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PBI News The Herald goes to Africa! PBI Director and Editor Len Griehs recently visited Bible Students in Ghana, along with PBI member and former director Homer Montague. This was Bro. Montague’s twenty-third trip to Ghana. The two-week trip included visits to Bible Student classes in Accra, Kumasi, Dunkwa and the Western region, as well as leadership seminars in Dunkwa and Accra. A group of 15 from the U.S. visited Ghana. The Herald magazine is a prime source of English-language spiritual material serving consecrated believers throughout Africa. The Herald goes to India! PBI Director and Editor Ernie Kuenzli recently visited Bible Students in India, along with Bro. O.B. Elbert. This was Bro. Kuenzli’s eighth trip to India and Bro. Elbert’s second trip to India. The four-week trip included meeting nearly 1,100 Indian brethren in 38 different ecclesias. Ecclesias were visited in the following Indian cities: Andipatty, Bangalore, Chennai, Chittoor, Coimbatore, Coonoor, Dindigul, Erode, Jothipuram, Kethi, Kotagiri, Lalgudi, Manaparari, Mangalore, Mettupalayam, Mysore, Ondipudur, Ooty, Podanur, Salem, Timkur, Trichy, Vellore and Wellington. The Herald magazine is printed in India both in the English and Tamil languages.
The Philippines.
PBI Director and Secretary Dave Christiansen and his wife Joanna spent 17 days
in January visiting Bible Students in the Philippines. This was Dave’s fourth
trip to the Islands and Joanna’s first. They met with brethren in seven cities
and villages on five different islands, including the Island of Luzon, where the
Manila Bible Students meet. Other meetings took place on the Island of Cebu, the
Island of Mindanao, the Island of Siargao — where the brethren are in the small
village of General Luna. On the Island of Leyte they met in the small villages
of Inopacan and Buena Vista. Religious
Pinched
by the global recession and tough-love budget demands of the European Union, the
Italian government is looking for extra revenue, and has its eyes set on
commercial properties owned by the Roman Catholic Church. Prime Minister Mario
Monti announced that he wants to revise rules on the tax-exempt status of
church-owned commercial property. The exemption, introduced in 1992, has sparked
a heated debate, especially after the Euro crisis and Italy’s staggering debt
forced the government to introduce sweeping austerity measures, including a
sharp rise in the pension age. — Washington Post, 3/2/2012
In the
first use known of expanded and increased punishments under a new Religion Law,
a Baptist in eastern Kazakhstan has been fined what local people estimate to be
a year and a half’s average local wages for leading an unregistered religious
organization. A Pentecostal church in Petropavl [Petropavlovsk] in North
Kazakhstan Region has twice been raided for leaving religious books on a table,
about ten meters (10 yards) from the entrance to a hall they rent for worship. —
Forum 18, 2/14/2012
The new
Hungarian constitution withdraws official recognition and tax exempt status from
over 300 religious denominations. Included on the new black list are: all
denominations of Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism, as well as several Catholic
orders, Episcopalians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Methodists and others. The
new constitution introduces a law on religious life in Hungary and concentrates
unprecedented power in the central government. — Ahul Bayt News Agency,
1/4/2012
Congregations and members of the Episcopal Church, including married priests,
may join the Roman Catholic Church under a new structure announced by the
Vatican. For perhaps the first time since the Reformation in the 16th century, a
structure has been created to “assist those who in conscience seek to return to
the fold of St. Peter and his successors.” The Episcopal Church has been rocked
in recent years by divisions over doctrine and morals. — LA Times, 1/2/2012
Almost
half (48%) of all Christians live in the 10 countries with the largest number of
Christians. Three of the top 10 are in the Americas (the United States, Brazil
and Mexico). Two are in Europe (Russia and Germany); two are in the Asia-Pacific
region (the Philippines and China); and three are in sub-Saharan Africa
(Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia). About half are
Catholic. Protestants, broadly defined, make up 37%, Orthodox Christians 12%, of
Christ-ians worldwide. Other Christians, such as Mormons and Jehovah’s
Witnesses, make up the remaining 1% of Christians. Taken as a whole, Christians
are by far the world’s largest religious group. Muslims, the second-largest
group, make up a little less than a quarter of the world’s population, according
to previous studies by the Pew Forum. — Hillsdale.net, 1/5/2012 Though it’s the birthplace of Christianity in ancient times, the modern Middle East is increasingly hostile to Christianity as civil conflict, Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism grow in scope and strength. Lebanon, Israel and Jordan maintain amicable relations with this ancient faith. But in other places such as Iraq and now Egypt, Christian communities are coming under assault. In Iraq, the country’s Christian community dates to the 2nd century A.D. with communities in the Chaldean and Assyrian churches comprising about 15 percent of the prewar population, a presence numbered approximately 500,000. Estimates say as much as half or more of Iraqi Christians have left the country or are internally displaced due to persecution by Muslims. — The Korea Times, 1/13/2012 Social
Tornadoes ravaged the Midwest and South in early March, killing 39 people and
devastating property in five states. The National Weather Service in Louisville,
Kentucky, said the tornado that struck New Pekin measured an EF-3 on the
enhanced Fujita scale, while another tornado that struck nearby Henry-ville,
Indiana, was stronger yet, measuring an EF-4 and packing winds of 175 mph. A
blanket of wet snow covered Henryville and other parts of tornado-stricken Clark
County as winter hung on despite the severe spring weather. — AP, 3/5/2012
Money
buys happiness when people spend it on others. A survey of more than 200,000
people in 136 countries found that spending on other people produces far more
self-reported happiness than spending on oneself, Elizabeth Dunn of the
University of British Columbia in Vancouver reported. — Science News,
2/25/2012
An
Argentinean railway accident killed 49 people and injured at least 600 others.
