The real-time resurrection underway in Iraq

IRAQ: Without government funding or guarantees on security, Iraqi Christians are determined to rebuild and resettle communities devastated by Islamic State militants. It’s an inspiring story of a sprawling, highly organized, church-initiated relief effort. Read more in my cover story in the latest issue of WORLD Magazine.

FRANCE: Here’s a lesson in why straight reporting is better than politically correct reporting. On Tuesday, French authorities charged two men, a Muslim man and his homeless friend, in the death of Jewish Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll, an 85-year-old grandmother stabbed 11 times and burned in her apartment last Friday. On Wednesday, The New York Times reported thousands turned out for Knoll’s funeral. It mentioned the suspects as a neighbor and a homeless friend, and said, “French authorities have suggested that Ms. Knoll might have been the target of a theft that escalated, for reasons that remain unclear.”

Accurate details about the neighbor, well-known to Knoll’s family, already had been widely reported in French and Israeli media. The Times account downplays why French authorities are treating it as one in a string of anti-Semitic killings. The failure to identify alleged killers makes it awkward also to report good turns: At Knoll’s funeral, an Israeli reporter spotted Lassana Bathily, the African-born Muslim man who hid Jewish victims inside a kosher grocery store during the 2015 Paris terror attacks. Donning a yarmulke, Bathily took a seat on the back row and later was crowded by Jews wanting to thank him.

SUDAN: Assailants murdered a church pastor, his wife, and two daughters in Darfur, the western region known primarily for the government’s campaign against its mostly Muslim inhabitants. Pastor Stephen Toms Abur, himself a convert, pastored a church of Muslim converts.

CHINA: According to WORLD Magazine’s June Cheng, authorities are forcibly closing Bafu Christian School in Beijing and have arrested the church pastor who started the school. According to China Aid’s Bob Fu, “Forty riot police showed up taking the tables and bookshelves and throwing them out on the street. They barred entrance to the school, and parents and church members ‘protested’ by singing hymns outside the school.” Earlier, Fu gave the BBC an overview of China’s crackdown, “a new kind of Cultural Revolution under President Xi.”

PERU: New President Martin Vizcarra will continue to ban Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from attending the Summit of the Americas next month. Vizcarra replaced President Pablo Kuczynski, who stepped down last week ahead of an impeachment vote.

RUSSIA is responding in quid pro quo–style to round-the-world expulsions of its diplomats, throwing out 150, including 60 Americans (the same number the United States expelled earlier this week), over the poisoning of spy Sergei Skripal.

OBITS: The New York Times’ new series “Overlooked,” compensating for years of white male–dominated obits, features Korean Yu Gwan-sun, a missionary school student and early Presbyterian who helped launch Korea’s move for independence from imperial Japan a century ago. Known as the “Joan of Arc of Asia,” Yu was tortured and died in prison. South Korean textbooks also have overlooked her role in history.

GOOD FRIDAY: From around Europe, BBC Radio brings concerts for Holy Week, and from WORLD Radio’s archives, a reading from John 18 and 19. In the world you may have tribulation, Jesus said, “But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

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