eni-summary list Ecumenical News International News Highlights 31 July 2003

Middle East road map a ‘golden opportunity’, says Palestinian bishop

Winnipeg (ENI). The US-backed “road map” for Middle East peace offers a “golden opportunity” to solve the enormous problems that exist between Israelis and Palestinians, Palestinian Bishop Munib A. Younan said at a global gathering of Lutherans meeting in Winnipeg. For the first time the United States is actively involved in the peace process, Younan, who is bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan (ELCJ), told journalists at the 10th assembly of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), which ends on Thursday. “We hope the US will be an honest broker.” [565 words, ENI-03-0386]

Protestants in Belarus accuse media of distortion

Warsaw (ENI). Protestants in Belarus have accused the state-run media of waging a smear campaign against them, nine months after a new law imposed curbs on religious activity. “It’s said on TV that Pentecostalists make human sacrifices and are Western agents – that this is an American faith, foreign to Belarusans,” the president of Belarus’s Pentecostal Union, Syarhey Khomich, told Poland’s Catholic Information Agency (KAI). “We’re praying the hearts of our leaders will soften – and if this doesn’t happen, that the leaders will change.” [422 words, ENI-03-0387]

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