The crash is the second-worst in Argentina’s history. Around 10 million people
rely on the Sarmiento line to travel to and from Buenos Aires suburbs.
Government subsidized rail services are often delayed, crowded and poorly
maintained. — Bloomberg, 2/22/2012
Hepatitis C now kills more Americans than HIV, according to Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention researchers, who found that the former overtook the
latter as early as 2007. Hepatitis C— which, like HIV, is transmitted through
contact with contaminated blood — killed 15,100 Americans in 2007, accounting
for 0.6 percent of all deaths that year. In comparison, there were a little more
than 12,700 HIV-related deaths that year. The study noted that chronic hepatitis
C is most common in the baby boomer generation — two thirds of U.S. infections
are in people born between 1945 and 1964 — largely because of the high rate of
casual injection-drug use in the 1960s and 70s. — Reuter’s, 2/21/2012
Russian
scientists completed a 20-year project digging two miles under Antarctica to
reach down to Lake Vostok, as it’s called. This opens up the possibility of
exploring a part of our planet that’s been, essentially, untouched for 20
million years. Scientists are relatively confident that life exists in the lake,
as they’ve previously found bacteria on ice removed from the borehole. Lake
Vostok is part of a chain of about 200 underground lakes under Antarctica. Some
of them were formed while Antarctica and Australia were still connected. —
AP, 2/08/2012 Political Iran’s first domestically made fuel rods are in place in what it says is a facility to be used primarily for medical purposes, including the production of radio isotopes for cancer treatment. But the international community has long believed that Iran’s nuclear project is aimed at the creation of a bomb, a fear that was backed by a U.N. nuclear watchdog report from November, which found “credible” evidence that Iran had tested bomb parts. News of the nuclear advances comes on the same day that Iran announced it would stop oil exports to six European nations (Netherlands, Spain, Italy, France, Greece, and Portugal) in response to recent EU sanctions. — CNN, 2/15/2012 Russia and China vetoed a U.N. resolution condemning Syria’s violent repression of anti-government demonstrators, effectively quashing efforts to isolate President Bashar al-Assad’s government as it intensifies a nearly year-long crackdown. The veto dealt a blow to attempts by the United States and its European partners to rally behind an Arab League plan that would require Assad to yield power and make way for a democratically elected unity government. The vote followed weeks of negotiations in which diplomats had significantly watered down the resolution in a bid to win broad support. — Washington Post, 2/5/2012 China has warned the United States not to use religious incidents as a pretext to interfere in its domestic affairs, after Washington said it was “seriously concerned” that more Tibetans have set themselves on fire in China. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman warned against the United States using “religious affairs” as grounds for political interference. He also insisted the Beijing government safeguards the basic rights of ethnic groups, including their religious freedom. — Voice of America, 1/11/2012 “The Middle East is rediscovering its voice and translating it into political power,” Director of Israel Military Intelligence Major General Aviv Kochavi said. “There is a new component in the Middle East, one the leaders and the political parties have realized that they have to pay attention to — the public. This public has discovered that it can overthrow regimes and shape the public agenda. The young Arab person today is educated, exposed to what’s going on in the world and in the West through TV and the Internet. The contrast between that and what they experience is very sharp, creating growing frustration.” — Ynetnews, 2/2/2012
Sixty-five percent of the people in an AP-GfK poll favor the U.S. administration’s plan to require people making $1 million or more pay taxes equal to at least 30 percent of their income. Just 26 percent opposed it. Yet by 56 percent to 31 percent, more embraced cuts in government services than higher taxes as the best medicine for the budget, according to the survey, which was conducted Feb. 16 to 20. — AP, 2/24/2012 Around $900 billion in assets across the globe are managed by Islamic banks that operate according to Sharia, an interpretation of Islamic law. In recent years, so-called Islamic finance has been growing at a rate of 15-20 per cent a year, and proved remarkably resilient to the financial crisis. Proponents of the relatively new sector point to its back-to-basics financial structures, which have made it popular with a number of non-Muslim clients who have little appetite for risk. Critics, though, say the restrictions it comes with — prohibitions, for example, on paying interest and investing in anything that involves pork or alcohol — are archaic and unworkable. — MacLeans, 1/16/2012 The newest fiber optic cable crossing the Atlantic won’t carry voice or Internet data. Instead, the line from New York to London will beam financial information to money marketers and hedge-fund traders — 5 milliseconds faster than rival lines. In this day of automated, high frequency trading, algorithms automatically execute sales and purchases based on triggers in financial data. Regardless of strategy, a trader’s software often reacts to the same economic data. The first orders on the books are the first ones executed. With a split-second advantage, a trader’s order can jump to the head of the line, before prices change as more algorithms place similar orders. The cable will be ready for service in 2013 at a cost of $300 million. — Popular Mechanics, January 2012
