‘People were getting sick and dying a lot,’ says Sango. ‘One of my children died from diarrhoea. We could not afford medical care, we sold our mattresses, plates and clothes to pay for medicine and had nothing left to sell. ‘Our children were often ill and couldn’t go to school so we didn’t have time to farm and lost the respect of our community. Our despair turned to joy when Tearfund came and taught the importance of good toilets and washing our hands to prevent diseases, including diarrhoea. We built our first family toilet with a hand washing device. It has been three months since anyone has been ill! We have time and strength to farm and we can eat three meals a day, not just one. Our children are back at school, and after we have harvested our next crop we will buy some clothes.’

The director of MI5 says Iran has plotted the assassination and kidnapping of at least ten British residents it accuses of being ‘enemies of the regime’. A Home Office statement said, ‘You may have seen Ken McCallum’s annual threat update, in which he said that Iran’s instability is bringing real-world consequences here in the UK. It has become the state-actor which most frequently crosses into terrorism, and we see the regime resorting to more and more extreme measures to silence its critics at home. We also see Iran projecting threats directly to the UK through its aggressive intelligence services. We know, at the most extreme end, its ambitions include kidnapping and killing British or UK-based individuals they perceive to be enemies of the regime.’

Heidi Crowter, who has Down's syndrome, lost her appeal over a law allowing abortion up to birth for a foetus with Down’s. Legislation gives a 24-week time limit for abortion unless the child could suffer from physical or mental abnormalities, including Down’s. That law was made in 1967, when Down’s children could not even go to school because of their extra chromosome. Pray for judges to move with the times. Heidi said the rules discriminated against people with Down's and do not respect them. Her original court case against the Government was with Maire Lea-Wilson, mother of a Down’s son; she will now go to the Supreme Court. BPAS argued, ‘The claimants say foetuses should have human rights; this was never decided in UK law and goes against many years of legal precedent.’ 90% of women whose unborn children were diagnosed with Down's terminated their pregnancies in 2022.

Livia Tossici-Bolt was praying quietly with a friend in a public space when she was warned by prayer-patrol officers that ‘their prayer could cause intimidation, harassment or distress’; they were asked to move away. Livia filed a complaint against Bournemouth Council for breaching her freedom to pray on a public street. The officers said they prayed close to the edge of a new buffer zone around an abortion clinic, where a protection order bans praying, protesting, vigils, and handing out leaflets. Ms Bolt said, ‘Everyone has the freedom to pray quietly in a public place. I would never dream of doing something that causes intimidation and harassment. We complied with the new rules instituted by the council and didn’t pray within the censorship zone. They tried to intimidate us out of exercising our freedom of thought and of expression in the form of prayer - which has been a foundational part of our society for generations.’