Organizers of Pope Francis’ summit on preventing clergy sex abuse will meet this week with a dozen survivor-activists who have come to Rome to protest the Catholic Church’s response to date and demand an end to decades of cover-up by church leaders. These survivors will not be addressing the summit of church leaders itself. Rather, they will meet Wednesday with the four-member organizing committee to convey their complaints. The larger summit of 180 presidents of bishops conferences from around the world begins Thursday.

US President Donald Trump Sunday called on his European allies to take back alleged jihadists captured in Syria, as Islamic State group fighters defended the last scrap of their "caliphate". IS group declared a proto-state across parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, but has since lost all of it except a tiny patch of less than half a kilometre square near the Iraqi border. After years of fighting IS group, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) hold hundreds of foreigners accused of fighting for the group, and well as related women and children.

A suicide attack on Wednesday on a Revolutionary Guards bus in southeastern Iran killed at least 20 people, the official news agency IRNA reported. "The suicide attack on an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps personnel bus happened on the Khash-Zahedan road," IRNA said. "This terrorist act happened a short time ago and according to reports at least 20 have been martyred and 20 have been wounded," an informed source told IRNA.

The Criminal Court has sentenced three police officers to three years in prison for being accused of beating a prisoner to death inside a police station. The case dates back to 2016 when the defendants were referred to the Criminal Court over charges of beating the victim to death inside a police station in Upper Egypt s Sohag governorate.

An Egyptian team has begun documenting celebrations along the Holy Family journey route in Sharqia governorate on Monday as preparation for it s inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The team of experts, coming from the Ministries of Tourism, Antiquities and Culture, will be bringing together data regarding the heritage of celebrations held along the Holy Family s flight route across Egypt.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Monday blasted a US "conspiracy" against the country as vast crowds in Tehran marked 40 years since the Islamic revolution. "The presence of people today on the streets all over Islamic Iran... means that the enemy will never reach its evil objectives," Rouhani told those gathered on the capital s Azadi (Freedom) square.

Egyptian writers in Wednesday s newspaper issues followed the visit of Al-Azhar Grand Imam Ahmed Al-Tayeb and Pope Francis to the UAE. Others continued to comment on the recent proposed constitutional amendments as the parliament approved a motion signed by 155 MPs to amend the 2014 Constitution. Pope Francis led on Tuesday a historic mass in the Zayed Sports City Stadium in Abu Dhabi, marking the first ever papal visit to the Arabian Peninsula. The event came as part of the UAE s 2019 Year of Tolerance. Emad El-Din Hussein, editor-in-chief of the private newspaper Al-Shorouk recalled his old days in the UAE, mentioning stories that he said proved that the Gulf country has always enjoyed an atmosphere of tolerance.

Pope Francis left the UAE Tuesday after a landmark three-day visit – the pope s first to the Arabian Peninsula. Before the pope s departure to Rome a holy mass was held at Zayed Sports City Stadium in the capital Abu Dhabi in the attendance of some 120,000 Christians residing in the UAE. A few other thousands flocked from neighbouring Gulf countries – now inhabited by millions of Christians – to attend the mass.

Pope Francis said on Wednesday he hoped his historic trip to the Arabian peninsula will help dispel the notion of an inevitable clash of civilisations between Christianity and Islam. Francis returned to Rome on Tuesday from the United Arab Emirates, where in Abu Dhabi he presided at the largest public Mass ever celebrated on the peninsula where Islam was born. "In an era, like ours, where there is a strong temptation to see a clash between Christian civilisation and the Islamic one, and even to consider religions as a source of conflict, we wanted to send another clear and decisive signal that encounter is possible," he said at his regular general audience.

Pope Francis held a historic public mass for an estimated 170,000 Catholics at an Abu Dhabi stadium on Tuesday on the first ever papal visit to the Muslim Gulf. The pope waved at an enthusiastic crowd carrying Vatican flags and banners as he drove into Zayed Sports City Stadium, where an altar with a large cross was set up for the unprecedented open-air service in a country where worship is normally allowed only inside churches.

