LONDON - A senior British military official has presented evidence he says is proof that 15 British naval personnel seized by Iranian forces last Friday were inside Iraqi territorial waters.
Vice Admiral Charles Style presented maps and GPS coordinates of the British patrol boats and the merchant vessel the British personnel had just finished searching when […]

Muslim mob manhandled him 
By Sheraz Khurram Khan
Special Correspondent for ASSIST News Service in Pakistan
SHEIKHUPURA, PAKISTAN (ANS) – Pakistani Christians continue to bear the brunt of the country’s blasphemy laws as yet another Christian man has been booked for allegedly tearing and setting ablaze the pages of the Quran, the Muslim holy book.
Qaisar Mehmood, the complainant, […]

WASHINGTON (RFE/RL) — Unsurprisingly, senior Iranian officials have rejected UN Security Council Resolution 1747. The additional UN sanctions were approved unanimously on March 24 in a continuing bid by the international community to curb Iran’s nuclear program.
Iran’s cabinet voted the following day to reduce Iranian cooperation with UN nuclear inspectors. Officials in Tehran have denounced […]

WASHINGTON (RFE/RL) — The U.S. Navy has begun its most extensive maneuvers in the Persian Gulf region since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The exercises involve two aircraft carriers — the “USS John C. Stennis” and the “USS Dwight D. Eisenhower” — and their battle groups.
They come at a time of high tension between the U.S. […]

CAPITOL HILL - The Democratic-led Senate for the first time has signaled its support for a timetable for a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq. The Senate late Tuesday defied a White House veto threat and voted to keep a nonbinding timeline for a troop pullout included in a bill funding military operations in Iraq and […]

BEIJING - The World Food Program (WFP) says North Korea is facing new food shortages. WFP officials returning from Pyongyang say the North Korean government asked the U.N. agency to seek more food donations to prevent millions of people from going hungry.
WFP Asia director Anthony Banbury says the North Korean government is reporting a food […]

WASHINGTON — Britain has again called on Iran to quickly release the 15 British sailors and marines it has been holding since March 23.
Prime Minister Tony Blair, in an interview on British television, warned that efforts to secure the group’s release could enter a “different phase” if diplomatic efforts failed.
“I hope we manage to get […]

WASHINGTON (RFE/RL) — An international human rights watchdog has warned that rights violations reminiscent of the Soviet era are reappearing in some Eastern European and Central Asian countries.
In its annual report, the Vienna-based International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) singled out the governments of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan as repressive regimes that regularly violate human […]

By Les Stobbe
Special to ASSIST News Service  
TRYON, NC (ANS) – If in July, 2000, the month Chawki Boulos and a team of Americans and Lebanese Christians held their first open air “Celebration” in Beirut, you had asked him if he would be able to arrange open air Celebrations in the near future in Syria, Jordan, […]

HOUSTON - Mexico’s state-owned oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos, better known as Pemex, celebrated its 69th birthday on March 18, amid concerns that it is on the brink of insolvency and its production is falling.  Mexico still has plenty of oil, but internal politics prevent the investment needed to develop the resources.
At the close of President […]

London’s Mayor Apologizes for Slave Trade  
By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News ServiceLONDON, ENGLAND (ANS) – The Church of England is considering whether it should pay reparations for its role in the slave trade, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said, and London’s Mayor has apologized for the city’s involvement in the slave trade, says a report […]

By John McNeil of Challenge Weekly, New Zealand
Special to ASSIST News Service 
CHIRSTCHURCH, NZ (ANS) – The Church is facing a crisis through the devaluation of its primary text, the new head of the Bible Society in New Zealand says. 
Mark Brown says most Christians would be comfortable stating that they consider the Bible to be an […]

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Senate continues debate Tuesday on President Bush’s request for additional funding for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Majority Democrats have included a provision calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by next March - a measure that Republicans are seeking to strip from the overall bill.
The legislation includes some […]

JERUSALEM - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice shuttled between Israel and Jordan as she neared the end of her fourth Middle East mission in as many months. Rice told reporters in Jerusalem she wants to expedite, not control, dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians. 
Secretary of State Rice is hoping, by the end of her […]

BRUSSELS - Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, visiting Brussels for talks with European Union and NATO allies, warned Tehran its failure to cooperate with the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency would lead to Iran’s further isolation. Iran has rejected the latest U.N. Security Council resolution and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says he’ll retaliate by cutting back […]

WASHINGTON — A Bulgarian member of a transnational criminal group has been arrested on U.S. charges by law enforcement authorities in Budapest, Hungary, in connection with an elaborate Internet scheme responsible for defrauding American citizens of over $350,000, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division and FBI Assistant Director Chip Burrus of […]

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. mediator for Kosovo has recommended independence for the breakaway Serbian province. From U.N. headquarters, Serbian officials called the decision “unacceptable”. 
In a long-awaited report to the U.N. Security Council, Special envoy Martti Ahtisaari says “independence is the only viable option for a politically stable and economically viable Kosovo.”
At the same time, […]

WASHINGTON (RFE/RL) — The seizure of 15 British Navy sailors by Iran is threatening to turn into a diplomatic incident after Iranian naval forces on March 23 took the sailors into custody, saying they were trespassing on Iranian waters.
Britain strenuously rejects this, saying the sailors were engaged on a routine antismuggling patrol in Iraqi waters. […]

WASHINGTON - American Episcopalian bishops are resisting terms to head off a greater split with the Anglican mother church that were hammered out at a conference in Tanzania last month.  Rejection by the end of September and an American reaffirmation of principles welcoming homosexual clergy and same sex marriages boost chances that the Anglican Communion […]

NEW YORK - Iran says it is considering charging 15 detained British sailors and marines with illegally entering Iranian waters.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki made that remark Sunday in New York.
Mottaki also spoke by phone Sunday with British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, who reiterated London’s position that the British Navy personnel were operating in Iraqi […]

WHITE HOUSE - The political battle in Washington over actions taken by the Bush administration’s Justice Department is intensifying. Several key Senators - including some leading Republicans - are questioning the credibility of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
The controversy surrounds the Justice Department’s decision to fire eight federal prosecutors, who were appointed by the president. Six […]

WASHINGTON (RFE/RL) — The UN Security Council has unanimously approved a resolution authorizing expanded sanctions against Iran for its continuing failure to halt uranium enrichment.
After the vote, Iran dismissed the resolution as “unnecessary and unjustified.”
The resolution broadens sanctions imposed on Iran in December for ignoring repeated demands to suspend its sensitive nuclear fuel work.
Today’s vote […]

GENEVA - The International Organization for Migration (IOM) says it is extremely worried about new patterns of labor exploitation and human trafficking emerging in Iraq.  It says some of the workers are taken against their knowledge to Iraq and others are falsely lured there by promises of good-paying jobs.
The International Organization for Migration has just […]

Sexual Orientation Regulations 2007, Raises Serious Implications for Christian Believers  
By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service
LONDON, ENGLAND (ANS) – The vote by 168 to 122 in the British House of Lord’s on March 21 in favor of the Government’s Equality Act (Sexual Orientation Regulations) 2007 marks the imposition of a new morality, according to the […]

WASHINGTON - President Bush used his weekly radio address Saturday to discuss two major disagreements between his Republican administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress.  One is about a congressional demand for testimony under oath from White House aides in connection with the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.  The other deals with a bill approved by the […]