On Sunday General Nshimirimana's pick-up was hit by two rockets and sprayed with automatic gunfire - days after President Nkurunziza was declared winner of a controversial election and months of fierce government crackdowns on opposition and an attempted coup. General Nshimirimana was behind the crackdown on protests and foiling the coup attempt. A source in the presidency said, ‘The situation is very serious, the general was essential, we are trying to manage a difficult situation. Our boys want to take revenge. You cannot imagine what the General represented for us.’ Another top pro-Nkurunziza general said, ‘They have declared war and they will see what they get. Then a second assassination on Monday of human rights defender Pierre-Claver Mbonimpa (one of the last remaining human rights activists working during the crisis) has increased risks of a new season of war. Targeted killings have been part of the landscape recently, but none as high-profile as these two, and arms are proliferating among civilians, with shooting through the night in many neighborhoods.

Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn, a leading candidate to head the Labour party, has said former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair should be tried for war crimes over the 2003 Iraq war if evidence shows he broke international law. At the time when Britain joined a US-led invasion of Iraq, despite widespread public opposition, Corbyn organised mass protests against the war. Blair has previously said he had no regrets over the invasion, saying Saddam Hussein was a threat who had to be disarmed or removed. Corbyn said the long-running inquiry into the Iraq invasion needed to tackle unanswered questions about how Blair decided to get involved in the war. Lengthy delays to the publication of the report have frustrated MPs, including David Cameron who on Tuesday urged its independent head, John Chilcot, to set out a timetable for the publication of his findings.

A leading doctor has slammed new guidelines prepared to replace the much-criticised Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP). Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Dr Patrick Pullcino, Professor of Clinical Neuroscience at the University of Kent, says the draft guidelines prepared by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) are even worse than the LCP. Christian Voice reported on the NICE guidelines based on a BBC article which was positive about the development. It seems they were wrong and they say, ‘There can be no doubt the BBC article was based on a press release from NICE, who appear to have put a positive spin on their work, claiming that they were calling for basic daily checks to make sure patients are well hydrated and nourished. We observed this was ‘a radical departure from the LCP.’ NICE went on to say that families would be encouraged to be more closely involved in care if appropriate and safe.

Colin Hart, director of the Christian Institute has said Ofsted and the Department for Education have given ‘inadequate attention’ to the ‘bullying of Christian pupils’. His remarks follow a recent letter from the schools’ chief inspector addressing the issue of schools caught up in the so-called Trojan Horse scandal, which alleged Muslim groups were seeking to gain control of schools in Birmingham. In a letter addressed to the Education Secretary, Mr Hart said it was ‘striking’ that official reports listed explicit examples of anti-Christian intolerance in several schools involved in the scandal but none of these are noted in the Ofsted reports on those schools. He wrote, ‘You will see they include anti-Christian chanting in assemblies, GCSE pupils who opted to learn Christianity being left to teach themselves and Christians being called ‘ignorant’ or ‘liars’ by teachers.’ He went on to say that it was disturbing to witness a ‘complete lack of any specific plans of action to tackle anti-Christian intolerance’.