World

(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.

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.