ASSIST News Service

• Churches attacked in Egypt

  For 67 years, the Virgin Mary Church was a peaceful refuge for Shenouda El Sayeh, much like the Giza province village of Hafr Hakim where it rests and where he has lived all those years.

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  Nigeria: Weekend attacks in North East claim at least 50 lives

  At least 50 civilians were killed and dozens more injured in a series of weekend attacks in north-eastern Nigeria by the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram.

• Presbyterian Church (USA) drops In Christ Alone from hymnal

  An extraordinary dispute has arisen over a lyric contained one of the most beloved contemporary Christian hymns of the modern-day Church, "In Christ Alone".

• Syrian rebels destroy Orthodox church in Al-Thawrah

  The Antiochian Orthodox church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus was a landmark of al-Thawrah (also known as al-Tabqah).

• Uzbekistan: State tries to take one children's camp and raids another

  Baptists have complained to the Prosecutor-General that "the future of Uzbekistan cannot be built on the plundering of religious organisations".

• Coptic girl shot in Cairo

  Morning Star News is reporting that a Coptic Christian girl walking home from a Bible class at her church was shot and killed last week in Cairo by an unidentified gunman, human rights activists said on Friday, August 9, 2013.

• Faith Comes by Hearing now has Scripture recordings in 737 languages

  Faith Comes By Hearing Audio Bible Ministry recently added four languages to its expanding catalog of recorded Scripture.

• Algeria slow in ruling on convert's prison sentence appeal

  Morning Star News is reporting that nearly nine months since an Algerian court last heard his case, a Christian convert from Islam still awaits a ruling on the appeal of his unusually harsh sentence for allegedly "proselytizing" and defaming Islam and its prophet.

• Iranian Christian activist sentenced to 10 years in prison

  Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran has sentenced Mohammad-Hadi (Mostafa) Bordbar, an Iranian Christian convert, to ten years in prison.

• Pakistan: Will the former UK MP's governorship in Punjab herald hope for minorities?

  In the face of the unresolved issues of the minorities in Pakistan a man of Mr Sarwar's caliber is probably the right person to import the much-cherished UK values of integration, promotion and equality of opportunity to its ethnic minorities up and down the country.

• Syria: Assyrian Christians told 'If you want to come back, convert to Islam, or you will be killed'

  According to the Assyrian International News Agency, Assyrian Christians who have fled from an area of Syria called al-Thawrah (also known as al-Tabqah), have been told by rebels, "If you want to come back, convert to Islam, or you will be killed."

• Minorities 'not safe in Pakistan'

  Pakistan's minorities are feeling the effects of Islamic militant organisations which target them for violence, and an Islamic culture that they say makes them feel insecure.