By Jeremy Reynalds
Correspondent for ASSIST News Service
SPARTANBURG, SOUTH CAROLINA (ANS) – A Degar Christian was recently tortured and killed by Vietnamese security police.
According to a news release from the Montagnard Foundation, the murder of Y-Cung Nie occurred on April 14 after his involvement in a demonstration protesting the arrest of three Christians who had […]

Human Rights Group Launches Petition To Secure their Release  
By Jeremy Reynalds
Correspondent for ASSIST News Service
WASHINGTON, D.C. (ANS) – A human rights group has learned that Yemeni authorities continue to detain Christians who convert from Islam to Christianity.
Yemen is located in the Middle East, bordering the Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden and Red Sea, between […]

Chinese Airport Officials Seize 300 Bibles from American Christians
 
By Jeremy Reynalds
Correspondent for ASSIST News Service
KUNMING, YUNNAN PROVINCE, CHINA (ANS) – A group of American Christians who had more than 300 Chinese Bibles confiscated by officials when they arrived in China is refusing to leave Kunming International Airport until they get the books back.
According to […]

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries
UNITED STATES (ANS) – The son of a top Hamas leader has converted to Christianity and prays some day his family will also accept Jesus Christ as their savior, according to an Israeli newspaper. 
Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of West Bank Hamas leader Sheik Hassan Yousef, revealed for the first […]

By Mark Ellis
Senior Correspondent, ASSIST News Service
GAZA (ANS) – An English-language kindergarten, a cultural center and an attached private home in Gaza were ransacked and looted by Hamas in the early morning hours of July 27.
“They gutted it completely,” says Dr. Taysir “Tass” Abu Saada, president of Seeds of Hope International, a humanitarian organization. […]

Deportation Comes Two Weeks after King Abdullah Calls for Reconciliation Between Muslims and Christians at Saudi Hosted Interfaith Dialogue 
By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service
SAUDI ARABIA (ANS) – Saudi Arabia is set to deport 15 Christians on Tuesday, August 5, for holding private worship meetings in a house in the city of Taif.
International Christian […]

WASHINGTON - A U.S.-based Jewish foundation Sunday honored more than 60 elderly Polish Christians who risked their lives hiding Jews from the occupying Nazis in World War II.
The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous gives Poles financial aid to help bolster their small government pensions.
Some of the honorees told their stories during a ceremony in Warsaw. […]

By Jeremy Reynalds
Correspondent for ASSIST News Service
MADRID (ANS) – King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has called on followers of the world’s main religions to turn away from extremism and embrace a spirit of reconciliation.
The king was opening a conference in Madrid which brings together Muslims, Christians, Jews and Buddhists.
BBC News reported he said the […]

By Jeremy Reynalds
Correspondent for ASSIST News Service
DALLAS, TEXAS (ANS) – Egypt’s Coptic church is calling on President Hosni Mubarak to guarantee Christians’ safety after a violent attack on a monastery in which four Copts were injured.
According to a story reported by the AFP News Service, the Coptic Ecclesiastical Council called on Mubarak to stop […]

By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service  
EGYPT / ERITREA (ANS) – Egypt has begun the forcible repatriation of more than 1,000 Eritrean refugees held in several prisons around the country.
A report from Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), says the deportations, which are in violation of Egypt’s obligations under international law, have occurred in spite of a […]

Rock pioneer Bo Diddley dies at age 79 
 
By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries
ARCHER, FL (ANS) – Rock-and-roll pioneer Bo Diddley, whose innovative rhythms and guitar effects inspired legions of musicians, died Monday at his North Central Florida home, a spokeswoman said. He was 79.
According to a story written for the Miami Herald by Michael […]

Egyptian authorities threaten to deport 150 Eritrean refugees 
 
By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service
CAIRO, EGYPT (ANS) – Egyptian authorities are to begin forced deportations of some 150 Eritrean prisoners currently held in Kanater prison in Cairo within a few days.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) has received information indicating that the Eritrean detainees, who originally fled […]

