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AFRICA: More people groups are rejecting the practice of having a village “ritual cleanser” sleep with recent widows or unmarried women who lose a parent or a child. Tradition forces the women to be “purified” from haunting spirits by having sex with the cleanser before attending their loved ones’ funerals or being inherited by a husband’s relative. The cleanser is usually the village drunk or dunce. Hundreds of thousands of cleansers work in villages across Africa, and they’re spreading HIV like wildfire. Some women have organized to resist the practice. HIV education is helping village leaders abandon the tradition. One male villager said, “I used to say cleansing was good. But I think this attitude helps nothing. We all may die if we don’t stop this one.” ALBANIA: Dictator Enver Hoxia declared atheism Albania’s official religion in 1967. He bulldozed hundreds of churches and converted others to bars, warehouses and recreation centers. The penalty for having a Bible or cross, or making the sign of the cross, was 10 years in prison. Hoxia died in 1984, and communism fell in 1990. Albania is now among Europe’s nations most open to religious minorities. Grace Community Church of Los Angeles, Calif., has planted a church in Tirana that meets in Hoxia’s former home. At least 20 Albanian lawyers are Christians, including several judges. AUSTRALIA: The Aussie Bible, produced by the Bible Society, tells Christ’s life in Australian vernacular. An excerpt from Luke 1:30-31: “The angel said to her, ‘G’day Mary. You are a pretty special sheila. God has his eye on you.” Mary went weak at the knees, and wondered what was going on. Then she said, ‘My soul is as happy as Larry!’” BELARUS: This former Soviet republic is resuscitating political ideology from the Communist era. President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who describes himself as an “Orthodox atheist,” plans to impose his “official Belarusian ideology,” which will be taught in schools, universities and workplaces, through the media and the Orthodox Church. Lukashenka has told rectors of state and private universities to fire professors who oppose government policies or hold wavering opinions on the government. He believes that the state doctrine should incorporate the “basis” of the Soviet-era ideology, and the Soviet system was good and should not have been abandoned. The Orthodox Church will have rights over all things religious in Belarus. Government and church relations solidified when Prime Minister Gennadi Novitsky and Belarusian Orthodox Church Metropolitan Filaret (Vakhromeyev) of Minsk and Slutsk signed a cooperation pact June 12. Church and state will work together in their common fight against “neo-cultic doctrines” and “pseudo-religious structures.” BRAZIL: Some 1,000 slave workers on two northeastern coffee farms were freed in late August. The workers were considered slaves because they had no work papers. Employers lure workers with promises of good pay and ensnare them in debt they don’t earn enough to repay. The government says 25,000 work in similar conditions, most in remote areas. ERITREA: In late August 62 teenage Eritrean students—29 of them female—caught with Bibles at a compulsory military training camp were arrested, locked in metal shipping containers and tortured. Commanders at the Sawa camp had ordered a search to find and confiscate any Bibles hidden among the conscripts’ personal effects. Police in Asmara, the capital, continued the national crackdown against independent Protestant congregations by arresting another 12 evangelicals September 7 as they were meeting in a home for prayer and worship. The arrests bring to 225 the known total of evangelicals jailed since February when some 300 were arrested, beaten and jailed for worshiping without official permission. FIJI: Church leaders have renewed a call for the nation to declare Christianity its official religion. Concerns have been raised that some Fijians may have to change their faith should the call be carried out. But at least one Christian there warns that to do this would violate the constitution and human rights. IRAQ: Though many Muslims consider sorcery sinful, thousands of magicians, fortune-tellers and faith healers comprise Iraq’s thriving spiritual world. Saddam’s personal wizard says that Saddam summoned genies and consulted an international staff versed in the dark arts. According to former Iraqi officials, Hussein ordered Baghdad University to create a parapsychology department to help him wage psychological warfare during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and later to mind-read UN inspectors searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. One professor says that more than half of Iraq’s 24 million people use magic. LATIN AMERICA/CARIBBEAN: Islam is the continent’s fastest-growing faith. The wave of conversions is fueled by Muslim evangelization and Middle East immigration. Many, especially Afro-Caribbeans, are enticed by promises of a color-blind society described in the Quran. Many Latinos, however, remain wary of Islam because of its radical elements linked to terrorism. Saudi Arabia, itself founded on the principle to spread Islam, is paying to build mosques and Islamic centers in Caracas, Buenos Aires and Brazil. One mosque is in Foz do Iguaáu, on the Brazilian side of the triple border area with Paraguay and Argentina, a haven of organized crime and terrorist groups. Guyana has 130 mosques and more than 100,000 Muslims among its 750,000 people. NIGERIA: Despite assurances years ago that adopting Islamic sharia law in a state would not mean Christians would be forced to abide by it, the northern state of Kano has told all girls attending its schools to wear headscarves—including Christians. A million Christians have protested. Kano’s capital, also called Kano, is Nigeria’s largest city and has a history of violent religious clashes. Kano’s state education commissioner said the order is an effort to uphold public morals and make sure “the teachings of Islam are applied in each and every aspect of governance.” Kano is one of 12 states in Nigeria’s Muslim-majority north that have imposed sharia in the past four years. Punishments include amputation for stealing, public lashes for drinking liquor, and stoning for adultery.