In 2009 Victor Bet Tamraz received a call at his home from an officer with Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security summoning him to the church he pastored. When he arrived at Tehran Pentecostal Assyrian Church, officers told him: Stop holding services in Farsi or we close the church.

Mary Fatemeh Mohammadi joined other protesters in January who flooded Tehran’s Enghelab Street and headed to Azadi Square in the city center. For three days, thousands of Iranians braved tear gas, arrests, and sporadic gunfire in an outpouring of anger and grief following the downing of a Ukrainian passenger jet. Authorities had lied and covered up the cause of the Jan. 8 crash: an Iranian soldier firing a rocket at what he mistook as an American cruise missile. 

GLOBAL: The spread of the coronavirus causing the disease COVID-19 has killed at least 2,800 people and left more than 82,000 people infected on every continent except Antarctica. For those who already have been quarantined, the story isn’t over.

CHINA: “There is no zero risk,” said Michael Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Programme about the coronavirus at a news conference Monday morning. “It is not possible to stop this virus spreading from one country to the next.” WHO officials said they are not prepared to declare the virus a pandemic but it has “pandemic potential.” For now, focus is on “coherent, coordinated management across borders and between countries.”

AFGHANISTAN: Ashraf Ghani has narrowly won a contested election, officials announced after a five-month dispute over the vote. Ghani, clearly the U.S. favorite as it tries to conclude a peace agreement with the Taliban, won a second term by securing only 50.64 percent of the vote, and his rival Abdullah Abdullah says he may form his own government.

NIGERIA: The killing of 18-year-old Catholic seminarian Michael Nnadi “is a defining moment for Christians and Christianity in Nigeria,” said Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah at a funeral Mass in Kaduna. Kukah blamed the Buhari government for failing to secure northern states and other areas from Muslim terror groups:

TAIWAN: The U.S. State Department blocked Taiwan from joining 27 other nations in a U.S.-led International Religious Freedom Alliance. But according to Taiwanese officials, Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback did issue an invitation for the nation to join as an observer.