*Tato a další zprávy jsou v originální anglické verzi zde.

A Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) aircraft crashed in a remote area of Papua New Guinea the afternoon of Tuesday, Feb. 22, killing the pilot and copilot, both from New Zealand. Capt. Chris Hansen of Rotorua and Capt. Richard West of Auckland sustained fatal injuries when the Twin Otter they were flying crashed while circling the Wobegon airstrip near Tabubil in the country's highlands. The cabin attendant and 10 passengers suffered only minor injuries, and most walked to the nearby village of Bimin. A helicopter and various MAF aircraft were dispatched to the accident site, and a clinic was set up at Agali with doctors flown in by MAF. The cabin attendant and one passenger were later flown to the Tabubil Hospital for observation. In conjunction with the Civil Aviation Authority, MAF-Australia has begun an investigation into the accident. The families of the flight crew will be flown to Mt. Hagen for support and a memorial service. Debriefing and counseling is being arranged for the staff. MAF planes regularly fly to more than 300 of Papua New Guinea's remotest airstrips, providing a lifeline for the isolated churches and communities. Efforts will be made to continue providing air service in the Tabubil region. (Mission Aviation Fellowship)

* Staff members from the HCJB World Radio Engineering Center in Elkhart, Ind., are working with partners in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, to design and build a satellite radio network with more than 32 outlets planned. The first outlet went on the air in Port Moresby in 2002. Together with Wycliffe Bible Translators, HCJB World Radio also helped plant a Christian FM radio station in Kitai in 1996.

ERITREAN POLICE FORCES DETAIN 131 CHILDREN AT ORTHODOX CHURCH

A group of policemen in the northeastern African country of Eritrea rounded up 131 children ranging from ages 2 to 18 at about 9:30 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 19, as they were attending Christian instruction classes. The children were apprehended at Medhane-Alem Orthodox Church in the capital city of Asmara when a truck with the policemen arrived. An eyewitness said the police put the children in the truck and took them to the nearby police station where they registered the children's names and addresses. After the children were put in a hall at the police station, they started to sing in a loud voice, "I am not afraid of persecution, hardships and even death. Nobody can separate me from the love of Jesus Christ. He died on the cross and he gave me new life." The policemen ordered the children to stop singing, saying: "You must shut up. This is a police station." But the children refused to stop singing. The authorities then turned on a television and turned up the volume. The children protested, and the policemen started to beat them. Children less than the age of 14 were released that afternoon and told to come back on Monday with their parents. The remaining 30 children are still being held and have been transferred to two other police stations. The church has been targeted by a special task force after all the charismatic churches were ordered to close. The task force was reportedly set up by the Eritrean government. (Christian Solidarity Worldwide/Compass)

FORMER CHRISTIAN PRISONER IN CHINA TESTIFIES OF TORTURE, ABUSE

Liu Xianzhi, 34, a member of the South China Church, told a press conference about her experiences of torture, sexual abuse and arbitrary imprisonment by Chinese police -- experiences that continue to haunt her. She escaped from China last month after serving her sentence in a labor camp, making Christmas lights and rugs. In 2001 police arrested and tortured Liu, coercing her to falsely testify that the pastor of the South China Church, Gong Shengliang, had raped her. She is one of 8,903 members of the South China Church whom police have arrested for their religious beliefs, including Gong who is serving a life sentence in prison based on multiple confessions obtained through torture. (Voice of the Martyrs/Assist News Service)

HINDUS ATTACK 280 CHRISTIAN STUDENTS ON WAY TO GRADUATION IN INDIA

Activists of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Bajrang Dal beat and robbed 280 Christian students early Saturday, Feb. 19, while the group was on its way to Emmanuel Mission's graduation ceremony in Kota, India. The 2:30 a.m. attack occurred as the travelers disembarked from a train carrying them to Kota in northwestern India's Rajasthan state for the event. Local police later rounded up the students and kept them in custody at a local police station until the following evening. Alleging that Emmanuel Mission had lured the visiting students to Kota with promises of a bicycle and 250 rupees (US$5.70) in exchange for converting to Christianity, police officials forced the students to return home. No attackers were arrested. At press time RSS and Bajrang Dal activists were threatening to shut down this weekend's graduation ceremony that annually attracts 5,000 Christian visitors to the city. (Compass)

HINDU EXTREMISTS IN INDIA SUSPECTED OF MURDERING EVANGELIST

The body of 25-year-old Christian evangelist Pastor Narayan was found in the small town of Channapatana in southern India's Karnataka state Friday, Feb. 11. Doctors who performed an autopsy said Narayan had been brutally murdered -- the corpse had broken ribs and teeth and injuries to the abdomen. However, the "official" report of the autopsy suggested it was a suicide, said Sajan George of the Global Council of Indian Christians. He suspects that Hindu extremists were responsible for Narayan's death and that their sympathizers are engaged in a cover-up. A fact-finding mission to the district revealed that attacks on minority Christians have been going on for years, and several churches have been destroyed. George has demanded that the government conduct an official inquiry through the Central Bureau of Investigation. (Compass)

MISSION LEADER POINTS TO INCREASING PERSECUTION IN INDIA

"We have faced more persecution for preaching the gospel in India during the last 10 years than in the history of the country since independence from Great Britain in 1946," said K.P. Yohannan, the India-born founder and president of Gospel for Asia (GFA), during an interview at the recent National Religious Broadcasters convention in Anaheim, Calif. GFA is a ministry involved in evangelism and church planting in the unreached regions of Asia. "We serve the Lord in 10 Asian countries [in the] 10/40 Window," he explained. "In India, with more than 1 billion people, half of the nation has never heard the Christmas story yet, and we've been [telling it] for the last 25 years. Today we have more than 14,000 full-time missionaries, pastors, evangelists doing the ministry, and seeing millions of people impacted with the gospel." However, he said the work is difficult and often results in persecution.

Yohannan also told about his recent visit to Sri Lanka to minister to the tsunami survivors. Despite the reports and photos that he had seen, he said. "I was not prepared emotionally to actually be there on ground zero and watch the pain and the aftermath. I took a flight to Colombo and traveled 10 hours by road to the area where I was told all 10,000 children who either lost both parents or one parent are in camps. As the dead bodies were being drawn to the shores kids were running all over the place looking at these dead bodies crying for Mommy and Daddy." He said he met missionaries who are "emotionally completely drained, and we had to ask quite a good number of them to please go home and rest for a few days."

Yohannan added that his ministry is launching what is believed to be India's first Christian television channel with the potential of reaching viewers nationwide. "The media [television and radio] are the most powerful things in the world," he said. "It is extremely important and crucial we preach the gospel of the New Testament." (Assist News Service)

* "The Voice of the Great Southland," the shortwave station operated by HCJB World Radio-Australia since January 2003, airs more than 108 hours of weekly Christian programming in 11 languages, including nine spoken in India (English, Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, Nepali, Malayalam, Chattisgarhi, Hmar and Meeitei). Programs in these languages are produced at HCJB World Radio's studio in New Delhi. Programs also air via FEBA Radio's transmitters in three languages (Bhojpuri, Chattisgarhi and Mundari).

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