Lausanne World Pulse – World Pulse Archives – World Pulse Archives

CENTRAL AMERICA: The isthmus countries are cracking down on gangs, or maras, named for aggressive, swarming ants. In response some gang members are defying police by hacking up young women. Others have escaped to neighboring countries where they’re unleashing a wave of violence. Honduras and El Salvador outlawed street gangs in late 2003. At least 2,000 gang members who fled are robbing, killing and recruiting in Mexico. They may be joining forces with Mexican narcotraffick-ers. Maras have taken over areas of Honduras. They rob migrants on trains and hack resisters with machetes or throw them off moving trains. Their presence is heavily felt in Mexican border towns. Some of the isthmus’ biggest gangs formed in Los Angeles, California, in the 1980s and sprang up in El Salvador and Honduras after gang members were deported there.

CHINA: Villagers in southern Guangxi Province say police have launched a campaign to crush “illegal religious organizations” in Christian villages. They are arresting those who own Bibles and are sentencing them without trial to labor camps. As many as 40 police have raided homes in the middle of the night to find Bibles and other Christian materials. Three found with Bibles were sentenced to 18 months in a camp. Villagers supported the claims to AFP reporters by showing arrest documents.

CORRUPTION: About five percent of the world’s gross domestic product is wasted through corruption, World Bank officials say. Seventy countries have signed the first worldwide pact against it. The UN Convention Against Corruption seeks recovery of funds stolen by leaders and sheltered in foreign banks.

ERITREA: Government authorities in the capital city, Asmara, have confiscated and sealed the complex of the Full Gospel Church. On October 15 they ordered its staff and members to evacuate the building. The large complex had served as the Full Gospel Church’s headquarters and meeting place for 11 years. Also, of the 62 youths arrested and locked in metal containers in August for possessing Bibles at a military camp, all but six have been released. Another 12 young evangelicals from Asmara’s Dubre Bethel Church who were arrested September 7 during a house prayer meeting are refusing to sign denials of their faith to gain release. Following other arrests in recent months across Eritrea, 180 evangelicals are known to be jailed for their faith.

GIRLS: Some 65 million girls are kept out of school, the UN children’s fund UNICEF reports. Denying girls education raises risks that they will suffer extreme poverty or ill health, die of AIDS, and pass the woes to later generations. Improving their physical plight leads to economic progress. Worldwide, 121 million children aren’t in school. Most experts say that the UN’s millennium goals on reducing poverty—which include parity for boys and girls in education by 2005—can’t be achieved. UNICEF supports abolishing school fees, the greatest block to girls getting an education. In Kenya, school attendance rose in 2003 by 1.2 million when primary schools quit charging. Efforts to get girls in school have paid off. In five years, numbers of girls in school rose by nine percent in Benin, 12 percent in Senegal and 15 percent in Guinea. In just two years in Chad, the numbers of female first-graders quadrupled. UNICEF wants governments to make the issue a cornerstone of development and make primary school free and universal.

HUNGER: World hunger is rising, due “not so much [to] a lack of food as a lack of political will,’’ the UN Food and Agricultural Organization reports. Enough food is produced for every person in the world, but, the FAO says, ‘’Except when war or a natural calamity briefly focuses global attention and compassion, little is said and less is done to put an end to the suffering of the hungry.’’ While the world saw gains against hunger in the 1990s, its number of hungry people has risen 18 million in two years to 850 million. Good news: Haiti’s hunger dropped from 65 percent of its people in 1990 to 49 percent in 2001. Some analysts believe Latin America’s overall hunger fell due to a rise in funds that Latinos living in the United States sent home—an estimated $30 billion in 2003.

INDIA: The radical Vishwa Hindu Parishad group claims that Christians are forcing Hindus to convert and that anti-conversion laws enacted in India’s Tamil Nadu State aren’t being carried out effectively to stop them. The VHP wants stricter execution of the law, saying that foreign funds fuel conversions. The group’s leader said that numbers of Christians and Muslims were rising in these regions, thus terrorism was also rising. He said there was a threat of their seeking independence from India. Mother Teresa’s beatification, he claimed, was Pope John Paul II’s move to dupe innocent people to believe the gospel.

NORTH KOREA: A defector who had monitored “cultural activities” for the Communist Party says that despite the state’s squashing of anything seen as superstitious or religious, religious belief is spreading, even though those caught are imprisoned. South Korean-propagated Christianity impacts at least parts of the North. “Some women would praise God by singing songs, and [would] teach Christian doctrines in front of people even when I was giving lectures,” the defector said. Part of his job had been checking party members’ televisions and radios to assure they weren’t listening to non-sanctioned programming.

URUGUAY: In Montevideo’s city hall, local government authorities and members of the Uruguayan Bible Society launched a postage stamp in December celebrating 200 years of the International Bible Society. A Christian lawyer there said the event marked the first time that the government has allowed the evangelical community to have a stamp.

VOODOO: The native religion of African slaves is surging in popularity, especially where it thrives in Haiti and Louisiana. The New Orleans cemetery where voodoo priestess Marie Laveau is buried is a top tourist site. Another priestess said, “[People] turn to voodoo because there’s an increasing desperation in our culture for spiritual meaning and direction.”