April 2014

APRIL 2014

In this Edition: Europe; Africa; Asia; Australia; Central America; Middle East; North America

EUROPE 

• MOLDOVA
  Integr8 is the Youth Programme of the "Through the Roof" Ministry with disabled people. An eight-person team from Integr8 travelled to Moldova, the poorest country in Europe, to work alongside the UK charity Breadline and their local partners. They spent eight days in Dancu, a village near the Romanian border.  Pastor Slavic from Dancu said that the workshop was enjoyed by all the participants, using puppets, role-plays and personal testimony to share information, advice and encouragement.
  Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
   
•  UK
  TWR UK is broadcasting a new programme with the help of The Damaris Trust. Each week,a film is reviewed and some of the Christian themes hidden in it are discussed. Films to be reviewed include the Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave, directed by Steve McQueen and written by John Ridley.
  
  The first film is Noah, starring Russell Crowe and Emma Watson. The TWR-UK app is available on the Apple App Store or on Google Play.
  Contact: Russell Farnworth - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." target="_blank" style="color: #1155cc;">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
   
• EU
  What can be done to establish Europe as a trusted region for cloud computing? This is a question that the European Cloud Partnership (ECP) is asking in a survey.  The survey invites comments on how Europe can help public and private organisations use, buy and sell cloud services in a safe and trusted environment.
  Source: Hogan Lovells Newsletters - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
   
• UK
  Christian weddings should be stripped of their legal status, a UK justice minister has said. Liberal Democrat Simon Hughes has proposed that only secular, state-recognised ceremonies should have legal recognition - the French system. His proposals would mean that a Christian couple would need to have a secular ceremony in addition to a church wedding. 
  Source: The Christian Institute
   
• RUSSIA
  Registration is open for the 13th SIGNIS Seminar for TV Producers and Broadcasters in St Petersburg from 23-26 June 2014 on the theme 'Dialogue of Churches, Dialogue of Cultures'. This first major SIGNIS event in Russia is organised in collaboration with Blagovest Media (www.blagovestmedia.org) and the St Petersburg International Film Festival of Festivals (www.filmfest.ru) and with the support of both the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches. 
  
  The Seminar will take place in St Trinity and Alexander Nevsky Monastery and the theme will be discussed in a round table organised in collaboration with the St Petersburg International Film Festival. 
  Visit: www.catholictv.tv/index.php/tvproden/st-petersburg-june-2014.html about registration
   
• UK
  In April, Safermedia joined with CARE, mediawatch-uk and PornScars, under the auspices of the Lords and Commons Family and Child Protection Group to organise a one-day Conference on 'The Pornification of a Generation - the Under 30s Perspective'. There was an audience of over 90 people including many Parliamentarians. The programme included three MPs speaking and a film clip from the film InRealLife by Baroness Kidron.
  
  The message was that pornography is doing great harm to our young people and the Government and society must do far more to protect them and the generations to come.
  Source: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." target="_blank" style="color: #1155cc;">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 
   
• EUROPE
  JesusAlive (www.jesusalive.info) is continuing after six months as a pilot project.  It is a discreet initiative by TWR Europe, led by Philip Adams from Belfast, to invite interested people to stop and chat in Coffee Shops, Stations and Market Places.  Response to the outreach has been encouraging and it is planned to extend the project as widely as possible.
  Contact: www.facebook.com/philip.adams.520357
   

• UK
  Supporters of Christian Concern and CORE (Comment on Reproductive Ethics) have been helping the "One of Us" petition gather two million supporters across Europe and force an historic debate at the EU Parliament. The petition calls for a new law to stop EU funding of research which results in the destruction of human embryos. Despite critics among MEPs "One of Us" was able to demonstrate pan-European support for their cause and force a change to the agenda for the debate which originally offered only minimal time to"One of Us" speakers.
  Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." target="_blank" style="color: #1155cc;">info@christianconcern.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

AFRICA 

•  NIGERIA
  A Nigerian Islamist militant group is still holding 85 girls it abducted from a raid on a secondary school in northeastern Borno state, the State Government says. The Boko Haram Group's five-year-old campaign is now seen as the main security threat to Nigeria, Africa's leading energy producer. Kidnapping girls is a tactic Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is forbidden", began using early last year. It is similar to Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army, which in the name of Christianity abducted thousands of school-aged girls across central Africa to use as forced "wives" for their commanders.
  Source: Reuters  

