On the advent of Aid El-Idha, U.S. President Barack Obama sent congratulatory messages to various Muslim leaders.

In Tunisia, the message read “On behalf of the American people, I extend to you as well as to the Tunisian people my best wishes on the occasion of the Holy feast of Aid EL-Idha.”

“Guided by the spirit of this blessed commemoration, I hope to work with you to consolidate freedom and peace around the world,” was a phrase that was repeated in some of the messages, such as to Tunisia and Morocco.

Hundreds of millions of Muslims in South Asia, Iran, and Iraq began celebrating Eid al-Adha today with large prayer services and ritual sacrifice of animals.

The majority of Muslims in the Middle East and worldwide started the festival on November 27.

The three-day Festival of Sacrifice, or Eid-al-Adha, comes toward the end of the Hajj, the obligatory Islamic pilgrimage. The festival begins immediately after the Day of Arafat, when those performing the Hajj in Mecca spend the day at Arafat, 15 kilometers east of the holy city. The festival is observed not only by the pilgrims themselves, but also Muslims around the world.

On the hajj today, around 2 million Muslim pilgrims began a second round of symbolically stoning the devil in a narrow valley in Saudi Arabia as the hajj pilgrimage nears its end.

The festival of Eid-al-Adha commemorates the story of Abraham's willingness to obediently offer his own son to God. Muslims remember Abraham's trials by slaughtering an animal such as a cow, camel, goat, or sheep.

In Bangladesh, where Muslims are celebrating Eid today, devotee Farhad Hossain explained that a sacrificial slaughtering in the name of god would follow the prayers.

"Now we have just finished our Eid prayer session; we pray to the Almighty for the peace and prosperity of Bangladesh and for Muslims around the world,” Hossain said. “Now we are ready for Kurbani [sacrificial slaughtering]. We are going home to slaughter animals in the name of Allah."

On the evening of November 26, thousands of people began scrambling to leave the Bangladeshi capital for their home provinces to celebrate Eid al-Adha with relatives.

A rush of commuters caused huge traffic jams in Dhaka, while bus and train stations were packed with people heading for the three-day holiday.

Late on November 27, at least 30 people died and many others were reported missing after a ferry with several hundred passengers going home for the festival sank in a river mouth 300 kilometers south of the capital.

High Security

In Pakistan, where more than 90 percent of the 160 million people practice Islam, Eid al-Adha is an occasion for immense enjoyment for people from all walks of life.

This time, however, celebrations are muted because of the security situation in the country. Security personnel were on high alert today as Pakistanis assembled to offer Eid prayers in mosques across the country.

This month alone there have been eight suicide bomb attacks -- six of them in the northwest border city of Peshawar -- in which about 110 people have been killed.

Fears of similar attacks during the three-day Eid festival, especially during prayer assemblies, have led to a tightening of security around mosques and other gathering points.

Mohammad Khalid, a worshipper in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, expressed satisfaction over the security measures put in place by the government.

"Today we offered Eid prayers under very good security arrangements,” Khalid said. “The result was that there was no fear at all and everyone prayed with full concentration and peace of mind. There was a great sense of enthusiasm after the prayers."

The northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar has borne the brunt of the attacks this month. The usually bustling city was subdued today as many mourned their loved ones killed or injured in the recent bomb attacks.


Copyright (c) 2009. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

Original article

The trial and sentencing of Linfen house church leaders in China's Shanxi province was held November 25, reports ChinAid. Pastors Yang Rongli, Wang Xiaoguang, Yang Xuan, Cui Jiaxing, and Zhang Huamei have been been held in detention since their arrests on Friday, September 25, 2009, when they attempted to travel to Beijing and lodge a formal complaint about the destruction of their church to the Central governing authorities.

According to ChinAid, "the verdicts were severe and were announced immediately following the trial. Two criminal charges were used -- the crime of 'illegally occupying farming land' and 'disturbing transportation order by gathering masses.' Sister Yang Rongli received 7 years severe sentence for both charges; Pastor Wang 3 years for the first charge, brother Yang Xuan, 3 and a half years, and Cui Jiaxing earned 4 and a half years for the first charge; Sister Zhang Huamei was found guilty of the second charge, and sentenced to 4 years in prison."

