New Delhi, 21 June (ENI)--A senior church leader in Hindu-majority Nepal will serve on a committee to monitor a cease-fire hammered out with Maoist rebels, part of the Himalayan nation's progress to peace and full democracy. Kalai Bahadur Rokaya, founding general secretary of the National Christian Council of Nepal is on the 31-member Cease-fire Code of Conduct National Monitoring Committee headed by Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala. The group was set up following the 16 June direct peace talks between Maoist leaders and the government led by the Nepalese prime minister.

After that parley, Maoist rebels agreed to join the government, which agreed to the dissolution of the current parliament, and the holding of elections for a constituent assembly that will draft a new constitution to convert the Hindu monarchy into a secular republic. "This is a recognition for the National Christian Council of Nepal as we have always stood for peaceful resolution of the [Maoist] conflict," Rokaya told Ecumenical News International on 19 June from his Katmandu office.

Despite a ban on conversions, Christianity has flourished in Nepal especially in the post-1990 period when increased democracy was introduced in the Hindu kingdom. Christians now number more than 700 000 among the 25 million people of Nepal. More importantly, Rokaya pointed out that the Christians are "happy as the peace process and the transition from Hindu monarchy to full democracy are progressing smoothly".

More than 13 000 people including Maoists, security force members and civilians have been killed in the decade-long Maoist insurgency that engulfed impoverished Nepal - one of the poorest nations in the world. Nepal King Gynanendra was forced to swear in a new interim democratic government led by Prime Minister Koirala in April following massive democracy protests in the country situated on the foothills of the Himalaya mountains.

An indefinite truce with the Maoists and the lifting of a ban on the group that was accused by the government of carrying out acts of terrorism followed the reinstated national parliament adopting on 18 May, a resolution accepting the scrapping of the Hindu monarchy and the declaring of Nepal a secular state. [369 words]

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London, 20 June (ENI)--The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has said the election of Katharine Jefferts Schori as the first woman to lead the US Episcopal (Anglican) Church will "impact on the collegial life" of the world's other Anglican leaders, but he has stopped short of congratulating her. "I send my greetings to Bishop Katharine and she has my prayers and good wishes as she takes up a deeply demanding position at a critical time," Williams, the leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, said in a 20 June statement following the election of Jefferts Schori as presiding bishop of the US denomination.

Jefferts Schori is the first woman to hold the top post in any of the world's Anglican churches, some of which do not recognise the ordination of women as priests. In 2003, she gave her support to the consecration of openly gay V. Gene Robinson as bishop of the US state of New Hampshire, a matter of strong disagreement within the Anglican Communion that threatens to split it.

Her election on 18 June came at a meeting of Episcopal Church's general convention, which is debating how to respond to demands from other Anglican churches around the world that it offer repentance for the consecration of Robinson. "Her election will undoubtedly have an impact on the collegial life of the Anglican Primates; and it also brings into focus some continuing issues in several of our ecumenical dialogues," said Williams, who is known as a supporter of women's ordination. He noted, "We are continuing to pray for the general convention of the Episcopal Church as it confronts a series of exceptionally difficult choices."

Following Jefferts Schori's election, the US diocese of Fort Worth, which does not accept women priests, appealed to Williams to be placed under a jurisdiction outside the Episcopal Church. Only two other Anglican churches - those in New Zealand and Canada - have appointed women bishops, although another 11 of the Anglican Communion's 38 provinces have accepted the principle.

Earlier in June, the Vatican's top official for promoting Christian unity, Cardinal Walter Kasper, warned the Church of England against introducing women bishops. "It would be a decision against the common goal we have until now pursued in our dialogue: full ecclesial communion, which cannot exist without full communion in the episcopal office," he told a meeting of the denomination's bishops. [408 words]

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Jerusalem, 20 June (ENI)--A row has erupted between Judaism's Reform movement and Israel's President Moshe Katsav over his refusal to use the title "rabbi" when addressing the spiritual leaders of the movement, a liberal stream of Judaism long a thorn in the side of Orthodox Judaism. Dozens of demonstrators from the Reform movement and supporters protested outside Katsav's official residence in Jerusalem on 19 June over the president's act which highlighted the chasm between Reform Judaism, which takes a modern approach to religion, and the Orthodox stream that adheres to strict religious practices and dominates Jewish life in Israel.

"I am not sure if he [Katsav] is aware how profoundly offensive his decision is to millions of Jews," Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the spiritual leader of the Reform movement in the United States, which has more than one million followers, told the Haaretz daily newspaper on 20 June. "The president is the symbol of the state of Israel and the unity of the Jewish people. As such, it is terribly important that he not intentionally or unintentionally de-legitimise a rabbi who for millions of Jews is the primary Jewish figure, leader and teacher in their lives."

