Boko Haram slaughtered more than eighty people in a series of attacks the week after President Buhari suggested his army had ‘technically won the war.’ The Global Terror Report 2015 places Nigeria third on their list of 124 countries, and says that Boko Haram are ‘deadlier than IS, having killed more people’. Buhari had previously vowed to drive out the terror group from the country by December. He now suggests they have ‘technically’ been defeated as they revert to using improvised explosive devices and indoctrinating children. Meanwhile a refugee camp with 2,500 temporary homes for refugees fleeing Boko Haram now hosts close to one million. 2.5 million people have been internally displaced due to Boko Haram's various attacks. Reports suggest that women have been forced to carry out suicide bombings for the terrorists, who have become notorious for kidnapping thousands of women and girls from towns and villages.

Iraq dispatched its foreign minister to Tehran on Wednesday with an offer to mediate in an escalating feud between Saudi Arabia and Iran after Sunni Saudi Arabia executed Shi'ite Nimr al-Nimr because he complained that Shi'ites were marginalised and called for the overthrow of the Saudi royal family. Nimr’s execution infuriated Iran, the region's main Shi'ite Muslim power and inflamed sectarian anger to rise higher across the Middle East. Demonstrators sacked the Saudi embassy in Iran, and Shi’ite countries cut off diplomatic ties with Iran. Sunni-led Saudi Arabia and Shi'ite-led Iran have been fighting proxy wars in the region for generations. The Saudis have led a coalition of Shi'ite Houthi rebels in Yemen, resulting in devastation and starvation (see above). Shi'ite Iran backs Syria's President Assad against the Sunni rebels in that country's five-year civil war. Saudi Arabia is number 12, and Iran number 7 on the World Watch List of the worst persecutors of Christians.

Homes are without power, food supplies cannot enter the area, and medical facilities have been bombed or closed. Since November heavy fighting in the central Yemeni city of Taiz has forced more than 30 hospitals and medical facilities to close. Doctors face an acute shortage of supplies, and the humanitarian situation worsens daily. The UN World Food Programme appealed to all parties in the conflict to allow food in for hundreds of thousands of hungry people under siege and deprived of supplies for many weeks. 22 governorates are experiencing food insecurity at ‘emergency’ level (one step below famine on the five-point Integrated Food Security Phase Classification scale), in a country where factional fighting in 2015 killed or wounded thousands of people and displaced 2.5 million others. Pray for the 7.6 million Yemenis who do not have enough food to lead a healthy life, have lost livelihoods, and face acute life-threatening malnutrition. See also: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-35236572

In Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Bolivia more than 160,000 people were displaced over the last few days of December by the heaviest floods to hit South America in 50 years. The year 2015 was the warmest on record globally. In the media, a lot of attention has been given to the many floods, droughts, wildfires and heatwaves that have battered countries this year. Little attention is given to the Arctic - where global warming is felt most strongly. Temperatures at the North Pole rose to above freezing point at the end of 2015; that’s more than 30 degrees higher than average. Last month 150 world leaders met at the COP21 climate summit and shook hands on the Paris Agreement. We can continue to pray through this year that countries will implement comprehensive and effective remedies to climate change. See also article 1 in the British Isles section, and go to http://arctic-news.blogspot.co.uk/