Religious Broadcast

image||Huffpost This town is said to have been discovered on a remote part in Jerusalem. The announcement was made by  Israel Antiquities Authorities, IAA. Over 8,000 square feet,a few single-family stone houses,each containing several room rooms and an open courtyard. Also dozen of coins, cooking pots, milling tools and  jars for storing oil and wine, among others. Megan Gannon  for Huffpost.. more brief

CSW’s new report on Indonesia, which will be launched on 25 February in the UK Parliament, warns that ‘Religious intolerance is no longer confined to areas such as West Java and Aceh, known to be particularly conservative, nor is it confined to Christians and Ahmadis. Shi’a Muslims, Sufi Muslims, Confucians, Buddhists, Hindus, Baha’is, Jews, traditional indigenous believers and atheists are all under attack.’ The report, Indonesia: Pluralism in Peril – The rise of religious intolerance across the archipelago, draws on more than 15 years of work in Indonesia by CSW and contains first-hand testimonies and comprehensive analysis of trends such as impunity in crimes against religious minorities and the criminalisation of the victims of persecution. The launch event at the House of Commons is co-hosted by the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on International Freedom of Religion or Belief, the APPG for Indonesia and the APPG for Ahmadiyya. It will be presented in the European Parliament ...

The marriage rites took place at the Thean Hon Temple in capital Kuala  Lumpur || AJE Malaysian authorities have said Valentine's Day is a threat to Muslim values in their annual swipe at the February 14 occasion, which was marked with a mass wedding involving 138 couples. In its official Friday sermon text distributed to mosques in the Muslim-majority country, the Malaysian Islamic Development Department blamed Valentine's Day for everything from alcoholism to abortion. "Social ceremonies such as this are a stepping-stone towards greater social ills such as fraud, mental disorder caused by alcohol, abortion and baby-dumping, and other negative ills that can invite disaster and moral decay among youths," it said.Known by its Malay-language acronym JAKIM, the department is an official watchdog of Muslim values. It regularly denounces Valentine's Day as encouraging vice and promiscuity. More than 60 percent of Malaysia's 28 million people are Muslim ethnic Malay...

Four gunmen opened fire at a group of villagers paying respect to a Buddhist monk in Mae Lan district in Pattani province on Thursday, police Colonel Sathit Polpinit told the Associated Press news agency.A 68-year-old monk, a woman and her 13-year-old son and another woman were killed in the Thursday morning attack, Polpinit said, adding that six others, including a police officer, were wounded.It is the second time in three weeks that a Buddhist monk has been shot dead.Police said the recent killings could be revenge attacks for the deaths of three young Muslim brothers. Also On Wednesday evening in Pattani's Yaring district, a 29-year-old Buddhist woman riding a motorcycle was shot dead and her body was set on fire, according to police.A note left at the scene said: "To the army chief: this is not the last body for the three brothers." The brothers, aged three, five and nine, were gunned down last week in front of their home in neighbouring Narathiwat province after ret...

Hundreds of people have flocked to a small town in northern Israel to view a statue of the Virgin Mary that residents say "weeps" oil. Members of a Christian family from Tarshiha, near the Lebanon border, say they have witnessed a miracle in their living room. Osama Khoury said Tuesday that his wife Amira found the statue "covered with oil" recently. Amira said the statue "spoke to her" and told her not to be afraid. After a neighbor witnessed the oil, word soon spread.Parts of the statue appear to be slick with moisture, even after it is wiped off.The family says it is most striking when a "tear" seems to roll down the statue's cheek.. more brief more image below: courtesy: huffpost

Muslim cleric was charged in Australia with conducting illegal marriage  between 26-year-old man and 12-year-old girl || tribune A Muslim cleric was Tuesday charged in Australia with conducting an illegal marriage between a 26-year-old man and a 12-year-old girl. It follows the arrest of a Lebanese national – the “husband” – last week on child sex offences.Police said the imam, reportedly Pakistan-born, was arrested in Sydney on Monday afternoon by the Child Abuse Squad and charged with solemnization of a marriage by an unauthorized person.He was granted strict conditional bail to appear in court on April 2. Last week police revealed that the Lebanese man, in Australia on a student visa, met a 12-year-old girl in the Hunter region north of Sydney in 2013 and allegedly became involved in a sexual relationship with her.The pair then allegedly moved to Sydney where they continued the relationship, with police claiming the man and child were married in an Islamic ceremony earlier this ...

