New events

North Africa

Algeria: to resume flights to Libya, re-open embassy.
Chad: An uncertain future on the shores of Africa’s vanishing lake (NatGeo)
Libya: Africa’s new slave trade: from Sahara to Libya
… ‘how migrants flee poverty to get sucked into a world of violent crime’
Morocco: China to build the tallest building in Africa in Morocco
… Morocco’s Christian Converts emerge from the shadows (AFP)

West Africa

Inside West Africa’s vanishing voodoo rituals.
C African Republic: “Christian militias kill 30 around Bangassou.”
Guinea: town’s unrest a cautionary tale for African mining [and for stability] Guinea-Bissau: UN Security Council ready to act if political crisis worsens
Nigeria: Christians return to northeast as Boko Haram faces pressure.
… ‘Too soon to close camps for Boko Haram’s displaced’

East Africa/Horn:

Eritrea: Refugee: The Eritrean Exodus video.
Ethiopia: How long can Ethiopia’s state of emergency last?
… Uneasy peace and simmering conflict: the town where three flags fly
Somalia: The security crisis. Cholera compounds famine. Interethnic clashes.
Sudan: White Nile state now hosts 140,000 S Sudan refugees
S Sudan: Inside Africa’s largest refugee crisis.

West Asia/Gulf

Christians, in an Epochal Shift, are leaving the Middle East (AINA, graph)
The Time of the Kurds: a CFR Infoguide Presentation
Iraq: ISIS has only 12 square kilometers left in Mosul, according to the army.
… ReliefWeb current report on humanitarian crisis in Mosul: 668,846 displaced
Lebanon: the growing marijuana production in Lebanon.
Saudi Arabia: Just how stable is the kingdom?
… Overhaul: Unofficial guardianship rules banned: but HRW says it doesn’t go far enough
Syria: In case you need it, an explainer on the main factions in the civil war.
Turkey: US arming Kurds could complicate relations: affect on visas?

South Asia

How shrines helped indigenise Islam and Christianity in South Asia
Afghanistan: The deadly poppy harvest is on the rise again.
Bangladesh: “Thousands of Bangladeshi Muslims choosing Jesus over Allah“
Iran: The Kingmaker in Iran’s Presidential Election: Khatami matters most
… the antiestablishment vote tends to dominate Iranian elections …
India: Two gang rapes show India still struggling with women’s safety.
… few cases make it to the court system.
Nepal: To vote in elections for first time in two decades
Pakistan: Escalating crackdown on Internet dissent
… ‘warning against sharing ‘blasphemous’ content on social media, asking people to report’
… Pakistani children are being taught Chinese: expecting an influx of 20k Chinese expats
… ‘We have to learn Chinese and communicate with Chinese people…’

East Asia

China: Quietly releases draft of tough new intelligence law.
… power to monitor, raid, seize while investigating domestic/foreign people/groups
… Has China restored private land ownership? The implications of Beijing’s new policy.
… One Belt, One Road: est. $5 trillion infrastructure project spanning 60-plus countries.
… Interview: Theresa Fallon on understanding One Belt, One Road initiative (RFE/RL)
… An Economist explainer on One Belt, One Road
… How China is building the post-Western world: largest infrastructure program ever
… China’s New World Order: investments in Pakistan to peacekeepers in South Sudan
… Might One Belt, One Road be used as a tool to enable Chinese missionaries to deploy?
… Has China restored private land ownership? The implications of Beijing’s new policy.
Japan: For vulnerable high school girls, a culture of ‘dates’ with older men (Denver Post)
… ‘practice is nothing short of child prostitution’
… Video: how Japan is trying to fix its population crisis
… over 64 year olds to reach 38% by 2050. Tokyo: 2 vacancies for every job applicant
N Korea: Celebrates test of ‘perfect weapons system’: intermediate-range ballistic missile
… ‘a level of performance never before seen from a North Korean missile’
… ‘Points to progress toward ICBM’
… ‘The forgotten American missionaries of Pyongyang’:
… in the decades before World War 2, US Christians created a ‘Jerusalem of the East’.

