CentrePoint News News That Matters

Editor’s Note:  Japan’s population is still only one percent Christian and some parts of the country still don’t have a vibrant, witnessing church in the area.

Japan’s economic woes present an opportunity for the Gospel because the Japanese people place a high value on material things. 

By Kyodo News Service

Japan’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate reached a nearly six-year high of 5.2 percent in May, with job availability dropping to the lowest level on record, the government said Tuesday.

The rate, the highest since September 2003, when it also registered 5.2 percent, was up from 5.0 percent in April.

The latest job figures suggest it may be just a matter of time before Japan’s unemployment rate tops its post-World War II high of 5.5 percent, hit last time in April 2003, despite some recent positive signs of corporate activity, economists said.

The number of jobless people rose by the largest ever 770,000 from a year earlier to 3.47 million for the seventh straight month of increase, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said in a preliminary report.

Of the total, 1.10 million had been laid off, up 460,000, the ministry said.

For more, click here…

http://home.kyodo.co.jp/modules/fstStory/index.php?storyid=446888

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Editor’s Note:  This story is largely financial in nature, but two factors come into focus when pondering this story from a Great Commission perspective.  

Zimbabwe is still suffering from a cholera outbreak and its economy is still in bad shape.  Mission agencies are working in that nation to bring them aid and the Gospel.  China’s increasing worldwide financial profile obviously gives the nation political and economic power, even though China is a huge violator of religious freedom.  

CentrePoint News urges readers to read the story with those details in mind.  

By the BBC

China has agreed to give Zimbabwe a loan of $950m (£573m) to help it revive its battered economy, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has said.

Mr Tsvangirai had been criticised by supporters of President Robert Mugabe for failing to get more support during his recent trip to the West.

Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai says the West has pledged $500 million in aid. AP photo.

Mr Tsvangirai and Mr Mugabe formed a power-sharing government in February.

The government says it needs some $8bn to rebuild the country following years of collapse.

“The government through the minister of finance, secured credit lines of almost $950m from China,” Mr Tsvangirai said in a news conference.

China was one of the few countries to retain economic support for Zimbabwe in recent years.

“We will encourage and facilitate more Chinese companies to seek development in Zimbabwe,” Chinese official Zhou Yongkang told state news agency Xinhua.

For more, click here…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8126555.stm

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By Christine Dell’Amore

A 2,000-year-old underground chamber has been discovered in Israel’s Jordan Valley.

The largest human-made cave in Israel, the 1-acre (0.4-hectare) space is thought to have begun as a quarry. In subsequent centuries it may have served as a monastery, hideout for persecuted Christians, or Roman army base, experts say.

Archaeologists working in the valley found the cave this past March when they came across a hole in a rock face.

As they were about to enter, two fearful-looking Bedouins appeared and warned the team that hyenas and wolves inhabited the cave.

But science prevailed, said team leader Adam Zertal, and once underground, “our eyes opened to see something unimaginable.”

For more, click here…

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/090624                                                    -giant-christian-cave.html

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Editor’s Note:  North Korea has one of the most repressive regimes in the world, even passing China in harshness and cruelty.  Their economy is one of the weakest.  Thus, the story of a possible military confrontation with the Pyongyang regime should be of interest from a missions perspective. 

By BBC

Japan and South Korea have called for the latest United Nations sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear activities to be applied strictly.

New sanctions agreed by the UN Security Council this month include inspections of North Korean ships, a wider ban on arms sales and financial measures.

North Korea has said any search of its ships will constitute an act of war.

Its recent nuclear and missile tests, and aggressive language, have caused widespread concern in the region.

China gets tough with Pyongyang…

By Michael Bristow

This was supposed to be the year of friendship between China and North Korea, to celebrate 60 years of diplomatic ties.

At a ceremony to launch this special year in Beijing, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said the two nations had a profound friendship.

But North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests have shown that these two socialist countries are not as friendly as they once were.

Over the last few months China’s attitude towards its ally has hardened, shown by its recent support for sanctions against North Korea.

For more, click here…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8123097.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8120293.stm

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By Jennifer Gold

LONDON – Five English bishops are set to join the launch of a new fellowship for orthodox Anglicans who say they want to stay true to Scripture and get on with the Great Commission of sharing the Gospel with the world.

The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans will be launched in Westminster on July 6 in the presence of the Bishops of Fulham, Lewes, Chichester and Rochester. The Bishop of Chester has sent greetings.

The gathering will also hear video and personal greetings from international guests including Nigerian Archbishop Nicholas Okoh and Archbishop Henri Orombi from Uganda.

