Syria

• Will Syrian refugees return home? The UK Government has made “diplomatic contact” with the rebel group that toppled the Assad regime in Syria, also announcing £50 million of humanitarian aid for Syria. Many European countries are suspending all Syrian asylum applications and placing active cases under review. Meanwhile, Austria is offering Syrian refugees a "return bonus" of 1,000 euros to move back to their home country. But many Syrian migrants say the prospect of returning to their war-torn homeland remains too dangerous. Those at Calais say they will still make the crossing to Britain despite Assad being toppled because the UK “has work and everything we need”. Despite this, the UN believes that around one million Syrian refugees are expected to return to their home country between January and June 2025.
• Syria says it ‘will not go against Christians’. Syria’s de facto leader insists that his new Islamic government is not a threat to either its neighbours or to the West, and that Syria will not be used as a launchpad for attacks against Israel. Further, his group have made assurances to church leaders in Syria that they will not go against Christians. Christians in the war-torn nation say they are both cautiously optimistic and fearful. Many are aware that Islamist rebels in Syria have a history of persecuting Syrian Christians (while, as for Jews, there are reported to be only three left in the entire country). “We have no reason to trust al-Jolani,” said one Christian. “He is a terrorist.”
• Jihadist double-speak. The Syrian rebel leader is also quoted as saying: “When we build the Islamic caliphate, Christians will pay jizya under Islamic sharia”. And he has apparently promised to create a morality police to ensure Sharia law will be kept to the fullest. Some vehicles used by the rebels feature stickers saying, “Your time has come, worshippers of the cross”. Although al-Jolani is saying all the right things to the Western media, Some Christians worry about what will happen when the world isn’t watching anymore.

Sudan

• Sudan faces worst humanitarian crisis ever recorded. Sudan is “collapsing” c/o UNHCR/Ala Kheiras it faces the “fastest” and “biggest” humanitarian crisis ever documented, according to aid agency the International Rescue Committee (IRC). The country’s collapse is accelerating as a brutal civil war, fuelled by outside powers (Russian guns, Iranian drones), devastates civilians. Shockingly, the crisis there has displaced more people (14.6 million) and left more people in humanitarian need (30.4 million) than any other crisis since records began. An estimated 61,000 people have been killed since the war began in April 2022. The IRC placed Sudan at the top of its Emergency Watch List for 2025, followed by Palestine, Myanmar, Syria and South Sudan. Astonishingly, the world’s media is largely ignoring this humanitarian catastrophe.
• Displaced Sudanese Christians face persecution and starvation. Christians, who already cope with intense persecution in this Islamic nation, are said to be “in desperate need of assistance” as their supplies of food and water run dangerously low. Little or no humanitarian aid is reaching them. A refugee camp in Darfur is said to be overflowing with more than 500,000 displaced people – with low supplies of food and water. Churches have also reported human rights violations such as rape, kidnap and looting. The hostility facing Christians is particularly acute outside the capital, Khartoum. Many Christians have been attacked indiscriminately in areas such as Darfur, the Blue Nile, and the Nuba Mountains region, where government forces and rebel groups are in conflict.

Israel / Gaza

• Hamas vastly inflated Gaza death statistics, study shows. The number of civilians killed in the Gaza conflict has been inflated to portray Israel as deliberately targeting innocent people, a study by thinktank the Henry Jackson Society claims. The findings are damning. Hamas’ inflated figures fail to distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths (17,000 deaths were Hamas fighters), over-reported fatalities among women and children (some men were wrongly recorded as women) and even included individuals who died before the conflict began. Hamas statistics also include around 5,000 natural deaths, which would have happened even without the conflict. The casualty figures also failed to distinguish between Gazans killed by the IDF and those killed by misfired Hamas rockets or during the distribution of food aid. Further, victims’ ages were often revised downwards by at least one year, in an attempt to inflate the number of children recorded as killed. Most significantly, it transpires that the lion’s share of deaths in Gaza involved those of fighting-aged men.
• Media uncritically accepts Hamas’ propaganda. Despite Hamas’s flawed figures of over 45,000 Gazans killed by Israel, the HJS report found that of 1,378 articles published over a 4 month period, in spring 2024, in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian, CNN, the BBC, Reuters, the Associated Press and the Australian ABC, a full 84% did not bother to distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths. A shockingly low 5% of publications released any numbers from the Israelis, while 98% – basically all – exclusively published the Hamas Ministry of Health figures. As of time of writing, neither the BBC nor The Guardian has reported the study’s findings. All this, of course, is not to downplay the thousands of civilian deaths that truly have occurred - each one a tragedy for the families concerned.

Christmas Cheer

• King Charles approves Christmas outreach events. A nationwide Christmas campaign involving 100,000 Christians in over 1,000 locations received a personal endorsement from His Majesty. It follows endorsements of the campaign from politicians across the spectrum; as local churches and organisations took their carol concerts and nativity events outside church buildings and into high streets, shopping centres, town halls, care homes and even prisons.
• 1,600 year old coffin of ‘Santa Claus’ discovered. The recent discovery of a limestone coffin at the Church of St Nicholas in Antalya, Turkey is believed to be the original burial site of Saint Nicholas—the 4th-century bishop whose life inspired the Santa Claus legend. Saint Nicholas gained popularity hundreds of years after his death and the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II constructed a grand church in his honour at the very same site. Archaeologists hope to find an inscription on the coffin, confirming its occupant’s identity and dating.