Gunmen threw grenades at a Sufi Islamic religious gathering on Sunday in the port city of Karachi and then opened fire on the people assembled to offer prayers, killing eight, officials said. Eight others were wounded in the attack, said Aftab Chanur, an official at a hospital where the injured were taken. The four gunmen, who were on motorcycles, first lobbed grenades at a building where a Sufi cleric was receiving his followers, then raked it with automatic fire, said Javed Odho, a police official. He said women and children were among the dead and wounded. Pakistan is 95 percent Muslim, and the majority practice Sufism, a mystical branch of Islam. But Sufi shrines and followers have come under attack from Sunni Muslim militants who do not consider them to be true Muslims. No one claimed responsibility for the attack. But suspicion is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban or their affiliated sectarian groups, which follow a strict interpretation of Islam that considers many other M...

An Arab-Iranian poet and human rights activist, Hashem Shaabani, has been executed for being an "enemy of God" and threatening national security, according to local human rights groups. Shaabani and a man named Hadi Rashedi were hanged in unidentified prison on January 27,  rights groups   have said.Shaabani, who spoke out against the treatment of ethnic Arabs in the province of Khuzestan, had been in prison since February or March 2011 after being arrested for being a Mohareb, or "enemy of God". Last July, the Islamic Revolutionary Tribunal found Shaabani and 13 other people guilty of "waging war on God" and spreading "corruption on earth".The 32-year-old was the founder of Dialogue Institute and was popular for his Arabic and Persian poems. In 2012, he appeared on Iran's state-owned Press TV, where human rights groups say he was forced to confess to "separatist terrorism".According to BBC Persian, officials from the Ministry of In...

A member of the Israeli legislative government was slammed for his alleged comments about Reform Judaism on Wednesday, after   media outlets reported David Rotem stating , "The Reform movement is not Jewish … they are another religion." The statement shocked members of the Jewish community worldwide, especially as characterizing the Reform movement as another religion has political implications relating to Israel's Law of Return, which prevents non-Jews from making aliyah, or immigrating to Israel.   The Jewish Telegraphic Agency   reported that a statement released by Israel's Reform movement explained that by using the term "another religion," Rotem effectively stated that "Reform Jews have no place in Israel." Gilad Kariv, executive director of the Reform movement in Israel, called on the Knesset speaker to reprimand Rotem, who is the   Knesset Law, Constitution, and Justice Committee chairman . He said, "An assertion such as this makes it ...

Bishop Dennis Leonard preaches the prosperity gospel during a Sunday morning worship service at the Heritage Christian Center in Denver in 2006|| BCCN1 Dennis Leonard built Heritage Christian Center into a flourishing multiracial church by connecting with hurting people.From the pulpit, the preacher mined his past life frequenting nightclubs and recovering from divorce. Members volunteered at a church food bank and fed the homeless. The choir was top-notch. Leonard also preached a gospel of prosperity suggesting a bountiful return for those who gave generously to the church — that has been criticized for preying on the vulnerable.Then he walked away, retiring in 2010 and moving to California. Leonard is about to embark on a second act in Colorado, announcing plans to open a Heritage Christian Center in Aurora with a 1,500-seat sanctuary in a former sporting goods store the church bought.“I want you to know we are coming back for you,” Leonard said during a Friday night guest appear...

