World
Another Christian community at risk in Africa as extremists and war take their toll
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Christians in Sudan are daily facing hunger, misery and terror. The new Open Doors World Watch List for 2026, which ranks the worst countries in the world for the persecution of Christians, placed the country at No. 4, up one place from last year’s report.
There are an estimated 2 million Christians in the conflict-ridden northeastern African country. Sudan’s civil war has raged past the 1,000- day milestone with 150,000 people reported to have been killed and more than 13 million displaced. Christians have lived in Sudan since the late first century.
Many of Sudan’s Christians live in the Nuba Mountains, part of the Kordofan region. Rafat Samir, general secretary of the Sudan Evangelical Alliance, told Fox News Digital that the “Nuba Mountains now, where the majority of our church members are coming from, is under siege and bombing every day for the last six months or seven months. Last week, after Christmas, they bombed our church, hospital and school.”
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Sudanese pastors’ wives studying the Bible at a Christian conference in the Nuba Mountains. (Open Doors)
Adding to the misery, a report by MEMRI, citing Christian Daily international, said 11 Sudanese Christians were killed, as they took part in a procession to their church for a religious celebration on Christmas Day by a drone operated by the government’s Sudanese Armed Forces. 18 others were injured in the attack. MEMRI reported the SAF are backed by the Muslim Brotherhood.
A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital, “Since the April 2023 outbreak of conflict in Sudan, we have witnessed significant backsliding in Sudan’s overall respect for fundamental freedoms, including religious freedom. This backsliding especially impacts Sudan’s oppressed ethnic and religious populations, including Christians.”
In a Fox News Digital report last year, Christians were said to be eating grass to survive. Samir says the position is even more bleak in 2026: “even the grass is gone now.”
“The conflict is accelerating the erasure of ancient Christian communities and sacred heritage,” Mariam Wahba, research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), told Fox News Digital. “These losses will be far harder to reverse than the rebuilding of roads or ministries once the guns fall silent,” she said.
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Outdoor Bible study at a pastor’s conference in the Nuba Mountains, because meeting in a regular building is too dangerous, they set up a temporary place under trees and between rocks, to be invisible from the sky. (Open Doors)
Ideologically, Sudan’s Christians face a hostile future, Samir of the Evangelical Alliance said. “Both sides in the civil conflict are daughters of the Islamist movement in Sudan, and the Islamic ideology of both of them is to not have tolerance for others. They consider everyone different from them is against them. The Christian is considered their enemy as part of their religious ideology, and opposing them their religious duty.”
He continued, “So whoever does something to harm Christians is considered favorable to the law or to Allah.” Samir went on to say, “the country is getting back to the dark ages.”
Repeated and continuing attempts at getting the government’s Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the opposing militia, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), to reach a ceasefire have failed. Both sides admit they are still fighting and, it’s clear, killing civilians with sustained energy, particularly in the central Sudanese region of Kordofan, home to many Christians.
“The United States is committed to ending the horrific conflict in Sudan,” a State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital, adding, “Under President Trump’s leadership, we are working with our allies and others to facilitate a humanitarian truce and bring an end to external military support to the parties which is fueling the violence. President Trump wants peace in Sudan.”
The Evangelical church in Omdurman, Sudan after being bombed even though it was not in a combat zone or used by any warring forces. (Open Doors)
The spokesperson continued, “The suffering of civilians has reached catastrophic levels, with millions lacking food, water and medical care. Every day of continued fighting costs more innocent lives. The war in Sudan is an enduring threat to regional stability.”
The U.N. says fighting is increasing in Kordofan, with U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk telling reporters in Port Sudan on Jan. 18, “I am very worried that the atrocity crimes committed during and after the takeover of El Fasher are at grave risk of repeating themselves in the Kordofan region, where the conflict has been rapidly escalating since late October.”
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“The Kordofan states are extremely volatile,” he continued, “with relentless military engagements, heavy shelling, drone bombardments and airstrikes causing widespread destruction and collapse of essential services.”
Wahba said that “while the United States remains kinetically active across neighboring theaters, it is unlikely to wade directly into Sudan’s civil war.”