The Grand Imam of Egypt s Al-Azhar Ahmed El-Tayyeb is meeting on Monday with Roman Catholic Pope Francis, who is currently in the UAE in his first-ever visit to the Arabian Peninsula. The pope is attending the UAE s Global Conference for Human Fraternity, which will be held on February 3-5. Pope Francis will meet on Monday afternoon with a group of Muslim religious leaders to discuss the issue of religious tolerance.

Pope Francis is hoping to persuade a country enmeshed in a regional war that he has condemned to give Catholics more freedom when he becomes the first pontiff to set foot on the Arabian Peninsula. Francis will spend less than 48 hours in the United Arab Emirates, which is fighting alongside Saudi Arabia in the Yemen war, and is due to make only two public addresses during the trip that starts on Sunday night.

Head of the Roman Catholic Church Pope Francis said on Thursday that his visit to the United Arab of Emirates (UAE) on February 3 would build a new chapter of the relationship between religions and confirm on the idea of humanitarian brotherhood. In a video message released by the Emirates News Agency, the pope stressed that the UAE is a “model for co-existence, human fraternity, and meeting of faiths and civilizations.”

Egypt s Public Prosecution ordered on Wednesday 25 defendants to be held of 15 days pending investigations into terrorism-linked charges. The defendants are accused of plotting violence acts in January and February and joining an outlawed group with the aim of preventing State institutions from fulfilling their duties.

Egyptians strength comes from their national unity, Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II told French President Emmanuel Macron during his visit to St Mark s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo s Abbasiya district. In a televised press conference at the Cathedral, Pope Tawadros II told Macron that stability and peace will only be achieved through dialogue, pointing out that there is a continuous dialogue to preserve national unity through a number of Islamic and Coptic institutions in the country.

The Islamic State-claimed bombing of a Catholic cathedral that killed 20 in the Philippines’ restive south put fresh pressure Monday on peace efforts aimed at ending decades of separatist violence. Two explosions tore through the cathedral, shattering pews and windows, on the Muslim-majority island of Jolo, killing worshippers at Sunday mass and security forces in one the nation’s worst bombings in years. Experts voiced concern on Monday over the impact the attack would have on a decades-long push for peace that culminated last week in voters approving expanded Muslim self-rule in the south.

Damanhour Criminal Court has adjourned the trial of suspects Wael Saad Tawadros, formerly known as Ash eyaa al-Makary and Raymon Rasmy Mansour, formerly known as Faltaous al-Makary, in the murder of Bishop Epiphanius to January 31. The court has decided to hear the defense of Wael and Raymon within the next trial. The court heard the prosecution plead after the prosecution showed video records of Wael confessing to the crime and reenacting how he committed the murder.

Imagine if Christians anywhere destroyed 1,125 mosques. The outcry would be immediate, sustained, impassioned — and justified. There would governmental studies and lavish media examination of Christian “Islamophobia.” But no one will take any particular notice of this. “Boko Haram: EYN asks Nigerian govt to rebuild 1,125 churches razed by insurgents,” Daily Post, January 23, 2019: A Christian denomination based mostly in the Northeast, the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria, otherwise known in Hausa language as Ekklesiyar Yan uwa A Nigeria (EYN), has appealed to the federal government to rebuild its church branches razed by Boko Haram insurgents.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Thursday it is time for an international investigation to be launched into the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. In an interview with Turkish broadcaster A Haber, Cavusoglu said President Tayyip Erdogan ordered preparations to be made to carry the case to an international level, and said a United Nations special rapporteur will be coming to Turkey.

Saudi-led coalition air strikes in Yemen have killed almost 80 Houthi rebel fighters over 48 hours in the western province of Hodeida, military and medical sources said Tuesday. The strikes on Hodeida, site of a vital port and target of a renewed coalition offensive, also left seven civilians dead, they said.

Egyptian troops and security forces have killed 59 terrorists in recent operations, the army said in a statement on Tuesday. In various raids in Sinai and the Suez Canal cities, army forces killed 44 terrorists who were found in possession of rifles and explosive devices, the statement said. Police forces killed another 15 “extremely dangerous takfiris” in a separate "pre-emptive" operation, it added, without saying where the operation took place.