North Korea: digging a new nuclear-test tunnel
Satellite photos show images dating from October and early November of the addition of a fourth tunnel at test site Punggye-ri, on North Korea’s east coast. The new tunnel is under mountains where North Korea conducts nuclear tests, and the images showed significant construction since April. While there are no indications that a nuclear test is imminent, the new tunnel adds to North Korea’s ability to conduct additional detonations at Punggye-ri over the coming years if it chooses to do so. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency quoted a South Korean government source as saying there was active movement of workers and vehicles working on a new tunnel at the site; this indicated an intention to conduct a nuclear test ‘at some point’, though this did not appear to be imminent. North Korea is under United Nations sanctions that ban trade which could fund its arms programme.
Iran: Christian prisoner denied medical treatment
Maryam Naghash Zargaran has been in Elvin prison for nearly three years. She had heart surgery before her incarceration, now difficult prison conditions have caused her health to deteriorate further. She had another heart attack, and requires regular medical appointments. She was given medical leave on 27 October, but had to halt her treatment when Tehran’s Attorney General refused to extend her leave permit. The 36-year-old Christian convert from Islam was arrested in February 2011 for converting to Christianity, being a member of a house church, establishing a house church, bringing young people to faith in Christ, contacting foreign ministries to carry out evangelism in Iran, and travelling to Turkey to attend Christian conferences. She was sentenced to four years on 9 March 2013. Also, please pray for fourteen other Iranian Christians who were arrested recently. Their families have no information as to their whereabouts.
Venezuela: parliamentary elections on Sunday
It has been over two years since president Hugo Chavez died, giving way to an ‘economic war’ on the Venezuelan people. Violence from the opposition has led to Venezuela looking more and more like a powder keg. Demonstrations have wracked the country. A government prosecutor fled Venezuela in October, claiming that the state had pressured him to falsify evidence against the top opposition leader. Last week the secretary of the opposition Democratic Action Party was gunned down. Sunday’s elections of new national assembly legislators are critical for the people. President Nicolás Maduro said that whatever the outcome, he will not stand down and will continue to govern in a civil-military union. There is public anger with an economic crisis caused by dysfunctional controls, plunging oil prices, high inflation, and widespread product shortages of everything from shampoo to rice. The government campaign has warned that the opposition will dismantle popular Chavez-era welfare policies, while the opposition has been lambasting the government’s economic incompetence and corruption. See also http://www.cnbc.com/2015/11/30/venezuela-on-edge-ahead-of-parliamentary-elections.html
Burundi: lives on the line
Fearful of being recruited into the Imbonerakure (the violence-prone youth wing of the ruling party who are fighting anti-government forces), many Burundian children run away and become refugees in Tanzania. There have been seven months of crisis, sparked by President Pierre Nkurunziza's controversial decision to run for a third term. Since then 240,000 people have become refugees; thousands are unaccompanied minors. The journey is dangerous, walking for days through forests. Children who travel on their own fear danger from both armed people and other refugees who try to pass them off as their own children so that they can get better housing in the refugee camps. Violence continues, and the threat of civil war looms in a country full of poverty, beauty and potential. Often referred to as ‘the Switzerland of Africa’, Burundi is covered by mountains and bush and is bordered by Lake Tanganyika. See also: http://www.greatlakesoutreach.org/burundi-page