•  GHANA
  Forty scholars from twenty countries gathered in Accra for the Lausanne Global Consultation on Islam. The group all had extensive experience of ministry in Islamic contexts. The consultation was intended to resource and equip the Majority World church in understanding Islam. The first half of the consultation explored five faces of Islam - Mystical and Popular Islam, Missionary and Polemical Islam, Ideological and Political Islam, Militant and Violent Islam and Progressive and Liberal Islam. During the second half, participants met in four focus groups, exploring Needs, Opportunities, Challenges and current Resources, as well as developing action plans related to training for ministry to Muslims in the contexct of local churches, seminaries and Bible Colleges, mission agencies and study centres. A consultation statement is forthcoming. 
  Visit: www.lausanne.org
   
• IVORY COAST
  Ivory Coast's prime minister says his country is on track to reach double digit economic growth this year and become an emerging market by 2020. Daniel Kablan Duncan said the government has worked hard to bring Reconciliation and restore Security and investor confidence following 2010's post-election violence that killed 3,000 people."Cote d'Ivoire is changing quickly. You can see by the highways, the roads, even the agriculture sector is changing," said Duncan.
  
  Duncan also held one-on-one meetings with representatives of a wide range of international Companies and Organisations, including Religious, interested in working in the West African nation.
  
  The Prime Minister said that if the country is to have strong sustained economic growth, it needs peace and security on the ground, which includes national Reconciliation but also accountability for crimes committed in the post-election period.
  Source: Voice of America  

ASIA  

•  INDIA
  Operation Mobilisation (OM) has obtained a special price to make DVDs in working with the ship ministry to make better use of video.  The Jesus DVD in many different languages has been distributed to millions and the Indian film Dayasagar has been well-accepted all over India.
  Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

•  INDONESIA
  Superbook agents Bettinna Carlos and Ruther Urquia celebrated Easter in Batang with a Children's "Fun Day". They showed five free screenings of Superbook episodes - A Giant Adventure, Miracles of Jesus, The Last Supper, He is Risen and a special advance screening of Noah. The children also had an interactive storytelling session with the Superbook agents and their puppet friend, Titoy. The Day was supported by Market! Market! Ayala Malls, McDonalds, Taisho Ramen and Teppanyaki House, Party Boutique and Foto Boutique.
  Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." target="_blank" style="color: #1155cc;">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 
   
• CHINA
  The trial of Chinese Pastor Zhang Shaojie began on 10 April but was later suspended indefinitely after Zhang's lawyers were detained and he had to dismiss them from his case as they were at risk of losing their licences. Zhang Shaojie has been charged with "fraud" and "disturbing public order". The pastor was detained in November 2013 without any formal documentation after church members petitioned a higher authority about a land dispute involving the church. During court proceedings, Lawyer Xia Jun questioned witness statements against Pastor Zhang, alleging that the statement of at least one witness was taken under duress.
  Source: Ramon A Williams - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

AUSTRALIA 

•  NSW NEW PREMIER
  Eternity Newspaper in Sydney reports that the newly elected Premier of New South Wales, Liberal MP Mike Baird, is a committed Christian. Baird, 46, was elected unopposed. He attends an Anglican church in his electorate of Manly (a beachside suburb of Sydney). Senior Minister at St Matthew's on the Corso, Bruce Clark, told Eternity that Baird is a strongly committed Christian man.
  Source: Eternity Newspaper
  

•  ABC
  ABC has signed a deal in China, to launch an online portal giving Chinese consumers direct access to Australian content and bolster its coproduction activities. The ABC will establish a base in Shanghai with official approval to represent and sell media content across China, enter into international coproductions and generate international sponsorship and promotional opportunities. ABC spokesman John Woodward said that this is the first time a foreign media organisation has been allowed to operate in a portal in China.
  Source: Reuters

•  PERTH
  In Perth a group of 11 Christians were arrested after they staged a prayer sit-in in the office of Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. They have been charged with trespass. It's the second prayer sit-in in a month, with the first in Sydney in Immigration Minister Scott Morrison's office. Five Sydney protestors were arrested for trespass but in court last week the charges were dismissed with the local magistrate saying "if ever there was a peaceful protest this was it." "Churches are speaking with one voice about the cruelty happening to children in our detention centres. But we are routinely ignored by politicians who claim to share Christian values," said the Reverend Chris Bedding, an Anglican priest.
  Source: Bible Society
  

CENTRAL AMERICA 

•  VENEZUELA
  Venezuelan TV Journalist Nairobi Pinto has been released, eight days after she was kidnapped. Ms Pinto, the assignment editor of the private news network Globovision, was freed near the Venezuelan capital Caracas. 
  
