Faith leaders and scientists have written to ask President Obama ‘to take nuclear risk-reduction steps’ during the G7 summit next week (26/27 May). ‘Heightened tensions between the United States and Russia, and the growing risk of nuclear use worldwide, are all the more reason for the president to take meaningful steps to strengthen national and international security’, the letter read. Reducing nuclear weapons has been a key goal of Obama's presidency, and is one of the reasons he was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. He has rebuked Donald Trump for suggesting that Japan and South Korea should consider developing nuclear weapons. The president will visit Hiroshima, but there will be no apology for the bombing in 1945 that killed 140,000 people. The G7 agenda will cover uncertainty in global economy and trade; freedom, democracy, the rule of law and human rights; counter-terrorism; the Middle East, Ukraine, North Korea; and climate change and energy. See:

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a charity worker, was visiting her family in Iran. Her husband Richard has said: ‘She was at the airport returning to the UK on 3 April when the Iranian Revolutionary Guard arrested her, transferred her to an unknown location in Kerman Province and now holds her in solitary confinement. Gabriella, our 22-month-old daughter who has British citizenship only, has had her passport confiscated and is stranded in Iran with her grandparents. Nazanin has not been allowed access to a lawyer or her daughter; has not been able to call out of the country to speak to me; the Red Cross have not been able to make contact; she has been made to sign a confession under duress, its content unknown. Her family have been informed that the investigation relates to an issue of “national security”. There have been no charges.’ See:

On Wednesday 93 people died in three car bomb attacks in Baghdad. The deadliest killed 64 and wounded 87. Later two suicide bombers targeted police checkpoints, leaving 29 dead. IS claimed responsibility for the attacks - the worst day of violence in Baghdad so far this year. ‘It was a thunderous explosion, jolting the ground,’ said a witness. Many victims were women inside a beauty salon, including several brides who appeared to be getting ready for their weddings. The bodies of two men believed to be grooms were found in an adjacent barber’s shop. There is an acute political crisis in Baghdad : the parliament is unable to meet, and the government is paralysed by factional disputes. Survivors blame politicians for failing to protect them. A Chaldean priest who oversees hundreds of Iraqi Christian refugees displaced by IS blames the USA for not protecting them and their ancient communities from attacks by terrorists. See:

Algerian Christians face increasing restrictions as the government is pressured by Islamist groups to implement more Islamic legislation. Only Muslims are allowed to hold public assemblies, and individual churches are often denied registration. Though some historical churches are allowed church buildings, Muslim-background believers (ie almost all Algerian Christians) have to worship in secret. Converting someone from Islam is illegal. Islamist terrorist movements are increasing as militants, particularly in the south, use organised crime to finance their operations. Please pray for Christians from more conservative Muslim communities who have to hide their faith or risk being rejected from schools and universities, and remember those who are being monitored by authorities or who have been thrown into jail for owning Christian literature.

A night-time assault on 3 May at a village in majority-Christian eastern DR Congo left seventeen dead. By 6 May the death toll had risen to 34, as those seriously wounded succumbed to their injuries. It is suspected that the attack was carried out by the Ugandan Islamist group, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). They managed to get past army positions and slash the throats of peaceful residents in their homes. ADF rebels have carried out numerous bloody attacks on the mostly Christian population in this area for years. After the event thousands fled the area. A local Christian worker said, ‘It was eerie. Hundreds of houses abandoned and thousands of people displaced. I saw people carrying their mattresses and belongings in cars, on motorcycles, on foot. Hundreds of homes along the road are abandoned. Where there was a thriving community, there is now a ghost town.’ ADF settled in eastern DR Congo after being expelled from Uganda.

“The news arrived that Europe had closed its borders. Discouraged and disappointed, hundreds took their place in a camp which had only been intended as a rest stop but was now their closest thing to ‘home’. Within a few weeks, people from our church were going every day to visit and talk to those in the camp: a little human attention and simple conversation are more uplifting than a meal for many suffering people. Though it is forbidden in the camp, Zeda had seen Sandra praying with other refugees. ‘Can you pray for me?’ she asked. Zeda had cancer. They prayed to Isa (Jesus).  Two weeks later Sandra was back in the camp. Suddenly Zeda was running towards her waving white papers and shouting out in broken English, ‘It happened! It happened!’ Sandra read the papers. It said there is no more cancer in Zeda’s body. Zeda’s face was shining like the sun. ‘I want to believe like you do’ – she took Sandra’s hands and pointed to the cross around her neck – ‘I want to pray like you do’.”

Last week's Prayer Alert reported that the Government had defeated an amendment to the immigration bill proposing that the UK accept 3,000 child refugees from Europe in addition to those it has promised to take from Syria. There are many unaccompanied children who escaped to Europe and are in need of loving homes. This week David Cameron changed his mind and said that the UK will take in more unaccompanied Syrian refugee children from Europe, although he did not commit to a specific figure. Ministers will talk to councils before deciding how many can be resettled. Labour said that the announcement, made at Prime Minister's Question Time, did not go far enough and more action was needed.

In a recent conference on the migrant situation, one refugee commented, ‘It’s not the ground we serve with the gospel, it’s the people.’ In Denmark there are now more than two hundred migrant churches, making up a colourful mosaic. Currently a new church is founded every month. KIT (Churches Integration Programme) exists to help with the challenges connected with being church in a foreign country. Many projects in KIT have arisen from the problems that these churches experience while serving migrants. KIT also intends to build bridges between the migrant churches and the more established Danish ones. Practically, KIT helps the migrant churches with rules, acceptance from public authorities, missionary visas and pastors’ networking. In the Netherlands, a See http://www.kit-danmark.dk/dk/ and  http://interserve.org.uk/gospel-eu-meeting-point

EU governments and the European Parliament still have to approve it but, should they agree, Turkish citizens will be able to travel to all Schengen-zone countries . Freedom of speech, the right to a fair trial, and revising terrorism legislation to improve protection of minority rights are just some of the criteria demanded before visa requirements are lifted. It is hard to see how Turkey could be described as meeting those conditions. Ankara increasingly cracks down on its critics in a manner more autocratic than democratic and has not fulfilled quite a number of the criteria required by the EU. But these are desperate times. Most EU governments are under huge public pressure to ease the migrant crisis. The deal is for Ankara to take back potentially every migrant now trying to cross the Aegean to Europe and achieve visa-free travel by the end of June when the European Parliament votes on visa liberalisation. The EU fears that if the visa agreement slides, so will Turkey's commitment to stop migrant crossings.

Norman G Finkelstein, a Jewish author whose parents survived concentration camps during the Holocaust, published a map on his blog in 2014 entitled ‘Solution for the Israel-Palestine conflict’. The map depicted the country of Israel superimposed on a map of the USA. Mr Finkelstein said he posted the map because he found it funny, adding, ‘such jokes are commonplace in the US’. Labour MP Naz Shah copied this map, and has now been suspended by the Labour Party; seventeen other Labour members have been suspended for anti-Semitism and racism since Mr Corbyn took over as leader, including former London mayor Ken Livingstone. The row has lifted the lid on how serious prejudice against Israel has become, and opened a debate around Zionism (the Jewish people's right to self-determination in Israel) and anti-Semitism (hatred directed at Jewish people).