Renewed fears of large-scale violence in Egypt for today's second anniversary of the uprising that helped oust long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak were realized when Egyptian security forces fired tear gas and protesters threw stones and Molotov cocktails during a day-long demonstration Thursday. Christian leaders inside and outside the country are calling for prayers.

Prominent politicians, writers and society figures have been urging Egyptians to go back to the streets to demonstrate rejection of the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists, according to Open Doors USA sources inside Egypt.

A Christian leader, who regularly blogs from Egypt and remains anonymous for security reasons, says he sees "a split nation overflowing with too much frustration and anger, with hardly any positive or promising political or social development. The economy is a disaster, with our local currency's value diving deep down into the unknown." more >>

Tensions between Muslims and Christians in Malaysia have quickly escalated in the recent days following the advocacy of a "Bible-burning festival," an idea fueled by a parliament member's recent comments.

The controversy stems from recent comments made by independent parliament member Ibrahim Ali, founder and leader of Perkasa, a non-governmental Malay Supremacy organization which advocates the rights of the Muslim Malay majority in the country.

In a recent media program, Ali reportedly advocated that all Muslims burn Bibles which give reference to God as "Allah," as extremist Muslims in the country believe that term belong solely to Islam, according to The Malaysian Insider. more >>

Islamic terrorists suspected to be from the Boko Haram group have launched another wave of attacks in Nigeria, killing at least 23 people who they deemed to have been breaking Sharia Law.

The two separate attacks occurred on Monday and Tuesday in north-east Nigeria, and targeted people selling pork, which Muslims are forbidden to eat, and a group engaged in gambling, which is also against Islamic law, BBC News reported.

Boko Haram has made it their mission to turn Nigeria into an Islamic state and drive out the nation's Christians, who make up half of the country's population, by any means necessary. In the last few years they have bombed churches, killed pastors and gunned down close to 1,400 people since 2010. more >>

Taliban-linked militants have killed 103 people in Pakistan on Thursday in three major bombings, marking one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in recent months.

Officials said that the heaviest attack occurred in the city of Quetta, where 69 people were killed while another 69 were injured at a blast at a billiard hall, The Associated Press reported.

Another bomb blast at a Sunni Islam mosque in the Northern city of Mingora killed 22 people while injuring 70, and yet another blast in a commercial area in Quetta targeting paramilitary soldiers killed 12 people and wounded 40 others. more >>

A radical Salafist preacher who is a proponent of anti-vice police recently shocked Egyptians when he appeared on primetime television to urge women to wear headscarves to avoid being raped.

The preacher's comments have since been refuted by the country's head Islamic legal official, who regarded them as "idiotic."

"I was once asked: If I came to power, would I let Christian women remain unveiled? And I said: If they want to get raped on the streets, then they can," preacher Hisham el-Ashry, who is reportedly regarded as extreme, said on a prime-time program on Nahar TV last week, according to Reuters. more >>

An American pastor currently held in Iranian prison is facing a grim future after it was announced that his case was recently transferred to a judge accused of human rights violations and infamous for the number of people he has sentenced to death.

"This new development is highly troubling -- it appears Iran is determined to remove any chance of the American pastor receiving any semblance of a fair trial. Even more troubling is that the U.S. government has remained silent, essentially abandoning this American in his search for justice," Jordan Sekulow, Executive Director of the American Center for Law and Justice, said in a report shared with The Christian Post. The ACLJ is representing Pastor Saeed Abedini's family in the U.S.

Abedini, 32, grew up in Iran, before converting to Christianity at the age of 20, and marrying an American woman in 2002, which helped him gain U.S. citizenship. Along with his wife, Naghmeh, and their two young children, the pastor has traveled back and forth between Iran and the U.S. a number of times in the past few years, helping create a network of underground churches, which provide a safe haven for Muslims who have converted to Christianity. more >>