Southeast Asia

Indonesia: Islamist leader says ethnic Chinese wealth is next target
… led push to jail Christian governor, laid out plans for new, racially charged campaign …
Vietnam: ‘passion plays are powerful, because Vietnam has suffered with Christ’
… Workers overcome difficulties in Vietnam: new religion law raises challenges.

New Data / Resources

Online Chinese Christianity Collection: over 34,500 documents, growing
Under Caesar’s Sword: how do Christians respond to persecution?
… first systematic global investigation of responses by Christian communities
Subsaharan African immigrants in the United States: 1.7 million
Infographic: the world is more stable than the news suggests (Economist)
… but fragility is increasing in unexpected places.
Africa drives global poverty: we’ve made progress, but not finished yet
Map: Predicted change in population of countries in Europe, 2016-2050
… north, west growing; south, east declining.

Upcoming prayer events

Anglicans: Thy Kingdom Come
Thirty Days of Prayer for the Muslim World: May 27-June 25

Longer reads

New May 2017 Lausanne Global Analysis
… incl. article on DMMs and the remaining 29% unevangelized by Kent Parks (Beyond)
… also, is God reviving Europe through refugees?
3 Questions: Honor, Shame and the Gospel
… interview with Werner Mischke, coordinator for upcoming honor/shame conf.
Europe’s unavoidable migration delimmas.
Lawless, Chuck. God’s mission has an enemy: 10 facts about spiritual warfare.
… this short read has good points. TL;DR: talk about God more than Satan.
Teams Multiplying Movements: Interview with David Broodryk, Johan Visser
Buddhism, Science and the Western world:
… ‘In debates about science and religion, Buddhism mostly gets a pass…’
You can debate the number of martyrs, but not the world’s persecution problem (CT)

Lifehacking, Tactics, Skills, Rules

Fainting and the summer heat: warmer days can make you swoon
… why people faint, how to prevent it. Important for workers in very hot regions …
8 things you hate about Gmail and how to fix them

Pioneer Mission Startups, Strategy

Alan Kay, “How to invent the future,” 2 lectures at Stanford, each 1 hour. Part 1. Part 2.
… “Companies hate industry-creators; they don’t want to make trillions uncomfortably; they want to make a few millions comfortably.”

UPG Profiles, Travelogues, Stories

Mongolian Magic: Yoga, camel rides and yurts in the Gobi desert
Trout and about: a fishing trip in Kyrgyzstan

Futuristics/Technology

#AI: Google.ai, a new initiative to democratize the benefits of machine learning
#Crime: Hackers hit dozens of countries with WannaCry ransomware malware infection
… Attack affects 150 countries.
… Experts had been warning about this for some time
… China, addicted to bootleg technology, reels from WannaCry ransomware attack
… WannaCry hackers had no intention of giving users back their files even if they paid
… Guardian has a continually updated blog of events related to WannaCry
… WannaCry might have come from North Korea.
#Commerce: Why Amazon is eating the world.
… a fascinating look at decentralization, feedback loops, and direct measurement.
#Curation: a new algorithm summarizes lengthy text surprisingly well
… probably some way off from widespread usage, but could help in several areas
#Robots: A robot revolution, this time in China
#Pornography: PornHub gets 500,000 VR views per day (analysis, safe for work)
… note the article has some sort of video link that I did NOT review.
#Social: How Facebook’s Fact Checking could make fake news spread even faster
… ‘Facebook is trying to silence this–share, share, share!’

Quotable

“The problem with the present is it’s so glittery and distracting… it’s hard to think about anything except the present. If you’re thinking about the present, your ideas are going to be derived from the present, and therefore they’re going to be incremental and therefore you won’t end up doing innovation.” ~Alan Kay

“The way of Jesus is to honor a people’s culture and its incorporated worldview, not to wrest them from it.” ~Charles Kraft

“An unmissionary church and an unchurchly mission are both, from the standpoint of the gospel, absurdities.” ~Lesslie Newbigin

“When you prohibit failure you inhibit innovation.” ~Dan Pallotta

“Live near to God, and so all things will appear to you little in comparison with eternal realities.” ~Robert Murray M’Cheyne

Our mailing address is:

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list