Women's rights activist and author Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former figurehead in the New Atheism movement, openly recanted her past assertions that all religions, including Christianity, were equally damaging.

In violation of Vietnam's new religion policy, authorities in Lao Cai Province in Vietnam's far north are pressuring new Christians among the Hmong minority to recant their faith and to re-establish ancestral altars, according to area church leaders.

HONG KONG (Compass) -- Christians in Laos continue to suffer persecution from a government crackdown on believers, and they cannot visit friends or travel freely because the secret police follow them every everywhere. Some have been forced to recant their faith.