The Court's conduct throughout the trial clearly indicated the government had decided upon the verdict and prepared it in advance, according to ChinAid. There were only two 20 minute breaks for recess, and only four family members of the convicted prisoners were allowed to be present during the trial. Government prosecutors showed over 1,000 pages of so-called "evidence materials" related to this case, but the defense lawyers were only allowed to review about 50 pages before the trial to prepare their defense.

Sister Yang Rongli and Pastor Wang Xiaoguang's son was able to briefly chat with his parents during one recess time near the bathroom outside the court room. Sister Yang and Pastor Wang encouraged their son to stand firm in his faith in Christ, ChinAid said. Yang and Wang have led the Fushan church, part of the 50,000 members house church network in Linfen and the surrounding villages, for more than 30 years. The Fushan Church leaders arrests, detentions, and sentences after the massive church destruction on September 13, marks one of the most severe crackdowns on house church leaders in the past decade.

"To punish an innocent house church leader with 7 years imprisonment is the most serious sentence since 2004 when the senior Henan house church leader pastor Zhang Rongliang received a similar length, " said ChinaAid President Bob Fu. "We strongly condemn these unjust sentences, which are based on trumped-up charges. This case clearly shows the serious deteriorating situation of religious persecution in China. We call upon the Obama administration and international community to speak up unequivocally in its concern about this case."

The New Serbian Orthodox Patriarch will be elected on January 22 by the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church, the church's website said on Friday.

The election will take place 40 days after the November 15 death of Patriarch Pavle.

Patriarch Pavle, elected to head the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1990, died at the age of 95 of a cardiac arrest during his sleep after being treated for two years in the Belgrade Military Medical Academy.

Serbia declared a period of national mourning and hundreds of thousands of people came to bid farewell to the patriarch as the country's Orthodox Church leader was buried in a Belgrade suburb.

Source: RIA Novosti

By Abeer Mohammed and Neil Arun in Ankawa

A sharply-dressed Iraqi Christian man stands on the threshold of his new shop, dangling a struggling rooster by its feet.

Omar Farooq Jerjis came to Ankawa for the quiet life. The 28-year-old says he fled Baghdad three years ago because insurgents kept trying to kill him for working with the United States military.

His new venture is a beauty salon. The rooster he holds upside-down is about to be sacrificed for good luck. The bird flaps its wings and arches its neck, trying to right itself, as Jerjis recalls what drew him to Ankawa.

“I decided to move when I heard my cousin say this place was just like Baghdad in the 1980s,” he said. “Baghdad is my home but this neighbourhood has given me a future I could not have there.”

Ankawa is a largely Christian town of concrete villas and bustling small businesses on the outskirts of Erbil, capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous and relatively secure Kurdistan region. Since 2003, its population and its perimeter have expanded dramatically with the influx of refugees fleeing violence in Baghdad and Mosul.

Always diverse, Ankawa has become a vivid microcosm of the Christian dialects and denominations that once thrived across Iraq. Though the newcomers placed an inevitable strain on resources, officials and older residents acknowledge that they have also invested heavily in the local economy.

“The displaced Christians revived Ankawa,” said Jerjis. “It used to be a village of mud houses. Now it is a civilized neighbourhood.”

Holding down the rooster on the threshold of his shop, he severs its head with a sweep of a knife. Blood spurts across the floor. Following Arab custom, Jerjis dips a hand in the blood and places a crimson print by the doorway. Above the palm-print, he uses a bloodstained finger to paint a cross – the symbol of his faith.

“Living in Ankawa does not mean I have forgotten my roots as an Iraqi Arab,” he said.

Christians have inhabited Iraq for more than two millennia. There were an estimated 800,000 to one million followers of the faith prior to 2003.

In the turmoil that followed the US-led invasion, the Christian population has dwindled substantially. Under attack from criminals and hard-line Islamist militias, tens of thousands fled to neighbouring countries such as Syria.

Ankawa is an anomaly – one of very few places in Iraq where the Christian community has expanded over the last six years.

Security is the main reason for this, according to the town’s mayor, Fahmy Maty. A suave former lawyer with a constantly ringing cellphone, Maty credited the Kurdistan Regional Government, KRG, with accommodating the Christians’ growing needs.

In the last six years, he said, three new neighbourhoods had been built around Ankawa, and land for some 4,000 new homes had been set aside. The town’s population had nearly doubled, from 10,000 in 2003 to nearly 20,000 at the latest count.

