The Christian aid organization Open Doors published its annual World Watch List – a ranking of the most dangerous places in the world to practice the Christian faith – on Wednesday, which found that 380 million Christians around the world face severe persecution.
Christian persecution – which Open Doors defines as “any hostile action toward a person or community motivated by their identification with the person of Jesus Christ” – is particularly prevalent in countries with widespread Islamist terrorism or run by communist regimes. Of the top ten countries on the World Watch List, Islamic radicalism is the driver of persecution in eight of them, while the other two, North Korea and Eritrea, are under the yoke of communist regimes.
Of the 380 million Christians facing persecution, in many cases including deadly attacks, 310 million of them are in the top ten nations on the list. Half of these countries are in Africa and three are in the Middle East. Afghanistan is in South Asia; North Korea is an outlier in the Far East region, though bordering the number 15 country on the list, its longtime patron China.
The number of Christians facing violence, displacement, arrest, sexual violence, or other persecution around the world has steadily increased throughout the 2020s. This year’s tally is 20 million more Christians than the total Open Doors identified in the 2022 edition of its study. In 2020, Open Doors estimated that 260 million Christians faced “high levels of persecution.”
The 2025 edition of the World Watch List covers the events of 2024 – which included a rapid increase in radical Islamic terrorism in the African Sahel region, the spread of Chinese influence in several top repressor countries, and the seizure of power in Syria by the al-Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). […]
— Read More: www.breitbart.com
Independent Journalism Is Dying
Ever since President Trump’s miraculous victory, we’ve heard an incessant drumbeat about how legacy media is dying. This is true. The people have awakened to the reality that they’re being lied to by the self-proclaimed “Arbiters of Truth” for the sake of political expediency, corporate self-protection, and globalist ambitions.
But even as independent journalism rises to fill the void left by legacy media, there is still a huge challenge. Those at the top of independent media like Joe Rogan, Dan Bongino, and Tucker Carlson are thriving and rightly so. They have earned their audience and the financial rewards that come from it. They’ve taken risks and worked hard to get to where they are.
For “the rest of us,” legacy media and their proxies are making it exceptionally difficult to survive, let alone thrive. They still have a stranglehold over the “fact checkers” who have a dramatic impact on readership and viewership. YouTube, Facebook, and Google still stifle us. The freer speech platforms like Rumble and 𝕏 can only reward so many of their popular content creators. For independent journalists on the outside looking in, our only recourse is to rely on affiliates and sponsors.
But even as it seems nearly impossible to make a living, there are blessings that should not be disregarded. By highlighting strong sponsors who share our America First worldview, we have been able to make lifelong connections and even a bit of revenue to help us along. This is why we enjoy symbiotic relationships with companies like MyPillow, Jase Medical, and Promised Grounds. We help them with our recommendations and they reward us with money when our audience buys from them.
The same can be said about our preparedness sponsor, Prepper All-Naturals. Their long-term storage beef has a 25-year shelf life and is made with one ingredient: All-American Beef.
Even our faith-driven precious metals sponsor helps us tremendously while also helping Americans protect their life’s savings. We are blessed to work with them.
Independent media is the future. In many ways, that future is already here. While the phrase, “the more the merrier,” does not apply to this business because there are still some bad actors in the independent media field, there are many great ones that do not get nearly enough attention. We hope to change that one content creator at a time.
Thank you and God Bless,
JD Rucker