Members of the Sudanese army’s Special Mission Forces battalion in the Northern State hold a parade in Karima city on May 19, 2024. (AFP via Getty Images)
“President Trump”, Wahba added, “has signaled a clear desire to see the conflict resolved — an objective echoed by both Egypt and Saudi Arabia — but translating that consensus into outcomes on the ground has proven far more difficult than the rhetoric suggests.”
“For now,” Wahba continued, “U.S. policy is centered on convening regional stakeholders and pressing for alignment among them, while prioritizing humanitarian corridors, aid delivery and coordination with partners willing to host talks. Washington is acting as a facilitator, not an enforcer.”
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“This posture reflects both constraint and caution. Sudan presents few reliable leverage points, no unified opposition partner, and (there’s) little appetite in Congress or the White House for another open-ended entanglement in a fragmented civil war. The result is a policy that remains fluid and reactive, and is shaped less by strategy than by crisis management,” she said.
Despite everything, the Sudan Evangelical Alliance’s Samir has hope, “The Holy Spirit is moving and God’s hand is working in our country. I can tell you through this evil, this darkness, the light of love of our God is lighting in many hearts. The devil is stealing people to death every day. We pray that let us Christians live for one day more, for one day more to proclaim Jesus’s message.”
World
Venezuelan opposition leader seized by armed men after being released from jail
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María Corina Machado said Monday that a Venezuelan opposition leader was seized in Caracas shortly after being released from jail.
Machado wrote in a post on X that Juan Pablo Guanipa, a key ally, was kidnapped by heavily armed men in civilian clothing in the Los Chorros area of the capital.
“We demand his immediate release,” she said.
Alfredo Romero, the president of the Venezuelan human rights group Foro Penal, said 35 political prisoners were released on Sunday, including Guanipa, who was initially arrested in May.
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Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado and Juan Pablo Guanipa participate in an anti-government protest on Jan. 9, 2025, in Caracas, Venezuela. (Alfredo Lasry R/Getty Images)
Reuters reported that Venezuelan authorities were seeking court approval to place Guanipa under house arrest.
The country’s Public Ministry alleged that he violated the terms of his release but provided no additional details and did not say whether he had been re-arrested.
Guanipa’s Primero Justicia party said on X that he was forced into a silver Toyota Corolla during the incident.
Juan Pablo Guanipa, opposition leader and recently released from prison, visits relatives of political prisoners near the El Helicoide detention center in Caracas on Feb. 8, 2026. (Jesus Vargas/picture alliance via Getty Images)
“We hold Delcy Rodríguez, Jorge Rodríguez, and Diosdado Cabello responsible for any harm to Juan Pablo’s life,” the party wrote. “We call on the international community for the immediate release of Juan Pablo Guanipa and for an immediate and unconditional end to the persecution of the opposition.”
The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
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Rodríguez has been serving as the interim president of Venezuela since the U.S. capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores earlier this year.
Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodríguez speaks during the presentation of the 2025 budget bill at the National Assembly in Caracas on Dec. 3, 2024. (Juan Barreto/AFP via Getty Images)
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In late January, President Donald Trump said Venezuela was releasing political prisoners at a “rapid rate,” praising the move as a “powerful humanitarian gesture” by the country’s leadership.
An estimated 687 political prisoners remain in custody in Venezuela as of Feb. 2, according to Foro Penal.
World
Tehran 'will continue to massacre people' if not stopped, Iranian chess grandmaster tells Euronews
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World
Kid Rock’s ‘All-American Halftime Show’ Goes Light on Politics, Feeling More Like an Old CMT Special Than Super Bowl Protest Event
Turning Point USA clearly saw Bad Bunny‘s Super Bowl halftime booking as an affront to the nation that needed to be met by an alternative event for conservative viewers, but the “All-American Halftime Show” opted not to offer much in the way of provocation in return. Rather than come off as a protest event, the 35-minute program offered a set of mild, largely non-political performances that could have been mistaken for a vintage CMT or Nashville Network special — even from Kid Rock, who was on his very best behavior during a quick two-song appearance.
Bad Bunny? Never mentioned, or even alluded to… which was the case for anything else that might have raised much of an eyebrow or a stir, in a show that could have aired at just about any time in the 21st century, aside from the closing montage of Charlie Kirk imagery.
