Buenos Aires, April 21st, 2004 (ACPress.net).
An evangelical gathering in the centre of the Argentinian capital brought together around 80,000 people, according to the organisers, though the police estimated the numbers at only 35,000.

Whatever the actual figure, numbers were well down on similar meetings in 2000 (200,000 people) and 2001 (250,000 people). However, this time there were parallel gatherings in 30 other Argentinian cities. The meeting was attended by the government leader in Buenos Aires, Aníbal Ibarra, and the Chairman of the National Worship Register, José Camilo Cardoso. There were calls for the government to restrict the possession of arms and to impose heavier sentences on those found guilty of serious crimes.

A businessmen, Sr. Blumberg, spoke to the crowd asking them to sign a petition along these lines. His only son, Axel, was kidnapped and murdered last month. Two days before the meeting, more than 150,000 people demonstrated outside Parliament calling for tougher measures to deal with street crime.

There were also calls for more transparency in the operation of the judiciary, but expressions of relief that international negotiations were beginning to offer some hope to a beleagured nation. Speakers thanked God for the way the people have responded against corruption and injustice. Yet they remained sombre in the face of kidnappings, murders and extreme poverty. In a written statement, the organisers called Argentina back to the values of God's Word.

Sao Paulo, April 21st, 2004 (ACPress.net).
The 'Universal Church of the Kingdom of God' (IURD) has bought TV Channel 67 in Atlanta, USA, and plans to extend its media empire with the acquisition of a radio station in New York.

Channel 67 is the main American partner in the Globo TV Network, which back in Brazil is the principal rival of the Record Network, itself owned by the IURD. Competition between the two networks dates back to 1995 when the Globo Network started broadcasting a mini-series called 'Decadence', based on a corrupt pastor who got rich at the expense of the churches he led. Ironically, many accuse the IURD of doing pretty much the same thing, but in real life.

The dispute between the two networks came to a head when a IURD leader hit a statue of Brazil's patron saint on television. The ensuing scandal saw him transferred to Portugal. Today, the Globo Network is heavily in debt and has asked the Federal government for assistance. Globo's competitors, also in need of help, are in favour of the assistance as long as it goes towards modernising equipment rather than clearing Globo's debts, which would be against Record's interests. The Brazilian real is now worth only a third of its value against the American dollar, as compared to when the communications industry in Brazil took out big loans.

Source: ALC. Editing: ACPress.net
Do-it-yourself caesarean mother survives

Mexico City, April 21st, 2004 (ACPress.net).
A 40-year-old Mexican woman performed a Caesarean section on herself and not only delivered her child safe and sound, but also survived to tell the tale.

It is the first case where it is known that a mother has survived in such circumstances. The 'International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics' picked up on the news, which contrasts greatly with another mother who, a few weeks ago, allowed her child to die in the womb rather than spoil her figure through a Caesarean operation.

The lady in Mexico took the drastic decision when she saw she could not give birth naturally. She was at home, accompanied by her children, in a rural area without access to electricity or running water. The nearest hospital was 8 hours' away so impossible to reach. Doctor Valle, at the hospital where the woman was taken later, explained how she had performed the operation. "She had three strong drinks and, using a kitchen knife, made three incisions in her abdomen. She took the baby out, a boy who breathed and cried immediately."

The speed with which the woman acted probably saved her life. Just before losing consciousness completely, she found enough strength to call one of her small children and send him to find a nurse who lived in the village. The nurse came and stitched up the wound with cotton, before mother and child were taken to hospital. The doctor commented that maternal instinct can lead women to do extraordinary things, but to operate on oneself in this way is almost beyond belief. No other woman is known to have survived such a situation.

Hanoi, April 21st, 2004 (ACPress.net).
Reports have reached the West suggesting that hundreds of Christians were killed in Vietnam over Easter in the brutal repression of peaceful and prayerful demonstrations by Christians in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. As many as 400 may have died.

On Saturday 10th April, up to 400,000 Vietnamese Christians from the Degar people gathered in several Vietnamese cities to demonstrate against the government’s refusal to allow them to follow the Christian faith freely. The demonstrators in the cities, which included the Central Highland city of Buonmathuot, were attacked by soldiers, police and other Vietnamese civilians. The Christians were shot at, beaten with electric batons and bombarded with rocks and stones. Hundreds were killed (400 according to one report) and many others suffered broken bones.

The planned demonstrations were to include a specific call for the Vietnamese government to lift the embargo on international human rights monitoring in the Central Highlands area. In a word of warning concerning the demonstrations, a press statement put out by organisers cautioned that “Without the direct intervention of law-abiding states, the UN and the European Commission, repression against the Montagnards will be bloody.” How tragically accurate was this prediction.

It is also feared that this incident may spark a refugee crisis, with thousands likely to head for the Cambodian border. To add to the woes of these people, the Cambodians have closed this border to refugees. In a statement issued after the demonstrations had begun, the President of the Montagnard Foundation said that no attempt was made by the Christians to use violence. He also stated that the Christians are not seeking independence, merely the right to worship freely.