Armenian Orthodox Christians gather at their church of St Sarkis in Old Damascu s || BCCN1  The stories told by five top Syrian Christian leaders about the horrors their churches are experiencing at the hands of Islamist extremists are biblical in their brutality. Bishop Elias Toumeh, representative of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, tells of the funeral he led ten days ago for the headless body of one of his parishioners in Marmarita. Rev. Adeeb Awad, vice moderator of the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon, explains how the rebels blew up his church and then pointed the finger at the regime. Bishop Armash Nalbandian, primate of the Armenian Church of Damascus, says he received word on facebook from a fellow bishop in Aleppo that two congregants were traveling when opposition fighters stopped their bus, made them present their Armenian IDs, and then took them away. The fighters, Nalbandian recounts, returned to the fellow passengers...

Rafique A. Tschannen || muslim times The last sentence a 3-year-old Syrian said before he died: “I’m gonna tell God everything” And that’s equally haunting. It’s impossible to verify but the picture tells a story about the pain and suffering that exists in Syria right now. There are many in the media who would like to say this is because president Bashar al-Assad is a ruthless killer. And that’s half true. Like other government leaders – he has engaged in war and with that war has come the death of tens of thousands and the displacement of over 1 million Syrians now living in refugee camps. But this hasn’t always been the case. This is the inevitable result of a covert war being waged by the U.S., Israel and other Sunni countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Our interests in taking down the Syrian dictator al-Assad are all about geo-politics. If we take out Syria – we neuter Iranian influence in the region. It has gotten so bad that al-Qaeda is now fighting on the same side as the Unit...

Matiur Rahman Nizami || Al Jazeera A Bangladeshi court has sentenced Matiur Rahman Nizami, the leader of the opposition Jamaat-e-Islami party, and 13 others to death for arms smuggling.Thursday's sentencing in front of a full courtroom comes just weeks after Bangladesh held general elections that were marred by violence.Defence lawyer Kamrul Islam Sazzad said those sentenced would appeal. "The verdict is nothing but political harassment. Justice was not done to my clients," he said. Jamaat-e-Islami is part of an anti-government coalition under former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia that has been calling on the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign and boycotted the January elections, which Hasina's coalition won amid street fighting, a boycott and low turnout.Paresh Barua, a former Indian rebel commander, was also convicted in absentia and also received the death penalty. Others included a former deputy interior minister, ...

The International Islamic Relief Organization (IIROSA) distributed winter aid through its relief campaign to the less fortunate in Al-Kharkhir in Najran.IIROSA volunteers distributed food baskets containing rice, sugar, oil, milk, tea and many other products worth over SR200,000 to hundreds of families in Al-Kharkhir.The organization facilitated distribution and also provided financial assistance to 181 families worth SR362,000. Gov. Al-Kharkhir Mohammed Al-Shahran expressed his gratitude for the assistance provided in this regard. The acting secretary-general of the relief organization said that with the help of Saudi donors, the group will not hesitate to provide its assistance to the needy. “IIROSA is committed to positively impacting poor and marginalized communities locally and internationally,” he said.The organization has earlier distributed foodstuff and clothes worth SR900,000, benefitting 3,000 families.. Click here for more brief

Annie Graham|| BCNN1 And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age"  (Matt. 28:20, NIV). None of us knows what the new year holds. Will my daddy move to our Father's house? Will my husband get stronger or more feeble? Will the stock market crash or keep soaring? Will the Middle East erupt in a war that drags the rest of the world into it? All of the uncertainty can give us pause and cause us to step gingerly into the new year. Except for one fact. One certainty. One shining, undisputable truth. God is there! This confident hope is eloquently expressed in the following note that was written by pastor Farshid Fathi. Pastor Farshid is incarcerated in the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran, Iran, because of "the word of God and the testimony of Jesus" (Rev. 1:9). His thankfulness for the past, his clear vision for the future and his heartfelt joy in the present have been such a personal challenge to me that I wanted to share his words with you: "Dear br...

