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NEWS &
EVENTS - world |
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ARAB VISION TO LAUNCH WEBSITE THIS YEAR
A broadcast charter agreement last year involving
countries of the Arab League is viewed by a Christian
ministry as a possible significant step toward
tightening controls on satellite television in the
region. In response, Arab Vision sees the Internet as
holding great potential with exponential growth in the
numbers of people in the Arab world who have access to
the Internet. The Gulf region leads in this, but poorer
countries such as Egypt have also made good progress.
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ABORTION FOR POPULATION CONTROL? ‘DEMOGRAPHIC BOMB'
PRODUCER APPALLED
July 14 - Barry McLerran, producer of the just-released
documentary "Demographic Bomb: Demography is Destiny" --
sequel to "Demographic Winter" -- said he was appalled
by recent comments of Supreme Court Associate Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg that she viewed abortion as a form
of population control.
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SONS BORN TO COPTIC CHRISTIAN MOTHER IN EGYPT STILL
CONSIDERED MUSLIMS
A Christian mother in Egypt has won custody of her twin
sons from her estranged husband who had converted to
Islam and claimed them according to Islamic legal
precepts. The boys, however, will still be considered
Muslims despite their desire to remain Christian.
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IRAN SCRAPS MANDATORY DEATH PENALTY FOR ‘APOSTATES’
A member of Iran’s parliament reportedly revealed that
the country’s Parliamentary Committee has stricken the
mandatory death penalty for those who leave Islam from
proposals for an amended penal code. Citing a BBC
report, U.K.-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW)
announced that a member of Iran’s Legal and Judicial
Committee of Parliament, Ali Shahrokhi, had told the
Iranian state news agency of the decision to eliminate
the mandatory death penalty amendment which had drawn
international protests.
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NINE CHRISTIANS ARRESTED IN MALAYSIA
Police in Malaysia have said they will release nine
Christians mistakenly accused of trying to convert
Muslim university students to Christianity. A university
security guard wrongly thought they were handing
Christian pamphlets to Muslims, police said.
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RELIGIOUS DISHARMONY INVESTIGATION
The arrests followed a controversy last week centring on
two journalists who wrote about hiding their Muslim
identity in order to receive Communion at a Roman
Catholic church. One of the journalists said they were
investigating reports that Muslims had committed
apostasy by attending prayers or Communion at the
church, but that they found no evidence of this.
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WORLD BAPTIST HEAD CALLS FOR GREATER UNITY AMONG
EVANGELICALS
The President of the Baptist World Alliance has urged
evangelicals in the UK to make more of an effort to be
united and warned that the present disunity was
weakening the potential for “thoughtful and effective”
evangelism in the country. The Rev David Coffey argues
in his new book, 'All one in Christ Jesus,' that
evangelicals are losing the ground gained in the 1970s
and 1980s “when we honoured and accepted one another
with greater grace across the denominational and
organisational divisions.”
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SEVEN BELIEVERS BEHEADED IN SOMALIA
Al-Shabaab, Somalia's hard-line insurgents, reportedly
beheaded seven Somalis for being "Christians" and
"spies." This news was announced by Reuters News Agency
on Friday. The report stated that the incident took
place in the south-central town of Baidoa. In Iraq, the
Associated Press reported a car bomb exploded near a
church in Baghdad, killing three Christians and a
Muslim. Another Christian was killed in the northern
city of Kirkuk. Several more churches were also bombed
in Baghdad over the weekend.
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EVANGELICAL FRANCIS COLLINS NAMED TO HEAD NIH
WASHINGTON (RNS) -- Francis Collins, the
researcher who mapped the human genome and navigated
clashes between his Christian faith and science, has
been chosen to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Calling Collins "one of the top scientists in the
world," President Obama announced his nomination on
Wednesday (July 8), one day after the NIH released new
stem cell research guidelines that angered many
conservative Christians.
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NEW SWINE FLU VACCINE PRODUCED IN MORAL CELL CULTURE
MURFREESBORO, Tenn., June 16: Children of
God for Life announced today that a new swine flu
vaccine produced by Swiss-based pharmaceutical giant,
Novartis, is made using ethical cell lines. The vaccine,
which was hailed last week by the Associated Press as
the first to be produced in cell culture rather than the
traditional chick embryo method, uses MDCK (Madin-Darby
Canine Kidney) cells.
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2009 CHRISTY AWARDS FOR BEST CHRISTIAN FICTION
ANNOUNCED
The winners of the tenth annual Christy Awards were
announced Saturday ahead of this week’s International
Christian Retail Show. From each of the nine Christian
fiction categories, a winner was selected by a panel of
seven judges and recognized with the top honor,
continuing a tradition that has been running since 1999.
