Globe Trot: Factory collapse survivor didn't dare dream of rescue

The seamstress who survived for 17 days buried inside the Bangladesh garment factory collapse told the BBC: “Even in my wildest dreams I did not imagine I would come out alive.”

The surprise candidacy of former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in Iran’s June 14 presidential race is giving the ruling mullahs a headache.

Reforms to the U.S. overseas food aid program, proposed by the Obama administration, came out of painful experience in Afghanistan, says the former director of USAID and former World Vision executive Andrew Natsios. Natsios is an interesting (and experienced) advocate for reform—essentially buying donated grain overseas rather than insisting it come from U.S. growers—given that World Vision opposes the changes.

A court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced two Christian men—one a Saudi and one from Lebanon—to lashes and prison terms for converting a woman to Christianity and helping her flee the conservative Islamic kingdom, the Saudi Gazette reported on Monday. The conversion was highly publicized in Saudi Arabia beginning last July.

The UN General Assembly is expected to vote today on a resolution calling for a political transition in Syria and condemning President Bashar al-Assad's regime for its escalating use of heavy weapons. It also will call for an investigation into the use of chemical weapons. The resolution is backed by leading Arab states, who are providing support to jihadist militant groups fighting Assad in Syria. Christians on both sides say UN and Western support for these groups is devastating the country’s Christian population.

The death toll in Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), an opposition group, stands at 94,000 people, at least.

A leading clergyman and secretary of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Maiduguri was shot dead this morning in the northeastern city, which is headquarters for the terrorist group Boko Haram.

A fungus is devastating prized coffee beans across Central America.