A 12-year-old Christian Pakistani girl was lured away from her home, kidnapped, then repeatedly raped by her captors for eight months — who now claim that she is married to one of the kidnappers. The girl escaped and returned home, however police have warned her parents it would be best if she willingly returned to her…

In a society obsessed with pet dogs, cats, rodents, fish and reptiles, it only follows that churches should open their doors to Fido. “As a boy in San Antonio, Paul Flotron helped his family raise miniature schnauzers,” writes Mark Oppenheimer in the New York Times. By age 10, he had accumulated a menagerie of “dwarf crocodiles, African…

All Egyptian women seeking office in upcoming elections must be veiled and not speak to men, says a top Egyptian politician, adding to growing concerns that “Arab Spring” has been a setback for human rights in the Arab world’s most populous nation. Last week, 26 Coptic Christians were killed and more than 200 injured when the Egyptian…

Iraq’s Kurdish minority is offering homes to refugee Christians who have been driven out of southern Iraq and Baghdad by Islamist extremists. Aboout 30 million Kurds inhabit a region historically known as Kurdistan which crosses the borders of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. About 4 million of Iraq’s 34 million citizens are Kurds. Targeted by Saddam Hussein, who used chemical warfare…

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