Driving on wrong side of US air base road
A new video has emerged on social media of a car being driven on the wrong side of the road outside RAF Croughton, near where 19-year-old Harry Dunn died when a car driving on the wrong side of the road hit him. The suspected driver left the UK under diplomatic immunity. US secretary of state Mike Pompeo rejected the UK's request for the driver’s extradition. A joint statement released by the police and the base said that additional provisions are to be introduced, and both parties are doing all that they can to prevent any future harm on the roads in and around the site. Meanwhile Harry Dunn’s family said that the video is evidence that a further tragedy is inevitable. They believe that the police and the US air force are ‘failing to acknowledge that there is a problem’.
France: military action in Mali
Mali was under French colonial rule until early 1959, when it assumed independence. However, France has 5,500 troops there working to keep the peace. Now France’s defence minister has said they will boost its military presence in the area to counter increasing violence carried out by armed groups. 600 additional troops will be deployed by March. On 14 February at least 40 people were killed in Ogossagou, the Fulani village that was targeted in a massacre of 160 people last year by Dogon militiamen. Huts and crops were set alight, livestock burned or taken away, and 28 people are missing. Clashes between the Dogon and Fulani ethnic groups are frequent, compounding a dire security situation in Mali's semi-arid and desert regions, where attacks by armed groups are common. See also
Greece: inhumane refugee camps
Pray for the Greek government trying to find new solutions to unhealthy sanitary conditions for thousands of migrants living in camps. In January it was urged to order an immediate evacuation of 100+ sick children from Moria refugee camp on Lesbos. Médecins Sans Frontières accused Athens of ‘deliberately depriving’ at least 140 minors of adequate medical care for what they described as chronic, complex and life-threatening diseases, and said it was urgent they were moved from notorious Moria to the mainland or to other EU member states. The new conservative government announced that the current overcrowded camps will close this year’, planning to replace them with smaller facilities which should be operational by mid-2020. However, administrative officials and residents of Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Leros, and Kos are gathering in front of the interior ministry to protest against these plans.
China: brave cry for help
Please watch this short and agonising video from China, a woman's desperate cry for help in the midst of the coronavirus epidemic. It confirms reports of the government suppressing news and ignoring doctors' warnings. From last week’s international prayer call, including a Christian leader from Wuhan, we heard that Chinese Christians are taking communion daily as protection from death, as ancient Jews did in the first Passover, and standing against the spread of coronavirus in prayer. Let's continue to pray with our Chinese brethren for the end of what could become a pandemic and for people everywhere to be protected. We know that the Lord in His redemptive love and wisdom can utilise bad things to bring forth good outcomes. May He use the current health and related economic crisis to bring real reform to the communist government of China so that the people finally obtain the human rights and freedoms they have longed for, so poignantly expressed in this brave woman's cry.
