BUDHISTS MOB ATTACKS CHURCHES IN SRILANKA ; PRAY AND MAKE A DIFFERNCE ....

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka– Buddhist mobs attacked several churches in Sri Lanka last week, threatening to kill a pastor in the southern province of Hambanthota and ransacking a 150-year-old Methodist church building in the capital.
On April 8, four Buddhist extremists approached the home of pastor Pradeep Kumara in Weeraketiya, Hambanthota district, calling for him to come out and threatening to kill him. The pastor said his wife, at home alone with their two children, phoned him immediately but by the time he returned, the men had left.
Half an hour later, Kumar said, the leader of the group phoned him and again threatened to kill him if he did not leave the village by the following morning. Later that night the group leader returned to the house and ordered the pastor to come out, shouting, “I didn’t bring my gun tonight because if I had it with me, I would use it!”
“My children were frightened,” Kumara said. “I tried to reason with him to go away, but he continued to bang on the door and threaten us.”
Police soon arrived on the scene and arrested the instigator but released him the following day.
Subsequently the attacker gathered Buddhist monks and other villagers together and asked them to sign a petition against the church, Kumar said. Protestors then warned the pastor’s landlord that they would destroy the house if he did not evict the pastor’s family by the end of the month.
Fearing violence, Kumara said he canceled Good Friday and Easter Sunday services and evacuated his children to a safer location.

Methodist Building Ransacked
Earlier, on Palm Sunday (April 5), another group of men broke into the 150-year-old Pepiliyana Methodist Church in Colombo after congregants concluded an Easter procession.
The gang entered through the back door and windows of the building late that night; witnesses said they saw them load goods into a white van parked outside the church early the next morning.
“They removed everything, including valuable musical instruments, a computer, Bibles, hymn books and all the church records,” said the Rev. Surangika Fernando.
The church had no known enemies and enjoyed a good relationship with other villagers, Rev. Fernando said, adding that the break-in appeared to be more than a simple robbery.
“My desk was completely cleaned out,” he said. “They took important documents with details of parishioners such as baptism and marriage records, which are of no value to thieves. They even took what was in my wastepaper basket.”
Local police agreed that robbery was an unlikely motive and that opponents from outside the area were the most likely culprits. Investigations were continuing at press time.
Finally, anti-Christian mobs in Vakarai, eastern Batticaloa district, intimidated church members gathering for several worship services during Holy Week.
“What can we do?” pastor Kanagalingam Muraleetharan told Compass. “The authorities and the police say we have the right to worship, but the reality is that people are threatened.”
The Easter incidents are the latest in a long series of attacks against churches and Christian individuals in recent years, many of them instigated by Buddhist monks who decry the growth of Christianity in the country.
Members of Sri Lanka’s Parliament may soon enact an anti-conversion bill designed to restrict religious conversions. Human rights organizations and Christian groups have criticized the vague terminology of the legislation that, if passed, may invite misapplication against religious activity.
The draft “Bill for the Prohibition of Forcible Conversions” was referred to a consultative committee of the Ministry of Religious Affairs in February for further deliberation, prior to a final reading and vote. (See www.compassdirect.org, “Parliament to Vote on Anti-Conversion Laws,” Jan. 26.)
According to the most recent government census, Protestant Christians number less than 1 percent of the total population in Sri Lanka, but they remain the primary target of religiously motivated violence and intimidation.

MOB OF HINDU EXTREMISTS VANDALIZE MAHARASHTRA CHURCH; PRAY AND MAKE A DIFFERNCE

India ― According to the International Christian Concern, believers in the eastern Indian state of Maharashtra were the targets of a violent attack by Hindu extremists.
At around 10:40 a.m. on Sunday, a mob of Hindu extremists burst into a Sunday morning service at the Douglas Memorial Church.
"As I was preaching," says Rev. Mark Madhukar Sakharpekar, "a dozen young boys shouting 'Jai Shri Ram' entered and started beating church members with sticks. They even threw a knife towards me, which fortunately missed the mark."
Urbandictionary.com says "Jai Shri Ram" means "Victory to Lord Ram," referring to the Hindu deity, Rama. The site says this phrase is commonly used by ultra-right nationalist parties, such as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
ICC says the radicals were armed with knives, sticks and swords, and threatened Pastor Sakharpekar with "dire consequences" if worship services continued.
After attacking Christians involved in the worship service, the radicals went on a rampage. Extremists destroyed church furniture, Bibles, hymnals and the mission school bus parked outside the church.
So far, seven of the extremists have been arrested under the Indian Penal Code, and a police report has been filed by the pastor. Pray for protection for worshipping believers against such attacks.

