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Today’s News Headlines:

JAILED MISSIONARY IN NEPAL APPEALS CONVICTION TO SUPREME COURT LYNCHING OF 5 DALIT YOUTHS SENDS SHOCKWAVES ACROSS INDIA CUBAN HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST RELEASED FROM PRISON FULL GOSPEL CHURCH IN BELARUS VOWS TO DEFY NEW RELIGION LAW. AGENCY REACHES OUT TO NEGLECTED ORPHANS IN THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES * ASH FROM VOLCANO CAUSES HAVOC WITH HCJB WORLD RADIO’S FACILITIES

Today’s News Stories:

JAILED MISSIONARY IN NEPAL APPEALS CONVICTION TO SUPREME COURT An appeal in the case of A native missionary in Nepal has been filed with the country’s Supreme Court. The first hearing has been slated for Nov. 14 in Kathmandu. Falsely accused and convicted of murder, the missionary is serving his third year of a 20-year prison sentence. “Once some sober-minded judges look at this thing, they will see that he’s totally innocent,” says Gospel for Asia’s K.P. Yohannan. “Our leaders tell me that he’s in good spirits. He’s saying that, ‘My God has allowed me to be in jail for some wonderful plan.'” Despite his imprisonment, the worker is planting seeds of the gospel. “I’m told that not a day goes by that someone is praying with him to receive Christ in this life,” Yohannan says. “He’s in prison with these people who are going nowhere. As he witnesses about the Lord and talks to them, they are opening their hearts to Him.” (Mission Network News)

LYNCHING OF 5 DALIT YOUTHS SENDS SHOCKWAVES ACROSS INDIA A top Indian Christian leader says that the lynching of five Dalit youths in Jhajjar, India, on Oct. 15 has sent “horror waves among the 250 million Dalits of India.” Joseph D’Souza, president of the All India Christian Council, said, “The Dalits were lynched because they were skinning a dead cow by a mob of several thousand people who were urged on by the fanatical, extremist Hindu group Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). Police officials silently watched and supported the killings.” The skinning of dead cattle is the occupation into which many unfortunate Dalits — people outside of the caste system — were born into as “untouchables.” The youths were mobbed and killed for skinning a dead cow and transporting cowhide, D’Souza said. “It didn’t matter that the Dalit youths, all less than 22 years of age, were doing this legally and with all the proper documents.” Meanwhile, Christian leaders say that tens of thousands of Dalits will leave Hinduism and embrace Christianity in Chennai (formerly called Madras) in December. The southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu recently passed an anti-conversion law. “Dalit leaders in Tamil Nadu are strongly protesting against the anti-conversion law and have announced that tens of thousands of Dalits will embrace Christianity in early December,” D’Souza said. “This first phase of embracing the Christian faith will begin on Dec. 6 which is also the anniversary of the death of Bhimrao Ambedkar, the leader of the Dalits who fought for their emancipation. The Dalit leaders announced that this is the first step of a massive exodus from the Hindu socio-religious system that has enslaved and dehumanized them for centuries. This move is unlike the conversions last November because this time the faith of first choice of the Dalits is Christianity [instead of Buddhism]. (Assist News Service)

CUBAN HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST RELEASED FROM PRISON Oscar Elias Biscet, 41, a prominent Cuban human rights activist and devout Christian, was released from prison on Oct. 31 after serving a three-year sentence. Biscet, founder of the Lawton Foundation, a human rights organization, seemed “determined and ready to carry on in the struggle for human rights.” Biscet was imprisoned for “dishonoring public symbols,” “public disorder” and “inciting delinquent behavior” after he organized a peaceful silent march in support of human rights and freedom for political prisoners. He was arrested on Nov. 3, 1999, and imprisoned in a state security facility in Cuba’s Holguin province — a day’s journey from his hometown. This made it difficult for his wife, Elsa, to visit him. Biscet’s Bible was confiscated a number of times, and he was consistently denied the right to pastoral visits. He was also frequently denied medical treatment, family visits and access to the prison library. He was repeatedly forced to share a cell with mentally ill inmates as a form of punishment. Cuba is one of the only countries in the world that bars the International Red Cross and other humanitarian agencies from visiting its prisons. (Christian Solidarity Worldwide)

FULL GOSPEL CHURCH IN BELARUS VOWS TO DEFY NEW RELIGION LAW. The Full Gospel Union of Pentecostal churches in Belarus has declared publicly that it will defy the repressive new religion law signed by President Aleksandr Lukashenko on Oct. 31. “The entry of this law into force will be a blow to freedom of conscience, one of the fundamental freedoms given to individuals by God and on which basic democratic institutions are founded,” the head of the Union declared a written statement Nov. 1. Other Belarusian religious and human rights organizations, together with the U.S. State Department, have also condemned the new law. (Keston News Service)