Event spokesman and London vicar, the Rev. Paul Perkin, commented, “Some are staying in the Church, but failing to stand for Christian truth and practice; others are standing firm for Christian truth and practice, but are not staying. We are standing, and we are staying.”

For more, click here…

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20090628/bishops-back-u-k-launch-                                 of-orthodox-anglican-fellowship/index.html

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By Compass Direct

NAIROBI, Kenya (Compass Direct News) – When a young Muslim woman in northern Uganda heard about Jesus in February 2005 and began having dreams about the cross of Christ, it marked the beginning of a nightmare.

Between the dreams and otherwise sleepless nights, Aleti Samusa of Yumbe district soon converted to Christianity; her family immediately kicked her out of their home.

Economically devastated and deprived of that which is most valued in the communal culture, Samusa sought refuge in a local church in Lotongo village. There she found the man she would marry later that year, David Edema, who was raised a Christian but who began sharing in the sufferings of a convert from Islam by virtue of becoming one flesh with one.

His bride’s family did not attend the couple’s wedding, Edema told Compass, and it wasn’t long before her relatives threatened to break up their marriage. With Samusa’s family threatening to forcibly take her from Edema, the couple fled Lotongo village to Yumbe town. Their troubles had just begun.

For more, click here…

http://www.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=lead&lang=en&length=long&idelement=&backpage=&critere=                           &countryname=&rowcur=

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By Charlie Butts

A recent poll indicates that Americans are not as supportive of homosexual “marriage” as they once were.

A CBS-New York Times survey shows that support for redefining marriage to include same-gender couples has declined. Jenny Tyree of Focus on the Family Action tells OneNewsNow that, according to The New York Times, the figure dropped slightly – but she believes nine percentage points is more than slightly.

“I think that this really digs into what Americans really feel about marriage – that they like that [marriage is] defined between a man and a woman,” she contends.

For more, click here…

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=581060

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By MNN

Russia (MNN)  Russia’s attempts to control its northern Caucasus was dealt a blow this week when the president of Ingushetia was critically injured in an assassination attempt. Ingushetia is located just north of the Republic of Georgia. President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was badly hurt when a suicide bomber detonated a car packed with explosives as the president’s convoy drove past.

This underscores the growing unrest in the region.

Vice President for Russian Ministries Sergey Rakhuba just returned from Vladikavkaz in the Northern Caucasus. He helped dedicate their newly completed church, which also will serve as a ministry center to the entire region.

For more, click here…

http://www.mnnonline.org/article/12852

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By Jackie O’Neal

ATLANTIC CITY, NJ (ANS) – Much has been said about how atheism has over the years has reached a level of unprecedented prominence. It appears to be ironic that in a nation where polls routinely show that nine out of ten participants affirm a belief in the divine. Statistics estimate that the number of atheists in the United States ranges from 1 percent to 10 percent and even higher.

Experts say atheists are becoming more and more visible, more so than in 1963, when the late atheist leader Madalyn Murray O’Hair won a landmark Supreme Court ruling barring prayer from the public schools.

Since then, several best-sellers made their mark in the world of unbelief. For example, in May 2007, the popular writer and polemicist Christopher Hitchens, published “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything,” a volume that is expected to join Sam Harris’ “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason,” and Richard Dawkins’ “The God Delusion” as widely cited arguments against religion and religious faith, according to a review on www.religionlink.com.

Professor Harvey Cox of the Harvard Divinity School compared Richard Dawkins, the author of “The God Delusion” as the kind of Jerry Falwell of the atheists. He explained in a Religion & Ethics Newsweekly segment from Jan. 5, 2007, that Dawkins takes what he terms, legalistic and narrow view of religion, and lashes out against it.

For more, click here…

http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2009/s09060145.htm

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By CBC

Opposition leader Mousavi's defaced election poster still hangs on a Tehran light pole. Ben Curtis/AP photo.

Reformist leader Mir Hossein Mousavi vowed Thursday to continue to press for an annulment of Iran’s presidential election results even as authorities detained 70 university professors who had met with him.

Mousavi alleges electoral fraud occurred during the June 12 election that handed President Mahmoud 

Ahmadinejad victory by a 2-to-1 margin.

Mousavi said he is coming under increasing pressure to withdraw his challenges before Iran’s Guardian Council regarding the election results.

“I am not ready to withdraw from demanding the rights of the Iranian people,” Mousavi said in a statement posted on his website.

For more, click here…

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/06/25/iran-election384.html

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