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Today’s Headlines:

SRI LANKAN CABINET APPROVES BILL PROHIBITING RELIGIOUS CONVERSION HUMAN RIGHTS SOCIETY DEMANDS MORE RIGHTS FOR TURKISH CHRISTIANS AUSTRALIAN LISTENERS FUND 66 ADDITIONAL CHRISTIAN RADIO OUTLETS OMS INTERNATIONAL PLANTS 180 VILLAGE CHURCHES IN 6 AFRICAN NATIONS LITERATURE MINISTRY URGES AMERICANS TO DONATE EXTRA BIBLES

Today’s News Stories:

SRI LANKAN CABINET APPROVES BILL PROHIBITING RELIGIOUS CONVERSION The Sri Lankan cabinet has approved a bill to prevent conversion of Buddhists to other religions. Last month the Jathika Hela Urumaya party (JHU) put forward a bill to parliament on the “prohibition of forcible conversion.” In addition, the Minister of Buddhism submitted his own bill to prohibit “forcible conversion” on June 16. The next day the cabinet approved the bill to be presented to parliament. The scope of the minister’s act is wider in interpretation than the bill tabled by the JHU. This act effectively makes conversion from one religion to another an offense under the law. Section 2 of the draft act stipulates that “no person shall convert nor attempt to convert or aid or abet acts of conversion of a person to a different religion.” If enacted, the law would effectively remove individuals’ fundamental right of embracing a religion of their choice, effectively outlawing the act of conversion. (Religion Today/International Christian Concern)

HUMAN RIGHTS SOCIETY DEMANDS MORE RIGHTS FOR TURKISH CHRISTIANS The International Society for Human Rights (ISHR) in Frankfurt, Germany, is demanding more rights for Turkish Christians. The society wants Turkey to not only recognize the Kurdish culture but also that of other minorities such as Aramaic and Assyrian Christians. Turkey is striving for membership in the European Union and is responding to demands for greater respect for minority rights. Radio and television programs in the Kurdish language recently have been introduced. ISHR encourages the Turkish authorities to lift the ban on teaching in the Aramaic language in Orthodox monasteries in the Tur Abdin region. In addition, Christians should be granted access to all professions including leading positions in administration and the military. “Turkey is not a Muslim club,” declared the human rights organization. All but 0.4 percent of the 67 million Turkish inhabitants are Muslim. Most of the non-Muslims are Christian with 3,000 believers attending 55 evangelical churches in the country. (Religion Today/Assist News Service)

AUSTRALIAN LISTENERS FUND 66 ADDITIONAL CHRISTIAN RADIO OUTLETS More than 66 new communities in Australia will soon be able to tune in to Vision FM Christian radio, thanks to pledges made June 3-5 during the network’s annual “Dream With Us” radio appeal. Total giving before, during and after the event has surpassed $283,000. “We give the Lord all the glory, honor and praise,” says Vision FM Chief Executive Ian Worby. “It’s obvious that God believes in Christian radio and so do many hundreds of generous Australians from across the nation.” The new stations will be progressively brought on air in the coming months. A nondenominational, nonprofit operational network, Vision FM is owned and operated by United Christian Broadcasters Australia which started broadcasting with a single frequency in Queensland in 1999. Five years later it has 175 stations across Australia. All receive Vision FM programming 24 hours a day originating from its broadcast operations center in Underwood, Brisbane. (Religious Media Agency/United Christian Broadcasters, Australia)

OMS INTERNATIONAL PLANTS 180 VILLAGE CHURCHES IN 6 AFRICAN NATIONS Believers sponsored by OMS International are traveling into 10 nations of Africa to share the gospel and plant churches. Bruce Bennett, OMS International’s South Africa director, says the program, called “Into Africa,” is a village church-planting movement. “In Sub-Saharan Africa there are a number of churches in the cities,” says Bennett. “But once you move out of the cities and into the villages there are very few churches. And where there are churches the pastors are generally untrained.” OMS is establishing training centers in these communities. “We have found that people who have been trained in cities often don’t want to go back to village communities,” Bennett explained. “So we’re taking theological education into the villages and training church planters right where they live.” Sickness is a problem for the outreach with malaria and AIDS rampant in the region. War in some areas is also causing problems for their outreach, but church-planting work is being established, Bennett said. “Since February 2003 the village church-planting program initiated 180 churches in six nations.” (Mission Network News)

LITERATURE MINISTRY URGES AMERICANS TO DONATE EXTRA BIBLES Placing Bibles into the hands of people around the world is part of a new program from Bibles for the World called the “Billion Bible Campaign.” Ministry spokesman Eric Foley says many Christians in the U.S. have multiple copies of God’s Word in reserve status, collecting dust. “Now it’s time to call them up to active duty. And the first offensive in the Billion Bible Campaign is the All Volunteer Bible Army. The first thing we’re going to do is ask all the Christians in the U.S. to contribute all the extra Bibles they have to send to English-speaking countries where Bibles are desperately needed.” More than 50 English-speaking countries have a shortage of Bibles. Foley says the program isn’t just to place Bibles. “The other half of our mission is to transform the way the global church thinks about missions. Instead of individual Christians supporting missions, we see that the Lord is calling us to help individual Christians to become missionaries.” (Mission Network News)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * James A. Ferrier HCJB World Radio

Web: http://www.hcjb.org http://www.beyondthecall.org * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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