Asia
India: trafficking networks hidden in communities
IJM supported Mumbai authorities in rescuing five girls and young women from a small, cluttered apartment where they were being repeatedly sold for sex. Police have also arrested a 35-year-old woman suspected of…
Global: mothers speak out on climate change
From the vanishing Solomon Islands to the burning Amazon rainforest, mothers speak up from danger zones. Alice, in Brazil, fears for her two-month-old son: ‘It is hotter than when I was a child,…
Persian Gulf: Operation Sentinel launched
Large navy vessels will watch at chokepoints while smaller vessels will patrol key transit lanes, and airborne assets will monitor traffic in the Persian Gulf. This stems from a new coalition officially launched…
Hong Kong: student casualties
Chow, a university student, fell from the third floor of a car park while fleeing tear gas and suffered a significant brain injury as a result. A third-year journalism student, surnamed Tang, was…
Saudi Arabia: punishing cost of change
Human Rights Watch reported on 4 November that important social reforms enacted under Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman have been accompanied by deepening repression and abusive practices meant to silence dissidents and…
Syriac Christian community
In the northeast of Syria, in a number of cities and their surrounding villages, a renaissance is under way in the area’s beleaguered Syriac Christian community, which is attempting to revive the Syriac…
North Korea / USA / Iran: nuclear programmes
South Korea’s national intelligence service told a closed-door parliamentary audit session that it expected working-level denuclearisation talks between Kim and Trump to resume by early December. As recently as 31 October Kim test-fired…
Chinese officials demolish megachurch and arrest leaders
Chinese Christians in Anhui are said to be ‘outraged’ after their state-registered megachurch was demolished and their pastors arrested. Demolition work (pictured) began at Funan County Christian Church on Friday, partway through a…
Vietnam: Phuc, poverty and prayers
Prime minister Phuc has asked the public security and foreign ministries to investigate the trafficking of Vietnamese citizens into foreign countries after 39 people died in a refrigerated truck in Essex. Vietnam’s UK…
Syria: al-Baghdadi’s ugly legacy
In 2014 Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the establishment of an Islamic caliphate and that the world’s Muslims owed him their allegiance as ‘Caliph Ibrahim.’ It was an attempt to establish Islamic sovereignty across…
