Hundreds of Christians in Syria took to the streets of Damascus on Tuesday to protest the destruction of a Christmas tree in the Christian-majority town of Suqaylabiyah, near Hama, Politico reports. The tree was burned down just over two weeks after the ousting of President Bashar al-Assad by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Islamic insurgent group on December 8.
Five journalists of a television station linked to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a group designated as a “terrorist organization” by Israel, were killed Thursday in an Israeli air strike on their vehicle in Gaza, the network said.
A religious liberty group, Christian schools, and families from the schools are battling the state of Minnesota for banning certain Christian colleges and universities from using a free college credit program, a ruling a senior counsel called “disgraceful.”
As 2025 approaches, America’s fiscal health is in serious trouble with a ballooning federal debt exceeding 100% of the GDP.
An increasing number of mass graves are being discovered in Syria since the brutal rule of dictator Bashar al-Assad came to an end at the hands of the Islamic insurgent group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) on December 8, TRT reports. Last week, an international war crimes prosecutor said the mass grave sites in Syria show Assad had operated the “machinery of death” against anyone he considered an enemy.
Sudanese civilians are dealing with famine in addition to the death, displacement, maiming, and trauma brought on them by the war for power between Sudan’s National Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that broke out in April 2023, Courthouse News reports.
A manhunt was underway Thursday for over 1,500 prisoners who escaped in conflict-stricken Mozambique, where at least 56 people were killed since Monday after earlier Christians were attacked, police and human rights watchers said.
Since their power struggle launched Sudan’s current civil war in April 2023, the Sudanese National Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have destroyed the tentative steps that were taken toward securing religious freedom after the ousting of dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2019, Open Doors reports.
Russia’s leading security service suggested Thursday it had uncovered a plot by Kyiv to kill “senior Defense Ministry officials,” prompting Moscow to fire drones at Ukraine, injuring several people.
Israeli air defenses intercepted a ballistic missile fired by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels early Wednesday, marking the second consecutive night and fourth attack in a week targeting central Israel in an escalating near-nightly pattern. The same day, the Houthis also launched a drone that crashed in an open area near Ashkelon in southern Israel, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
Congress and federal agencies wasted more than $1 trillion of taxpayer money in 2024, according to an analysis published by U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY, who has long called for fiscal responsibility and the end of waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer money.
People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) operatives and spies continue to be arrested in the U.S. The latest include two Chinese spies in California and several arrested in Guam near a U.S. military installation on the same day as an historic live ballistic missile interception test.
Russia launched a large-scale missile attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, ignoring appeals from Pope Francis for a Christmas truce in the war-torn nation and around the world.
Christian churches in Germany are mourning with the loved ones of those who lost their lives or suffered injuries during the terrorist attack on a Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg on Friday, Christian Daily International (CDI) reports.
A beacon of light and hope in a country devastated by war, dozens of newly Christian believers were to be baptized at a special Christmas Day service in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Christian Today (CT) reports.
Dutch King Willem-Alexander urged the Dutch Jewish community on Christmas Day to remain in the Netherlands despite concerns about mounting antisemitism.
An Embraer passenger plane flying from Azerbaijan to Russia crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan on Wednesday with 62 passengers and five crew on board, Kazakh authorities announced, saying that 32 people had survived.
Suriname’s ex-president Desi Bouterse, who was on the run after being convicted for political murders, has died, several Surinamese sources say. He was 79.
Multiple ethnic Montagnard Christian leaders in Vietnam’s Central Highlands region were arrested on December 21 after they began preparing to celebrate Christmas and led congregations in unauthorized worship services, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports.
A Sudanese refugee and Christian mother whose husband stabbed her for leaving Islam and putting her faith in Christ is reported to be standing firm in her new faith despite her family’s ongoing hostility and the challenge of living in a camp for displaced people, Morning Star News (MSN) reports.