Without an announcer to offer context, there was no indication of where the performances were being broadcast from, or if they were taking place in real time. According to sources, the show was pre-taped in Atlanta.
Brantley Gilbert was up first, followed by fellow country artists Gabby Barrett and Lee Brice, before Kid Rock closed things out in an enclosed setting where a crowd of what looked to be about a hundred fans stood cheering on either side of a huge thrust ramp that extended across the studio floor.
Politics were limited to Brice singing “Real American,” which extols a place where “everything’s made in the USA,” and Brice premiering a brand new song, “Country Nowadays,” in which he complains about seeing “a picture of a flag up in flames while people cheer,” along with making the statement, “little boys ain’t little girls.”
Brice said, “Charlie gave people mics so they could say what’s on their mind. This is what’s on mine.” The chorus of his new song: “Say I’m some right-wing devil ’cause I was down-south-Jesus-raised / It ain’t easy being country in this country nowadays.”
Four Black men stood on stage to introduce the main attraction — “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our brother, Robert Ritchie” — in a fleeting show of people of color.
Kid Rock started with some literal firepower, at least in the pyro department, as he sang an inoffensive version of his venerable rap hit “Bawitaba.” Much of the performance appeared to be pre-recorded, as he only raised the mic to his mouth for about half of the lyrics, if that, as widely noted on social media. But he seemed to be fully on-mic as he sang the closing ballad, “Till You Can’t,” a cover of a sentimental country hit from a few years back by Cody Johnson.
In his only spoken remarks, Kid Rock introduced “Till You Can’t” by saying that he was awakened one night with the Johnson song in his head and felt there was “a verse that still needed to be written for this song.” He then sang his self-penned addition, which was effectively an evangelical altar call: “There’s a book sitting in your house somewhere that could use some dusting off / There’s a man who died for all our sins hanging from the cross / You can give your life to Jesus and he’ll give you a second chance / Till you can’t.”
At song’s end, the camera moved over to big-screen photos of the late Charlie Kirk and his widow, Erika Kirk, who is now in charge of TPUSA, followed by a fade to darkness and closing credit that still did not offer many hints where the performance was taking place.
The show began with Gilbert’s guitarists offering “The Star Spangled Banner” in the tradition of Jimi Hendrix, before the singer himself emerged and led the band in a style closer to hard rock than classic country, as has been his custom. Barrett stuck closer to a Carrie Underwood style of country, starting with her breakout hit “I Hope” and following it with “One of the Good Ones.” Brice sang his hit “Drinking Class,” which includes the chorus “If you gotta label me, then label me proud / ‘Cause I belong to the drinking class,” a hit that conflates patriotic self-esteem with “rowdy” bar behavior and alcohol consumption.
A snafu arose when TPUSA announced on its X feed that the show would not be broadcast there, and viewers should turn their attention to the org’s YouTube channel. There, viewership was shown as peaking at just over 5 million when Kid Rock came on at 9:35 p.m. ET. With the third quarter of the Super Bowl having already begun after Bad Bunny’s shorter halftime performance and while Kid Rock was still on, YouTube viewers for the “All-American Halftime Show” dipped slightly to 4.4 million by the time the headliner finished.
The show was also available on other platforms and networks, like OAN, which was late to jump into the feed amid its nightly news program. There was no immediate estimate of overall viewership.
Although references to the big show in California and its lead performer were nil, Kid Rock had earlier described what he saw as the intent for the program. “We plan to play great songs for folks who love America. We’re approaching this show like David and Goliath. Competing with the pro football machine and a global pop superstar is almost impossible…or is it?” He continued, referencing Bad Bunny: “He’s said he’s having a dance party, wearing a dress, and singing in Spanish? Cool. We plan to play great songs for folks who love America.”
Detractors have noted the alternative halftime show’s inability to draw any current country hitmakers — the country performers on hand all had their runs of hits in the 2010s, except Barrett, who had her smash in 2020 — with some wondering where Jason Aldean, the most popular musician friend of President Trump, was. Aldean did at least come up for a mention, as Gilbert noted that his life was changed when Aldean recorded a song he co-wrote, the pioneering country-rap hybrid “Red Dirt Anthem,” which he then sang and rapped.
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