Yoffie has refused to meet Katsav during a current visit to Israel. Another delegation of Reform Jewish leaders recently cancelled a meeting with Katsav when he refused their requests to address the rabbinical leader of that delegation as "rabbi". Reform Jews believe that Jewish customs and traditions should be adapted to the modern world. Some Reform rabbis drive on the Sabbath and some even eat pork, practices strictly forbidden under Orthodox Judaism.

Orthodox rabbinical leaders, who wield enormous power in Israel, have long fought against attempts to allow Reform rabbis to have the right to conduct marriage ceremonies, funerals and other religious rites in Israel. They accuse Reform leaders of watering down Judaism and violating sacred religious tenets such as the strict observance of the Jewish Sabbath. [338 words]

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New Delhi, 19 June (ENI)--A Roman Catholic bishop in Sri Lanka has lambasted the country's security forces, accusing them of shooting civilians who had taken shelter in the church of Our Lady of Victory near Mannar in the north of the island. "We are really shocked by this," Bishop Rayappu Joseph of Mannar told Ecumenical News International from his diocesan office on 19 June after leading a "purification" ceremony at the church at Pesalai village.

The raid on the fishing village on 17 June followed a recent upsurge in violence between government forces and Tamil rebels seeking an autonomous homeland in the north and east of the island. The government has denied opening fire in the church, blaming the incident on rebels who hours earlier had attacked a navy base in the same village, triggering a naval and helicopter battle.

But Bishop Joseph said the Tamil civilians had taken shelter in the church when they saw security forces approaching. "They [Sri Lankan forces] started firing on the people from the doors and the windows and even threw a couple of grenades," said Joseph. The bishop contradicted media reports that said five people had been killed inside the church.

Inside the church, he said, a Catholic woman was killed and 46 others were injured. But outside the church, six men were shot through the mouth by security forces who had asked the men to show their identity cards and kneel down, Joseph asserted. "The dead bodies had identity cards in their hands," noted the cleric. One of those who was shot survived, but of the five dead, two were Catholics, two were Hindus and one was a Muslim.

"The people are now afraid of going back home or for fishing. Seven thousand people are camping in the church compound now," said Bishop Joseph. A cease-fire was signed in 2002, but has been violated by both sides, and recent peace talks have stalled. [335 words]

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New Delhi, India, 13 June (ENI)--Church groups in India have accused the government of the state of Madhya Pradesh of fomenting a climate of hostility against minorities, after two women said they had been raped as retribution for converting to Christianity. "It is shameful that the state's law and order machinery has been blind to the violence," said John Dayal, spokesperson of the All India Christian Council in a statement.

The two women from Nadia village said they had been raped on 28 May by a gang of Hindus as punishment for having become Christians. Madhya Pradesh was the first state in India to enact a law hampering religious conversions, and Christian activists have accused the government of using the issue of conversions to stir up hostility against them.

Christians account for 0.3 per cent of the 60 million population of the central Indian state ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which opponents say is implementing a Hindu nationalist agenda. On 7 June, police raided a Christian home in Jabalpur city and arrested the Christians who were there. The police said they had acted after receiving a complaint from a person who said he was offered money to become a Christian.

A press conference in the state capital Bhopal on 5 June at which the two women from Nadia village were due to speak was stopped by police after it was disrupted by protesters reportedly belonging to the militant Hindu group Bajrang Dal. "They are trying to gag even our protests," said Indira Iyengar, the organizer of the press conference who is a Christian member of the state commission for minorities.

The two women said they tried to press charges at a police station but local officers refused to hear them, and that only after intervention by political authorities could they file a complaint. [320 words]

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New Delhi, 2 June (ENI)--Christian leaders in India have hailed the repeal of a law in the southern state of Tamil Nadu that banned religious conversions by "fraud, force or inducement", a type of legislation recently condemned by Pope Benedict XVI. "The government decision is a clear proof that such discriminatory laws do not stand the test of India's time-honoured values of freedom of conscience and religious tolerance," said the Rev. Babu Joseph, spokesperson of the Indian Catholic Bishops' Conference.

The Tamil Nadu legislature on 31 May formally lifted the ban on conversions after recent elections brought a new government to power pledged to reverse the measure introduced in 2002. "We hope the [same] decision will be taken by other Indian states as yet in the clutches of similar laws," Joseph said in remarks to the AsiaNews agency.

The Tamil Nadu law prompted massive protests by Christians. They said it was directed against religious minorities and they feared it could put at risk relief work undertaken by churches. Similar laws are in force in several other Indian states. Comments by Pope Benedict XVI in May condemning such anti-conversion measures irked the Indian government and led to Hindu groups burning effigies of the pontiff.

