China: coronavirus update
30 Jan 2020
Please continue to pray for the success of thermal-imaging screening and other airport precautions to contain coronavirus. Over 130 people have died, and the total is rising daily; there are 6,000 confirmed cases, but due to under-reporting the true figure may well be much higher. Pray for those who have unwittingly been in contact with the virus to be discovered by investigating authorities, as only detective searches can bring this epidemic to an end. Currently there is no vaccine for the virus; may God help scientists make an antidote. Pray for His peace to surround the many frustrated people who are subject to limits on travel at home and abroad. Pray for the success of the information programme encouraging hand-washing. Praise God for a 1,000-bed coronavirus hospital , completed after 48 hours of construction, and for an even more ambitious hospital building project due to be completed by Monday. Pray for an equally speedy delivery of protective clothing for healthcare workers. See also
China: Africans trapped in lockdown
30 Jan 2020
With rich countries like the US evacuating their students, Doctor Bakari, a Tanzanian PhD student, has become a leader for hundreds of students from poorer African countries stranded in Wuhan with little chance of escape. Beijing’s expanding influence on the youthful African continent means Africans are the second-largest population of foreign students. Over 4,000 are estimated to be in Wuhan alone. No one knows how long the lockdown will last, or all the ways the virus can spread. Students fear that angering Chinese or their country’s authorities could lead to retribution such as withdrawing scholarships. Kenya’s government had to defend itself against accusations that it was not helping its students. ‘Students don’t have a clue what’s going on’, says Bakari, who is sending updates on social media to 400+ Tanzanian students in Wuhan and hundreds more across China. ‘Together we are one family,’ his association tweeted, encouraging fellow Africans to take precautionary measures.
Israel: peace plan protests
30 Jan 2020
Palestinian terror groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad have rejected Donald Trump’s peace plan which was unveiled on 28 January. Many Palestinians protested in the West Bank, and the US embassy warned of potential terror attacks. The plan calls for a two-state solution with detailed maps of territory showing territory currently under Palestinian control more than doubled, while recognising Israeli sovereignty over major West Bank settlement blocs. Palestine’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, had a rare phone call with Hamas head Ismail Haniyeh in which they agreed to work together against the plan, even though Abbas’s Fatah faction has been at loggerheads with Hamas for over a decade. Palestinian demonstrators at the entrance to Ramallah City burnt tyres, chanting, ‘We will resist the occupier and we announce our rejection of the deal of the century. We won’t accept any substitute for Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state.’ Trump’s plan enshrines Jerusalem as Israel’s ‘undivided’ capital.
Nigeria: the 'leopard unit'
30 Jan 2020
Insecurity in some parts of the country has led people to form their own vigilante units. A reporter writes, ‘Last week, I helped pay a ransom to free the kidnapped wife and two daughters of a friend; they had been held for eight days after being snatched from their home in the northern city of Kaduna. What I did is no longer unusual, and is one of the many stories resulting from insecurity in this vast country. The government is accused of ineffectiveness, and the governors of six states in the south-west of the country have come up with their own plan to set up a security outfit called amotekun (leopard). It will involve employing new security personnel, with the power to arrest and share intelligence and security infrastructure across the states. The plan has riled the national authorities, and led some to accuse the six states of plotting to secede from Nigeria.
South Africa: demobilising ‘child soldier’ gangs
30 Jan 2020
Hanover Park is a violent gangland neighbourhood of unemployed young men where even army deployment failed to stop shootings. Gangsters as young as 12 operate within a contested jigsaw of fiefdoms in the historically ‘coloured’ township - 15-minutes from well-heeled central Cape Town. Mary Bruce points to identical three-storey flats ‘That’s the Ghetto Kids. Over there are the Dollars, and this side are the Americans. They fight everyone.’ A couple of hundred metres towards the taxi rank the ‘turf’ yields the Mongrels and Laughing Boys gangs. Up to 500 youths in Hanover Park could be classed as ‘child soldiers’. Nearly 7,000 people in Hanover Park are active within the myriad street gangs that have their roots in a prison gang culture on the Western Cape that stretches back over 100 years. Pray for ‘Ceasefire’, NGO violence interrupters working to nip trouble in the bud and help gangsters to quit.
Algeria: churches shut down by authorities
30 Jan 2020
Thirteen churches in Algeria have been closed since 2018. Hope Evangelical Church is the latest to be ordered to shut down as the government’s crackdown on houses of worship continues. A 2006 law is being used as a pretext to clamp down on churches, even though the commission it created is yet to meet to consider the requests it has already received. The law requires non-Muslim places of worship be authorised by the National Commission for Non-Muslim Worship. Concern is growing for Algerian Christians, as it is unable or unwilling to fulfil this essential part of its mandate. The government should either reconstitute it entirely, or the law itself should be repealed in order to ensure the right to freedom of religion or belief for religious minorities in the country. Pray for churches to know the Lord's peace, wisdom and guidance in the face of the growing pressure. Pray also that Christians are not discouraged by this fierce campaign against them.
US / Mexico: drug-smuggling tunnels
30 Jan 2020
Since 2015 tunnels have run under the border from Mexico to America. Donald Trump has made building a border wall one of his key priorities to tackle illegal immigration and drug trafficking. On 30 January, US officials said that they had discovered the longest smuggling tunnel ever. Stretching for 1,313m, it had a lift, rail track, drainage, air ventilation systems and high voltage electrical cables. The passageway connected an industrial site in Tijuana to the San Diego area in California. Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, one of the largest drug-trafficking organisations in the world, operates in the area. Its founder and long-time leader, Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, is serving life in prison in Alcatraz. Mexico's murder rate rises annually - 2019 was the bloodiest year on record, with 34,582 killings. Much of the violence is linked to criminal gangs who engage in drug trafficking, kidnappings and extortion of local businesses and farmers. See
Christian doctor secures freedom to pray
23 Jan 2020
Last year we prayed for Christian doctor Richard Scott to be vindicated after a concerted and targeted attack against him by a secularist campaign group was thrown out by the General Medical Council (GMC). In June the National Secular Society registered ‘concern’ with the GMC that the GP was ‘continuing to pray and promote Christianity during consultations in an attempt to convert patients’. However, the GMC has ruled that there was no evidence and that he had done nothing wrong.