Iraqi Government Ministers: ‘Assyrian Christians and Yazidi minority both welcome to form their own province within Iraq’ 
By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News ServiceBAGHDAD, IRAQ (ANS) – A radio and television commentator whose passion is helping raise awareness for the downtrodden Assyrian Christians of Iraq, says the Yazidi believers in Iraq should be treated as brothers […]

WASHINGTON - President Bush has restated his opposition to any timetable for a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, continuing a showdown with opposition Democrats over funding of the war.With rhetoric growing more heated with every passing day, President Bush traded verbal barbs with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who remains determined to send Mr. […]

WASHINGTON - Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin has died in Moscow at the age of 76. 
Western experts on Russia use one word to describe Boris Yeltsin’s presidency from 1991 to 1999 - “contradictory.”
Marshal Goldman is a Russia expert at Harvard University.
“The positive side, he helped bring about the collapse of the Soviet system, of communism […]

By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News ServiceTOKYO, JAPAN (ANS) – Assyrian Christians in Iraq have made a formal request for a Province of their own inside the war-torn country, and many see this as the only way to persuade thousands of refugees outside the country to return.
Assyrian Christians in Iraq have made a formal request […]

Bomb Blasts Kill Police as PM Begins Tour to Garner Arab Support for Iraqi Government  
By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service
BAGHDAD / MOSUL, IRAQ (ANS) – Gunmen in northern Iraq stopped a bus filled with Christians and members of a tiny Kurdish religious sect, separating out the groups and taking 23 of the passengers away […]

NAIROBI - Fighting between Ethiopian troops and insurgents in Somalia is intensifying, with media reports indicating that at least 52 civilians were killed Saturday.  
Mortar shells and machine gun fire bounced back and forth between Ethiopian soldiers and the insurgents around the presidential palace in the southern part of the capital.
The French news agency quotes a […]

HONG KONG - South Korea has agreed to resume massive shipments of rice to impoverished North Korea, despite Pyongyang’s failure to shut its main nuclear reactor as promised at six-party talks on its nuclear weapons programs.
South Korean officials announced in Pyongyang Sunday that Seoul will begin sending 400,000 tons of rice to the North next […]

PARIS - Citizens in France are going to the polls Sunday in the first round of voting to choose a successor to President Jacques Chirac, who is stepping down after 12 years in office. The polls opened early Sunday morning. Results are expected shortly after the polls close Sunday night.
Record numbers of French citizens have […]

JERUSALEM - Palestinian assailants have bombed an American-run school in the Gaza Strip, but there were no casualties. There has been a breakdown of law and order in the impoverished territory since Israel pulled out more than a year and a half ago.
Armed Palestinian militants stormed into the American International School in Gaza City, setting […]

WHITE HOUSE - President Bush is again rejecting opposition calls for a timetable to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq, saying his new strategy is beginning to reduce sectarian violence.
President Bush says his decision to send more American soldiers to Iraq is so far meeting expectations by beginning to reduce sectarian violence in the capital.
“There […]

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan group of U.S. senators has asked India to cease its growing military cooperation with Iran.  New Delhi and Tehran recently stepped up military-to-military cooperation.  Such efforts could spell trouble for the pending nuclear deal between the United States and India.
In a letter addressed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, eight senators called […]

By Wolfgang Polzer
Special to ASSIST News ServiceMALATYA (ANS) – Susanne Geske, widow of the massacred Christian worker Tilmann Geske, has forgiven the murderers of her husband.
Susanne Geske, widow of the massacred Christian worker Tilmann Geske, has forgiven the murderers of her husband.In an interview with the Turkish television channel ATV the German mother of three […]

By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service  
THE PHILIPPINES (ANS) – Seven hostages, six construction workers and one factory worker – all believed to be Christians – have been beheaded by Abu Sayyaf militants in the Philippines.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), says Abu Sayyaf militants have decapitated seven hostages and sent their heads to troops on the southern […]

HOUSTON - Around 1:40 p.m. CDT, NASA employees reported that two shots were fired in the NASA Building 44 in the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. A SWAT team later reported that the gunman, an employee of NASA contractor Jacobs Engineering, had killed a male hostage as well as himself, leaving a female hostage […]

ISLAMABAD - Pakistani-Afghan relations have taken a dramatic turn for the worse after the countries’ forces exchanged fire along a remote stretch of their ill-defined border. The firefight was sparked by a controversy over Pakistani plans to fence off the border area.
The clash occurred Thursday along the remote border separating Pakistan’s South Waziristan tribal agency […]

By Wolfgang Polzer
Special to ASSIST News ServiceMALATYA (ANS) – Three evangelical Christians were brutally murdered in Turkey, April 18. Necati Aydin (35), Ugur Yksel (32) – both Turks – and the German Tilmann Geske (46) were found tied up and their throats slit in the small Zirve Publishing House in Malatya, Central Turkey.
Three evangelical Christians […]

By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service 
GAZA, PALESTINE (ANS) – The library of a Christian association was among the sites targeted in attacks, which also hit three Internet cafes in Gaza City on Sunday, April 15. All four sites were extensively damaged in pre-dawn bombings according to witnesses and security sources.
No one was wounded in […]

CAIRO - The Arab League has picked Egypt and Jordan to take the lead in approaching Israel to promote the newly revived Arab peace plan aimed at resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal announced Wednesday evening that the Arab League has chosen Egypt and Jordan to form its new working group tasked […]

WHITE HOUSE - President Bush says pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq prematurely would put Americans at greater risk of another terrorist attack. Opposition Democrats have approved legislation that includes a timetable for a troop withdrawal because they say that would make the Iraqi government more accountable for its own security. 
President Bush took his standoff […]

WHITE HOUSE - President Bush is threatening tougher economic and military sanctions against Sudan if it does not follow through on promises to improve security in the troubled Darfur region, where more than 200,000 people have died. 
President Bush says he has heard a lot of promises from Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.
“Unfortunately, these agreements have […]

TURKEY - Fears are growing that Turkey may take unilateral military action in northern Iraq against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, the PKK, whose fighters have been staging cross-border attacks.  Turkey’s most senior general wants to send his armed forces into northern Iraq to disrupt the safe haven the PKK has enjoyed since Saddam Hussein’s […]

World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission (WEA RLC)
Special to ASSIST News Service  
AUSTRALIA (ANS) – A bomb ripped through the only Christian bookshop in Gaza, Israel (Palestinian Authority administrated territory), at 2.30am on Sunday 15 April. This Palestinian Bible Society bookshop has been targeted before but this is the most serious attack yet. According to Christianity […]

CAIRO - The U.S. secretary of defense has warned that the implosion of Iraq would have dire consequences for the entire Middle East. He spoke on a visit to Cairo, the second stop on his current Middle East tour.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged Middle Eastern countries to help stabilize Iraq, warning that Iraq’s collapse […]

WASHINGTON - The State Department’s number three official, Nicholas Burns, appeared Tuesday before the House Foreign Affairs Committee and strongly endorsed recommendations for Kosovo’s independence from Serbia promulgated by U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari, former president of Finland.
Mr. Burns said he is optimistic that the United Nations Security Council will approve arrangements that will lead to […]

MANILA - The Philippine government has offered a bounty for the capture of a Muslim guerrilla commander on the southern island of Jolo, where recent fighting has killed at least 21 people.
The military has offered one million pesos, about $21,000, for information leading to the capture of Habier Malik, a renegade commander of the Moro […]