World

(The Conversation) — Over 300 people were killed and many more injured in an attack on a Sufi mosque in Egypt’s North Sinai region on Friday (Nov. 24). The assault began with a bomb exploding as people were finishing their Friday prayers. As people fled and ambulances arrived, militants opened gunfire on them. It is the deadliest ever attack on civilians in Egypt’s modern history.

This is not the first time a cherished Sufi site and Sufi worshipers have been the target of extremists.

Minority groups currently make up more than three-quarters of the world's stateless population, according to a new United Nations report released on Nov. 3.

NASHVILLE (BP) -- The death toll continues to rise after the deadliest earthquake of 2017 shook the Iran-Iraq border late Sunday (Nov. 12).

More than 450 people have been killed and 7,000 injured in the 7.3-magnitude quake, with major aftershocks continuing to shake the region, extending into Turkey, Kuwait, Pakistan and Lebanon, according to CNN.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia's top court has overturned a law that denied recognition and legal rights to followers of indigenous faiths in a surprise advance for religious freedom in the world's most populous Muslim nation.

(RNS) — Three years ago the so-called Islamic State destroyed the mosque at the site of what many Muslims believe to be the tomb of Jonah, which for centuries drew Muslim and Christian pilgrims to Iraq's second-largest city.

Now that ISIS has been driven from Mosul, Muslim traditionalists say it is imperative to start reconstructing the Mosque of the Prophet Jonah, which had marked the site since the 12th century, along with the ruins of a seventh-century Christian church.

The leading environmental cause of death and illness is pollution, responsible for an estimated 9 million premature deaths in 2015 - 16 percent of all deaths worldwide.

"How much do you know about your favorite cotton T-shirt's journey to your closet?"

This question opened the Department of Labor's annual "Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor" report released last week, emphasizing the importance of monitoring supply chains to ensure that consumers do not unknowingly support worker exploitation and child labor through their daily purchases.

(RNS) — Astonishingly, for three years U.S. government bureaucrats have refused to help endangered religious minority communities like Christians and Yazidis survive the genocide ISIS began in 2014. These communities stand on the brink of extinction.

CHINA (BP) -- China startled Christians by tightening its "choke-hold" on churches there in September, banning Christian education for children and unregistered church worship "as if intending to eliminate all house churches at once," China Aid told Morning Star News.

Russian officials continue to expand the implementation of last year’s new law targeting missionary and evangelistic activities, including into the region of Crimea that Russia snatched from Ukraine in 2014. Analysis by Forum 18 also shows that during the first year of the law — which went into effect on July 20, 2016 after being signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin — officials used the law in 181 cases involving 129 individuals and 52 religious communities.