Open Book: The prisoner’s letter – The church as evidence of God’s handiwork “for all to see”

BRUCE C WEARNE looks at Ephesians 1:15-23 and its parallels in Isaiah…
African slum map exposes true scale of urban poverty

Dakar, Senegal Reuters Urban scientists on Wednesday launched the first digital map of Africa’s sprawl of slums to expose the true scale of urban poverty and bring services to millions of people. The “Million Neighbourhoods” project by a team at the University of Chicago aims to map the whole world – eventually – and become […]
British PM Johnson calls for 12th December election to break Brexit deadlock

London Reuters Prime Minister Boris Johnson called on Thursday for a general election on 12th December to break Britain’s Brexit impasse, conceding for the first time he will not meet his “do or die” deadline to leave the European Union next week. Johnson said in a letter to opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn he would […]
Churches call for an end to violence in Chile and root causes to be addressed
The head of the World Council of Churches has called for an end to the violence in Chile as widespread protests have led to clashes with police in the South American nation. Student protests which started in Santiago earlier this month over a rise in public transport fares quickly widened to include other groups including […]
ON THE SCREEN: ‘BEAUTIFULLY BROKEN’ AN UPLIFTING STORY OF RESTORATION

DAVID ADAMS watches ‘Beautifully Broken’…
Health Insight: Snacking – the modern habit that could be putting your health and waistline at risk
In an article first published on The Conversation, RUTH WHITESIDE, senior lecturer in public health nutrition at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK, looks at the problem with snacking…
Former grand Jerusalem street attributed to Pontius Pilate

A former grand paved street likely used by Jewish pilgrims as they made their way to the Temple in Jerusalem was built by Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea who is recorded in the Bible as washing his hands of of Jesus’ death, according to Israeli archaeologists. A drawing showing the street’s location. GRAPHIC: D […]
Peacebuilding in Somalia – another victim of climate change?
Nairobi, KenyaThomson Reuters Foundation Climate change is hampering peacebuilding in Somalia as droughts and floods strengthen the hand of militants and weaken the power of government, a report said on Wednesday. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said three decades of conflict – coupled with increasingly severe droughts – were posing serious challenges to the […]
Norway at top, Yemen at bottom of rankings for women’s quality of life

New York Thomson Reuters Foundation Norway and Switzerland are the best countries to be a woman and Yemen and Afghanistan the worst, said research on Tuesday which found the state of women’s rights is not “all doom and gloom” around the world. While life for women has improved in some 60 countries, it has deteriorated […]
Finnish church leads campaign calling for a “forgiveness” emoji

The more than 3,000 official emojis capture many concepts in tiny pictograms – everything from happiness to rage to ‘meh’ or the one with the kissing cat. But now there’s a push to add one more – this time capturing the concept of forgiveness. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland is behind the idea – […]