Hurricane Harvey has overwhelmed residents of Texas and Louisiana. The situation is unprecedented, and potential impacts are currently unknown. Pray for God's strength and stamina for the local search and rescue teams and the 24,000 National Guard deployed to recover the many thousands trapped in homes and torrential channels of floodwater. Pray for God’s peace and provision for weary refugees who have survived life-threatening winds and flooding, taking refuge in makeshift shelters, many having lost everything. Pray for the officials coping with a unique human crisis that is beginning to unravel; these communities will take years to rebuild. At the time of writing people have been enduring misery for seven days, they are running out of food and water and medical needs are overwhelming. But ‘love your neighbour’ community camaraderie is high - see this week’s Praise article 1.

Social injustice occurs nationally, regionally and locally from unequal wealth and resource distribution, and unfair treatment of individuals of differing race or culture with laws that support exclusion. On 25 August an indigenous people living on Peru's largest oil-field concession threatened to block the government from accessing their territories, and to halt production unless a rights law is implemented within twenty days. They fear big oil concerns taking and destroying their homes while unequal government regulation considers profit of more value than people. The so-called ‘prior consultation law’, passed in 2011, requires the Peruvian government to seek free, prior and informed consent from indigenous groups before approving any development plans which might affect them. Tribal leaders accuse the government of refusing to carry out the consultation process while it negotiates a new thirty-year contract for Block 192 in the Peruvian Amazon with a Canadian firm whose current agreement expires in August.

Former defence chief General Sir Richard Barrons says the rise of military ‘killer robots’ is almost inevitable. He stated, ‘The advantages of artificially intelligent war machines that can make decisions, learn and open fire without human control will see countries face growing pressure to adopt the technology, despite ethical misgivings.’ In his opinion a proactive international ban, such as the one called for by technology experts recently, is likely to be flouted by unscrupulous countries. He spoke after over a hundred technology leaders wrote an open letter calling the UN to outlaw ‘lethal autonomous weapons’, the use of which will lead to more civilian casualties and abuses. On 27 August the Bishop of Oxford discussed the ethical implications of Artificial Intelligence on Radio 4. To listen, go to

On 29 August North Korea launched a missile over Japan, saying that it was ‘the first step’ of military operations in the Pacific. State media also repeated threats to the US Pacific island of Guam, which it called ‘an advanced base of invasion’. Russia and China said that US military activity in the region was partly to blame for the increase in tensions. BBC correspondent Jonathan Marcus reported, ‘Launching a rocket over Japanese territory, with the possibility that it could deposit debris on Japanese soil, shows that Pyongyang is intent on maintaining its brinkmanship. However, it is noteworthy that North Korea did not make good on its threat to direct a missile towards the US Pacific territory of Guam - something that might well have precipitated a US military response.’ See also British Isles article 4, ‘Theresa May on North Korea’.