Despite the rapid expansion, he said friction with Ankawa’s older Christian residents and the Muslims of Erbil had been avoided, “The Christians behave compassionately towards the refugees.... We also have no problems with our Muslim brothers.”

As in the rest of Iraq, Chaldean Catholics are the largest sect in Ankawa, followed by groups such as Assyrians, Syriac Christians and Armenians.

Between them, they speak a range of dialects and languages, from Syriac and Aramaic to Kurdish and Arabic. Some Christians regard themselves as ethnically distinct from other denominations, others do not.

The degree to which they identify with nearby Muslim communities – be they Kurdish or Arab – also varies sharply. According to Maty, the displaced Christians from Mosul and Baghdad generally speak fluent Arabic, with little or no Kurdish. Ankawa’s older Christian families, meanwhile, speak fluent Kurdish and little Arabic.

“The displaced people are unlike us,” said Habib Shamoon, a 64-year-old Christian carpenter in the traditional Kurdish garb of baggy one-piece suit and cummerbund. “We are Kurds but they are Arabs,” he said, helping himself to hot beans from a roadside vendor.

At a school for Assyrian Christians in Ankawa, 17-year-old Raabil Shlemkho said he took most of his lessons in the Syriac language. “The displaced Christians do not study here,” he said. “They study at their own schools, in Arabic.”

Lubna Khalil, an 11-year-old Assyrian schoolgirl, said in halting Arabic that the newcomers spoke a “different Christian language and did not know Kurdish”.

Um Marina, a Christian refugee from Baghdad, said she was not overly troubled by the language gap – her young daughter had already picked up the Ankawa dialect.

Far more upsetting for her was the relatively high price of living and the chilly reception from some locals.

“My neighbour was Christian but she never greeted us for the first few months that we lived here,” she said. Um Marina said she had taken up work as manager of a local store, selling wedding dresses, because her husband had been unable to find a well-paid job.

Sami, a building contractor who refused to give his last name, said he considered Ankawa his new home. Originally from a Muslim neighbourhood in the violent city of Mosul, he said he fled after his neighbour of 20 years began threatening him.

“At first I suffered here but now I make good money from my business,” he said. “I will not consider leaving Ankawa. Let’s say it in sectarian terms – this is where I can be with my people, the Christians.”

Mayor Maty said the high rents in Ankawa were partly the result of soaring demand, created by the new refugees. He added that he expected Ankawa’s economy to continue booming, fuelled by the foreign organisations that had set up base there.

The US has a heavily guarded consulate in Ankawa, and several aid agencies and oil firms also rent large villas in the area. Cranes and cement mixers toil on construction sites along the perimeter. Among the many buildings going up, one structure has recently been torn down – a police cabin on the road into town.

“The police are everywhere – we don’t need checkpoints,” said a grey-haired American man shopping at a local store. Behind him, burly foreign men with shaven heads and sunglasses inspected bottles of liquor.

Outside the new beauty salon, Jerjis was tidying up. He said he planned to give the slaughtered rooster to an employee who was too poor to afford meat. From a window, a woman called out, “Make sure you clean the pavement.”

“All done,” Jerjis replied, splashing water over the bloodstains.


Abeer Mohammed is an IWPR senior local editor and Neil Arun is an IWPR Iraq editor. This article originally appeared in Iraqi Crisis Report, produced by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, www.iwpr.net

(CNA) -- On a local radio show Wednesday morning, Rhode Island Gov. Don Carcieri commented on the recent publicity of Rep. Patrick Kennedy and Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence, saying that Kennedy made “outrageous statements about the Catholic church.”

Rep. Kennedy was confronted by Bishop Tobin for his attacks on the Catholic bishops' opposition to abortion funding in health care legislation. Kennedy then revealed that Bishop Tobin had asked him to refrain from receiving communion because of his public, pro-choice stance.

In addition to calling Rep. Kennedy's remarks “outrageous,” Gov. Carcieri, a Republican, told WPRO-AM that they were also uncalled for.

According to his government website, Gov. Carcieri is a self-professed “family man” with four children and 14 grandchildren. A Catholic, Gov. Carcieri was elected as Rhode Island's 57th governor in January of 2003.

Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, President of Caritas Internationalis, has called for immediate action to prevent the deaths of children with HIV in poor countries.

