The Financial Times reports that the EU's largest data protection authorities have launched a joint action against internet giant Google, in a move to force the company's compliance with EU privacy rules of which it is allegedly in breach. The paper says that the decision is the EU's first coordinated and formal procedure by member states against a single company and highlights growing frustration with Google. The Washington Post reports that Google faces possible fines after six member states - France, UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands - held meetings with the internet search engine company which yielded ‘no changes’.
Pray: for a just outcome in this action against a multi-national company that believes it has all the rights. (Ecc.5:8)
Serbian Orthodox Christians in Kosovo struggle with a ‘sharp rise’ in threats and vandalism against their churches and other religious sites, human rights investigators told BosNewsLife on Tuesday. During the past month Orthodox Christmas assailants attacked a monastery, set on fire a chapel and wooden crosses, and destroyed over 100 Orthodox tombstones, reported Belgrade-based Balkan rights group Centar 9. The clashes are linked to anger within Kosovo's mainly Muslim Albanian population about the removal of a memorial to fallen fighters in neighbouring Serbia. Thousands of ethnic Albanians protested after some 200 masked Serbian police officers backed by armoured personnel carriers removed the monument last Sunday in the town of Presevo. It bore the names of 27 ethnic Albanian fighters killed during the 2000 conflict in the Presevo Valley, a spill-over from the 1999 war in Kosovo, Serbia's former province.
Pray: that Christians and Muslims will be able to put aside their differences and learn to live together in peace. (Eph.4:3)
Serbia's Parliament has apologized for the massacre of 8,000 Muslims by Bosnian-Serb forces in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in 1995. But, the declaration does not directly call the crime ‘genocide’, as survivors had demanded. After 13 hours of debate Serbia's Parliament adopted a resolution condemning Europe's worst massacre since World War II. Two-thirds of the lawmakers voted for a declaration that analysts said ends years of denial by Serbian politicians about the scale of the killings. About 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed after Bosnian-Serb forces overran the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in 1995. The text of the resolution says, ‘The Parliament of Serbia strongly condemns the crime committed against the Bosnian-Muslim population of Srebrenica in July, 1995.’ Lawmakers also expressed ‘their condolences and an apology to the families of the victims because not everything possible was done to prevent the tragedy.’
Pray: that this apology will bring a start to the healing process for all those affected. (Ps.79:8-9)
Russian Ministries has launched an appeal to provide a Summer of Hope to thousands of needy children who’ll be attending their life-changing camps across the former Soviet Union, reports Peter Wooding of ASSIST News Service. After the success of Russian Ministries’ series of Easter outreach programmes, their teams of Next Generation Christian leaders are already busy preparing to coordinate summer camps, which they believe provide the real hope of Christ to the lives of these vulnerable children. ‘After these outreach programmes at Easter, summer is coming pretty soon and our young teams are already getting ready to do some follow-up ministry and the most effective is summer camps,’ said Russian Ministries’ President Sergey Rakhuba. Each Russian Ministries’ summer camp has a long-lasting impact for thousands of children. Pray: God for Russian Ministries as they prepare for the summer camps and that they would bring much fruit. (Gen.28:3)
The Black Widows is what Russian journalists call female Islamist suicide bombers who have participated in more than 30 attacks that have killed about 900 Russians in eight years. The Black Widows are the creation of notorious Chechen rebel military commander Shamil Basayev, the mastermind of the Beslan school massacre, a three day hostage taking in a school in North Ossetia that left 334 hostages dead. Basayev’s theory is that when the Russian authorities are on alert for potential terrorist attacks, a young woman in jeans, or an older woman in a frock, attracts less suspicion than a dark-skinned young Chechen man in a cheap jacket. Basayev dubbed his battalion of suicide seekers Riyad us Saliheen, an Arabic reference from the Koran meaning Garden of the Righteous. It was composed of men and women, but it was the women who fascinated the Russian media. There have been two more suicide bombings in Dagestan see:
Pray: that God’s righteousness would overcome all dishonourable plans to rule and oppress. (Ps.3:7)
More: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/03/30/f-russia-black-widow.html#ixzz0jkFhogeS
Human rights defenders and church members have expressed shock and outrage at the sudden destruction of a Pentecostal Church in Moscow's eastern suburbs. Unknown workers - backed by police and civil volunteers - began tearing down Holy Trinity Pentecostal Church on the eastern edge of Moscow soon after midnight on September 6, the church's Pastor, Vasili Romanyuk, told Forum 18 News Service from the Russian capital. ‘By morning almost the entire three-storey building had been destroyed,’ said Forum 18’s Felix Corley and Geraldine Fagan. ‘This is the Soviet approach - to come in the middle of the night with mechanical diggers,’ said Mikhail Odintsov, an aide to Russia's Ombudsperson for Human Rights, The church has struggled to legalise the building it put up with its own money in 1995-6. Andrei Ivanov, spokesperson for the prefect of Moscow's Eastern Administrative District, defended the destruction. ‘Everything was done at the decision of the court,’ he told Forum 18.
Pray: for the Church in Russia that God would protect it from persecution leading to this form of destruction. (Est.8:6)
More: http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2012/s12090040.htm
There is a ‘Pattern of Discrimination’ emerging in Russia rooted in ideology. The government and the Russian Orthodox Church view the growing dynamic congregations of evangelicals as a threat. The country's constitution states that all religions are equal before the law, but the government is often accused of discriminating against citizens professing faiths other than Orthodox Christianity. Vladimir Ryakhovsky, who runs the Slavic Center for Law & Justice, said that this year the government has given the Russian Orthodox Church 200 building permits and in many cases the government will help fund the new churches. But a recent nightmare destruction of Holy Trinity Evangelical Church by heavy machinery while police watched reflects a threatening pattern against religious freedom. Evangelicals are concerned about the growing influence of the Russian Orthodox Church within the state apparatus and accuses Vladimir Putin of tearing down walls between church and state.
Pray: for the safety and continued increase of congregations facing discrimination for their faith May they continue to meet and share with others the love of Christ. (Is.33:5)
More: http://www.charismanews.com/world/34538-church-demolished-russias-fading-religious-freedom
Russia's prisons, struggling with a growing crime rate, overcrowding and shortfalls in funding, are turning to religion to bring moral guidance to inmates. The move marks a dramatic change from the Soviet system, when clergy and believers were often imprisoned for their faith. ‘We have signed agreements with all of the leading confessions of our country,’ said Aleksandr Reimer, the Director of Russia's Federal Correctional Service, in an interview with the Rossiiskaya Gazeta, an official government newspaper. Although the Russian Orthodox Church has become increasingly close to the State in recent years, Reimer said that imposing Russia's largest religion on inmates was not the goal. Reimer said that the correctional service had started a pilot project with the Russian Orthodox Church in four regions of Russia to introduce prison chaplains. Pray: that the Church will take up the challenge and bring God’s wisdom and guidance to the prisoners.