  A number of diplomats, businessmen and athletes have been abducted in recent years. The majority are released soon after being taken but some victims have been killed or died from injuries sustained during their capture.  It remains unclear why Ms Pinto was abducted and whether a ransom was paid.
  Source: BBC News

MIDDLE EAST 

•  SAT7
  Canon David Porter, the Archbishop of Canterbury's Director of Reconciliation was the keynote speaker at "The Untold Story: the Middle East behind the Headlines", a SAT-7-sponsored event in Belfast. Canon Porter spoke of his experiences of visiting the Middle East on behalf of the Archbishop of Canterbury and hinting at what it can teach Christians in the West. "We can learn so much from Christians who hang on to faith ... amidst such despair and violence and difficulty: what does that say to us?" 
  
  Addressing the evening's key question - how to sustain faith and build peace in the divided countries of the Middle East - Canon Porter said, although religious language may be used, the causes of the region's conflicts are all 'fundamentally political'. Issues of identity, land, power and the abuse of power are at the heart and lie behind the deep alienation felt by different groups, as they have done in his homeland of Northern Ireland.
  Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

NORTH AMERICA   

• USA
  An American Pastor has urged Christians to get involved in journalism and politics in order to stand up to a modern culture hostile to their faith. Reverend Joel Pelsue, founder of the Los Angeles-based Arts and Entertainment Ministries, specialises in equipping Christians for Media careers.  He claimed that Christians had withdrawn from a culture which was highly influential, with the result that Christians were unable to express their views in the mass media industry.
  Source: Christian Concern - Christian Weekly News  
   
• USA
  A study from the Barna Group says that Americans spend more time in front of a screen than ever. The study suggests a trend is emerging. Digital life connects - and disconnects - adults in life and faith. In 2013, two images of Saint Peter's Square captured the world's attention. The first, taken in 2005, shows a crowd attending the funeral of Pope John Paul II. The second, taken in 2013 from an angle similar to the first photo, shows a crowd observing the election of Pope Francis - only this photo exhibits a particular glow. Nearly every person in the picture is holding up a digital screen to capture the event.
  
  More than one-third of adults (36%) stop whatever they're doing to check their device when they get a new text or message but only 21% of adults say they set aside time each day to connect with God.
  Visit: www.barna.org/frames/methodology   

• USA
  Faithville Gospelcast Productions produces children's and family television (internet) programming.  One production, Faithville-The Town That Lives After Its Name, has 67 half-hour episodes with a full study guide curriculum for each episode.
  
  A second production, Miss Charity's Diner-Taste 'n See, has 52 half-hour episodes accompanied with Miss Charity's recipes for life curriculum.  It is translated and lip synchronised in Spanish, Norwegian, Russian, Ukrainian, Arabic, Farsi and Hindi and is available for distribution.
  Visit: www.faithville.com or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." target="_blank" style="color: #1155cc;">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or contact Tom Collins at +1 888 450 1111
   
• USA
  Global "Carrier of the Cross" Arthur Blessitt has filmed 16 new "Message of the Cross" programmes with new content.  The programme airs on TBN Mondays at 11 pm PST and Fridays 11:30 am PST.
  Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." target="_blank" style="color: #1155cc;">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
   
• USA
  Jane Root's Nutopia is to explore the life of Jesus with a new six-part commission from CNN. Jesus Code will look at a variety of forensics, biblical archaeology and sacred relics and attempt to reveal their connection to the real life man. Jesus Code will be produced in association with North American indie Paperny Entertainment. Filming will start in October in Europe, the US, North Africa and the Middle East.  
  Source: Broadcast Magazine

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