Child of Hope Uganda - Christmas Appeal 2025

 

This Christmas and throughout the year, help us provide food for all our pupils and their families from the slums of Namatala and Karamoja, Uganda.

Hunger and malnutrition are harsh daily realities for many of our pupils and their families, who are living in extreme poverty in the poorest regions of Uganda. Christmas is simply another day with too little food and a rumbly tummy. No special meal, no treats, and often no food at all.

Here at Child of Hope, we want to change that – not just at Christmas, but into the New Year and beyond.

With your help, we can provide an amazing Christmas for our pupils and their families, and also boost the funds available for our food programme into the New Year. This programme supports our foster children, those pupils with health conditions (like sickle cell, TB and HIV), child-headed families, and the most vulnerable. READ MORE HERE...

Please click HERE to make a donation - to bring joy into children's hearts this Christmas. Thank you!

www.justgiving.com

The Christian Aid Christmas Appeal 2025: no crib for a bed... when you’re fleeing violence.

 

As we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, let's not forget communities affected by conflict.

While many of us share a joyful and peaceful Christmas in our homes and churches, we invite you to consider families like Chance’s — facing unimaginable hardship after fleeing violence.

When fighting reached her village (Minova, on the shores of Lake Kivu, East Democratic Republic of Congo), Chance made an impossible choice: stay and risk her children’s lives, or flee everything they've known.

She set out on foot with her children — her baby strapped to her back — walking for days to reach safety.

The family’s treacherous trek took its toll on everyone. But for a mother determined to protect her family, stopping wasn’t an option.

While fleeing, my baby and other children all fell ill, even myself, because I had given birth by caesarean section. The wound opened because I was carrying luggage.’ - Chance.

Help mothers who’ve lost everything protect their families: Your donation this Christmas could make an immediate difference by funding cash grants that save lives. Help mothers like Chance buy nutritious food, vital medicines and hygiene products.

www.christianaid.org.uk

Bank of England warns of dotcom bubble moment for AI

 

The Bank of England has warned that stock valuations in the US are close to being the most stretched since the “dotcom bubble” as fears of a shock in Artificial Intelligence shares linger.

The central bank said in its latest Financial Stability Report (FSR) that there was a heightened “risk of a sharp correction” a day after stocks started December with a downturn on Wall Street.

The Bank said stocks were also most stretched in Britain since the 2008 financial crisis, as it said that risks to stability have increased in 2025.

It comes as tech stocks have surged this year, with AI chipmaker Nvidia briefly becoming the world’s first $5 trillion company last month. READ MORE...

www.telegraph.co.uk

Windows 11 needs an XP SP2 moment, says ex-Microsoft engineer

The Windows operating system is buckling under AI features that seem designed more for shareholders than users, and retired Microsoft engineer Dave Plummer says it's time to hit pause.

"It's time for Microsoft to have another XP SP2 moment," said Plummer, who worked on Windows XP during a pivotal period more than two decades ago.

When the Blaster worm hit in 2003, Microsoft made a decisive switch. "We set aside all feature work," he recalled.

"For several months, all we did was improve security. We didn't add security features. We fixed bugs. Lots of bugs, until there weren't any security bugs to fix anymore. And then we fixed the ones we didn't know about yet."

The work on XP was one of Plummer's last hurrahs at Microsoft, but the experience of Service Pack 2 shaped his opinion on what Microsoft needs to do in order to get Windows 11 back on track.

"Put simply," he said, "we stopped trying to add value to the product through features that PMs [Project Managers] thought users would like and instead we focused on things that had been important for a long time but overlooked."

Fast forward two decades and Microsoft is stuffing Windows with AI features while seemingly ignoring user complaints about performance and reliability. READ MORE...

www.theregister.com

The Bible In One Year - that's 365 days well spent!

The Bible with Nicky and Pippa Gumbel is a daily Bible reading plan which takes you through the whole Bible in 365 days.  It is ideal for anyone who is looking for an easy and accessible way to read and understand the Bible. 

Each day includes passages from a Psalm or Proverb, the New Testament and the Old Testament along with a daily commentary from Nicky and Pippa Gumbel, former leaders of  Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB) Church in London and pioneers of Alpha. The Bible with Nicky and Pippa Gumbel will encourage you to engage more closely with the Bible, to apply its teachings to everyday life and to grow in your relationship with Jesus. 

You can follow along by reading the text or listening to the audio commentary and you can choose the version that best suits your lifestyle; the Classic version (25 minutes), or a shorter Express or Youth version (both around 15 minutes). 

Over 4.5 million people from 160 countries have experienced The Bible with Nicky and Pippa Gumbel. Why not join them, find your own rhythm and draw closer to God.

Download The Bible with Nicky and Pippa Gumbel app for iOS or Android devices and read along each day:
Download for iOS from the App Store
Download for Android on Google Play

bible.alpha.org

Nigerian president declares emergency amid Christian genocide claims

Nigeria’s President, Bola Tinubu, has declared a national state of emergency, following a spate of kidnappings and attacks on Christians.

Up to 20,000 police officers are to be hired under Tinubu’s plans, which include authorising the use of National Youth Service Corps training camps as military facilities.

Guards will be redeployed from across the West African nation to seek out any would-be attackers hiding in forests.

“There will be no more hiding places for agents of evil,” Tinubu declared.

Nigerian security forces have so far managed to rescue 24 of the 300 schoolgirls taken from a boarding school in Kebbi state, and 38 Christians kidnapped from a church in Kwara.

“I sympathise with families who lost loved ones and pay tribute to our brave soldiers,” the President said. Although from a Muslim background, he has never publicly stated a religious affiliation. As a child, Tinubu attended a Catholic school, before studying in the United States. 

US President Donald Trump has claimed that there is a “Christian genocide” taking place in the country. It ranks seventh on Open Doors’ World Watch List of the most dangerous places to follow Jesus.

www.premierchristian.news

The case against Superintelligent AI - how it could all go horribly wrong

AI is the greatest threat to our existence that we have ever faced.

The scramble to create superhuman artificial intelligence has put us on the path to extinction – but it’s not too late to change course. Two pioneering researchers in the field, Eliezer Yudkowsy and Nate Soares, explain why artificial superintelligence would be a global suicide bomb and call for an immediate halt to its development.

The technology may be complex, but the facts are simple: companies and countries are in a race to build machines that will be smarter than any person, and the world is devastatingly unprepared for what will come next.

How could a machine superintelligence wipe out our entire species? Will it want to? Will it want anything at all? In this urgent book, Yudkowsky and Soares explore the theory and the evidence, present one possible extinction scenario, and explain what it would take for humanity to survive.

The world is racing to build something truly new – and if anyone builds it, everyone dies.

www.penguin.co.uk