Worldwide
Israel: IDF shuts down ‘terrorist’ TV station
03 Aug 2018
On 31 July a Hamas-affiliated TV station was shut down, and the four Palestinians operating it were arrested. Israel had said Al-Quds TV was a terror organisation, and the four suspects are charged with incitement to…
Golan border: Syria pushes into strategic area
03 Aug 2018
Under the terms of a 1974 UN armistice that demilitarised much of the Golan, Israel withdrew from the capital of Quneitra province which it had captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Now, backed by Russian aircraft,…
Pakistan: poverty and persecution
03 Aug 2018
Pakistan plans to seek its largest ever bailout from the IMF as Imran Khan takes office. The loan is to resolve the country’s escalating foreign reserves crisis. However a loan would see IMF impose restrictions on…
Sri Lanka: ‘They took everything from us’
03 Aug 2018
A Sri Lankan brick-maker is living with death threats after his conversion to Christianity, often seen as a ‘foreign’ religion, even though Christianity arrived in the Indian sub-continent almost two thousand years ago. Nimal is illiterate,…
Laos: dam collapse forces thousands to flee
26 Jul 2018
On 23 July a fault in the structure of a dam in Laos was discovered and alerts went out to evacuate villages downstream as repairs were started, but the dam’s walls broke. Residents took to rooftops…
Global: heatwaves on four continents
26 Jul 2018
Japan's weather agency has declared the heatwave sweeping the country a natural disaster, with 80+ deaths recorded since 19 July and the temperature reaching 41.1C. By 26 July over 22,000 were hospitalised with heatstroke, and the…