Today’s Headlines:

AUTHORITIES ARREST TOP CHINESE CHRISTIAN HUMAN RIGHTS ATTORNEY

1,000 COMPASSION-SPONSORED CHILDREN TO RECEIVE COLLEGE EDUCATION

HEZBOLLAH, ISRAEL CEASEFIRE PROVIDES OPENING FOR RELIEF SUPPLIES

PASTOR, 3 CHURCH MEMBERS BEATEN, ARRESTED FOR ‘FORCED CONVERSION’

* ELIMINATION OF RIVER BLINDNESS IN ECUADOR MOVES CLOSER TO REALITY

Today’s Top Stories:

AUTHORITIES ARREST TOP CHINESE CHRISTIAN HUMAN RIGHTS ATTORNEY Top Chinese Christian human rights attorney Gao Zhisheng was arrested in his sister’s Shandong province home at noon Tuesday, Aug. 15. His whereabouts are still unknown, and his wife and two young children remain under house arrest. National Security Bureau officers have remained in the family’s apartment to monitor all communications and contact. Visitors trying to contact the family discovered the door was answered by a security officer while plainclothes police looked on. Gao is no stranger to threats and assassination attempts. His law firm was officially closed for a year beginning in November 2005 after writing an open letter to Chinese officials addressing serious human rights concerns. In January a speeding car with covered license plates nearly hit him. Gao was named “China’s hero of 2005” by former Tiananmen student activist Wang Dan who said, “Gao is an important voice against many of the excesses of abuse of power and violations of targeted and vulnerable members of society.” (China Aid Association/Assist News Service)

1,000 COMPASSION-SPONSORED CHILDREN TO RECEIVE COLLEGE EDUCATION About 1,000 students from poverty-stricken countries around the world will get the chance to attend college through a program run by Compassion International. The organization’s Leadership Development Program identifies young men and women previously assisted by Compassion who have shown the potential for Christian leadership. Then, with the help of sponsors, these future leaders are sent to universities in their own countries and given extensive Christian leadership training with the eventual goal of helping them to influence their churches, communities and nations. More than 300 colleges and universities in 14 countries are involved in the program. It was started in the Philippines in 1996 and has produced more than 350 graduates in the fields of education, law, medicine, accounting, nursing and engineering. “Who better to release children from poverty than those who have conquered it themselves?” said Program Director Mike Hinckfoot. (Evangelical News)

HEZBOLLAH, ISRAEL CEASEFIRE PROVIDES OPENING FOR RELIEF SUPPLIES As the ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel continues to hold, World Vision hopes to use the opening to deliver $300,000 worth of relief supplies that arrived in Beirut on Aug. 13, one day before the ceasefire agreement. The 37 tons of relief supplies, including water purification units, collapsible water containers, hygiene kits, medicine, three trucks and a portable warehouse, will provide relief to about 45,000 war-weary civilians. Tony Matar, World Vision’s Lebanon operations director, hopes World Vision will “finally have the opportunity to step up our relief efforts in a very significant way throughout the country.” Matar is targeting southern Lebanon, where the fighting was heaviest, for the first deliveries and plans on using passenger cars and SUVs to prevent convoys from becoming military targets. “An urgent priority is to assist many of the 100,000 people in southern Lebanon who have been increasingly isolated by conflict and well beyond our reach over the last three weeks,” he said. (World Vision)

PASTOR, 3 CHURCH MEMBERS BEATEN, ARRESTED FOR ‘FORCED CONVERSION’ A pastor and three church members were beaten and later arrested on charges of “forced conversion” in central India’s Madhya Pradesh state Monday, Aug. 21. Pastor K.K. Jwala of Sheopur Bible Fellowship and three members identified only as Anup, Jijo and Raju Matthew were confronted by a group of around 15 people who punched and hit them with hockey sticks at about 10:30 a.m. after the church’s worship services. The group then dragged the Christians while still beating them to the nearby Sheopur police station where the officer in charge allegedly beat Jwala again. One anonymous source reported, “Pastor Jwala has a blue mark below his neck and a pain in his ear.” The four accused were released at 8 p.m. Monday but are required to appear before the court on Aug. 30. Local Christians suspect that a local legislator from the Hindu Nationalist Party is responsible for filing the “forced conversion” complaint. (Compass Direct)

* ELIMINATION OF RIVER BLINDNESS IN ECUADOR MOVES CLOSER TO REALITY HCJB World Radio’s medical team in Quito, Ecuador, is spearheading an effort that has eliminated blindness in a menacing tropical disease that has plagued residents of isolated riverside communities for hundreds of years. The international broadcast media and medical missions organization, working with Ecuador’s Ministry of Health, Christian Blind Mission and various international agencies, said elimination of the disease onchocerciasis — river blindness — in the country could soon become a reality.

River blindness is caused by a parasitic worm transmitted in the bite of blackflies that breed near swift-flowing rivers. The small, thread-like worms cause intense itching, skin discoloration, rashes and eye disease that can eventually result in blindness and even death.

“Now we are really closing the margins to be able to control and interrupt transmission (of river blindness),” said Dr. Mauricio Sauerbrey who heads the Onchocerciasis Elimination Program for the Americas, based in Guatemala, one of the other countries where the disease is endemic.

Sauerbrey said his agency next year will assist Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico, Guatemala and Ecuador in writing a document declaring the “ophthalmologic morbidity” of the disease. “That means there will be no more people going blind because of onchocerciasis in the Americas anymore,” he said.

According to Sheila Leech, director of HCJB World Radio’s Healthcare Division in Latin America, some 24,000 Ecuadorians in the northern region of the country’s Esmeraldas province are living in 119 isolated communities along the Cayapas, Santiago and Onzole rivers where river blindness is present. They must receive treatment every six months. Those at risk include 10,000 Chachi Indians, 12,000 Afro-Ecuadorians and 2,000 people of Spanish heritage.

“The only way to reach these at-risk people is by wooden canoes, powered by outboard motors,” said Leech. “While we’re there, we also take care of other medical needs. Healthcare is a way of showing God’s love to people.”

“But we also preach, minister and model the gospel to them,” she added. “This individual contact gives our staff opportunities to support pastors which results in solid church growth, especially among the black population.”

In 2005 HCJB World Radio was awarded the Jos © Manrique Izquieta Medal by then-Vice President Dr. Alfredo Palacios, now president of Ecuador, for its work with river blindness.

Dr. Ron Guderian, a former HCJB World Radio medical missionary and clinical pathologist, initiated the battle against river blindness in Ecuador despite being laughed at for his initial discovery in 1976.

“At that time, river blindness was thought to exist only in Africa,” he said.

Merck & Co. developed a drug, Ivermectin (Mectizan), in 1987 that was capable of killing immature forms of the parasite in humans. Ecuador received its first donation of the drug in 1990.

After 15 years of continuous treatment in the Ecuadorian communities, the results have been impressive, said Guderian. There has been an obvious decrease in the number of parasites present in the skin and the total absence of the parasite in the eye. At the same time, the number of infected flies in these communities has been reduced 10-fold. (HCJB World Radio)