Note: The following news brief is a quote:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3496697,00.html
Palestinians plant explosive device near Ramallah fence
Published: 01.20.08, 22:14 / Israel News
Palestinians set a car tire on fire near the security fence west of Ramllah near the village of Beit Liqia on Sunday evening. An IDF force that was alerted to the scene identified an improvised explosive device placed within the tire.
Sappers detonated the explosives in a controlled manner. No injuries were reported in the incident but damage was caused to the fence. (Efrat Weiss)
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http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2008/s08010138.htm
Friday, January 18, 2008
“Church faces fresh eviction threat and more incitement to media intolerance in Uzbekistan”
By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service
ARTICLE SNIPPET: “TASHKENT, UZBEKISTAN (ANS) — Although members of the embattled Grace Presbyterian Church in the Uzbekistan capital Tashkent say criminal charges against their leaders have now been dropped, they told a Western news agency they fear they will soon be thrown out of their church building.
They also complain of a media campaign against the church which one local activist close to Protestant Churches described to Forum 18 News Service as “Stalinist.”
“Many religious organizations are now frightened,” the activist told Forum 18 on January 16. “Everyone believes the Grace Church case is a trial balloon. Everyone is afraid that churches’ right to property will be reviewed.”
In an article for Forum 18 (www.forum18.org) , Mushfig Bayram writes the agency was told that the Grace Church continues to meet at the former cinema it bought back in 1999, even though its rights to the property were stripped away from it in late 2007 by Tashkent city Economic Court.
Officials have already demanded that the church vacate the property in Tashkent’s Khamza District. “We are in imminent danger of a visit by the bailiffs and being thrown out of the building,” one church member who did not give his name out of fear of reprisals told Forum 18.
Begzot Kadyrov, the leading specialist of the government’s Religious Affairs Committee, refused to discuss the Grace Church’s problems. “The new official rule is that all the foreign correspondents should contact the Jahon public relations department of the Foreign Ministry with their questions,” he told Forum 18 on January 18. “The Ministry then passes them on to the committee.”
One source close to the Grace Church told Forum 18 that through the church’s ministry over the years, many desperate people in the community have received help and have recovered from addictions. But now because of the problems, the 400 church members are being scattered. “This is particularly sad because two of our missionaries have died in Uzbekistan while serving the Lord,” the source told Forum 18 on January 17. “One of the missionary widows is one of those people that have remained there and is now being forced out of the country.” He said the grave of her deceased husband is in Tashkent at his request “because of his love for the Uzbek people.”
On January 15, the Russian news agency Interfax cited Tashkent city Justice Department officials as declaring that criminal charges had been laid against the church’s 32-year-old senior pastor, Felix Li, the 65-year-old chairman of the organization Il Kim, and against an American woman who has already left the country. They were accused over drugs held by the church which the authorities claimed were psychotropic (mind-altering). Investigators particularly focused on one called SYN-Rx DM, which is a commonly-used medicine for treating coughs.
Grace church members told Forum 18 on January 17 that the criminal charges brought against Pastor Li and Kim were dropped after the police established that the cough medicine belonged to one individual.”