Mindy Belz
WORLD
United States
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Past articles by Mindy:
A genocide warning in Syria
SYRIA: Turkish forces launched a bombing campaign across northeastern Syria on Wednesday, targeting civilian areas and killing Syriac Christians. Turkish bombardments appeared to target Christian sites and neighborhoods, including Mar Gorgios Assyrian Church in Qameshli and the town of Nusaybin, actually in Turkey but containing the oldest church in the region. → Read More
Singing in Hong Kong
HONG KONG: They are still singing in the streets, but the Chinese territory is on edge as protests swell leading up to Tuesday, the 70th anniversary of communist China’s founding. → Read More
Iraq rebuilding efforts
IRAQ: A $367 million effort to rebuild communities destroyed by ISIS with U.S. taxpayer dollars has floundered on regulations and outsourcing to an American contractor. Despite repeated White House pledges of directing aid to Christian and Yazidi communities, church groups in Iraq said they’ve been bypassed in favor of a Washington for-profit contractor—one that does $1.5 → Read More
Deadly typhoons hit Japan, Korean Peninsula
JAPAN: Typhoon Faxai made landfall early Monday morning just east of Tokyo—the most populous metropolitan area in the world—killing at least three people and leaving dozens injured and nearly a million people without power. The storm, which now has moved back out into the Pacific, left Japanese travelers and commuters stranded. Meanwhile, another powerful storm struck the → Read More
Death for Baghdadi
SYRIA: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the 48-year-old leader of ISIS, killed himself and three children, detonating a suicide vest in a tunnel while being pursued by U.S. special operations forces, according to President Donald Trump. Watch and read the president’s full address from Sunday. → Read More
‘Completely unacceptable’
HONG KONG: Authorities fired on protesters at close range and canceled all remaining flights Monday—at one of the busiest airports in the world—after protesters swarmed Hong Kong International Airport’s main terminal for a fourth day. Officials continued to build a case against demonstrators, calling them “terrorists.” U.S. → Read More
China declares war on Hong Kong protesters
HONG KONG: Chinese authorities working with Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam this week declared war on protesters. Their strategy: to launch “preventive” arrests, deploy online trolls to promote contempt for young protest leaders, and use the army if needed. The U.S. → Read More
Another Putin foe poisoned?
RUSSIA: Against his doctor’s wishes, opposition leader Alexei Navalny was discharged from a Moscow hospital and returned to prison, where he is serving a 30-day sentence. Russian authorities have imprisoned him repeatedly for protesting the Putin regime. → Read More
Civilian toll mounts in Syria
SYRIA: Reliable sources inside the country report four ambulances destroyed and five medics killed—shot execution-style by the side of the road—while attempting to evacuate wounded near Ras al-Ain (or in Kurdish, Sere Kaniye). Faith-based aid workers are on the ground assessing the situation and relayed a call by the self-administration zone in northeast Syria to “open a → Read More
A deadly anniversary in Buenos Aires
ARGENTINA: Thursday marks the 25th anniversary of the AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will head to the region to discuss counterterrorism and immigration. → Read More
Lambert case ignites euthanasia debate in France
FRANCE: Vincent Lambert, the quadriplegic at the center of a euthanasia battle, has died. The case highlights the complexities in French law on difficult end-of-life cases, and was used to press for legalizing euthanasia. → Read More
Congolese warlord guilty on all counts
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: The International Criminal Court found former rebel leader Bosco Ntaganda guilty on 18 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the mineral-rich northeastern region of Ituri between 2002 and 2003. The 45-year-old warlord known in the decadeslong civil war as “The Terminator” for ordering the massacre, rape, and enslavement of → Read More
A gripping photo at the Rio Grande
MEXICO: A photo of a migrant father and his 23-month-old daughter sunk face down on the muddy bank of the Rio Grande highlights the perils facing Central American migrants hoping for asylum in the United States—and is galvanizing congregations in the Rio Grande Valley. → Read More
‘Really troubling’ vs. ‘nothing improper’
UKRAINE: The whistleblower complaint released Thursday morning shows U.S. intelligence officials received multiple complaints that President Donald Trump sought to use the powers of his office to coerce Ukraine to investigate a 2020 presidential rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. → Read More
‘Unprovoked attack’
IRAN: The debris field from the U.S. military drone shot down by Iran is in international waters in the Strait of Hormuz, not over the southern Iranian province of Hormozgan, as Iranian officials claimed. Iran deployed its locally made Khordad 3 short-range missile system, with an altitude range of 81,000 feet, to bring down the RQ-4 Global Hawk surveillance drone. → Read More
A brutal anniversary for 1 million refugees
BANGLADESH: Rohingya refugees Sunday marked two years since the start of a brutal military crackdown on their villages in Myanmar, also known as Burma, forcing 1 million mostly Muslim Rohingya into the world’s largest refugee settlement. A U.S. → Read More
China continues to kill detainees for organ harvesting
CHINA: An independent tribunal in London released its final report Monday morning, concluding that the Chinese government continues to kill detainees in China for organ transplants and targets religious minorities. → Read More
The next terrorist weapon of choice?
SYRIA: It was going to be the year the farmers of eastern Syria and Iraq bounced back, but instead mysterious crop fires—some claimed by ISIS—are destroying acres of wheat and barley in large swaths visible from space. → Read More
On the beaches at Normandy
FRANCE: British Prime Minister Theresa May—in perhaps her last official act as head of government before her resignation takes effect tomorrow—joined French President Emmanuel Macron to dedicate a new British war memorial at Ver-sur-Mer, a small coastal town in Normandy, as part of today’s 75th anniversary of the largest sea and air assault in history. → Read More
Trumps stands by North Korea
NORTH KOREA: U.S. President Donald Trump, in a news conference in Japan, went against national security adviser John Bolton and other top officials, saying North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “is a very smart man” who has not violated UN sanctions this month or launched ballistic missiles. → Read More