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CANADA: A new poll finds the number of Canadians describing themselves as evangelical has risen to 19 percent. Meanwhile, the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice will soon begin arbitrating civil disputes through Muslim “sharia” law, first in Ontario and later across Canada. “Sharia” rulings can be enforced by Canadian courts. The plan involves inheritance, divorce and family matters, but not criminal offenses. Islamic leaders say all parties must agree to the arbitration for decisions to be binding. Others, however, say “sharia” places women at a disadvantage because they could be pressured to take part in these courts. For example, “sharia” maintains that sons inherit twice as much as daughters. One newspaper editorial said, “’Sharia’ law is known in the West mainly by its more extreme clauses, which recommend brutal punishments and authorize the unequal treatment of women. Perhaps this is an unfair image. But no country can have two competing codes of law.”

CHILE: Although Chile has largely avoided Latin America’s overall economic plight, its child prostitution problem looms. A prominent businessman is at the center of a scandal alleging that he heads a prostitution ring that recruits street kids. Police and other top businessmen have been arrested, while two senators are being investigated. A government child protection department spokesperson says that this is helping children by bringing to light a previously unrecognized problem. One child prostitute, an orphan who fled a rough orphanage at age seven, says that prostitution was the only way he could feed himself. Estimates of the numbers of children in Chile’s sex trade range from 4,000 to 15,000. Some start as young as five years old.

JAPAN: Over the past ten years, the numbers of South Korean missionaries to Japan have risen. While fewer US and European missionaries are in Japan, in contrast, numbers of South Koreans—mostly Christians—in Japan on religious visas have risen from 375 to 804. In contrast to Western missionaries, Koreans typically stay longer, build churches and get financial support from Japanese-Koreans. Some 500 churches in Japan are either Korean built or pastored. Congregation sizes range from 30 to more than 1,500.

KOREANS: In the 1800s many ethnic Koreans fled their homeland to far-eastern Russia to escape famine, economic woes and threats of Japanese imperialism. In the 1930s, Stalin feared they would spy on the Soviet Union and sent some 200,000 of them to Central Asia. But following independence in 1991 for Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, those not of Uzbek and Kazakh ancestry became subject to discrimination. Thousands of ethnic Koreans moved from Central Asia to Russia in the last decade. Others moved to the US, where they aim to embrace their ancestral culture, but often aren’t fully welcomed by the Korean community. Evangelical Elsa Rafikova, a Korean-Russian immigrant to the US, taught herself Korean and has planted a church in Los Angeles’ Korea-town for Korean-Uzbeks. She raises money to pay for Korean-Russian refugees’ Korean language classes to help them break into Los Angeles’ huge Korean-American business network. “The church has united us, but the Korean-American community will develop us,” Rafikova said.

LIBERIA: SIM-founded radio station ELWA, Eternal Love Winning Africa, celebrated its 50th anniversary in January. Missionaries joined more than 100 Liberians for the occasion. Despite four separate missionary evacuations during rebel fighting, and the destruction of the Monrovia station more than once, ELWA continues to broadcast the gospel in 10 languages in partnership with SIM and HCJB World Radio.

MEXICO: Only 81 percent of Mexicans consider themselves Catholics, down from 89 percent a decade ago. Protestant numbers rose from about four to nine percent. Protestants are many in Oaxaca and especially Chiapas. Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and, in Chiapas, even Muslims also are making inroads in this country known for its staunch Roman Catholicism.

RUSSIA: New Civilization is a youth club that teaches kids about life under capitalism. More than 100,000 members strong, it was founded in 1996 by now-jailed oligarch Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, who also financed it. The club fills a void left by the former Soviet Union’s Pioneers and Komsomol clubs that united Soviet youth. Khodorkovsky asserts that education is vital in Russian civil society. Open Russia, the umbrella organization that funds the club, also sponsors journalist and bureaucrat seminars and funds regional universities and village libraries, internet access for religious groups, and a school for children of Russian border guards killed in action.

SAUDI ARABIA: More women are graduating from universities in this country that imposes the world’s strictest form of Islamic “sharia” law. Some women, such as ophthalmologist Selwa al-Hazzaa who heads a prestigious Riyadh eye clinic, have been allowed to rise to their potential. They are among the five percent of Saudi’s women who work in this male-dominated society in which women may only leave home veiled in black and with a male chaperone. Women here may not drive, vote or take part in politics. The government has called municipal elections, but it’s unclear whether women will be allowed to participate. A new Saudi TV news channel has the country’s first female news reader. A recent reform has allowed Hazzaa and two other women to be appointed to an advisory council. The council will deal with women’s issues, but Saudi women want to expand beyond dealing just with things pertaining to women. Hazzaa says developing opportunities for women will take time. Pushing too hard for reforms could lose women more ground than it gains.

UNITED STATES: Barna Research Group pollsters have found that Americans are opting for do-it-yourself religion, choosing beliefs as if they were foods on a buffet line. Many Americans hold beliefs that mix various faith views in “logically contradictory” fashion to create their own unorthodox religious stances. One Fuller Theological Seminary professor believes this trend may reveal both a discontent with their faith traditions and a yearning for spiritual reality in as many ways as possible.