Four Democratic senators are asking for more gun control legislation after an American born man with an assault rifle entered a gay nightclub in Orlando, killing 49 and wounding 53. They want an immediate passage of a bill to prevent people on terror watch lists and other ‘suspected terrorists’ from being able to buy firearms and explosives. Last December Democrats tried to pass the same legislation, but it failed. This push comes after President Barack Obama said weak laws have allowed disturbed and dangerous persons to be able to get guns. Meanwhile the US has appealed for the UN to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. ‘If we are united in our outrage by the killing of so many, let us be equally united around the basic premise of upholding the universal dignity of all persons regardless of who they love.’ See:

Last Tuesday night the sky around the city of Durban was burnished with a bright orange blaze, seen from kilometres away. Vehicles stopped on a freeway to gaze at the consuming tongues of fire. As firemen frantically fought the blaze, hundreds of people huddled together to watch the Durban Christian Centre, Jesus Dome, dramatically being destroyed. Members of the church prayed, wept, or bravely sang, with voices thin and choked with emotion. The Jesus Dome was in ashes. But five days later 7,500 voices were raised to Heaven in praise, adoration and thanksgiving in Growthpoint Kings Park rugby stadium – an incredible reaction by the saints of the Jesus Dome, giving a triumphant response to Tuesday’s disaster. ‘We are coming back bigger and stronger,’ was the unequivocal cry from senior pastors, and an ‘amen’ response was enough for passers-by to think there was a rugby match in progress. From Sunday worshippers will meet in a borrowed 2,500-seater tent pitched opposite the burnt-out Jesus Dome.

A man was shot dead on Tuesday during looting and food riots proliferating round crisis-hit Venezuela, bringing to at least four the number of fatalities from this month's wave of unrest. As well as the fatality, another 27 people had been injured during a day of chaos and violence in the eastern Caribbean coastal town of Cumana. There was simultaneous looting in more than 100 establishments. Videos and photos on social media from the town showed National Guard troops confronting crowds swarming round damaged shops, with crowds baying ‘We want food!’ Security forces struggled to keep order. Protests and melees at shops have been spreading around the recession-hit South American oil-producing nation in recent weeks, fuelled by shortages of basic foods. Over ten incidents of looting are occurring every day across the nation of 30 million people.

A wave of kidnappings, forced conversions and forced marriages of young Christian girls in Egypt has Christian families living in fear. The missing girls were ‘probably taken to be forcefully married and converted to Islam.’ Among those missing is Amal Shaky, 19, kidnapped on her way to Cairo University. When she did not come home or answer her phone they searched the campus. No one had seen her. Shaky's family went to the police, who suggested her father had killed his daughter and thrown away the body. After harassing the father, the officer refused to file a report and asked for a few hours to investigate the matter. More than forty days have passed since she was kidnapped, and ‘the matter is ‘under investigation’. The most recent figures available reveal that from 2011 to 2014 there were 72 cases of kidnappings, extortion and related violence against Coptic Christians.