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INDIA: A Latin American evangelistic strategy recently introduced to India is enjoying success. The campaign uses door-to-door evangelism, medical caravans and methods that involve the entire community over a long period of time. Women evangelists are proving effective messengers. While male evangelists are often persecuted in Indian villages, society respects women and will not openly hassle them. Also, women have more openings to Indian homes since men usually go out to work while women stay home during the day.
ISRAEL: Years of conflict and heightened attacks are taking their toll on Israelis’‚ and Palestinians’‚ mental health. Young and old alike suffer from early symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder: heightened depression, anxiety and sleep problems, and aggressive and anti-social behavior. Israeli trauma hotlines report a tripling of calls in the last two years, and camps in Gaza for traumatized children have waiting lists.
RUSSIA: Ethnic intolerance has quietly grown in recent years, forcing President Putin to declare a war on extremism this spring. Parliament passed a law on extremism and is awaiting Putin’s signature. Opponents say the law responds “to violence with violence;” its vague provisions could be used to close any organization making street protests. The law follows several embarrassing incidents-threats sent by Moscow neo-Nazis to foreign embassies, declaring a “war on foreigners;” a booby-trapped anti-Semitic sign that blew up in the face of the woman who tried to remove it; a riot in Moscow’s center after Russia’s World Cup team lost to Japan’s, at which rioters targeted Asian-looking passers-by. Shaken national pride, war in the Caucasus and years of mismanaged reforms have left many frustrated Russians seeking a clear enemy to vent their anger on.
RUSSIA: President Putin’s priority on economics entails new deals with Iran and Iraq. Putin‚s government plans to offer Iran nuclear assistance to create six more reactors. The deal could be worth $6 to $10 billion more to Russia’s nuclear industry, or roughly equivalent to the country’s entire official annual military budget. Russia and Iraq are close to signing a $40 billion economic cooperation plan in the fields of oil, irrigation, agriculture, transportation and more. To restore Moscow’s influence in world affairs, Putin believes, Russia needs to rebuild an economy that today is smaller than that of the Netherlands. Russia is the world’s number two weapons supplier and aggressively promotes the sale of tanks, planes and ships to countries such as China, India and Iran.
SAUDI ARABIA: Citing the Qur’an as a basis, the government’s internet filtering system prevents access to Web pages that it deems an insult to Islam. A new Harvard study found that beyond sexually explicit sites, religious, educational, women’s sites and pages perceived hostile to Saudi Arabia were blocked. Limited access sites included (an agency promoting religious tolerance as a human right), (a Christian-Muslim dialogue), (the Women in American History section of Encyclopedia Britannica Online) and Amnesty International pages about Saudi Arabia…Bootlegging is big business in Saudi Arabia. An estimated 150,000 cases of spirits, most of it Scotch whisky, are smuggled into the country annually, with resulting profits of $200 million. Industry experts believe Saudis consume seventy percent and foreigners the rest. Alcohol is forbidden under the nation’s strict Islamic law.
UGANDA: Abstinence education is producing significant results in reducing AIDS, according to a new Harvard University study. The HIV infection rate dropped fifty percent between 1992 and 2000. When the program started, twenty-one percent of pregnant women were HIV-positive; by 2001, the number was six percent. Education starts with an abstinence program for youth called “True Love Waits.” More than thirty thousand Ugandan youth are currently involved in the program that focuses on abstinence until marriage. Uganda’s emphasis on abstinence is unique. In other nations with high HIV infections, such as Zimbabwe and Botswana, condoms were promoted as the solution to the AIDS crisis.
UZBEKISTAN: Government intolerance of Islamic fundamentalism in the Jizak region is turning scores of Uzbek youth to Christian groups. Mainstream religious practice, tightly controlled by the state, has not always appealed to youth who were increasingly drawn to fundamentalist Islam groups. Following the 9/11 attacks, radical Muslim groups have become associated with terrorists, discouraging youth from joining their ranks and leaving an ideological vacuum. Missionaries are reaching educated young people, with significant numbers of students reportedly abandoning Islam in favor of Christianity. The devout Sunni Muslim country has been the historic center of Central Asia’s Islamic education.
VIETNAM: Hmong believers in northern Vietnam are reporting severe persecution to Christian radio broadcasters. Christians tell of forced closure of church meetings, confiscation and burning of Bibles, enormous fines on Christian households and imprisonment without any questions asked. Church leaders are selling their homes, land and livestock and relocating to the South. Operation World says that more than 100,000 believers of the Hmong tribal group have converted largely through gospel radio programs broadcast from the Philippines.
September 6, 2002