‘Caring for the environment is not an optional extra’, the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Williams said at the launch of a scheme to encourage churches to prioritise green concerns. He said that looking after God’s creation was inextricably part of all Christians’ responsibility to their brothers and sisters worldwide, especially those living in poverty. The Eco Church initiative is backed by the Church of England, the Methodist Church, the United Reformed Church, Christian Aid, Tearfund and others who question whether we want to pass on a liveable world to our children and grandchildren. Some in the Church would argue that they could not afford the time or money to consider ecological concerns. Lord Williams’s response is that we cannot afford not to. The Eco Church website provides a survey to see how environmentally aware churches are in areas of worship, teaching, buildings, land, community and lifestyle. See also

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was arrested in 2010 under a Swedish-issued European arrest warrant for the crime of rape. He claimed asylum inside the Ecuadorian embassy, after the UK Supreme Court ruled that he should be deported to Sweden on charges of sexual molestation. Today, a UN panel has stated that Assange is being arbitrarily detained; he should be allowed to go free and compensated. However, the Foreign Office say that the panel’s ruling is not binding, and it intends to contest it formally. Previous such rulings have gone against countries with some of the world's worst human rights records, such as Saudi Arabia, Myanmar and Egypt. So this decision against Sweden and Britain in favour of Mr Assange is controversial.

Across the nations, people are crossing barriers to proclaim the crucified and risen Christ and are expressing His love and compassion among those who live and die without Him. SIM is just one of many mission agencies. Originally known as Sudan Inland Mission, in the 1980s SIM joined other mission agencies and became known as ‘Serving in Mission’ .It has 4,000+ workers in 70+ countries serving God among many diverse people groups in every continent. These workers are an international community of seventy nationalities, in a wide variety of career fields. Please pray for more peoples with a variety of skills and who love Jesus to be willing to use their skills on a ministry team in a foreign country. Pray for more Christ-centred churches to be birthed. Pray for those working together with established churches to fulfil God’s mission across cultures locally and globally.

The Zika virus, already common in parts of Africa and Asia and linked with hundreds of severe birth defects, is now spreading with alarming speed in the Americas. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has now declared this an international public health emergency ‘of alarming proportions’, requiring a coordinated international response. Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff has issued a decree allowing public officials to enter abandoned or empty homes, by force if necessary, to eradicate the breeding grounds of the Aedes mosquito (which carries the virus). The officials will carry out educational campaigns and create public guidelines. They will target the mosquito breeding grounds in the north-eastern states, whose governors attended a teleconference with the president on Friday, along with the governors of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo states. After the teleconference Rousseff admitted that Brazil is ‘losing the fight against Aedes’ but vowed that it will not lose the war.

Amid the scare over the mosquito-borne Zika virus, which has been declared an international public health emergency by WHO, scientists in Hyderabad say they have developed not one but two vaccines, using a live Zika virus imported officially. This is claimed to be the world's first vaccine for the virus, which is spreading rapidly in Latin America. WHO officials have expressed concern that Zika could hit Africa and Asia as well. Dr Krishna Ella, chairman and MD of Bharat Biotech Ltd, said, ‘On Zika, we were probably the first vaccine company in the world to file a vaccine candidate patent (about nine months ago).’ Dr Soumya Swaminathan, director general of the Indian Council of Medical Research, said that they would investigate the feasibility of taking it forward and that the vaccine could be a good example of a 'Made in India' product.

Legally registered churches are under attack while illegal house churches are being invited into official dialogue. Is China heading for another Mao-era persecution or opening up to religious freedom? With conflicting signals across a range of social, economic and political issues, nothing is certain. There is, however, reason for optimism: the gospel is alive and something must happen. Gu Yuese has served as the senior pastor at China’s largest government-approved Protestant church, a megachurch with ten thousand members. He has also held a leadership role in China’s state-approved denomination, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM). In January the TSPM and China Christian Council forcibly removed Gu from his Church in a move to ‘move one step closer towards the proper self-construction and management of church locations’ and sort out the relationship between the province and the two municipal Christian organisations. Gu was arrested and sent to a ‘black’ jail (a facility falling outside the established penal system) where he is undergoing a criminal investigation.

Last weekend, Boko Haram burned children alive in Nigeria, and IS bombed schoolchildren in Syria. Homes were reduced to piles of ashes and left smouldering in the Nigerian village of Dalori following a Boko Haram rampage. For four hours heavily armed gunmen and at least three suicide bombers attacked, setting much of the village aflame. Children were burned alive in their huts. Two nearby refugee camps were also attacked. Nigerian army troops arrived, but were outmanned and outgunned by terrorists. 3,000 miles away, IS detonated two suicide car bombs in a neighbourhood south of Damascus protected by Hezbollah. As people gathered to help dead and injured children, an IS terrorist wearing a suicide vest set off another blast. 45 were killed and 110 wounded.

Three Christian students went on trial yesterday in Egypt for allegedly insulting Islam. A thirty-second video, filmed by their teacher, showed one student kneeling to pray while reciting verses from the Qu’ran and two others standing behind him laughing. One student ran his hand under the praying student’s chin, as if beheading him. At the time of writing this article, the outcome of the trial is not yet known; however, the teacher has already been sentenced to three years in prison. Coptic Christians have long complained of the injustices they have suffered in this predominantly Muslim country. Christians make up 10% of Egypt’s population. Egypt’s president Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has vowed to crack down on extremism and to get rid of harsh blasphemy laws, but such blasphemy charges have increased in recent months.

Christians are facing atrocities not only from the so-called Islamic State but also 45 other different terrorist groups in Syria ;some are linked with Al-Qaeda. Since 2011 it has been clear that terrorist groups have wanted to take over and create an ‘Islamic state’. Their actions affect Muslims and the infrastructure of society as well as Christians, but Christians are worst affected. Churches were not prepared to deal with persecution or oppression and did not know how to respond, but they are catching up rapidly. At least five church networks in Syria are very involved with humanitarian aid to both Christians and non-Christians in their areas. Caring for people of other faiths was not a priority before, but now social action and evangelism are going hand in hand. Most churches are now reaching out with aid and education services for the displaced, the poor and those impacted by war. Social action is becoming a priority.

On Tuesday, justice secretary Michael Gove said his Christian faith informs his prison policies, telling critics, ‘I believe in redemption’. He was rejecting criticism from Philip Davies, who sits on the justice committee. ‘It's because I’m a Conservative I believe in the rule of law as the foundation stone of our civilisation. It's because I'm a Conservative I believe that evil must be punished. But it's because I'm a Conservative and a Christian that I believe in redemption. The purpose of our prison system is to keep people safe by making people better.’ Since May he has removed the ban on prisoners receiving books and also scrapped the criminal courts charge. He has also ditched a ministry of justice contract that would have meant the UK government was involved in constructing Saudi Arabian prisons.