World

DAPCHI, Nigeria (BP) -- As many as 101 Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram terrorists Feb. 19 are still missing after state government officials admitted to falsely announcing many of the girls' rescue.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (RNS) — The sound of running water, once considered soothing, now triggers anxiety in drought-stricken Cape Town, where residents are hoarding bottled water and showering over buckets in anticipation of “Day Zero.” 

Ongoing violence in South Sudan is projected to result in "Africa's largest refugee crisis since the mid-1990s," the United Nations announced on Feb. 1.

(RNS) — Four powerful and irreversible forces are rapidly transforming the Jewish and Christian worlds.

But many leaders in both communities are unable or unwilling to recognize these new changes.

(RNS) For the 16th year in a row, North Korea tops the list of 50 countries ranked for the worst persecution of Christians in the world, according to the Christian watchdog organization Open Doors USA.

Fireworks, church celebrations and octopus dumplings are some of the ways countries around the world marked New Year's Eve in descriptions and images gathered by The Associated Press' writers and photographers.

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Two suicide bombers struck a church in Pakistan on Sunday, killing nine people and wounding more than 50 others, authorities said, in the first attack on a church claimed by the country's Islamic State group affiliate.

The supply chain ethics of 20 leading electronics and jewelry companies were ranked based on conflict-free mineral sourcing from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in an Enough Project report released on Nov. 16.

Conflict-free minerals, the report explained, "do not directly or indirectly finance or benefit armed groups, including state military units from Congo as well as other predatory regional governments."

(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.