Christian family gunned down in Pakistan

PAKISTAN: Islamic State (ISIS) has claimed responsibility for the murders of four members of a Christian family in Quetta on Easter Monday. Gunmen ambushed the relatives, killing three men and one woman and injuring a 12-year-old girl as they were on their way to visit family in a heavily Christian area of the city.

SYRIA: Airstrikes carried out by Turkish air forces during the past month’s capture of Afrin in Syria have destroyed ancient Byzantine monasteries and churches dating back to the earliest centuries of Christianity. Despite assertions by advisers to U.S. President Donald Trump that Turkey is aiding in the spread of radical Islamist ideology, U.S. military aid to Turkey continues, and the United States officially (according to this January fact sheet) regards Turkey as an “important U.S. security partner” and “vital member of the Counter-ISIL Coalition.”

CHINA: A dramatic crackdown on a Christian school in Beijing—where one parent was beaten so severely he could not walk—shows the pressure President Xi Jinping’s regime is exerting on believers. WORLD Magazine’s June Cheng writes:

“When I reported on church schools in 2015, the movement was starting to take off, with about 300 to 500 schools in the country. Yet since the Chinese government implemented new religious regulations in February, church schools are facing greater persecution and finding it more difficult to stay open.”

BAHRAIN: In 1932, Bahrain became the first nation to pump oil in the Gulf region, and Wednesday it announced the discovery of 80 billion barrels of shale oil, its largest oil and gas find ever.

BRAZIL: Apartment 164-A in the beachfront Solaris building is at the heart of the spiraling corruption scandal that brought down Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—and it’s not so hot. What’s significant about the ongoing proceedings against Lula and his successor, Dilma Rousseff, who was impeached in 2016, is that they demonstrate Brazil’s increasingly independent judiciary and maturing rule of law. Rousseff will speak at the University of California, Berkeley, on April 16.

UNITED STATES: Fifty years ago today, I stood by our living room sofa watching the evening news and asked my parents what was an “assassination.” Those of us who came of age in that tumultuous time still can reflect on King’s historic impact, his final speech, and livestream the MLK50 Conference featuring prominent African-American and white church leaders.

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