Society and Politics

• Britain the 'western capital' for sharia law courts. Britain has emerged as the ‘western capital’ for sharia courts, with 85 Islamic councils now operating across the country since the first was established in 1982. The councils, typically consisting of panels of Islamic scholars who are almost always male, serve as informal bodies issuing religious rulings particularly focused on marriages and divorces. An estimated 100,000 Islamic marriages have been conducted in Britain, with many not officially registered with civil authorities. Muslim women need Sharia courts to obtain a religious divorce. Muslim men do not, because they can unilaterally divorce their wife.
• UK Sharia's 'polygamy plan'. Polygamy is so normalised under UK Sharia law that an app for the creation of Islamic wills for those living in England and Wales has a drop-down menu for men to say how many wives they have (between one and four). The app, reportedly approved by a sharia court, gives daughters half as much inheritance as sons. In addition to this, one of the most popular matrimonial apps for British Muslims has an option where male users can state their “polygamy plan” – whether they will seek a second wife or intend to stick with one.

Bite-Size News

• The role of Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion and Belief has been reinstated, which acts as a kind of conscience to Parliament. The post was created in the last Parliament with cross-party support and held by Fiona Bruce until she lost her seat in the General Election.
• Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the Conservative Party, has revealed that while she once held a belief in God, she no longer does – but she does not consider herself an atheist, identifying instead as “agnostic” and a “cultural Christian".
• Following a BBC investigation, former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey has resigned, surrendering his permission to officiate. The investigation showed that in the 1980s, Carey had advocated for an alleged child abuser, David Tudor, to return to priesthood (under certain conditions). Tudor was only sacked this year, after admitting the offences.

Archaeology

• Mysterious amulet discovery could rewrite Christian history. Archaeologists in Frankfurt have uncovered the oldest physical evidence of Christianity in northern Europe: a 1,750 year-old amulet containing a minuscule silver scroll inscribed with praise to Jesus Christ. The amulet was discovered during excavations of a Roman-era grave that dates between 230 and 270 AD. It is believed the amulet was worn by a Christian man, on a cord around his neck. At the time, the Roman Empire controlled the Frankfurt region, making the open practice of Christianity dangerous. The inscription reads; “Holy! Holy! Holy! In the name of Jesus Christ, Son of God. … Protect the man who surrenders himself to the will of the Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, since before Jesus Christ every knee bows.” The sensational find marks the oldest evidence of Christianity north of the Alps.

Church Issues

• Christian TV Network rocked by child sex abuse allegations. Over the past few weeks, Daystar Television Network — one of America’s biggest Christian TV empires founded by Marcus and Joni Lamb — has been making headlines over a shocking controversy involving the family-run organisation. Lamb’s son, Jonathan, and his wife, Suzy, allege their young daughter was molested by a family member and that Jonathan’s mother Joni Lamb – now president of Daystar – tried to cover-up the horrific ordeal (Marcus Lamb died of Covid in 2021). The shocking allegations come amid a dispute over leadership changes within Daystar. Jonathan had served as a vice president but was demoted in April after purportedly declining to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Daystar faced an earlier major scandal in 2010 which was also allegedly covered up.

World Events

• Cemetery gospel outreach in Manila. Around 500 homeless families (2,500 people) make North Cemetery in Manila - one of the biggest and oldest in the Philippines - their home. Every Sunday afternoon, Christian ministry Commission to Every Nation conducts a ‘gospel and compassionate care’ outreach to those living among the tombs. Fifteen Christian workers from the ministry team work with about 50 adults and 70 children weekly. The team serves a meal and then conducts an evangelistic twelve-week Bible study. After the 12 weeks, they begin ministry with another 50 families. CtEN, along with several other Christian ministries, have had great success among both children and their parents.
• Sharp rise in violence against Christians in Mexico. Violence against Christians in Mexico has “reached its peak", with 10 Catholic priests and a seminary student being murdered, and seven bishops and seven additional priests being violently attacked in the last six years, while nearly 900 church members faced threats and extortion, according to a new report. Meanwhile, 26 religious buildings were attacked during that time. Such violence has been a growing trend over several decades, caused by such issues as impunity, corruption and the proliferation of violent organised criminal groups involved in the international trafficking of human beings, weapons and drugs – all of which has made Mexico one of the most dangerous countries in the world to work as a Catholic priest. Evangelicals in Mexico have also faced persecution in recent years.

Covid and the Vaccines

Further concerns continue to be raised in regard to mRNA vaccines, still in widespread use. These include:-

• Thousands of doctors and healthcare professionals have signed a petition calling for the immediate suspension of all COVID-19 mRNA products because they are contributing to an alarming rise in disability and excess deaths.
• Four new studies show that vaccinated individuals face a higher risk of infection than the unvaccinated.
• A new study finds that Pfizer-vaccinated children are 159% more likely to be infected with Covid and 257% more likely to develop symptomatic Covid-19 than their unvaccinated peers.
• A Substack article shines a spotlight on Pfizer’s secret study, exposing alarming risks of adverse events from their Covid vaccine – risks they’d rather you never saw. Read also about the hidden Pfizer report that shows heart conditions in the vaccinated getting worse over time.
• Emails released under Freedom of Information reveal that senior staff at Australia's drugs regulator knew mRNA vaccines can enter the cell nucleus and integrate into the genome, despite the official line that such events are not possible. 
• Since 2021 Asian countries – which were praised for their pandemic response in 2020 – have seen soaring death rates (as, too, has the UK).