A
long-awaited legal settlement between major American banks, federal regulators,
and state attorneys-general resulted in a $26 billion fund for homeowners hit by
the real estate crisis. The bottom line is that a range of struggling homeowners
should have a few thousand dollars of help coming their way either in the form
of direct settlement checks, principle modifications, or enhanced ability to
refinance. This is a drop in the bucket compared to the total quantity of lost
wealth, but in practical terms thousands of dollars today can be worth a lot
more to a family than the hope that years of highly politicized litigation will
pay off bigger in the future. — Moneybox, 2/9/2012 Israel In 2001 some 18% of the population of Israel was legally defined as being below the government’s official poverty line. By 2011 this figure had risen to almost 24%. There are in Israel many organizations that help the less well off, but even so many individuals seem to have fallen by the wayside. The world economic crisis is partly to blame, despite the relatively low unemployment in Israel. — Isranet, 1/18/2012 While relocating part of the security fence to accommodate Palestinian life and agriculture in the Samaria region, underground tunnels from the First Jewish-Roman War era were discovered. The tunnels were most likely used by soldiers during the Second Temple Period. — Excerpts of an article by The Israel Defense Forces, 1/15/2012 In people with diabetes, the pancreas doesn’t produce or release insulin as it should, so the body can’t metabolize sugars properly. That means blood sugar levels have to be monitored continuously, even (and especially) at night, when diabetics’ blood sugar can get dangerously out of control. A new artificial pancreas developed in Israel was recently tested on Israeli children at an overnight diabetes summer camp, to resounding success. The key is that the device’s software “thinks” like a physician, says one of its developers. The medical device is still in the prototype stage. The general idea is to turn it into a mobile device, so it can work night and day to regulate glucose levels. — Israel21c, 1/1/2012 The southern basin of the Dead Sea is only maintained in depth due to the construction of dykes which gives the appearance of water continuity to the many hotels located at the southern end. Since 1960, the Dead Sea has been shrinking at an alarming rate. In part, this is due to the fact that almost no water is allowed to drain into the basin and also the exploitation of the Dead Sea for chemicals. Presently, the Dead Sea is used to produce large amounts of potash, bromine, caustic soda and magnesium. Unless some drastic action is taken to replenish the Dead Sea, it will all but disappear, like the Aral Sea. Presently, the Dead Sea is depleted by about one meter per year. — Isranet, 1/15/2012 Vaxil BioTherapeutics, a biotechnical company based in Ness Ziona, near Tel Aviv, has produced a ground-breaking therapeutic vaccine for cancer patients which could prevent about 90% of cancers from coming back. The vaccine is now in clinical trials at the Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem. The vaccine could be available as early as 2017 to administer on a regular basis, not only to help treat cancer but in order to keep the disease from recurring. If the substance works as hoped in testing, its platform technology, VaxHit could be applied to 90% of all known cancers, including prostate and breast cancer, solid and non-solid tumors. — Ynetnews, 1/16/2012 Israel’s Ambassador to the UN warned the UN Security Council that Hezbollah’s powerbase in western Africa is growing. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also expressed concern over the growing ties between the Shiite terror group and local African crime organizations. The Israeli ambassador said that western Africa has become Hezbollah’s powerbase in the region and a junction for running arms, drugs and money. “Israel is particularly concerned over Hezbollah’s use of the area as a base of terror operations.” — Ynetnews.com, 2/22/2012 Representatives of the Sami minority in Norway came to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to learn how Hebrew is taught to students from around the world. Their goal is to apply similar teaching methods to revitalize the endangered Sami languages so they can pass them on to future generations. An estimated 100,000 Sami people live in Lapland, a region in northern Europe stretching across Norway, Finland, Sweden and Russia. Of the known Sami languages, several have disappeared, and some currently have as few as 30 speakers. Not all of the languages are mutually understandable. — Isranet, 2/20/2012 This winter has seen one of the most bounteous amounts of rain over Israel in many years, dramatically affecting the level of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee). By October 2008 the level was more than a meter below the Lower Red Line. Now there is cautious optimism that the water level will never again reach danger levels, for less fresh water will be taken from the Kinneret due to the rapid increase in the desalination of sea water. — Isranet, 3/2/2012 |
