News Briefs

The Mayan human rights activist Rosalina Tuyuc Velásquez of Guatemala is the winner of Japan’s Niwano Peace Prize and will receive a medal and the equivalent of $250,000 during a ceremony in Tokyo in May. • Churches and human rights groups in Zimbabwe have issued an urgent appeal seeking information about Paul Chizuze, a human rights activist missing since Feb. 8. • A suicide bomber from the Islamist militant group Boko Haram drove a car into the headquarters of the Church of Christ in Jos, Nigeria, on Feb. 26, killing four people and injuring 37 and provoking reprisal attacks that led to five more deaths, including that of a church member mistaken for the bomber’s accomplice. • Britain’s Journal of Medical Ethics generated international outrage after publishing online on Feb. 23 an article calling for the acceptance of infanticide for social and medical reasons. • A church used since 1972 by a small group of Christians in Laos’s Savannakhet Province was confiscated on Feb. 22 by Communist authorities bent on halting the “tricks of the enemy” and “operations of the Christians.” • Catholic Charities USA continues to work with its local agencies in Southern and Midwestern states after three waves of late February and early March storms produced scores of tornadoes and left 39 dead in more than 10 states.