Russia: Airport bombing
The head of the Russian Orthodox Church addressed growing ethnic tensions in Russia after a suicide bomber killed 35 people and injured over 150 at Moscow’s busiest Airport. He denounced the attack as ‘the horrifying scowl of sin’ adding ‘actions once condemned even in war are today becoming a form of protest.’ No one has claimed responsibility but previous terrorist attacks in Russia originated from separatist movements in the troubled Northern Caucasus region. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, backed by the Kremlin, has been accused of human rights abuses and crushing Islamic militants, while supporting his own form of Islamic fundamentalism. Ethnic tensions have grown in Moscow recently, including anger over plans to build a new mosque in a south-eastern district of the city. Muslim migrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia have emigrated to the Russian capital, fleeing wars in their home regions since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Pray: for the turmoil in Russia to usher in a timely Christian revival. (Is.14:26-27)
More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/25/russian-patriarch-denounc_n_814025.html
Belgium: Thousands demand politicians form a government
Tens of thousands of Belgians took to the streets on Sunday to shame political leaders who have failed to form a government more than seven months after an election and left the country at the mercy of financial markets. Organisers of the ‘Shame: no government, great country’ protest said up to 50,000 people had joined the march through the capital Brussels. Police put the figure at 34,000. Since the inconclusive June 2010 parliamentary vote, a caretaker administration has run the country while Dutch and French-speaking party leaders have argued over the degree to which powers and tax-raising rights should be transferred to regions of the linguistically divided country. ‘We are here because we want to show the political leaders that things must change. It's the politicians who are trying to split the country'.
Pray: that the government would listen to the people and work through their differences together. (Ep.4:2-4)
Belgium: Thousands demand politicians form a government
Tens of thousands of Belgians took to the streets on Sunday to shame political leaders who have failed to form a government more than seven months after an election and left the country at the mercy of financial markets. Organisers of the ‘Shame: no government, great country’ protest said up to 50,000 people had joined the march through the capital Brussels. Police put the figure at 34,000. Since the inconclusive June 2010 parliamentary vote, a caretaker administration has run the country while Dutch and French-speaking party leaders have argued over the degree to which powers and tax-raising rights should be transferred to regions of the linguistically divided country. ‘We are here because we want to show the political leaders that things must change. It's the politicians who are trying to split the country'.
Pray: that the government would listen to the people and work through their differences together. (Ep.4:2-4)
Homosexual activist targets Christian
On 20 January a Christian counsellor will be summoned before a Professional Conduct Panel for giving therapy to a homosexual man who pretended to be a Christian. Lesley Pilkington, a counsellor with over 20 years of experience, is defending herself against a formal complaint by Patrick Strudwick, a homosexual journalist who secretly recorded two therapy sessions with her. He published an account of the sessions in The Independent and has since received the award of journalist of the year by the homosexual-rights organisation Stonewall. Those offering such counselling have been increasingly targeted by the homosexual lobby, many of whom do not accept that people can change their behaviour. But in 2006, the homosexual rights activist Peter Tatchell wrote in the Guardian: ‘Much as I would love to go along with the fashionable ‘born gay’ consensus (it would be very politically convenient), I can't. The evidence does not support the idea’.
Pray: that the charge will be dismissed on the basis of entrapment and natural justice. (Ac. 24:1)
