslim and Sikh leaders met in the western state of Goa on 5th April to discuss rising communal tensions in several areas of the […]
ROLES
Hi, I’m Paul Clark. PICTURE: Keem Ibarra/Unsplash Actually, I’m also Pastor Paul at school, ‘Reverend Fun’ on YouTube, Dad to my kids, author of the Car Park Parable books, number two on my tennis team, husband to Becky, chief of sinners at my church, straight guy to Hairy the puppet, son to my parents, chief lawn mower […]
ESSAY: HOW CHURCHES ARE MISSING THEIR OPPORTUNITY TO HELP BUILD PEACE IN NORTHERN IRELAND
In an article first published on The Conversation, GLADYS GANEIL and JOHN BREWER, both of Queen’s University Belfast, argue that churches in Northern Ireland are missing an opportunity to engage with the public in the wake of the now 20-year-old Good Friday Agreement…
POSTCARDS: IRAQ’S ASSYRIAN CHRISTIANS – PERSECUTION AND RESURGENCE
ZARA SARVARIAN, in an article first published by World Watch Monitor, reports from Qaraqosh in Iraq where Assyrian Christians are rebuilding their lives…