UNABLE TO BOOK NANO, LIC AGENT HANGS SELF IN JAMSHEDPUR

JAMSHEDPUR: It’s compact, comfortable and affordable — the stuff middle-class dreams are made of. But the Tata Nano, the new symbol of upward mobility in India, is also fuelling some despair.

And Arun Kumar Tiwari’s story proves just that. A small-time LIC agent from Jamshedpur, Tiwari hanged himself at his Agrico Colony home on Sunday afternoon after he was unable to book his Nano.

Tiwari had been dreaming of driving the showpiece small car for months. But the wish was futile: he would not be able to pay the monthly instalments. He didn’t earn enough and his last hope was his wife, who works for a private firm and brings home around Rs 10,000 a month. But she refused, prompting him to take his life.

“He had been trying to convince me to book the Nano. Since I’m already repaying a two-wheeler loan, paying Rs 1,800 monthly as instalments, I was in no position to book a car and pay another Rs 3,000 every month,” said Dulari Devi, his wife.

No one was at home when Tiwari hanged himself. While Dulari was out on work, their only son was playing with boys in the neighbourhood. “When I told him that we’d first pay the two-wheeler loan and then book the car, he seemed convinced. But God knows what happened to him that he suddenly took this drastic step,” Dulari said, tears in her eyes.

According to police, Tiwari was probably depressed after his wife refused to pay the booking amount. “The preliminary investigation suggests that he was a very emotional man. He probably couldn’t accept the refusal and went into depression. He tried to raise the money on his own, but didn’t succeed. It was then that he decided to hang himself,” said a senior officer. Rajendra Dubey, officer-in-charge of Sidhgora police station, refused to comment till the investigation was completed. “A case of unnatural death has been registered, based on the statement of the victim’s wife and an investigation started. I can speak on the case only after we reach a conclusion,” he said.

CHINA'S ' HI -TECH ' DEATH VAN WHERE CRIMINALS ARE EXECUTED AND THEN THEIR ORGANS ARE SOLD ON BLACK MARKET

Death will come soon for Jiang Yong. A corrupt local planning official with a taste for the high life, Yong solicited money from businessmen eager to expand in China's economic boom.
Showering gifts on his mistress, known as Madam Tang, the unmarried official took more than £1 million in bribes from entrepreneurs wanting permission to build skyscrapers on land which had previously been protected from development.
But Yong, a portly, bespectacled figure, was caught by the Chinese authorities during a purge on corrupt local officials last year.
He confessed and was sentenced to death. China executed 1,715 people last year, so one more death would hardly be remarkable.
But there will be nothing ordinary about Yong's death by lethal injection. Unless he wins an appeal, he will draw his final breath strapped inside a vehicle that has been specially developed to make executions more cost-effective and efficient.
In chilling echoes of the 'gas-wagon' project pioneered by the Nazis to slaughter criminals, the mentally ill and Jews, this former member of the China People's Party will be handcuffed to a so-called 'humane' bed and executed inside a gleaming new, hi-tech, mobile 'death van.'
After trials of the mobile execution service were launched quietly three years ago - then hushed up to prevent an international row about the abuse of human rights before the Olympics last summer - these vehicles are now being deployed across China.
The number of executions is expected to rise to a staggering 10,000 people this year (not an impossible figure given that at least 68 crimes - including tax evasion and fraud - are punishable by death in China).
Developed by Jinguan Auto, which also makes bullet-proof limousines for the new rich in this vast country of 1.3 billion people, the vans appear unremarkable.
They cost £60,000, can reach top speeds of 80mph and look like a police vehicle on patrol. Inside, however, the 'death vans' look more like operating theatres.
Executions are monitored by video to ensure they comply with strict rules, making it possible to describe precisely how Jiang Yong will die. After being sedated at the local prison, he will be loaded into the van and strapped to an electric-powered stretcher.
This then glides automatically towards the centre of the van, where doctors will administer three drugs: sodium thiopental to cause unconsciousness; pancuronium bromide to stop breathing and, finally, potassium chloride to stop the heart.
Death is reputed to be quick and painless - not that there is anyone to testify to this. The idea for such a 'modern' scheme is rooted in one of the darkest episodes in human history.
The Nazis used adapted vans as mobile gas chambers from 1940 until the end of World War II. In order to make the best use of time spent transporting criminals and Jewish prisoners, Hitler's scientists developed the vehicles with a hermetically sealed cabin that was filled with carbon monoxide carried by a tube from the exhaust pipes.

