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Today’s News Headlines:

CHRISTIAN SCHOOL IN C ”TE D’IVOIRE TO REMAIN CLOSED FOR A YEAR GOVERNMENT MINISTER THREATENS TRIBAL CHRISTIANS INTER-RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE CLAIMS SCORES OF LIVES IN NIGERIA AZERBAIJAN OFFICIALS THREATEN TO DESTROY LOCAL BAPTIST CHURCH NEARLY 5,000 TURN TO CHRIST IN PHILIPPINES DURING EVANGELISTIC THRUST TWR LAUNCHES PROGRAM TO CHINA TO COUNTER SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM

Today’s News Stories:

CHRISTIAN SCHOOL IN C ”TE D’IVOIRE TO REMAIN CLOSED FOR A YEAR The International Christian Academy in Baouke, C ´te d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), will remain closed for at least a year due to civil unrest in the country, said Paul Jackson of Evangelical Baptist Missions, one of the partners that operates the school for children of missionaries. “Right now the campus is being occupied by the French army, and that’s a good thing as they are protecting the campus at this point,” he said. More than 200 staff and students were evacuated from the school about a week after a failed coup attempt on Sept. 19. “The plans are for the school to reopen, hopefully in the fall of 2003, although there are not guarantees about that,” Jackson said. Meanwhile, missionaries who were forced to evacuate face financial difficulties. He urged believers to pray for peace. “Ivory Coast had been one of the most stable countries in West Africa for many years, but in the last several years this has begun to break down,” Jackson said.

Peace talks in Lome, Togo, involving negotiating teams representing the Ivory Coast government and rebel leaders broke down earlier today when the rebels pulled most of their team out of the discussions, Reuters reported. The rebels decided to withdraw after the body of rebel leader Louis Dacoury-Tabley’s brother was found in Abidjan. They accused the government in the killing, along with those of other opposition figures and civilians. The government of Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo has promised an inquiry into the death. West African negotiators are hopeful that peace talks could resume in the next couple days. Talks have been aiming to end a seven-week-old rebellion in Ivory Coast, the world’s largest cocoa producer and one of Sub-Saharan Africa’s largest economies. The rebels say they are fighting to protect the rights of predominantly Muslim northern Ivorians who complain of discrimination and harassment by the Christian and animist southern tribes that traditionally have dominated the government. Rebels continue to control the northern half of the country, including Baouke and Korhogo. (Mission Network News/Reuters)

* HCJB World Radio’s regional office for Sub-Saharan Africa is in Abidjan, C ´te d’Ivoire. Fr ©quence Vie (Frequency Life), a partner FM station in Abidjan operated by SIM and local churches, continues to air programs of hope and encouragement. The station broadcasts 17 hours daily in French and some local languages. Regional Director Lee Sonius and his family returned to Abidjan in early October following home ministry assignment in the U.S. on home ministry assignment. Missionaries Larry and Linda Burk are in Abidjan after being evacuated from near rebel-held Korhogo where they were helping to install an antenna for a Christian radio station. Daniel and Fran §oise Dossmann remain in France, waiting for the situation to settle down in C ´te d’Ivoire before resuming their ministry.

GOVERNMENT MINISTER THREATENS INDIA’S TRIBAL CHRISTIANS A recent spate of ethnic cleansing against Muslims in western India’s Gujarat state has reached genocidal proportions, and a similar assault may soon be unleashed against India’s most threatened Christian community, the Dang tribe, unless the central government intervenes. Karsan Patel, a senior minister in the state government, recently warned Dang children studying at a parochial school “to decide whether they want to live as Hindus or die as Christians.” Systematic persecution that began in the Dang tribal belt four years ago has intensified recently as militant Hindus campaign to confiscate Dang territory for the god Rama and build a temple in the village of Subir. Local sources say the controversy is a “powder keg waiting to explode,” similar to the Ram temple-Babri mosque conflict in Ayodhya where militant Hindus used the strategy of confiscating a Muslim mosque and converting it into a Hindu temple. (Compass)

INTER-RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE CLAIMS SCORES OF LIVES IN NIGERIA Twenty Christian students have been confirmed dead and 50 others injured following a bloody clash with Muslim schoolmates at the Federal College of Education in the northern Nigerian city of Zaria. Police detained eight people in connection with the Oct. 31 violence that erupted following student elections. Muslim militants reportedly infiltrated the campus to assist the 15,000 Muslim students in attacks against Christians. In a separate incident, 40 Christians died in Fajul, Plateau state, when a force of 2,000 Muslim militants invaded the village in the early morning hours of Oct. 24. Assailants burned down homes, raped several women and ambushed and killed 17 policemen sent to rescue the villagers. Earlier, 17 Christians died in a similar attack on the village of Kassa. Christian leaders in the area said that heavily armed mercenaries from Chad and Niger aided local Muslim militants in the attacks on Fajul and Kassa. (Compass)

* HCJB World Radio, together with partners In Touch Ministries, SIM and the Evangelical Church of West Africa, began airing weekly half-hour programs in the Igbo language in 2000. The programs air via shortwave to Nigeria’s 15 million Igbo speakers.

AZERBAIJAN OFFICIALS THREATEN TO DESTROY LOCAL BAPTIST CHURCH An Interior Ministry colonel in Azerbaijan has threatened an unregistered Baptist church in Baku with demolition if the church refuses to register with the authorities, Keston News Service has learnt. “If you don’t register we’ll close the church and knock it down,” pastor Ivan Orlov, leader of the Baku church, quoted Col. Aliev as having said when he came to the church last month. He also threatened to have church members sacked from their work. Azerbaijani law does not require religious groups to register in order to be allowed to function. A statement from the church expresses concern about pressure on believers and the demolition threat, and calls for support in prayer and appeals to the authorities. (Keston News Service)

NEARLY 5,000 TURN TO CHRIST IN PHILIPPINES DURING EVANGELISTIC THRUST An indigenous Philippine mission agency is seeing evangelistic progress in the midst of terrorist attacks and other hardships. The leader of a mission on Mindanao Island said that its gospel workers reached 1,374 houses from July to September, resulting in 4,766 persons professing faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. One of the missionaries was appointed community chaplain and regularly conducts Bible classes for government officials and public school teachers. “Many got saved,” the mission leader said. Missionaries also are conducting Bible lessons in 81 public school classes. All of this is carried on in the midst of terrorist attacks from communists and Muslim separatists. (Christian Aid Mission)

TWR LAUNCHES PROGRAM TO CHINA TO COUNTER SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM Trans World Radio (TWR) has launched a broadcast to China that offers a Christian response to “scientific atheism.” TWR began airing a series of broadcasts to China in the Mandarin language called “Truth in the Test Tube.” The program, which started Oct. 26, gives scientific evidence that supports Scripture. It includes interviews with Christians who are respected professionals in the hard sciences. The hope is that once listeners are satisfied that what is being said is indeed true, they accept God’s forgiveness through Christ. A Christian journalist formerly stationed in China observed, “I think reaching out to students from China is the most strategically important missionary endeavor anywhere in the world. If we reach these people, we can change China’s future.” (Mission Network News/TWR)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * 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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