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OBAMA AND POPE DISCUSS ABORTION, STEM CELLS
In their first meeting Friday, President Barack Obama
and Pope Benedict XVI touched on the ethics of abortion
and stem cells. The two leaders met at the Vatican's
apostolic palace where the pontiff offered Obama a copy
of a document titled "An Instruction on Certain
Bioethical Questions." While Obama supports abortion
rights and funding embryonic stem cell research, the
Vatican is staunchly opposed to both. In a paper that
was released in December, the Vatican hardened its
opposition to using embryos for stem cell research and
affirmed the dignity of every human life beginning at
conception.
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KENYA ETHNIC HEALING FAR FROM COMPLETE
Kenyans are still struggling to recover from the ethnic
violence that erupted a year and a half ago in the wake
of a disputed presidential election. "The big problem is
10 million people are facing food shortages," says
Assemblies of God missionary Bryan Burr, who represents
Convoy of Hope in Kenya. "Farmers haven't been growing
food because they've been preoccupied with shelter and
safety."
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 CELEBRATING CALVIN, 500 YEARS LATER
What made John Calvin great? The answer his brilliance
as a thinker and writer and, above all, his ability to
interpret the Bible, according to Bruce Gordon,
professor of Reformation history at Yale Divinity
School. As Christians across the globe celebrate the
500th anniversary of the birth of Calvin on Friday,
believers are paying tribute to the 16th century
reformer whose life was not without controversy, but one
to commemorate.
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TEEN COMPLETES 500-MILE WALK FOR SPEED THE
LIGHT
Greeted by cheers, banners and a small choir of kazoos,
15-year-old Mike Durbin took the final steps of his
500-mile walk from Whitehouse, Texas, to the Assemblies
of God headquarters in Spring-field, Missouri, on
Wednesday, July 1, 2009. His incredible I Will Walk
journey was a God-inspired endeavour to raise funds and
awareness for Speed the Light, the AG student-initiated
program that provides missionaries with vehicles and
other much-needed equipment.
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25 LAKH DISPLACED PAKISTANIS FEAR RETURNING BACK TO
THEIR HOMES
Islamabad: Over 25 lakh internally
displaced people continue to “suffer from shock,” they
are “afraid of returning home” because they feel that
some Taliban presence still exists in those areas,
Church-based relief group said. Two and a half months
into the offensive against Taliban, Pakistan said on 8
June that the military operation against the militants
in northwestern Pakistan's Swat and Buner districts
completed, clearing out militants and making the area
safe for return of the displaced local population,
Xinhua news reported.
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IRAN INTERRUPTS CHRISTIAN SATELLITE CHANNEL
Teheran: As the Iranian government cracks
down on communication modes following its disputed
presidential election, Christian satellite channels have
been among its victims. Terry Ascott, CEO of SAT-7
International, said many satellite channels, including
the Christian channel, have been affected by the
government crackdown. What is “strange,” he noted, is
that the government has found a way to block channels
beaming into Iran without jamming satellites that would
affect the entire Middle East.
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CHURCH, BIBLE STUDENTS FIGHT DISCRIMINATION IN
INDONESIA
Members of the Huria Kristen Batak Protestan Church (HKBP)
in Cinere village, Depok, West Java appeared in court on
June 29, 2009 to contest the mayor's revocation of their
building permit in March, while students of the
shuttered Arastamar School of Theology (SETIA)
demonstrated in Jakarta on June 15, asking officials to
honor promises to provide them with a new campus.
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IRAN: BELIEVERS VULNERABLE TO PROTEST CRACKDOWN
Iranian Christian Joseph Hovsepian says Christians
protesting the June re-election of Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could face even more intense
persecution than believers already endure. Hovsepian,
whose father, Bishop Haik Hovsepian, was martyred in
Iran in 1994, said his friends and relatives in Iran
claim that few Christians are in the streets protesting,
although they share the protesters’ demands for a full
recount of the bitterly disputed election and more
freedom.
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SUDANESE CHRISTIAN GIRLS FLOGGED FOR WEARING PANTS
Officials in Sudan have flogged several women including
Christian women for wearing trousers. They were arrested
by police last week in the capital on charges that they
violated the public dress code. According to BBC news,
Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein, a well-known reporter who writes
a weekly column called Men Talk for Sudanese papers, who
also works for the United Nations Mission in Sudan says
she is facing 40 lashes, said she and 12 other women
wearing trousers were arrested in a restaurant in the
capital, Khartoum.
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LOTTERY SALES UP, DESPERATE PEOPLE ARE LOSING
If there is a silver lining to the economic recession,
it could be that some forms of gambling are in decline.
Many casinos and racetracks have reported decreased
revenue as Americans scale back on travel. But in some
states, lottery sales have increased as
down-on-their-luck consumers purchase tickets in hopes
of scoring a windfall.
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This page is
updated on July 22, 2009 |
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