The vans were first tested on child patients in a Polish psychiatric hospital in 1940. The Nazis then developed bigger models to carry up to 50 prisoners. They looked like furniture removal vans. Those to be killed were ordered to hand over their valuables, then stripped and locked inside.
As gas was pumped into the container and the van headed towards graves being dug by other prisoners, the muffled cries of those inside could be heard, along with banging on the side.
With the 'cargo' dead, all that remained was for gold fillings to be hacked from the victims' mouths, before the bodies were tipped into the graves.
Now, six decades later, just like the Nazis, China insists these death vans are 'progress'.
The vans save money on building execution facilities in prisons or courts. And they mean that prisoners can be executed locally, closer to communities where they broke the law.

'This deters others from committing crime and has more impact,' said one official.
Indeed, a spokesman for the makers of the 'death vans' openly touted for trade this week, saying they are the perfect way to 'efficiently and cleanly' dispatch convicts with lethal injections. Reporting steady sales throughout China, a spokesman for Jinguan Auto - which is situated in a green valley an hour's drive from Chongqing in south-western China - said the firm was bucking the economic trend and had sold ten more vans recently.
The exact number in operation is a state secret. But it is known that Yunnan province alone has 18 mobile units, while dozens of others are patrolling in five other sprawling provinces. Each van is the size of a specially refitted 17-seater minibus.
'We have not sold our execution cars to foreign countries yet,' beamed a proud spokesman. But if they need one, they could contact our company directly.'
Officials say the vehicles are a 'civilised alternative' to the traditional single shot to the head (used in 60 per cent of Chinese executions), ending the life of the condemned quickly, clinically and safely - proving that China 'promotes human rights now,' says Kang Zhongwen, designer of the 'death van'.
It seems a perverse claim, but certainly the shootings can be gruesome. Once carried out in public parks, these executions -sometimes done in groups - have seen countless cases of prisoners failing to die instantly and writhing in agony on the ground before being finished off.
There are other concerns: soldiers carrying out the shooting complain that they are splashed with Aids-contaminated blood. After the shooting, relatives are often presented with the bullet hacked from the condemned's body - and forced to pay the price of the ammunition.
While posing as a modernising force in public, Chinese leaders remain brutal within their own borders. They are, however, anxious to be seen to be moving away from violence against their own people, stressing that all judicial decisions have been taken out of the hands of vengeful local officials and must be ruled on from Beijing.
China has traditionally always taken a ruthless, unemotional view of crime and punishment. Before injections and bullets, the most chilling sentence was death by Ling Chi - death by a thousand cuts - which was abolished only in 1905.
The condemned man was strapped to a table and then, in what was also known as 'slow slicing', his eyes were gouged out.
This was designed to heighten the terror of not being able to see what part of his body would suffer next. Using a sharp knife, the executioner sliced at the condemned's body - chopping off the ears, fingers, nose and toes, before starting to cut off whole limbs.
Traditionalists insisted that exactly 3,600 slices were made. The new mobile execution vans may, indeed, be more humane than this, but their main advantage in official eyes is financial. According to undercover investigations by human rights' groups, the police, judiciary and doctors are all involved in making millions from China's huge trade in human body parts.
Inside each 'death van' there is a dedicated team of doctors to 'harvest' the organs of the deceased. The injections leave the body intact and in pristine condition for such lucrative work.
After checking that the victim is dead, the medical team first remove the eyes. Then, wearing surgical gowns and masks, they remove the kidney, liver, pancreas and lungs.
Little goes to waste, though the heart cannot be used, having been poisoned by the drugs.
The organs are dispatched in ice boxes to hospitals in the sprawling cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, which have developed another specialist trade: selling the harvested organs.
At clinics all over China, these organs are transplanted into the ailing bodies of the wealthy - and thousands more who come as 'organ tourists' from neighbouring countries such as Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan.
Chinese hospitals perform up to 20,000 organ transplants each year. A kidney transplant in China costs £5,000, but can rise to £30,000 if the patient is willing to pay more to obtain an organ quickly.
With more than 10,000 kidney transplants carried out each year, fewer than 300 come from voluntary donations. The British Transplantation Society and Amnesty International have condemned China for harvesting prisoners' organs.
Laws introduced in 2006 make it an offence to remove the organs of people against their will, and banned those under 18 from selling their organs.
But, tellingly, the law does not cover prisoners.
'Organs can be extracted in a speedier and more effective way using these vans than if the prisoner is shot,' says Amnesty International.
'We have gathered strong evidence suggesting the involvement of Chinese police, courts and hospitals in the organ trade.'
The bodies cannot be examined. Corpses are driven to a crematorium and burned before independent witnesses can view them.
A police official, who operates a 'multi-functional and nationwide, first-class, fixed execution ground' where prisoners are shot, confirmed to the Mail that it is always a race against time to save the organs of the executed - and that mobile death vans are better equipped for the job.
'The liver loses its function only five minutes after the human cardiac arrest,' the officer told our researcher.
'The kidney will become dysfunctional 30 minutes after cardiac arrest. So the removal of organs must be completed at the execution ground within 15 minutes, then put in an ice box or preservation solution.'
While other countries worry about the morality of the death penalty, China has no such qualms.
For the Beijing regime, it is not a question of whether they should execute offenders, but how to do it most efficiently - and make the most money from it.

