GOD TV TOPS THE 20 MILLION HOMES IN USA

More and more American families are switching on to GOD TV as they discover this unique mix of Christian programming in their channel line-up. In fact 20.7 million homes throughout the USA now have access to GOD TV via satellite and cable television with many more watching via the Internet.

Reaching this milestone follows increased satellite viewership on DIRECTV, where GOD TV first launched into the USA on October 1st, 2006. It also includes the network's recent launch on several cable outlets in various US cities. The largest of these is San Francisco where since July 2nd one million homes have been able to access GOD TV on Comcast Cable Communications channel 103. GOD TV has also just launched on Comcast in Fresno, California.

Since March this year GOD TV has been available on Cox Communications in Manchester, Connecticut; and Buckeye Cable in Toledo. Also, in April the network launched in three cities in Missouri, namely Springfield, Jefferson City and Columbia, where GOD TV can be seen on channel 89 of Mediacom Communications.

"The GOD TV family around the world celebrate with us in exceeding the 20 million homes threshold," said GOD TV co-founder and chief executive, Rory Alec. "This is an important milestone for us as we seek to make our programming more available to viewers from coast to coast and of course it also increases our global distribution as we seek to reach one billion viewers."

Founded in the UK in 1995 by Christian media pioneers, Rory & Wendy Alec, GOD TV's worldwide distribution has grown exponentially over the past 14 years and today almost half billion people have GOD TV in their home. GOD TV is also the only Christian broadcaster to transmit from Jerusalem, the birthplace of Christianity, where eight separate GOD TV feeds are beamed across the world from its global transmission center, including GOD TV USA.

GOD TV also reports a major increase of Internet viewers who are registering to watch online at www.god.tv/stream. Many of GOD TV's programs are also available for video on demand viewing at www.god.tv/god.

About GOD TV: GOD TV was founded in the UK in 1995 by Christian media pioneers Rory & Wendy Alec and in 13 short years has become a global phenomenon. Today the network beams a broad cross section of cutting-edge programs, including many life-changing LIVE broadcasts, into millions of homes worldwide. The only Christian broadcaster to transmit globally from Jerusalem, GOD TV's powerful signal is carried via multiple satellites providing free viewing to almost half a billion people 24-hours-a-day. In the USA, GOD TV can be viewed on DIRECTV channel 365 as well as on select cable channels. It can also be viewed online at www.god.tv/stream and via VOD at www.god.tv/god. The network has offices in Washington, DC and Orlando, Florida and Kansas City, Missouri. Other offices are situated in Europe, Africa and Asia. In addition to its vast media outreach, GOD TV also helps people in charitable ways by supporting feeding schemes, orphanages, water drilling projects and disaster relief funds.

GOD TV USA: Suite 1008, 375 Douglas Avenue, Altamonte Springs, Florida, 32714
Telephone: +1 407 862 5084, Fax +1 407 682 2407
Broadcast HQ: Jerusalem, Israel
International offices: Africa, Asia & Middle East, Europe, Scandinavia, UK & Ireland

CALL2ALL WORLWIDE MOVEMENT

Call2All is a worldwide movement calling the church to a renewed, focused collaborative effort to fulfill the Great Commission.

Jesus' heart that "all be saved" still reverberates through every syllable of the Great Commission, just as it did over 2000 years ago when he spoke them on that dusty Jerusalem day to his disciples: "...All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Matthew 28 v 18-20Call2All is about all nations, all spheres of society and every unreached person everywhere in the world. It is a strategy-centered, action-oriented movement focusing on where the Church is NOT, rather than where it is. It's purpose is not to replace existing ministry but to network, train and focus the body of Christ to fulfill the Great Commission.

Call2All is a worldwide movement calling the church to a renewed, focused collaborative effort to complete the Great Commission.
Call2All is about all nations, all spheres of society and every unreached person everywhere in the world. It is a strategy-centered, action-oriented movement focusing on where the Church is NOT, rather than where it is.

Its purpose is not to replace existing ministry but to network, train and focus the body of Christ to fulfill the Great Commission.Call2All is about engaging Christian leaders in new and more comprehensive strategies.

Call2All is drawing together the Global Church in an unprecedented way to reach the least, the last and the lost.Call2All convenes Christian leaders in Strategy Congresses and provides new avenues for training to foster a global move of God.