AGENCY REACHES OUT TO NEGLECTED ORPHANS IN THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES Orphans in Third World countries — among the world’s most neglected children — are finding comfort through Christian agencies such as Buckner Care International. Spokesperson Tiffany Taylor says the numbers are staggering. “These children are literally housed in institutions — we’re talking about more than 600,000 children in Russia alone. There are also millions of orphans in Africa . . . the needs are overwhelming.” The ministry is collecting shoes to give to orphans because most of the orphanages are not equipped to supply anything beyond the basic needs of shelter and food, Taylor said. She urges people to pray for their workers as they share the love of Christ with these orphan children. (Mission Network News)

* ASH FROM VOLCANO CAUSES HAVOC WITH HCJB WORLD RADIO’S FACILITIES While the Reventador volcano that coated Quito with a layer of ash on Sunday appears to be calming down, HCJB World Radio continues to suffer from effects of the eruption, interrupting power supplies and international Christian broadcasts.

In Quito the ash was more of an inconvenience with a thin layer of grayish grit covering streets, cars and roofs. But closer to the volcano east of the city at the ministry’s international transmitter site in Pifo and at the hydroelectric facilities in Papallacta and Lake Loreto, up to 2 inches of ash caused havoc with the technical facilities.

“The power line between Pifo to Papallacta is in bad shape due to the ash coating the lines,” said Station General Manager John Beck. The ash later mixed with rain “causing breakage, leakage, ground faults and various other problems. Other lines in the national grid for this area are suffering from the same problems.”

HCJB World Radio’s two generators in Pifo both needed to be shut down, Beck said. “The plant at Loreto is operational but cannot feed anything due to line outages. The team working in Papallacta is working to clean everything with high-pressure water and air and inspecting it thoroughly before risking operation.”

Standby diesel generators in Pifo are generating electricity to send the broadcasts worldwide as power is not available either from the Papallacta or the national grid due to sub-station problems. “Antenna problems were repaired on Tuesday,” Beck added. “But two of the HC-100s (100,000-watt shortwave transmitters) experienced power surges and are off-line. We are losing a lot of programming hours which translates into reduced ministry and lost revenue during a time of high expenses to get us back on the air.

“Combined with all of this, the engineering team has been working almost non-stop since the first eruptions on Sunday,” Beck said. “We have exhausted people working in dangerous environments. Most of all, we need to pray for these folks as they attempt to tackle a mountain of inter-related problems.”

Meanwhile, Hospital Vozandes-Quito Administrator Daniel Shedd said there has been an influx of patients related to the eruption. “As of noon Tuesday we had seen 31 patients related to the eruptions — most of them due to some multi-trauma (physical injury caused by an external agent). Most of these cases are from falls from the roof. This includes our very own Dr. Sonia Chan (she will be OK). With the ashfalls and the rain, people are quite concerned that their roofs will cave in, and the wet ash is also very slippery.”

Shedd added that the hospital continues to operate in most critical areas 24 hours a day and is extending shifts to better meet patients’ needs. “Pray that despite this volcanic eruption, the Lord will continue to use the hospital to touch people’s lives for His kingdom.”

The Associated Press quoted Quito Mayor Paco Moncayo as saying that at least one person died and 16 others were injured in separate accidents involving people who fell while sweeping ash from rooftops. Moncayo asked that all private-sector employees again be released from their jobs by 3 p.m. (Eastern time) today.

Overnight rains helped to wash away some of the ash that had blanketed Quito since Sunday when Reventador began spewed large clouds of hot ash and gas. “You could say the patient’s fever is lowering, although it is premature to say for sure,” said Hugo Y ©pez, director of Ecuador’s Geophysical Institute. “We hope the volcano’s activity continues to drop off.”

Y ©pez said that no major eruptions had been registered in recent hours at Reventador, an 11,683-foot volcano 60 miles northeast of Quito. Sunday’s eruptions forced President Gustavo Noboa to declare a state of emergency and close Quito’s international airport. Hundreds of airport workers were trying to clean away the ash from airstrips but the airport remained closed on Tuesday.

Some of the capital’s residents walked through downtown Quito without the white surgical masks that government officials had encouraged them to use since Sunday. “It’s nice to be able to breathe clean air again,” said Oscar Calder ³n, a 54-year-old cook as he walked to work.

Eduardo Naranjo, a spokesman at Ecuador’s state petroleum company Petroecuador, said the Trans-Ecuadorian pipeline that runs close to Quito and provides about 40 percent of the nation’s export income was functioning normally despite the eruptions. Officials had worried the pipeline might be broken by lava flows or one of its pumping stations damaged by ash. (HCJB World Radio/AP)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * James A. Ferrier HCJB World Radio U.S. Ministries Communications Director E-mail: Phone: 1-719-590-9800 Fax: 1-719-590-9801 Web: http://www.hcjb.org http://www.beyondthecall.org * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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