CHRISTIANS LOSE BATTLE FOR SARAH OBAMA'S SOUL; PRESIDENT'S MUSLIM GRANDMOTHER PREPARES FOR BAPTISM - BUT SON SAYS NO

President Barack Obama's Kenyan Muslim grandmother came within hours of converting to Christianity yesterday but changed her mind after her son prevailed on her not to attend a large evangelistic crusade at a sports stadium where she was to be baptized.

Mama Sarah Obama had dressed and was waiting for a vehicle, hired by members of the Nyang'oma Seventh Day Adventist Church, to take her the 60 miles to the baptisimal service being held at the Jomo Kenyatta Sports Ground in Kisumu, the Nairobi Daily Nation reported.
When Pastor Tom Obuya arrived at Mama Sarah's Nyang'oma Kogello home, he was told she would not be accomplanying him to the Christian service.
"Mama Sarah had assured us that she was converting, and we were ready to baptize her today, but it seems the family has prevailed upon her," said Pastor Obuya.
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Saidi Obama, Mama Sarah's son, said he and other family members were adamant that she not attend the baptisimal service.
"I was opposed to it because I believe she was not fully informed about what they were going to do to her. I personally asked her not to attend the function," he said.
"I did not understand why they were asking her to attend a Christian ceremony, yet she is a Muslim. I thought her presence in the church would not add any value."

In the past, Sarah Obama has made conflicting claims about her religious beliefs. In April 2007, she told the New York Times, "I am a strong believer of the Islamic faith." Eleven months later, when some were speculating Barack Obama might be a "secret Muslim," she denied it, telling USA Today that she, too, is a Christian.
"In the world of today, children have different religions from their parents," she said.
Her immediate family, it appears, considers her a Muslim and wishes it to stay that way.
Obuya said his church had been reaching out to Mama Sarah for the past three weeks. Two of her sisters-in law, who were to accompany her, went with Obuya to the crusade conducted by Australian evangelist John Jeremic. Her baptism was to mark the culmination of the evangelistic crusade.
"She would also have attracted unnecessary attention which is not good for her," Saidi Obama said.