"The disturbing signs of religious intolerance which have troubled some regions of the nation, including the reprehensible attempt to legislate clearly discriminatory restrictions on the fundamental right of religious freedom, must be firmly rejected," Pope Benedict told India's new ambassador to the Vatican on 18 May. India's deputy foreign minister Anand Sharma, rejecting the Pope's criticism, said the pontiff was "not properly briefed" about religious tolerance in India.

Still, soon after the Indian government censure, a statement from Indian Cardinal Ivan Dias, the newly-appointed prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for Evangelization of Peoples, reiterated Pope Benedict's remarks. "Any opposition by law or de facto to a genuine conversion, besides being a grave violation of the code of human rights and of the spirit of the Indian Constitution, is, above all, an unwarranted interference in God's unique competence in the matter," stated Dias. [358 words]

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Thrissur, India, 1 June (ENI)--Church health activists in India have rebuked their government for downplaying the extent of HIV infection after a UN report said the country now has the highest number of people living with virus in the world. The 2006 report on the global AIDS epidemic released on 30 May by the Geneva-based UNAIDS programme said an estimated 5.7 million Indians were living with HIV compared to 5.5 million South Africans.

"Obviously 5.7 million is not the correct number," India's health and family welfare minister Anbumani Ramadoss told reporters, triggering criticism from Dr K. M. Shyamaprasad, executive director of the medical and health board of the Lutheran churches in India. "That is the truth and there is no question of denying it," Shyamaprasad told Ecumenical News International. "Even UNAIDS is underplaying the actual reality. I would say it could be as high as 10 million," added Shyamaprasad, who ran an HIV surveillance centre on behalf of the Lutheran church until the centre was taken over by the government.

India's national commission on macro economics and health, he said, had projected in its latest report that 50 million people in India would be living with HIV by 2025. Dr Vijay Aruldass, general secretary of the Christian Medical Association of India, said the discrepancy between Indian government data showing 5.2 million people infected by HIV and the UNAIDS figure of 5.7 million was due to the age categories used in the estimates.

India's National AIDS Control Organization restricted its statistics to people between the ages of 15 and 49 years of age, while the UNAIDS figures included all age groups, he noted. "An upward revision in the government numbers is quite possible soon," said Aruldass, whose organization includes 330 Christian-run hospitals and more than 6000 health professionals among its members. [314 words]

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Islamabad, 1 June (ENI)--A host of daunting challenges still face Pakistan as it tries to recover from a devastating earthquake last October, demanding massive resources from a nation that is also coping with seemingly perennial problems of poverty, corruption and political instability. The quake killed about 80 000 people, and displaced another 3.3 million, permanently altering the landscape of the North West Frontier Province and the Pakistani-controlled Azad Kashmir region.

Almost eight months since the earthquake struck, humanitarian aid workers, government officials and disaster survivors say the coming months will present new challenges to the predominately Islamic nation. Chief among them is the rainy season, which may require the Pakistani government to evacuate residents who are now returning to villages that were levelled in the catastrophe.

There is also deep uncertainty among returnees about whether the areas they are returning to are safe and whether they have left temporary camps too quickly. Some observers have also alleged that the government has forcibly removed people from the camps. But in a recent interview, a representative of the Pakistan's Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) said that was not the case and he hailed the response both by the government and by relief groups. "It was tremendous work," ERRA representative Rab Nawaz told a group of US and European aid workers and church officials. Nawaz also defended the pace of reconstruction efforts, which some have criticised as proceeding too slowly. "This needs time," he said.

A group of villagers from the small community of Naran, who had relocated to a camp near Balakot City, itself was heavily destroyed in the quake, said they remained uncertain when they could return to their village, some 86 kilometres away. The villagers were also unsure how they would regain their livelihoods, as their cattle, a crucial means of support, had all been lost in the earthquake. Even so, they said the authorities had done a good job in their initial response to the disaster.

Still, the International Crisis Group (ICG), which monitors international crises, was highly critical of the Pakistani government in a recent report, calling the disaster response "ill-planned" and "poorly executed". Among other things, it faulted authorities for tolerating radical Islamic groups, banned under the national Anti-Terrorism Law, and allowing them to respond to the emergency.

Said the ICG, "Should jihadi groups that have been active in relief work remain as involved in reconstruction, threats to domestic and regional security will increase." :: Chris Herlinger, a New York-based correspondent for ENI, was recently on assignment in Pakistan for the US humanitarian organization Church World Service, a member of the ACT International network. [453 words]

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