Abortion woes around the world, US Christian shot for her faith and other news…
GLOBAL: Abortion causes half of all deaths worldwide
In 2025, by far the leading cause of death worldwide was abortion. It killed more than 73 million people – ten million more than the total number who died from all other causes, and almost 52 per cent of all deaths around the world. For comparison, around ten million people died from cancer last year, 6.2 million from smoking, 17 million from diseases, and two million from HIV/AIDS. Life News reported that the statistics were compiled by Worldometers – an independent research group which aggregates data from governments and organisations and publishes the results daily. (Photo – A mother’s womb is the least safe place in the world. Credit, Life News)
According to the World Health Organisation: “Around 73 million induced abortions take place worldwide each year. Six out of 10 (61 per cent) of all unintended pregnancies, and three out of ten (29 per cent) of all pregnancies, end in induced abortion” (December 2025).
GLOBAL: Abortion provider cuts jobs after Trump’s defunding
International Planned Parenthood has cut nearly 1,000 jobs due to losing $87 million in US government funding.LifeSiteNews reports that the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF)’s data shows that 40 per cent of its member associations have fired a total of 969 staff and many centres have closed down. The member associations also report a reduced capacity and increased financial instability. (Photo – President Donald Trump. Credit – Gage Skidmore/Wikipedia)
The Trump administration has also defunded many aspects of the abortion industry in the US. Planned Parenthood is taking legal action to try to recover federal funding. Operation Rescue reports that 54 abortion centres closed in 2024, 36 of which were run by Planned Parenthood.
GLOBAL: UN promotes abortion and gender ideology as ‘children’s rights’
A UN committee is attempting to redefine ‘children’s rights’ to include abortion access for adolescent girls and transgender ideology. In January, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) debated their new Convention; its draft wording included “effective access to safe abortion services for adolescent girls” and a promise to protect the rights of “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex children”. It also called on member countries to “take a gender-transformative approach, including by recognising the gendered nature of certain rights violations”. (Pic – UN symbol)
LifeSiteNews commented: “The promotion of the LGBT agenda to gender-confused children is especially dangerous, as a significant body of evidence shows that ‘affirming’ gender confusion carries serious harms, particularly when done with impressionable children who lack the mental development, emotional maturity, and life experience to consider the long-term ramifications of the decisions being pushed on them, or full knowledge about the long-term effects of life-altering, physically transformative, and often irreversible surgical and chemical procedures.” The Convention, if adopted in full, will also undermine parental rights.
GLOBAL: Trump declares war on woke UN
President Trump has withdrawn the USA from dozens of UN and international organisations that he believes are not operating in America’s interests. After a report on the activities of such groups as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the USA has dropped 31 UN and 35 international groups.
Gaza’s “Board of peace” launched at WEF meeting
The news that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had joined President Trump’s new Board of Peace is a pragmatic calculation, according to ‘Israel Today’, which regularly prints excellent articles from an Israeli Messianic viewpoint. Senior editor Aviel Schneider wrote that Netanyahu recognised a new era in global affairs, where power ‘trumped’ all else: “If you’re not at the table, you’ll be on the menu”.
The creation of the Board of Peace has also sparked speculation that, while formed out of good intentions, it could potentially fulfil the vision for a one-world government prophesied in the books of Daniel and Revelation. The chairman, currently President Trump, can only be removed if he resigns or due to incapacity. This leaves the potential for the chairman to reign unchecked, currently backed by the world’s largest military. President Trump has said that he only pays heed to international law where it fits his own personal morality.
USA: Christian girl “hunted and killed in cold blood”
A conservative Christian who was shot dead at a US university is alleged to have been targeted because of her beliefs. Ella Cook was one of two killed and nine injured at Brown University in Rhode Island, a few months after the Charlie Kirk murder. The gunman followed up his attack on 13 December by murdering a professor at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts on 15 December, before killing himself in a New Hampshire storage facility days later. (Photo – Ella Cook. Credit, X.com)
The shooter was a former Brown student and Portuguese national, who left behind videos saying that he had planned the attacks for years, but his motives were not clear from the videos. Ella Cook was 19 and vice president of the university’s chapter of the College Republicans of America (CRA). According to the Daily Declaration, CRA chairman William Branson Donahue said Cook was “allegedly targeted for her conservative beliefs, hunted and killed in cold blood.”
He added that Cook was brave to “stand up and fight for your votes” on a left-wing campus: “I know first hand how hard it is to stay in the fight when you’re hated for just existing. We face constant pressures from the left.”
GLOBAL: One million prisoners complete Christian course
A prison evangelism programme has notched up its millionth graduate this January. ‘The Prisoner’s Journey’, an eight-week course based on Mark’s Gospel produced by Prison Fellowship International (PFI), began in 2014 and has been completed by prisoners in over 500 prisons worldwide. Graduates receive a Bible in their own language and nearly 70 per cent go on to complete other evangelism or discipleship courses. Christian Daily International reported that Andrew Corley, PFI’s president and CEO, said: “It represents one million men and women… who have encountered Jesus Christ in some of the hardest places on earth.” (Photo – a Bible behind prison bars)
Independent research has found that participation in the programme brings about increased religious activity, a greater feeling of purpose to life, a reduction in negative emotions and aggression and a decline in violent conduct.
Andrew Halloway is a British freelance editor, writer and publishing consultant. He is also editor of Good News—a national monthly evangelistic newspaper (www.goodnews-paper.org.uk). Andrew has 18 years’ experience as an editor and publishing manager in the Christian publishing world, and holds a first class honours degree in Humanities. He has long had an interest in the creation/evolution debate, and is the contributing editor of ‘The Delusion of Evolution’, a magazine-style evangelistic booklet that has sold over 23,000 copies in the UK (available from www.newlife.co.uk).fb