Leader of communist North Korea, Kim Jong|| BCNews For the 12th consecutive year. the hermit Communist country of North Korea remains the world’s most restrictive nation in which to practice Christianity, according to the Open Doors 2014 World Watch List (WWL). However, a major trend the WWL tracked in 2013 was a marked increase in persecution for  Christian communities in states that are commonly regarded as “failed.” A failed country is defined “as a weak state where social and political structures have collapsed to the point where government has little or no control.”The top 10 countries where Christians faced the most pressure and violence in the 2013 reporting period of the 2014 WWL are North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Maldives, Pakistan, Iran and Yemen. For the complete list, go to  worldwatchlist.us . Overwhelmingly, the main engine driving persecution of Christians in 36 of the top 50 countries is Islamic extremism, with the most viole...

Frances D' Emilo/m.qctimes.com VATICAN CITY — With wails resounding amid the splendor of the Sistine Chapel, Pope Francis on Sunday baptized 32 infants, and at one point in the ceremony told mothers to feel free to feed their crying babies. Formally welcoming the children as members of the Catholic church, Francis poured water from a shell-shaped dish over the heads of the babies held in their mothers' arms. Francis pronounced the babies' names one by one, as beaming parents held their children, dressed in white satin or silk gowns and other finery, in the chapel whose ceiling was frescoed by Michelangelo. In the same chapel in March, Francis was elected as the first Latin American pope. He is the first pope to choose the name Francis. Among the children were two Francescas. It wasn't clear if Francis, whose cheerfulness and warmth draw huge crowds to the Vatican, might have inspired the choice of those names.In keeping with his down-to-earth style and his drive to make...

Mourners pay their last respect to ex- prime Today a legend lies in state in front of Knesset, the countries parliament after being in Coma for close 8 years. Amongst dignitaries that paid homage were Isreali's president, Shimon peres, Prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu; Isreali's president Shimon peres pays hi las respect U.S delegates led by vice president Joe Biden,ambassador to Isreal, Daniel shapiro and U.S Reps Eliot Engel.Clothed round the casket was the blue and white Isreali's flag. As mourners gather to pay respect, tributes were read 'Sharon is indeed a warrior and also a commander in Jewish regiment. The greatest generals in the century and throughout history, 'Netanyahu said. He did  Play the central role in the struggle for security in Isreal throughout its regime.Old soldier neve die rather fade away. 'Aerial Sharon faded away 8 years ago and now we truly say goodbye to him , justice minister Tzipi Livni wrote in the tribute In on of Sharon's ...

Image:guardian Ariel Sharon,85, a well notable prime minister of Isreal is said to be dead after a long coma on Saturday at Tel Aviv hospital. He is said to have been in coma after a debilitating stroke. Sharon's long and political and military career encompassed some of the most historic event in Isreal history and shifted the countries foreign policy towards its Arab neighbours.His credits thus: he lead the team in the 1967 six days war which made them occupants of the sinai area. He is considered one of the greatest military strategist and field commander. Politics- He ordered withdrawal of Isreal settlers in Gaza in the year 2005 which stunned many people especially Isreali,b/c he was a zionist who believed that Jews must defend the land connected to their history and culture and not be overly dependent on outside forces- read  more .  Ariel Sharon whose birth name was Ariel schienerman,was born on Feb 27, 1928 on a farm called Kfar Malal,a short distance north of Tel Aviv...

One of the most famous boxers of all time and celebrity 'BBA' contestant Evander Holyfield made a statement about the sin of Homosexuality that attracted attention.Whether he will get the Phil Robertson, Duck Dynasty treatment treatment is left to be seen Here Is the quote : "The only thing I'm trying to tell you...you know how handicapped people are born? You can't say,cause they were born that way you can't move That , " he said. Adding, 'its own choice. come on, that ain't the way nobody is made...you ain't gay unless you sleeping with the opposite sex'.Very powerful quote    Yet the LGBT community always have a problem when the truth comes out. At the end of the article in the pro homosexuality newspaper, the sins of Evander were conveniently  Yes he fathered 11 children from 3 different women. No questions about it... Click here for more brief