(Xinhua) -- Dusk was thickening over Urumqi, but every seat in the meeting room was taken. At the podium, Erica Hunter, a scholar in her 70s, was walking her audience through her latest findings on Syriac manuscripts, which offer a window into the cultural interactions and commercial networks that once flowed along the ancient Silk Road.
Bartella, Iraq -- Nineveh Provincial Council member Rabi Youssef warned that the predominantly Assyrian town of Bartella is facing attempts to alter its historic identity, pointing to unauthorized construction on agricultural land and growing pressure on the town's traditional character.
Ankara -- DEM Party MP George Aryo (Turkish surname Aslan) has voiced sharp criticism against what he described as "ongoing discrimination based on religion and belief in Turkey", particularly against Christian, Alevi and Yezidi communities. The Jerusalem MP stressed that constitutional and legal rights regarding freedom of belief and minority protections fail to translate effectively into reality.
At 91, Sami Mousa Barsoum still introduces himself with a sense of responsibility that has defined much of his life. He is the mukhtar, or community representative, of Urishlem's Assyrians. Born on 5 August 1935, near the Assyrian Orthodox monastery in Jerusalem's Old City, Barsoum has witnessed nearly a century of transformation in a city where generations of Christians have struggled to...
After safeguarding them for more than half a century, the Chaldean Antonian Order of St. Hormizd has returned a collection of historic manuscripts belonging to the former Chaldean Diocese of Akra in northern Iraq to its ecclesiastical authorities.
Can Chaldean Catholics in Iraq still imagine a future in their ancestral homeland? This question lies at the heart of one of the most urgent challenges facing Iraq's Christian community today. Over the past two decades, Iraq's population has fallen dramatically. The European Centre for Law and Justice reports that the Iraqi Christian population in particular has declined from "1.
Tur Abdin, Turkey -- The First Administrative Court in Sirnak has issued a decision suspending the enforcement of an administrative fine and closure order imposed on the annex of the historic Assyrian Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary in Azakh, known in Assyrian as Beth Zabday (Turkish mandatory name: Idil).
Rami Nouri has been elected Deputy Speaker of the Kurdistan Regional Parliament in Iraq, representing the Christian quota, after securing 52 votes. He is the first Christian to hold the position in the parliament's history.
Mosul, Iraq -- Iraq's Nineveh Governorate has named a street next to the Syriac Orthodox Cathedral of Mor Ephrem in Mosul after Father Bulos Iskandar, honoring his memory and his service to the church and Christian community.
Military deployments in the areas surrounding Makhmur Camp in Iraq's Nineveh Province have undergone changes following the announced withdrawal of Kurdistan Workers' Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK) fighters from ten positions they had been using in the area. Control of the positions has since been transferred to the Iraqi army and Peshmerga forces.
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Minister of State for Components Affairs Aydin Maruf said Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, that efforts were underway to establish a Assyrian school for the Christian community in Sulaimani, while also calling for greater support for existing Turkmen-language schools in the city and Kifri district.
Iraqi President Nizar Amedi received the Syriac Catholic Patriarch of Antioch, His Beatitude Ignatius Joseph III Younan, and his accompanying delegation at the Peace Palace in Baghdad on Sunday, 1 November 2026. According to a statement from the Iraqi Presidency, the President emphasised that Iraq's diversity had enriched its social, cultural and national identity.
(AINA) -- In her new book, Claire Weibel Yacoub recounts the odyssey of an Assyrian in a historical novel about exile, war, and the unbroken will of a people. With Les tribulations de Paulus l'Assyrien (The Tribulations of Paulus the Assyrian), the French historian and specialist on the Assyro-Chaldean question, Claire Weibel Yacoub, presents a moving novel based on a true story.
Hamilton, Ontario Canada (AINA) -- Dr. Nenos Damerchie, an Assyrian-Canadian chiropractor, small-business owner and longtime Hamilton resident, is running for Hamilton City Council in Ward 8 in the October 26, 2026 municipal election. Dr. Damerchie was born in Kuwait to an Assyrian family and came to Hamilton as a child.
(AINA) -- The Assyrian Arts Institute (AAI) is an organization founded by Nora Betyousef Lacey in 2017 and claims to support Assyrian arts. AAI has sponsored a few events since its founding, including an Assyrian women's choir.
(AINA) -- On July 12 Iraqi president Abdul Latif Rashid repealed the decree recognizing the appointment of Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako as head of the Chaldean Catholic Church and which appointed him to the office of the waqf (وقف), the endowment which oversees all church property. The details of the events leading up to this action are exhaustively covered in this report by MEMRI.
(AINA) -- "The empires of the future are the empires of the mind." With this celebrated statement, Winston Churchill anticipated that great civilizations are measured not by their territorial expansion, but by their capacity to generate, preserve, and transmit knowledge.
(AINA) -- For decades, the world has heard repeated claims that northern Iraq is a region of stability, security, and coexistence. However, many Assyrians living in their ancestral homeland continue to express serious concerns about intimidation, restrictions on their freedoms, and growing pressures that threaten their ability to preserve their identity, voice, and presence in the land of their...
(Xinhua) -- Dusk was thickening over Urumqi, but every seat in the meeting room was taken. At the podium, Erica Hunter, a scholar in her 70s, was walking her audience through her latest findings on Syriac manuscripts, which offer a window into the cultural interactions and commercial networks that once flowed along the ancient Silk Road.
Anyone who has seen The Exorcist will most likely remember Linda Blair as the young girl Regan MacNeil, the menacing figure of an ancient statuette, the soundtrack--with those notes from Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells that still evoke the film to this day--and the way that image has become etched into the horror imagination of the 20th century.