By Jeremy Reynalds
Correspondent for ASSIST News Service
BAGHDAD (ANS) – A leader of al Qaeda in Iraq has been sentenced to death for the killing of Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, whose murder in March drew worldwide condemnation, the Iraqi government said Sunday.
According to a story by Ross Colvin and published by the Reuters […]

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries 
MOUNT VERNON, MO (ANS) – The Associated Press (AP) has reported that Joyce “Dottie” Rambo, an influential gospel singer and songwriter, died early Sunday (May 11) when her tour bus ran off the highway and struck an embankment. She was 74.
AP stated that seven other people on the bus were […]

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, is accusing the media of unfairly attacking him and taking controversial remarks he made years ago out of context. Speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, Reverend Wright said public criticism of him is actually an attack on the black church […]

By Rusty Wright
Special to ASSIST News Service
MOUNT HERMON, CA (ANS) – Happy with your grocery bills these days? Do those gasoline pump meters seem to whir like Vegas slot machines, except you never hit the jackpot?
The two issues are not unrelated and they’re affecting pocketbooks and bellies at home and around the globe. Some […]

By Jeremy Reynalds
Correspondent for ASSIST News Service
SAMSUN, TURKEY (ANS) – Christians in Turkey are living under a shadow of fear as the result of a violent backlash by nationalist hardliners.
According to a story by Laurence Lee on the Al Jazeera web site, there are about 120,000 practicing Christians, and while they are legally free […]

By Jeremy Reynalds
Correspondent for ASSIST News Service
AMMAN, JORDAN (ANS) – Evangelical Christians are being criticized in Jordan where dozens of seminary students and missionaries have been deported, a report said.
According to a report by United Press International (UPI), the deportations could affect Jordan’s $2.3 billion tourism industry, which markets the country’s Biblical sites heavily […]

By Jeremy Reynalds
Correspondent for ASSIST News Service
GARDEN VALLEY, TEXAS (ANS) – As American President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush wrapped up their six-day tour of Africa to Liberia last week, Mercy Ships volunteer doctors from around the world began the first of several thousand surgeries onboard the Africa Mercy in the […]

By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service
ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA (ANS) – Evangelist Dr. Billy Graham, 89, is today listed in fair condition following an elective medical procedure to update the valve for a shunt which was implanted in 2000 to regulate pressure within his brain.
The procedure, called an aproximal shunt revision, took 28 minutes and […]

By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service
HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA (ANS) – An inter-denominational coalition of Hollywood writers, actors, producers, and other industry professionals will hold a series of weekly evenings dedicated to pray, and build community until the end of the Writer’s Guild of America strike, as well as offer practical support and counseling to those […]

By Jeremy Reynalds
Correspondent for ASSIST News Service LONDON (ANS) – Churches from across London will converge on Westminster Chapel in central London this Friday to launch the Global Day of Prayer London 2008, and celebrate the completion of London’s prayer marathon.
According to a story on the Christian Today web site, thousands of individuals from hundreds […]

By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service
RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA (ANS) – US President George W. Bush, currently on a swing through several Middle Eastern countries, has declared Wednesday, January 16, “Religious Freedom Day.”
The White House released the following proclamation:
“Thomas Jefferson counted the freedom of worship as one of America’s greatest blessings. He said it […]

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries 
SOUTH KOREA (ANS) – A North Korean activist who was imprisoned in China for helping North Korean refugees has been freed, a Christian human rights group reported on Monday.
 
This was revealed in a story by Michelle Vu, a reporter for The Christian Post (www.christianpost.com).
“Yoo Sang-joon is now safely in South […]

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries
MOSUL, IRAQ (ANS) – Iraq’s minority Christian population has been targeted in a series of apparently coordinated attacks in Mosul.
According to the BBC, bombs exploded outside three churches and a monastery in the northern Iraqi city on Sunday, wounding four people.  
“The explosions struck on Epiphany Sunday - an important date […]