World News

An explosion rocked the Iraqi capital of Baghdad early Friday morning, killing two people and injuring several others. The regime of dictator Saddam Hussein immediately blamed the blast on “the agents of treachery and vice… the Zionists and the Americans.”

Saudi security forces stormed a hijacked Russian plane on Friday, ending a hostage situation that began when armed Chechen men commandeered the plane after takeoff from Istanbul yesterday. Three people were killed and several others were injured in the commando operation.

Anti-Syrian sentiment is rising among Christians in Lebanon, evidenced by bold comments by Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir in his visit to the US last week, and during protests at a Beirut university this week.

As the Knesset returned from its three-month summer recess on Monday, its first session since the Palestinian uprising started one month ago, embattled Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak faced a deeply divided parliament without an emergency unity government in place and in the throes of a fresh round of lethal assaults on Israeli targets.

After a bitterly heated debate among feuding party luminaries, the Labor Central Committee on Monday night approved by a two-to-one margin calls by Shimon Peres to join a national unity government with Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon.

With the Labor Party finally deciding this week to join Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon’s government, the Likud leader turned in earnest to negotiations with right-of-center parties, only to be confronted with a series of ultimatums over the remaining cabinet spoils.

Just as he issued an historic invitation to PLO chief Yasser Arafat, Syrian dictator Bashar Assad has said that war with Israel is a distinct possibility, that Israel would be on the losing side in the long term, and that “the Oslo Accords no longer exist.”

US Secretary of State Colin Powell will not attend the upcoming anti-racism conference in Durban, forcing Israel to reassess the level of its own representation at the UN forum where Arab/Islamic elements plan to bash the Jewish State and people.

The Palestinian war against Israel has heated up again, as eight Israelis have been killed in commando raids and terrorist ambushes from Saturday through Monday, prompting IDF strikes at numerous Palestinian police positions. PLO chief Yasser Arafat and other Arab leaders were already livid at the Israeli responses and American verbal and material support for them, even before an IDF hit on the head of a militant PLO faction in Ramallah today ratcheted regional tensions to new levels.

Hurricanes. Poverty. Voodoo. Extinct animals. Disease. Illiteracy. Deforestation. Struggle for survival. These haunting words describe the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere: Haiti.

“The world of imagination and fantasy can help pass on to the child cultural and social messages [and] function as a way to experience vicariously things an individual could not do first-hand.”
Aminadav, C. “Fantasies and imagination in mildly and moderately retarded young people.” International Journal of Adolescent Medicine & Health. 1995 Apr-Jun. 8: p.103-106
Wand making, broom decorating, tattoos, owls and pajama parties…. These book store gimmicks are just a few of the anticipated feasts and marketing tactics scheduled for July 8 in anticipation of the mysterious Book 4. Though its title, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was a close-guarded secret until June 28, a spellbound world had already sent book sales soaring into the heights like a magical broomstick.

CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND (ANS) — Marriage is now no longer a union between one man and one woman – at least in the Netherlands. Two do not necessarily become one in a country where marriage is a man-made civil right for some people instead of a God -ordained sacrament. Other countries look set to follow suit, although they don’t currently recognize the gay marriages.

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY (ANS) — A leader of Hungary’s Jewish community has warned of renewed anti Semitism in this former Communist nation, as Jewish organizations took legal action against an ultra right wing party. “There is a revival of anti Semitism in Hungary, ahead of the upcoming elections,” said Erno Lazarovits, Director Foreign Relations of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Hungary.

(CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.)-Responding to urgent pleas for help, Christian Aid has joined a campaign to raise $1.2 million to rescue Christians feared targeted for conversion or extermination by Muslim jihad warriors in Indonesia.

In a new twist to the violence against Christians in eastern Indonesia’s Maluku Islands, Muslim Jihad fighters dressed like Japanese “ninjas” have begun targeting individuals under cover of darkness.

MANADO, Indonesia (Compass) — “There are no Christians left in Ternate,” said George Saselah, who had left his farm there to join his wife and newborn daughter in a refugee camp in Manado, on Indonesia’s North Sulawesi island.

LONDON (Compass) — Maluku’s head of police admitted that authorities cannot dislodge the hundreds of Muslim jihad fighters scattered throughout eastern Indonesia’s Maluku province and who have escalated the inter-religious conflict as Christmas approaches. More than 100 Christians were reported killed in November fighting.

AMBON CITY, Indonesia (BP)–The mournful horn echoes in the still air at 4 a.m. The call to prayer resounds off bullet-pocked walls and empty buildings. The Christian remnant in this Indonesian village awakens to cry out to God for peace.

SPICE ISLANDS, INDONESIA (March 21, 2000) — An urgent plea for prayer for the Christians of Indonesia has come out of that nation from a recent visitor who has just returned from the Spice Islands.

INDONESIA – (Open Doors, July 9, 2001) – Christian leaders in Tentena, in Indonesia’s central Sulawesi province, pleaded with Open Doors to “be our voice” in the face of increased atrocities being perpetrated against them in Poso district, known as a “second Ambon.”