Speaking about the theme of World AIDS Day, 1 December “Universal access and human rights”, the Caritas Internationalis President said that it is a basic human right that children with HIV are allowed to grow up and become adults.

Cardinal Rodríguez said, “On World Aids Day 2009, we turn our thoughts to the theme of “Universal access and human rights”. It’s a basic human right that children grow up to become adults and yet half of children with HIV die before their second birthday because they live in poor countries where access to adequate care is limited.

“For many, the promise of universal access is coming too late. Too late for people like one mother in South Africa whose child died on her back as she raced him to hospital. He had an AIDS-related illness, like his two siblings who also died. The mother is now getting help from Caritas, but she faces the daily pain of having lost three children who never got access to proper AIDS care.

“But for millions of other people it is not too late if we act now.

“Caritas works in communities across the world where HIV is devastating families. Through our “Haart for Children” campaign we are urging governments, pharmaceutical companies and the global community to ensure children have early access to HIV and TB testing and treatment.

“No mother or father should have to watch helplessly as their child dies. No child should have to suffer because they were born in a country with a high AIDS rate and a poor health system. Universal access isn’t about geography, it’s about humanity. It’s about reducing suffering and saving lives. It’s about allowing children to grow up and flourish.”

Up to two million children under 15 across the world are living with HIV. Around 15 million children under 18 have lost one or both parents to an AIDS-related illness.

In 2009, Caritas Internationalis launched the “Haart for children” campaign to urge governments, pharmaceutical firms and the global community to provide better testing and treatment for children with HIV and TB.

Caritas is also campaigning to improve efforts to prevent HIV from being passed on from mothers to their children.

Caritas runs HIV and AIDS programmes in over a hundred countries and has been engaged in tackling the pandemic for over 20 years.

(RSD) -- Pope Benedict XVI met Monday with the visiting Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah.

KUNA reported that the Prime Minister was "warmly welcomed by the Pope following a red-carpet reception, HH the premier delivered him a letter from His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah."

According to Kuwaiti press the Pope and Prime Minister met for a 25-minute closed-door meeting that was joined later by members of the Kuwaiti delegation. At the end of the meeting, the Kuwaiti prime minister gave the Pope a rare copy of the Holy Quran, reported KUNA.

The Kuwaiti Prime Minister also held talks with Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, with the subject being amongst other things, according to KUNA, "the good relations between Kuwait and the Vatican, several regional and international issues of mutual interest, and how to help shore up world stability and peace and dialogue."

(RIA Novosti) -- Hundreds of people came on Sunday to a southern Moscow church to pay their last respects to a well-known Russian Orthodox priest who was recently murdered.

Priest Daniil Sysoyev, 34, who criticized Islam, was shot dead in his St. Thomas church by a masked gunman Thursday evening. His choirmaster was injured in the attack. Investigators said Friday their main theory is that religious hatred was behind the crime.

Sysoyev, who was married with three children, was known for his missionary work among Muslim immigrants, and had received numerous death threats. He was known to have converted more than 80 Muslims to Christianity over the past two years.

The gunman entered the church, asked for Sysoyev, and when the priest said he was Sysoyev, shot him, according to chief Moscow investigator Anatoly Bagmet.

"Any murder is a grave sin. But the murder of a priest in a church is also a challenge to the law of God," Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia said Friday.

"This sin will not be left unrevenged by God," the head of the Russian Orthodox Church said.

Among those who came to bid farewell to Father Daniil was Alexander Veretennikov, the head of the Zaporozhye Cossacks' mission in Moscow.

"We propose organizing, together with Ukrainian Cossacks, the guard of churches in Russia and Ukraine to prevent such things from happening," he told RIA Novosti Sunday.

The murder has stirred a wave of condemnation from all religious groups in Russia, and demands to ensure better security for the clergy.

Sysoyev also worked with people seeking to quit religious sects, and Russian State Duma lawmakers asked on Friday for more information on the groups involved to consider measures to restrict foreign religious organizations' activities in Russia.

Russia has seen several murders of priests and monks that caused a great stir in society. Archpriest Alexander Men, a well-known Russian Orthodox theologian and writer, was killed in 1990 with an axe outside of his home in the Moscow Region.

Three monks were killed in the Optina Pustyn monastery in the Kaluga Region on Easter in 1993; the killer told investigators he had received an order to do so from the devil. Another priest, Father German, was found murdered in a monastic cell in the Moscow Region in 2005.