LAOS - OFFICIALS ANNOUNCE BAN ON CHRISTIANITY IN A VILLAGE

Chief warns Christians to worship only local spirits or lose

Following the confiscation of livestock from Christian families earlier this month, officials in a village in Laos on Saturday (July 11) called a special meeting for all residents and announced that they had “banned the Christian faith in our village.”
The chief of Katin village, along with village security, social and religious affairs officials, warned all 53 Christian residents that they should revert to worshiping local spirits in accordance with Lao tradition or risk losing all village rights and privileges – including their livestock and homes, according to advocacy group Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom (HRWLRF).
The Katin village leader also declared that spirit worship was the only acceptable form of worship in the community, HRWLRF reported. Katin village is in Ta Oih district, Saravan Province.
The previous Sunday (July 5), officials and residents confiscated one pig each from nine Christian families and slaughtered the animals in an effort to force them to renounce their faith. Officials said the seizure of the pigs – each worth the equivalent of six weeks’ salary for an average laborer in the area – was punishment for ignoring the order to abandon Christianity. (See "Officials Seize, Slaughter Christians’ Livestock,” July 10.)
According to HRWLRF, the chief’s order clearly contravened Article 6 and Article 30 of the Lao Constitution, which guarantees the right of Christians and other religious minorities to practice the religion of their choice without discrimination or penalty.
In addition, HRWLRF stated that Katin officials had violated Article 53 of the 2003 Law on Local Administration, which requires them to abide by the constitution and other laws and to provide for the safety and well-being of all people living under their care.
Officials in Katin have a history of ignoring constitutional religious freedoms. On July 21, 2008, officials detained 80 Christians in the village after residents seized a Christian identified only as Pew and poured rice wine down his throat, killing him by asphyxiation.
When family members buried Pew and placed a wooden cross on his grave, officials accused them of “practicing the rituals of the enemy of the state” and seized a buffalo and pig from them as a fine.
On July 25, 2008, officials rounded up 17 of the 20 Christian families then living in the village – a total of 80 men, women and children – and detained them in a school compound, denying them food in an effort to force the adults to sign documents renouncing their faith. The other three Christian families in the village at that time had already signed the documents under duress.
As their children grew weaker, 10 families signed the documents and were permitted to return home. The remaining seven families were evicted from the village and settled in an open field nearby, surviving on whatever food sources they could find in the jungle.
Suffering from the loss of their property and livelihoods, however, the seven families eventually recanted their faith and moved back into the village. But over time, some of the Christians began gathering again for prayer and worship.
On Sept. 8, 2008, provincial and district authorities called a meeting in Katin village and asked local officials and residents to respect the religious laws of the nation.
Four days later, however, village officials seized a buffalo worth approximately US$350 from a Christian resident identified only as Bounchu, telling him the animal would be returned only if he renounced his faith. When he refused, they slaughtered the animal in the village square and distributed the meat to non-Christian residents.

VIETNAMESE CATHOLICS HEAVILY FINED UNDER REVIVED COMMUNIST TWO CHILD POLICY

THUA THIEN-HUE province, Viet Nam - The communist government of Viet Nam is punishing couples with more than two children, a local Catholic news agency reports. Catholic villagers in Thua Thien-Hue province told the Union of Catholic Asian News they are being fined for having more than two children under a revived government two-child policy.
Catherine Pham Thi Thanh, 44, told the service that since 1996, she has been fined a total of 3,800 kilograms of rice for having six children. This represents a significant loss for the family which makes an annual profit of only 700 kilograms of rice from their 1,000 square-meter farm.
Despite the fact that Viet Nam now has a below-replacement rate of fertility - 1.83 children born per woman - the communist government in the early 1960s imposed a 2-child limit for couples. The UN's leading population control group, the UNFPA, has been active in contraception and abortion campaigns in the country since 1997.
In 2000, the BBC lauded the policy for having reduced the overall fertility rate from 3.8 children per woman to 2.3, but admitted that a "degree of coercion" was used to ensure compliance. This included fines, expulsion from the communist party and confiscation of land. The original policy was scrapped in 2003 but revived in 2008 after a 10 percent spike in the birth rate alarmed officials who never stopped "encouraging" couples to have only small families.
But even the UNFPA was reportedly "puzzled" by the revival. "In Vietnam now life expectancy is rising, the fertility rate is decreasing and in the next 20 years many people will be in the senior group," said Tran Thi Van, of UNFPA. "If there's not a sufficient labor force as the population is ageing, the country will face a lot of problems."
Viet Nam is following China and India on the path of demographic imbalance. The combination of ultrasound tests to determine the sex of the child plus abortion to favor boys, has forced the male to female ratio of the population to climb to 112-100 in 2007.
The Union of Catholic Asian News spoke to the local parish priest, Fr Joseph Nguyen Van Chanh, who confirmed that 90 percent of his 1,200 parishioners have agreed to pay fines as a way to be faithful to Church teaching and said that Catholics are taught natural family planning methods during marriage preparation courses.
Some local Catholics, said Father Chanh, are asking for donations from benefactors to support local people with large families.
Back to Top

HARRYPOTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE PRAISED BY THE VATICAN

The Vatican's official newspaper lauded Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince for its "clear" depiction of the eternal battle between good and evil represented by the struggle between Harry and his nemesis, the evil sorcerer Lord Voldemort.
L'Osservatore Romano said the movie was the best adaptation yet of the JK Rowling books, describing it as "a mixture of supernatural suspense and romance which reaches the right balance".

"There is a clear line of demarcation between good and evil and [the film] makes clear that good is right. One understands as well that sometimes this requires hard work and sacrifice," the newspaper judged.
The broadsheet paper also praised the film's clear message that "the search for immortality epitomised by Lord Voldemort" was wrong. It even approved of the film's treatment of adolescent romance amid the halls and corridors of Hogwart's, saying that it achieved the "correct balance" and made the teenage stars more credible.
The favourable review is an apparent cahnge of heart from the Vatican's previous assessment of the best-selling series.
Last year an article in L'Osservatore Romano condemned the books for encouraging an interest in the occult among children.
The newspaper wrote: "Despite the values that we come across in the narration, at the base of this story, witchcraft is proposed as a positive ideal.
"The characterisation of common men who do not know magic as 'Muggles' who know nothing other than bad and wicked things is a truly diabolical attitude."
The newspaper called the teenage boy wizard "the wrong kind of hero", comparing the books unfavourably with two other British children's classics, the Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.
The Vatican's attitude to the books has taken a harder line under the papacy of Benedict XVI in comparison with that of his predecessor John Paul II.
Two years before he was elected Pope, Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, as he then was, wrote a letter to a German critic of the books calling the series "a subtle seduction, which has deeply unnoticed and direct effects in undermining the soul of Christianity before it can really grow properly".
Earlier this year an ultraconservative Austrian priest, the Rev. Gerhard Maria Wagner, accused the Harry Potter novels of encouraging Satanism.