The Foundation has stated that “Our people cannot continue suffering this way as the Vietnamese government continues to arrest, use electric- shock torture, and kill our peaceful hill tribe people for being Christian or for trying to save our ancestral land from being confiscated.” Prayers are asked for that God will protect and preserve these law-abiding Christian people in Vietnam, and that the Vietnamese government will respond to international pressure and admit human rights monitoring bodies to the Central Highland region.

Sulawesi, April 21st, 2004 (ACPress.net).
Hundreds of police reinforcements flew into Indonesia’s Sulawesi island after gunmen opened fire on an Easter church service at Poso, wounding seven people.

The attack sparked fears of a return to open fighting between Muslims and Christians that erupted in 1999, killing about 1,000 people. More than 300 members of the Mobile Brigade paramilitary police unit have been sent to the region. Noone has been arrested over the shooting in central Sulawesi.

Two of the injured remain in hospital, although their injuries are not believed to be life-threatening. Police have declined to speculate on the identity of the attackers, who wore black uniforms and were armed with automatic weapons. Attacks last year against Christian villages were blamed by intelligence officials on Jemaah Islamiyah, the al Qaida-linked regional terror group accused of the 2002 terror attacks in Bali.

Los Angeles, USA. April 22nd, 2004 (ACPress.net).
The spectacular financial success of Mel Gibson’s Christian film, 'The Passion of the Christ', has stunned many media pundits, but it has not been a surprise to Dr. Ted Baehr and his staff at the Christian Film & Television Commission, a Christian group in Hollywood who analyse the content of films from a Christian perspective.

“We’ve been tracking the box office success of Christian films for many years,” said Chairman Baehr, founder of the Commission. “Year in and year out, the statistics show that films with strong Christian viewpoints make the most money.” The Commission’s annual study of the major pictures released to cinemas in the United States shows that those with very strong Christian worldviews do much better at the box office than those with non-Christian ones.

Films such as Finding Nemo, The Gospel of John, the Lord of the Rings series, Luther, We Were Soldiers, and Evelyn, earned two to five times as much money on average in the United States and Canada as those with very strong non-Christian worldviews.

Kosovo, April 22nd, 2004 (ACPress.net).
Violence by Muslim Albanians against Christians in Kosovo is increasing. Christian churches, cemeteries and monasteries have all been the targets, as thirty-one people have been killed and more than 40 religious sites, mostly churches, have been destroyed in large-scale violence. The authorities in Kosovo, largely Albanian Muslim, have taken very little action against the perpetrators of the violence.

The immediate cause of this latest violence was reported to be the drowning of two Albanian boys. However it appears that the hostility did not flare up spontaneously, and had in fact been well planned. Neither is it in fact certain that the boys were actually drowned by Serbs. The added irony is that, while these attacks could be seen as revenge attacks for the Serbian atrocities of the war (which ended in 1999), at least one diocese in Kosovo was very outspoken against former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic’s brutal methods. Monasteries in this diocese and others were opened up to give ethnic Albanians shelter during the anti-Muslim/Albanian violence. Indeed such was the kindness shown that many Albanians started to consider the claims of the Christian message seriously. It is these very monasteries that are now being targeted for destruction.

The balance of evidence strongly suggests that this latest outbreak of violence is an attempt to cleanse the region “ethnically” of its (largely Serbian) Christian heritage and people. Sadly, in apparent retaliation, two mosques were burned last week by mobs in Belgrade, despite the pleas of Serbian church leaders. Fire-fighters and police intervened to save the mosques from complete destruction, placing them under “state protection.”

Kaduna, Nigeria. April 22nd, 2004 (ACPress.net).
Muslims in the town of Makarfi, Kaduna State, have burnt down nine churches and a police station, citing a young Christian's desecration of the Koran as the excuse.

A prominent Nigerian Christian leader, the Archbishop of Kaduna Province, the Most Rev Dr Josiah Atkins Idowu-Fearon informed the Barnabas Fund of a recent bout of blatant anti-Christian violence in Northern Nigeria. On Saturday April 3rd, a young Christian fled for his life across Makarfi to the police station, where he took refuge from an angry mob of Muslims. The mob issued a demand for his release, presumably so they could kill him, but the police refused. They therefore set fire to the police station and went on to torch nine churches (of at least three different denominations) and two houses of pastors. Shops were also looted as they rampaged throughout the area.

Despite the violence there were no deaths. Many Christians fled to other police stations for protection, and the police are now reported to have returned the region to a level of calm.

The mob had cited as a reason for their fury, the allegation that the fleeing young Christian had desecrated a page of the Koran. However Makarfi is where Governor Alhaji Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi of  Kaduna State lives. Violence of this degree in his hometown will be acutely embarrassing for the Governor and according to analysis by Archbishop Josiah Fearon it is likely that elements of the Muslim community opposed to the Governor were responsible for Saturday's unrest. The Christian Association of Nigeria has said that those behind the attacks were not local.

In another outbreak of violence, the Christian Association of Nigeria has released the names of eight pastors who have been martyred for their faith by Muslim mobs in the central Plateau region of Nigeria.