A tense calm returned Monday, February 2, to an impoverished area of the Pakistani city of Sargodha where police “tortured” Christian residents, which included beatings and sexually molesting girls and women, local Christians told Worthy News.
Two native missionaries in India were recovering from injuries Sunday, February 1, after they were beaten by an angry mob in the northeastern state of Manipur after showing a film in the life of Jesus, the latest in a series of attacks against evangelists in the Asian nation, co-workers said.
Amid a major global financial crisis, Eastern European governments were anxiously awaiting Thursday, January 29, if and when European Union funding will come for the Nabucco pipeline, in hopes of making Europe less dependent on Russian natural gas.
Israeli forces appeared to withdraw from the Gaza Strip Tuesday, January 20, in time for the inauguration of Barack Obama as the United States’ 44th president, but militant group Hamas said it would rearm, suggesting its conflict with Israel was not over.
A US Airways Airbus A320 plane came down in the Hudson River in New York City, Thursday, January 15, and ships rushed to the scene to rescue passengers.
The United Nations Security Council has passed a resolution calling for an “immediate cease-fire” in the Gaza Strip. The United States abstained in the vote as the council passed the resolution 14-0. However, Israel continued a military offensive Friday, January 9, saying it has an obligation to protect its citizens, including one million Israelis who face threats from rockets fired from Gaza by Hamas militants.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has rejected a European Union request for a 48-hour ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, saying Israel will uphold its commitment to provide basic foodstuffs and medicines to the residents of the Hamas-controlled region.
(ADDS MORE DETAILS, HAMAS REACTION)
Israel is halting its military operations for three hours a day beginning Wednesday, January 7, for three hours each day, to allow humanitarian aid to enter into Gaza, Israeli officials said.
Signs that Hamas has isolated itself in the world have merged from two fronts. Iran, on Tuesday, pledged that Hezbollah will not open a front against Israel along Israel’s northern border. Israel had been concerned that Hezbollah, in an act of solidarity with Hamas, might initiate a war along the Lebanese border; thus, dividing Israel’s attention and its forces.
Amid tight security, the United States embassy in Iraq’s capital Baghdad was open for business Tuesday, January 6, after a dedication ceremony to open what is the largest embassy compound in the world.
A tense calm returned Sunday, January 4, to Kosovo’s second largest and most ethnically divided town of Mitrovica, following clashes between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in which at least six people were injured.
As Israel continued its ground assault into the Gaza Strip Monday, January 5, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) were on high alert along the country’s northern border amid concerns the militant Hezbollah group would fire rockets from Lebanon in revenge for the offensive.
United States President-elect Barack Obama was scheduled to meet with congressional leaders from both political parties Monday, January 5, to discuss a stimulus package aimed at ending America’s worst economic crisis in decades.
Alarm bells echo around the world as Israel continues a major ground offensive it says is aimed at ending rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip fired by the militant group Hamas into Israel. Envoys of the European Union, including Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenburg along with the EU’s external relations commissioner and Schwarzenburg’s French and Swedish counterparts were due to hold talks in the region Monday, January 5.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon tried to bring an immediate end to Israel’s ground war in the Gaza Strip by backing a resolution to the Security Council that was drafted by Libya and put forward by the Arab League, calling for an immediate ceasefire.
The European Union was to hold a special meeting Monday, January 5, to discuss a major energy crisis, after Russia accused Ukraine of stealing natural gas destined for Europe.
On Saturday, January 3, Israel launched a ground assault against Gaza on what was the eighth day of its aerial assaults against the seaside strip of desert. Israel’s stated objective for the ground confrontation is to end all rocket attacks. The immediate objective of the ground operations, according to Major Avital Leibovitch, a military spokeswoman, “is to destroy the Hamas terror infrastructure in the area of operations.”
In a unprecedented move, a Chinese court has agreed to hear a case filed by a pastor against government officials who prohibited worship services in his house church, observers familiar with the trial said Wednesday, December 31.
Several Christian volunteers and survivors of China’s worst earthquake in a generation remained missing Sunday, December 28, after Christmas Eve police raids on homes under construction in the devastated Sichuan province amid anger among authorities over the involvement of churches in relief efforts, an advocacy group said.
A major Christian rights group warned Tuesday, December 23, that many churches in the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan in 2009, if a new draft law requiring them to re-register under restrictive conditions is adopted by parliament.