Wow!: Indian slaves swap life of bondage for a seat in the boardroom at the tea plantation

ANURADHA NAGARAJ, of Thomson Reuters Foundation, reports on how former bonded labourers are finding new lives thanks to ground-breaking initiatives…
Cyntoia Brown-Long to speak at anti-abortion rally held by Archdiocese of Los Angeles

Los Angeles, USRNS To Cyntoia Brown-Long, it’s not just the unborn who need protection and respect, but also the marginalised and forgotten. Since her much-publicized release in August from the Tennessee Prison for Women, where she had been serving a life sentence for killing a man who solicited her for sex at 16, Brown-Long has […]
Open Doors warns of “rise of the surveillance state” as North Korea tops watch list again

RNS Imagine facial recognition technology to get into a house of worship and surveillance cameras inside. Or a “social score” system that awards points for good citizenship – and deducts them for sharing one’s faith, leading to penalties such as limiting where parents can send their children to school. It’s not the plot of a blockbuster […]
Hot and dry Australia could join the ranks of “climate refugees” – US climatologist

Sydney, AustraliaReuters As global temperatures soar, Australia could become so hot and dry that the country’s residents could become climate refugees, US climatologist and geophysicist Michael Mann told Reuters. Australia is in the midst of one of its worst fire seasons on record, with bushfires burning since September and claiming the lives of 28 people, […]
Three Christian teachers killed in north-east Kenya, sources say
Nairobi, KenyaMorning Star News Somali al-Shabaab rebels killed three Christian teachers in north-east Kenya at about 2:30am on Monday, sources said. “One of the attackers said, ‘We cannot allow infidels to teach our children,’ and there and then fired at three teachers as I managed to escape through the window,” a surviving teacher told Morning […]
StrangeSights: Meet Gritter Thunberg; a new pole-sitting record?; and, a nuclear alert that wasn’t

DAVID ADAMS writes about the odder side of life…
Art installation shows the reality of London’s toxic air

London, UK Thomson Reuters Foundation Londoners will be able to see how dirty the British capital’s air is through a public art installation launched on Tuesday, as pressure mounts to tackle the hidden killer. Large air balloons, which change colour to show how much harmful nitrogen dioxide has been measured in the air at sites […]
“No doubt” climate change causing wildfires, experts say as Australia burns

London, UK Thomson Reuters Foundation There is “no doubt” that climate change is increasing the risk of wildfires around the world, researchers said on Tuesday, as Australia’s government faces criticism for denying devastating bushfires are definitively linked to global warming. The government insists there is no direct link between climate change and the fires that […]
LAND RIGHTS: HAITI FARMERS EAGER TO RECEIVE COMPENSATION AFTER “GROUND-BREAKING” DEAL

JACOB KUSHNER, writing for Thomson Reuters Foundation, reports on how farmers have been fighting for their rights in Haiti…
Survey: US Protestant pastors don’t think geopolitical events hasten the Second Coming

RNS A new LifeWay Research survey of Protestant pastors reveals that most don’t believe they can speed up Christ’s return by supporting geopolitical changes mentioned in the Bible, but most predict the world will enter a period of moral decline before Jesus comes back. According to the poll, which was released on Tuesday, only 12 […]